New to Netflix: Martha, Watergate, and The “G” Word

In this episode, we get the scoop on two new documentaries on Netflix. 

In part one, host Sandra Abrams chats with the two filmmakers behind “The Martha Mitchell Effect.” Using archival footage and interviews, it shows how Martha Mitchell paid a personal price for calling the press as her husband helped President Nixon cover-up a political crime, known as the Watergate Scandal. 

In part two, host Tara Jabbari speaks with Adam Conover about another Netflix documentary, “The G Word.” His six-part comedic docu-series looks at how the U.S. government actually works, its shortcomings, and why he still has hope for the future of America. 

The Martha Mitchell Effect documentary and The G Word with Adam Conover limited series are both currently available on Netflix. 

Martha Mitchell trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SYWxQ62AUM

G Word trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeUq5Duxz1E

Transcript

 on this week's episode, we'll highlight a couple of great new programs to check out on Netflix. First up Sandra Abrams talks with the two filmmakers behind the Martha Mitchell effect, a documentary focused on the unlikely Watergate whistleblower. Tara Jabari sits down with Adam conniver to talk about his hybrid comedy documentary series.

The G word that delves into the many ways the government affects our lives. 

Thank you for joining us. I'm your host Sandra Abrams. In this episode, I'll chat with the two women filmmakers behind a new Netflix documentary on how a woman stood up to a power obsessed president who demanded loyalty from his inner circle. This is not about the 45th president, but the 37th president Richard Nixon.

Friday, June 17th marks the 50th anniversary of the Watergate scandal. The documentary is the Martha Mitchell effect. It tells the story about Martha, the wife of Nixon's attorney general John Mitchell, and how she called the press to tell about the Watergate break in and what she knew. Thanks to archival footage and interviews.

We learned the real story about how Martha was silence. And the meaning behind the term, the Martha Mitchell effect, Anne alga is the director of this documentary. She is an award-winning documentary and editor in New York. Her editing credits include love Gilda, the business of birth control and bully coward victim. Deborah McClachi is the co-director. She is an independent filmmaker based in Brooklyn. New. Her most recent film credits include co-producer of the booksellers, a documentary about the new York's rare book world. Welcome to media and monuments Anne and Deborah. So I watched your film. I loved it. I was glued in my seat, but I'm also a native Washingtonian.

So I went back and I said to my mother, do you remember when this was going on? And she said, the only thing she really remembered about Martha Mitchell was that she was funny. So, and that's something you guys do talk about. So, I guess since this is the 50th anniversary why is Martha getting her due now?

Is it because of the 50th anniversary or is there other things going. Right.

 thank you, Sandra, for having us I think it's a combination of, of factors. Certainly, you know, the 50th anniversary, but I also think we're at a time when we're looking back at history and  who told history and looking at these sort of hidden figures particularly in Watergate when it was, you know, we only know about all the president's men, we don't know about the women involved.



I think women do get marginalized sometimes in history. So I'm glad that you're bringing this forth. I guess one of the things that you talked about in the film, you said, this is a love triangle, and I saw it as. Martha loves John. John loves Richard Nixon and Nixon loves the presidency. So why did, why did you think that it was a love triangle?

 it was really Nixon and Martha who were vying for John Mitchell's attention, you know, and Nixon and John were incredibly close. John Mitchell was almost like a mentor to Nixon and really, you know, owed him the presidency,  as a result of all of his contacts and such. And  I, I think that they, they were all friends until they weren't.

And then Martha.  really loved her husband. She would do anything for him, but she also loved the truth. And I think,  she was willing to speak out at all costs for that. And also she thought it would save her husband. I mean, I think, really think that that was her intention. Unfortunately that that's not what happened.

And John Mitchell chose Nixon in the end.

that's true. So I guess I wanted to just ask about how did your partnership come about for this before you started this?  if you could tell a little bit of that, because as you know, it's median monuments, this is the podcast for women in film and video. And a lot of people work with different people, but maybe you can get some insight into.

you.

 Anne and I have been friends for a very long time. This was the first time we worked together in a professional creative way. And it was in, in big part, a response to the 2016 election. And it's safe to say that we were both very devastated by the results of that election. And we're looking for a project to collaborate on something that could comment on the current moment.

