Beauty, Homophobia, and Emotional Regulation

Exploring Beauty, Homophobia, and Emotional Regulation

In this episode of the M3 BearCast, Malcolm Travers delves into three topics. First, the philosophy of beauty is examined through the lens of historical dyes and modern AI, questioning how rarity and process affect our perception of beauty. Next, the conversation shifts to homophobia in mass media, discussing the viewpoint that there is a 'gay agenda' in entertainment, especially in the African-American community. Finally, Malcolm addresses emotional regulation and how to approach negative emotions, providing insights into self-judgment, control, and societal expectations.

00:00 Welcome to M3 BearCast
00:54 Exploring the Philosophy of Beauty
08:30 The Impact of AI on Art and Beauty
14:56 Homophobia in Media and Society
25:15 Understanding Emotional Regulation
32:36 Closing Remarks and Support  SUBSCRIBE NOW to M3 on YouTube and find more M3 on these social networks at https://solo.to/malemediamind 

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Transcript

  📍  📍  Hello, and welcome to the M3 BearCast. My name is Malcolm Travers. Male Media Mind is a grassroots organization dedicated to uplifting and unifying our community through dialogue, insight, creativity, and knowledge. And each Tuesday, I release a podcast that are about issues on human connection. Oftentimes they're in the realm of self development, mental health, relationships, sometimes politics.

Always just about making ourselves better so that we can connect better with others. And I usually present these topics to a panel on my YouTube live streams, which I host on Monday and Wednesday at youtube. com slash male media mind. But on this podcast, I like to delve deep into these topics so I can better understand why they resonate with me.

And oftentimes this is a journey of self discovery that I try to bring you on. And I appreciate you listening. Here we go. I got three topics here today. One is on the philosophy of beauty and maybe what the implications of AI are about how we value things and what the meaning of art is in our lives, and I also talk about homophobia in mass media and why there is this viewpoint that there is a gay agenda being pushed in entertainment.

And lastly. Talking about emotional regulation and how we should think and approach our negative emotions. All right, onto the show.



  So I have a topic about the philosophy of beauty and it came from this TikTok creator who is a owner of a clothing line. He does a lot of classic American fashion styles through a Japanese lens. And TikTok videos describing some of the history behind some of the choices that were made in fashion.

And he is got a video about Tyrion purple, which is known as this royal color and why it's a royal color and what does it mean? And he was talking about how the process of creating the dye that created Tyrion purple is something that is a larger context in which the item itself is viewed. So let me play the video here and I'll talk about it on the other side.



 Historically speaking, this is one of the most expensive dyes we have ever produced. This is Tyrian Purple, a famously rare, natural dye made from sea snails. It takes 10, 000 sea snails to make one gram of dye. And this purple dye, in close, was the choice of emperors, Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, as a show of beauty, but also as a show of wealth, of power, that they could obtain this dye.

Tyrian Purple is valuable because it is rare. But, does being rare and valuable, influence how we view its beauty? Does it become more beautiful? The interaction between beauty and rarity and value, we have been debating this for thousands of years. So philosophers like Immanuel Kant talk about the judgment of beauty as something that is disinterested.

Does it have harmony? Does it have proportion? Does it have balance? These components exist independent of how rare something is, or how much effort it took to make it. We should be judging Tyrian purple as beautiful regardless of How many sea snails it took to make them 10, 000 or five, but is that separation of objective and subjective, meaningful, or even realistic?

Like we encounter beauty always in a context, imagine we're in ancient Rome before we even see the color. We hear stories that this dye is three times more valuable than gold. And then we see the Emperor wearing Tyrian purple robes. And then we noticed that no one else is wearing that shade of purple.

It is exclusive So the way we see that color is already through various contextual filters. And when we finally see it, we see a color that's not very often seen in nature. Because we're literally looking at the dried mucus of a rare sea snail. Because the process is the product in this case. And our experience is the entire thing.