And we both really love archival and archival films. So, we were,  simpatico in terms of our style and our approach right away. So that's where the jump off point was really after the election we, we had learned about Martha Mitchell. We started talking about her.

We thought what an amazing character. And she was such an entertaining figure, smart, funny, engaging, like. There had not been a documentary done about her, which surprised both of us. So then we just really, we kind of dove in head first.

I noticed that, that you have been primarily with documentaries. And I also know and you also did a documentary about Roy Cohen as well. So I thought, oh, this seems to be your path and what you guys like. So you must have been amazed at the amount of archival footage that was out there when you saw that.

Yeah. I mean, there was definitely a lot of press interviews with Martha, Martha loved the press and the press loved Martha. She was incredibly popular. As, as, as we talked about in the film you know, she was kinda the only one of that administration or affiliated with the administration that would actually cozy up to the press.

So yeah, I mean, you know, obviously we always wanted more  you know, we, we, we didn't have any home movies. We were really limited to her press interviews, but luckily she was a big friend of the.

Treasure trove. I would say, you know, compared to other people, when you look back on what, you know, when people are trying to do documentaries and, and speaking of people trying to do documentaries, and because you have that phenomenal experience of doing them,  it seems like. They take a long time to get made.

And so I read that you started this project in 2019, and then by 2020 you had to deal with Netflix. And I thought, I, I haven't done Dr. Ma, but to me that seemed like awfully quick. So I'm wondering if you could kind of give us a little backstory of how that happened, you know, and, and is it that, is it a quick turnaround  to get a deal like that?

That's

It's generally not that quick. We, we feel incredibly fortunate and incredibly lucky because it's so difficult to get documented documentaries made and to get them funded. At the same time, we also know that we had a great subject and we had access to materials and access to interviews, and we knew that we could tell a really great story.

So. In terms of, you know, we actually pitched this to quite a few different places. But ended up going with Netflix because they're the best fit. And they've been incredibly supportive and really wonderful to work with.  but it was a short that we made. So that typically is a little shorter of a process in terms of the production.

And because we were doing all archival and recording original audio interviews only we weren't doing camera setups and that type of thing. Maybe our schedule was a little bit accelerated because of that. But yeah, so I think the 40 minute length really lent itself to a shorter schedule, but otherwise these things could take years  and we're fortunate.

I'm glad that it did not take years and years to do.

Well, speaking of the archival footage, and I know Anne, you have a background in editing. How did you go in? And you say, okay, I want. You this picture or this picture, like, how did you decide, you know, and what you wanted to put in, in terms of archival footage? Lets see.

Well, we first, you know, did a lot of research together to find what we could. I mean, it was vast particularly Deborah did a really deep dive and found some great gyms in local stations with, journalists,  we found a journalist who found, you know, an interview in his, at and then what, you know, I basically kind of just strung it out and which, so it was a very, very long assembly to begin with.

And I just wanted to, we wanted to figure out what, what stories we could tell, what plot points we could tell. I mean, there were a, you know, her story is vast and it's incredibly inherently dramatic. So there were a lot of ways to go, but we were obviously limited and constrain. By the archival because we wanted it to be  archivally led.

We also wanted it, her voice to lead it. So we were limited to what Martha was telling us and what her story was. I mean, there's a lot of different versions of her story, but we wanted her to tell her story as much as possible.  luckily we were able to have some contemporary interviews to help contextualize her story, but those actually kind of came in later.

The first part was trying to lead with the archival, see what we have, and then we went. To get the interviews that

I noticed that you had Connie Chung and she obviously is a local hero here.  you just said, had those came in later. So did you have in mind having those interviews when you first started to think about this project, or you said it came in later, was that because you wanted it later or, and you wanted to do it, you know, how did that, at what point did you say we want these interviews of people who were covering this story?

I mean, I, I think we, we always knew we were gonna need some, some contemporary voices to contextualize her story, cuz she just does not tell her whole story. Unfortunately, with the archival that we had And we, we also sort of liked that, that idea of, of bringing in these voices now sort of reflecting back on that period.

Although I know it's sometimes hard to tell if they're archival interviews or if they're contemporary interviews,  there was an interesting sort of perspective that was happening with that. I think it just took a long time to book them. I mean, some of them were harder gets than others, you know?