But modern technology complicates this. Because now we have synthetic dyes. which can produce the exact same shade for cents instead of thousands of dollars. So now we can have two identical pieces of cloth, one made for cents and one made with 10, 000 sea snails, that are visually indistinguishable. One is valuable and one is not.

But they are the same. And that modern problem extends to everything. We have a 15 white t shirt. We have a 70 white t shirt. We have a 30 pair of jeans. We have a 300 pair of jeans. A 50 leather bag. A 500 leather bag. And then we encounter a very modern problem, where we disconnect things from how they are made.

And then I think we are forced into the wrong questions. Whether something is objectively really good, or just marketing. When the real question should be, does any of this have meaning? Tyrian purple is not beautiful just because of the shade of purple, but because of the craft it takes to harvest, to make.

Because it connects you to a long line of history. Like Japanese denim from Kaihara, is not valuable just because of the physical characteristics. Because it is made from a process that has intention and care, those are values that you align with. Ultimately, dyes are just dyes, clothes are just clothes.

It's probably not worth having strong opinions about sea snails. But there is true optimism and joy to be found in things of meaning. Meaning is when we can appreciate both the process and the product. And when we have that harmony, we are reminded that beauty is not just what we can perceive, but what we can understand.

 So the question of the meaning of an object has a lot to do with what we know about how the object came to exist, right? So if we know anything about the dye, Tyrian purple, and how difficult it is to make, and then how rare it is, and also how expensive it is, that it is literally three times its weight in gold, the dye to make the cloth.

That in itself makes it stand out. And then there's also the context of what other people around them are wearing. The people who are the highest in the pecking order commonly wear this color is obviously going to have a greater meaning to us. Now you may just personally like the color purple, which I do.

I happen to find it aesthetically pleasing. But even if you didn't, I think there's something to be said about. The rarity of it that makes it special. And even though there are certain aspects of beauty that, are independent of our experience of it, that experience has to be taken into account, right?

It's rarity. For instance I've heard this concept of what is beautiful and rare, Do go hand in hand that when something is unobtainable, it's rarity makes it special. And there's this idea that there may be beauty standards that are changing because of Ozempic and the fact that in a few years it will be turned into a pill form and it will be generic, which means the doses will go from 200 A dose to 5 a dose and possibly covered by insurance at that point.

And when that happens, a lot of obesity problems in the United States will magically disappear. Like pretty much overnight, maybe two, three years, obesity rates will go from 30 percent to 10 percent or something like that. And this has like wide ranging. consequences. To the point where it is actually going to affect the price of oil because of the amount of gas that is going to be needed to transport people from one place to another, we'll go down simply because the aggregate weight of people will go down and therefore you will use less fuel.

And when we use less fuel, the price of fuel will drop based on the fact that we'll need less of it. And so this is something that energy companies are even. Considering over time, that's just how momentous ozempic as a drug is going to be. And I can't imagine that it's also going to have a shift in the way that we view beautiful bodies.

And I think it will basically take away some of the sting of being overweight. Once being overweight is much more rare, right? Like it's or that being thin. will be a lot more common, right? Being a thinner, regulated weight will be so commonplace that being obese is not necessarily, I don't think will be considered the eyesore that it is currently or that it's outside the beauty standard.

Now I could be wrong about that. This is something that has shifted over time in different cultures, in different circumstances where In order to be overweight meant that you had to have a lot of money. You had to have a lot of free time. You also had to have access to the type of food that would make one overweight.

At this point, we didn't necessarily have the sort of high calorie dense foods that could easily make a person overweight. And yeah, and so the way that we interacted with even other people, Changed based on the context in which people lived. And I think about this also in terms of ai, generative art, and what is it going to mean for certain aesthetics, right?

Because on one level, AI art is going to get to the point where it will be almost indistinguishable. From human made art. We can see that on certain levels, certain types of art are almost indistinguishable landscapes, inorganic matter, very photorealistic images, still images can be easily, mistaken for real still lives.

But the problem with it is that The meaning behind a photo has a lot to do with the artist and the perspective of the person who took the photo to begin with, especially when it is very intentional. One of the things that I thought about was abstract art. When I first came to study art in school and talk to people who understand some of the intricacies of abstract paintings, for instance.

And they explained it to me. Like they explain why certain brushstrokes evoke certain emotions in certain color palettes made certain feelings happen, and you explain the process of painting. One of the things that came to mind was. that abstract art is the way that it is because without a identifiable subject matter like you were one of the earliest things that I would paint in school would be like a apple you know a three dimensional art object right where there was lighting and perspective and an apple is like one of the most basic ones where you'd have a light shining from one direction you have a shadow in this direction and you shade the colors in such a way to make the object look like it's three it's one of the things that you need to learn.

One of the first things you learn in an art class. However, one of the things that happens when you're painting an object is that you try to hide your brushstrokes and you try to imagine that the subject matter in the image is something other than paint on canvas. And a lot of what abstract art was trying to do was reverse that.

That the, all that there is. are brushstrokes in a canvas and paint, and that didn't make any sense to me until I realized that these brushstrokes are supposed to connect you to the artist and the intention behind the artist. And the canvas itself is just simply a medium for you to have some sort of, communication almost with the artist because Once you're standing there and you're looking at it for a while, you realize like this was painted for you, this was made for an audience, the artist had an intention, can you imagine what that intention is?

And what that required was a little bit of mind reading, a bit of understanding of what art is, about what an artist is trying to do. And it required an imagination and information. to make that connection with the artist. What's disturbing about the technology of AI art generation is that it can imitate that.

It can imitate that without knowing what it's imitating, like it can make a composite painting that can trick a person's mind into thinking that this artist thought a certain thing when it didn't, when it's completely meaningless. And I think that's really, to me, the danger of AI art. However, there are some plus sides.

For one, it can bring the accessibility of certain art techniques to beginners. One of the things that I noticed had to do with animation and it can turn regular cell phone videos into pretty high end looking, animated videos. images, right? You could take your video, superimpose a AI art generated image, and that image would then move in tandem to the speaker of the video.

And in that way, you could actually create rhetoric, rudimentary cartoon type animations, and maybe even make them look like some of the early generations of. Pixar animation, but from someone's cell phone, like a simple app that will be available for any budding animator could begin making animated films on their cell phone from, some of the most simple sort of interface possible instead of like the studios that, 30 years ago would have required 600 animators.

A seven year old will be able to do on their phone, that's powerful. And that does mean that on some level, young minds will start to be thinking in terms of animation in ways that may create more unique animation techniques in the future. Possibly aided by AI, possibly, but hopefully people will understand that meaning matters behind the intention of the creation of an object, right?

The context of it matters and understanding the story behind how something's created matters, right? And what is around it in terms of, What's available. So obviously these two new technologies are going to change our relationship to the objects themselves, and there's no getting around it, but people still care about quality at the end of the day, even though we can purchase a 50 leather bag, people still value the 500 leather bag.

They value the hand sewn, real leather stitched bags. And. People can spot the fakes, even if they're available. The the

the knockoffs have not surpassed the originals, even though they're easier to make than ever. And so I think that gives me a certain amount of

hope that future technology will just require in another level of intention, another level of quality.  📍 Because I think people are still looking for an experience to connect with artists and creatives in a way that I think AI generated art will never be able to do. 



One of the hardest concepts that I've had to learn is the idea that there is no such thing as an invalid perspective. If someone says they see things a certain way, who am I to tell someone that's not what's there? That's not what so to speak. I guess you could say that it's not there, but but who am I to say that's not the right way to see it?

And one of the things that comes up frequently is about the concept of homophobia in the black community. And this concept that comes up over and over again, that modern media is in some way trying to emasculate black men. I'm going to play this clip from a podcast that was advertising on TikTok.