I mean, we started with, you know, certain players in the administration, Dwight chap and Bob Woodward took a long time to get Connie ch. Had to be convinced. I mean, we were able to interview mm-hmm  we were able to

our interviews.

she's amazing. You know, we first interviewed her husband Mor who had this great Washington show called Panorama,

Yeah. Mm-hmm  yeah. So I, I remember that show

Yeah, where everybody who was anybody I guess, was on that show in Washington. And he was an amazing interview and you know, we, but we really wanted some more female journalist and, and finally Connie Chung relented, and she, she was great.

Yeah. We also knew that we wanted primary sources, people that were there, people that had met Martha who had interfaced with her.  so that was a, a big strategy that we followed in terms of interviewing people and finding people to contribute to our contemporary voices.

Was there any point where you go, okay, we have all this free footage, you know, at what point did you say, oh, we have to start paying for footage. You know, we have with, with, we have a lot of documentary filmmakers and that's the thing where, oh, I could do such and such, but I have to pay, like, how did you go about, did you have like, okay, we've got enough money set aside to do this, you know?

And, and what was that process like?

 that's initially why we started looking for distribution is we realized we couldn't fair use all the material. We couldn't get, you know, what we needed all in the public domain, you know, from the Nixon library of library of Congress. So,  there was a seminal interview, the David Frost interview with Martha which was like a month after in September 70.

After Nixon resigned and there was no way we were gonna fair use that. So, so we realized we had a really great topic in our hands and we needed to expand out. And so, you know, we started getting screeners and realized where we were gonna have to up our budget.

Right. And then Nixon went on David Frost and said, oh, well, Martha was the problem all along, you know, and I guess that part isn't really known, you know, that he, because it wasn't highlighted. So because of that. So  what part of putting this film together and you had it and you said, Ugh, this is gonna be great.

We're, you know, we're, we're gonna, we're ready to go to Netflix and, and show 'em this, you know, we've got, we've got X and this is, this is the magic sauce right here.

I would say that that particular bite that we found from David Frost, we knew that there was something there that, that they were foils, that there was a battle that was going on between Nixon and Martha. And that was really interesting. And,  we started to dig into the white house tapes and realized that Nixon and Haldeman talked about.

All the time and that they had actually orchestrated a camp, a gaslighting campaign against her when she was speaking out at Watergate or, or during the break in, or right after the break in. And  it doesn't come out in the film, but,  Nixon was more F. Worried or he was, he was more worried about Martha speaking out than the actual break in and the ramifications to him, you know, a few days after the fact.

we cut together a a pretty solid trailer with elements of those factors. And I think that that's, that's what sold.

 it seems like, you know, she was at the time, you know, women were to be seen and not heard just like children were to be seen and not heard, you know, that doesn't seem like what happened to. They, but it does seem like,  The gas lighting is still going on, you know?

 have we learned anything, you know, or is it because, well, thanks to social media or more net news networks, people willing to speak out, you know, women are not being silence.

 I feel like we have more vehicles for, for communication from civilians, right? From Twitter to Instagram, to Facebook and yeah, that those are all. Those are all devices, I guess, to, to, to call people out in the ways that they need to be called out. But I don't think that, yeah, I think gaslighting still continues.

Of course, in behind closed doors. Unfortunately,

Yeah, I, I would argue that the previous administration gaslighted the entire country for four years. So it, it still, yeah, it was happening a lot. Still happens.

Well, especially now that we have  the January 6th committee hearings. And again, they're taking their playbook from what happened in Watergate and putting those hearings out. And I do remember as a kid coming home and seeing the hearing. But what I remember is John Dean's wife sitting there and I thought, oh, she's so glamorous looking, but I was a kid, you know, what, what did I know?

You know, I didn't really quite comprehend what was happening to the country at that point, you know, but it does seem like there's a the parallel 

many parallels, right? From the, you know, the gaps in the, in these, these phone call tapes and yeah. Yeah. I mean, we could go on and on

I wanna talk to you. I saw that there was a lot of buzz before you went to Sundance. And I don't know, maybe you've been to Sundance before, so, you know, this was old hat, not a big deal, but I was like, wow, you went to Sundance. And it seemed like everybody was. You know, couldn't wait to see your film. So what was that experience like for you?

Well, we actually did not go to Sundance physically because the festival got canceled.  the festival happened, but in person was canceled. So it was a purely virtual festival. So we did go quote unquote to Sundance virtually. So we experienced it all through our laptops. But there was a lot of excitement about the film. And a lot of people really did wanna see it.