 For a black man, the worst thing to be called is gay. Like the first thing somebody is going to elude to, whether you are gay or not, when they trying to, when they're trying to assassinate your character or get off the highest joke imaginable, they're going gay first. Gay or snitch or broke. Yeah, but trying to figure out how to make you guys at the top of that list.

That's a fact. So it stems from something within our culture. Somehow there's a program to make black men gay. Like you see it everywhere. Yeah, for sure. There's an attack on. There's an agenda. Strong black men. But who's the attack coming from? Do you believe there's an attack? How? No, I'm asking. Do you believe?

Again, that would be, that's my answer. Oh, how? How? As people say it through media, through fashion, through what's acceptable. Because who? Because if you think about it, back in our generation, we're this exact same age. We didn't see homosexuality. It's been around since the beginning of time. But it was your auntie's friend, your uncle's friend.

But now, it's more in your face, more acceptable, it's more mainstream, actually trendy. The world has gotten smaller. We're actually able to see those humans living out their lives.

 And so I've heard it a lot of times said, even when people. Don't even believe it. I think they just understand that they reproduce this concept of that modern media is in some way trying to emasculate black men by, for whatever reason black man being offered roles where they play women in drag, for instance, it's a fairly common comedy trope.

It's not just black man, but. It's something that, male comedians have been doing for forever. There, I think some sort of sensitivity to the idea that there's hierarchy and I do feel like it's some sort of artifact of white supremacy and a sensitivity towards status threat, right?

Because I guess the. In the intersection between white supremacy and patriarchy, black men have often had a certain amount of status afforded to them simply because they're men, right? So when you think about in terms of voting rights, black men in northern cities, if they own property and they had a certain amount of class

black men who had a certain amount of privilege, In northern cities were able to vote decades before women of any race were able to vote, right? And there was a certain amount of Status given to black men say within the church that Even to this day still doesn't say ordain women oftentimes and adheres to certain very strict patriarchal standards that Black men take seriously and have for many generations.

And I remember one of the things that some people said about the church was that it was a way of giving people a certain amount of status. Even if it was just imaginary, that we were children of God, that we came to church dressed in our finest clothes to have a certain amount of self esteem about ourselves, that that the world that in a sense, you created your own world of hierarchy, that you were Children of God, that you

and it was a very effective tool that people used to bolster our sense of identity. But I think there is obviously a downside to that when it cannot be challenged later. and new tools be, to be used in ways that, religious dogma would not allow someone to challenge. So one of those just happens to be the fact that gay men of all races are much more able to express themselves in media, in social media in particular, I think, and it is spreading throughout all types of Genres of fiction, of stories that are told, of books a lot of them remained very, restricted to sub genres of books, so it's very rare that like a mainstream romance novel will be of a homosexual couple, for instance and it is still rare I just remember thinking about the recent release of Gladiator 2, where Denzel Washington apparently had a homosexual male kiss in the movie that was removed.

And a lot of people said it echoed a kiss that was removed from the Pelican brief where he and Julia Roberts were starring in 30 years ago for it being an interracial kiss. And so even though there's a lot of progress that's being made for a mainstream movie, that's trying to make money, they didn't want a gay kiss in the movie.

Now I haven't seen it, but I'll take a lot of people said that there's a lot more wrong with the movie than it's pushing an agenda of homosexuality that some people will see it as pushing an agenda, but maybe not pushing an agenda is what it is, right? Like it could be the idea that Certain things, certain storylines, characters, and tropes in movies we think are acceptable and we think that are being pushed, but they're still quite a bit restrictive, right?

Like in the case of the Pelican Brie, for instance, that would have been a normal, love interest storyline thing that happened between two characters, except for the fact that they were of different races. And they thought that would be too much for audiences in the 90s, which is blowing my mind because that would have never occurred to me, at the time that it was released, that was controversial or still would have been.

And yet it was enough that it felt that it could cost the studios money. And I think that's when it really comes down to it is Yes, there are sub genres of entertainment specifically aimed at LGBTQ audiences, and they are not expected to make the sort of big bucks that some of the blockbuster movies are expected to bring in.

And so they're allowed to be much more experimental, much more out there. But when it comes to the larger wide released audience, popcorn and blockbuster movies they're less experimental and it really does get down to the sort of collective values that our audiences have. And, even in 2024 I don't think gay is as mainstream as people think it is.

And I remember thinking about some of the comedies that came out that were specifically aimed at gay audiences. They did get larger audiences. I was thinking about challengers and some of the other ones, was it bros that sort of were trying to be a romantic comedy, but for gay audiences or just challenging some of, challenging some of the

conventions of the genre It still was not like these massive black blockbusters, right? And so I guess tying it back to the perspectives not being wrong, I think if you're looking for this agenda to emasculate black men, you'll see it in the rise of some of the LGBTQIA media being You know, pushed out, right?

Like it's still not mainstream though. It's still just that our media is much more segmented. It can reach those audiences easier. It's certainly available if you follow certain content creators on social media, on Tik TOK, on Instagram, on Twitter or wherever they might be self publishing. You can find all of the out there content you want in any sort of sub genre of content.

But. It's still not mainstream. And I think that's what a lot of people on, on our podcast, on the live streams still don't fully understand, like how people can see there being this agenda to make black men gay somehow to emasculate black men when it's just not, it's not there in the mainstream yet.

It's still hasn't really broken through. Like we're. We're still in the 90s, early era where, a gay kiss is still controversial and everything gay has to be subtext, not explicit. So I don't know, but of course I want to validate people's lived experience. If people are seeing it that way, I don't want to tell them that they are seeing it incorrectly.

I think it's best. for our community to try to understand why they're seeing it the way that they do. And that doesn't necessarily mean that we have to change anything that we're doing. It just means maybe we don't react so volatile. It's possible that if we can understand the way that they're seeing it, we won't have such a volatile reaction to their bigotry, basically, because it is what it is.

And we can try to understand. Where they're coming from without saying that we need to do anything differently or to  📍 or even ask them to do anything differently. Just maybe, provokes less anger on our end. And, maybe some of these movies that are in the sub genre of LGBTQIA movies will break into the mainstream and be something that gets large, massive audiences, making it much more.

Acceptable and understandable to people who are conservative or traditionally minded people. 

So I found a very concise definition of what it is to deal with emotional dysregulation and what it means to accept certain things in our lives. And she brought it down to four basic ideas. It's I think four ways of looking at the same thing, which is a certain level of acceptance of the way that life works.

I'm going to play the video and then talk about it on the other side.

 For a black man, the worst thing to be called is gay. Like the first thing somebody is going to elude to, whether you are gay or not, when they trying to, when they're trying to assassinate your character or get off the highest joke imaginable, they're going gay first. Gay or snitch or broke. Yeah, but trying to figure out how to make you guys at the top of that list.

That's a fact. So it stems from something within our culture. Somehow there's a program to make black men gay. Like you see it everywhere. Yeah, for sure. There's an attack on. There's an agenda. Strong black men. But who's the attack coming from? Do you believe there's an attack? How? No, I'm asking. Do you believe?

Again, that would be, that's my answer. Oh, how? How? As people say it through media, through fashion, through what's acceptable. Because who? Because if you think about it, back in our generation, we're this exact same age. We didn't see homosexuality. It's been around since the beginning of time. But it was your auntie's friend, your uncle's friend.

But now, it's more in your face, more acceptable, it's more mainstream, actually trendy. The world has gotten smaller. We're actually able to see those humans living out their lives.

 So one of the first things is dealing with self judgment. Realizing that whatever we're feeling at this moment, you can actually feel worse by adding another layer of complication on top of it. Feeling that you shouldn't feel anxious or feeling that you should be more grateful, or let's say that you feel some sort of envy or jealousy or some sort of judgment about the feelings that you're having, recognizing that these things are or signals that pop up In your mind is something that your body creates to help guide you in certain ways.

And there isn't really any judgment to be had. These aren't even really things that you do on purpose. And so just let it flow, right? Let it go and deal with the emotions. It's themselves, right? The next one had to do with Our need to struggle with the reality of life's problems, understanding that certain things bad happen and that we have to accept them doesn't really make it any easier to being able to deal with them.

Accepting a loss, grieving a loss, understanding pain or some sort of certain aspects of healing It's never really complete, right? Like even if you sustain a serious injury, there still may be scars. There were still maybe pain and you've healed, you may have it, lingering pain though.

You may still have visible wounds or scars, not wounds. Wounds are still in the process of healing, understanding that acceptance is difficult. Because as a identity, as a person, as a agent in the world, we try to exert as much control over our environment, over ourselves, as we can. And most of that is illusory, right?

Even when we don't have control, we like to imagine that we do. And that just causes actually more pain. And letting go of control and letting things happen and dealing with them as they occur, is typically the best way to deal with everything. And so we have to learn how to let go. The next thing is equating emotional instability or or any types of negative emotions with weakness and recognizing that this is a societal thing.

I think for a lot of people, especially for men being able to cry or to. Feel something other than anger, jealousy, rage, is something that I think a lot of our emotions get bottled up for that reason, right? And feeling a certain amount of shame for having had those feelings.

Yeah it's like a, another level of

Discomfort again. The fact is, though, that a lot of these feelings are for our survival, right? Pain is just life protecting life, fear is just life protecting life, right? It is there to help you survive. And, it's not supposed to be comfortable, which brings us to the last one, of course, and that is we are resisting discomfort.

There has to be an example of

when we know that something is good for us, and it is still uncomfortable, we have to live in the discomfort and be okay with it. And, recognizing that, the way she put it, I was very strongly put, emotions are not to be dealt with, they're meant,

emotions are not meant to control us. They're meant to inform us, they are tools to guide us in the direction that we want to move in and recognizing that it's okay to feel these things. Negative emotions are just that, right? They're just emotions that, guide us in a certain direction.

Carrots and sticks, our bodies working its way through. And at its core, you have to recognize, are these Things here to help, right? Even when there's discomfort, are they helping me get to where I want to be? And usually the answer is yes. Even the negative emotions, say, like loneliness or sadness, they are leading us to connection, right?

They're leading us to value what's there. Grief, sadness, loss, all of those things. are reminding us how important those living in community really is. And, without the negative, we wouldn't be able to appreciate the positive. It would just become the normal. It would just be the gray, the indescript, nondescript blah of reality if there was never a negative backdrop for which it could, be distinguished by.

Those are pretty good reminders for me that what's, what we call so called negative emotions are simply our body's survival system and we have to be able to use our bodies, use our lives, use this life in a way to move us forward. It is not something that I think there's a simple fix for is something that we constantly have to get good at.

I think, some people are better at it than others, but we are all our own individuals. And I can say for myself that it is a daily struggle dealing with emotional regulation. It is something that I have to monitor my own mind. I have to get better, engaged in my body, monitoring my own thoughts.

not letting emotions control my actions all the time observing those without judgment. And seeing that there are better ways to react to negative emotions than clearly just instinctually reacting. And using best practices for ourselves. And I think this clip is one that I can easily utilize in my  📍 journey of emotional regulation.

And I thought I'd share it here.  And that'll do it for this week of the M3 BearCast. If you would like to support the show on a non recurring basis just share this podcast with a friend, maybe post it on social media, rate us in your favorite podcatcher, that's always helpful. But if you'd like to be a paid subscriber to the Mail Media Mind network, you can go to patreon.

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On telegram and discord. And we're always trying to find new ways to show thanks to our patrons. Again, thank you for listening and I will catch you in the next episode. Peace.