And a lot of people actually did watch it virtually and we got great feedback coming out of it. The festival that was. Our premier. And it was a great way to sort of kick off the, the whole run of this film. And Sundance was really great and incredibly supportive and it was a really, it was a wonderful experience despite being virtual.

And I had been there in years past in person, and it would've been great to go in person, but we'll just have to make another film and get there in person

It's so hard. Do you

That's right. Make another film. I, I I'm with you on that. what do you hope people take away about Martha? You know, in watching this film, any one thing or a couple of things, or just overall how women are treated in general, 

I hope people come away from this film wanting to have conversations that may have been difficult to have previous to seeing the film.

I hope that maybe people from opposite ends of the political spectrum can find commonality through Martha's story because she is such an interesting figure. And I think really appealing to a broad spectrum of people. And maybe she can help people have conversations about politics and gas lighting and all of these themes that are really resonating in the film.

And still today.

Yeah. I mean, I think ultimately. You know, we want people to believe women, right? We want people to not take, what the press or institutions of power say about other people because they could be, you know, discounting them for, for political reasons to, to listen to people and,  listen to all voices.

Thank you, Ann and Deborah. Congratulations on all your success. You can catch the documentary. The Martha Mitchell effect on Netflix starting Friday, June 17th.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Sandra.



Thank you, Adam con, over for coming on media and monuments. I'm Tara Jabbar, one of the co-host and co-producers and I've got to watch the G word.  So I wanted to ask, first of all, it's quite interesting the partnership, because one of the producers. He appears in the documentary series is a president or former president Barack Obama.

How did you get in touch with him? And some of the other people that have been involved to get

 this show came about because, well, first of all, in late 2018, I read the Michael Lewis book, the fifth risk. Which is about how the federal government works. And I thought the book was fantastic. I was like, oh my gosh, I would love to do some of these stories on TV. Sometime about eight months later, I got a call from my manager saying, Hey, I don't know that you're gonna be interested in this, but Barack Obama's production company has optioned the rights to this book, the fifth risk.

Do you want to go pitch on it? And I said, well, yes, of course I do. And I pitched my angle, which was that I. Would do it using my signature blend of comedy and, you know, investigation and explanatory you know, television making. And they liked the pitch. And,  we brought it to Netflix where, where higher ground has a deal and.

The show,  went on from there. Now I made it very clear to them at the beginning that,  I had to have editorial independence in the making of the show and that I couldn't be seen as a Obama administration or Obama political organization mouthpiece, or the, the show would have no credibility.

And they granted me that, and, and that is. How we made the show and we ended up doing a bunch of segments on the show that are critical of the Obama administration of different, you know, decisions they made, et cetera. But you know, they're all very well founded in the facts and they very graciously gave us the space to do that.

 I didn't know that Obama was involved until the very beginning of the episode and I'm like, you know, Is get hesitant because we do want, especially in a documentary or something that talks about such important things like us government to not have a bias on stuff.

And I do appreciate you guys kind of dissecting the different administrations on how things started and moved forward or fell apart or something like that. And then at the bottom of the screen, you will make a note of where you're getting certain statistics. And things. So that was a really great job of not just transparency, but it'd be like, you don't have to be a, an Obama fan to watch this show, please.

You don't have, I don't want you to be necessarily, I want you to know how our government works.

Yeah.  look, the show wouldn't have existed if Barack Obama had an option that book. And if you didn't have deal with Netflix, that's sort of the, so the conditions under which it were made right. In the same way that when I was making a television show for true TV, I didn't have control over the fact that there was advertising during the commercial breaks.

Right. But all, all we can try to do. Is try to create that separation, that, that zone of independence that, you know, any say newspaper needs, right. To separate that the, the newsroom from the advertising department,  that, that sort of separation and then yeah, the citations are there to show people, Hey, we did our research.

Here's where the information comes from. If you don't believe us, Take it up the New York times, take it up the wall street journal, take it up with Bloomberg, whoever it was, who we cited, take it up with the academic department with UCLA or whoever it was that we that we cited.  when you're transparent about it, the audience is smart enough to, to follow along with you and, and, you know, decide whether or not you have truly been honest, the alternative would've.

Hey, let's not talk about that at all. Let's not put Barack Obama in the opening scene and just have his name in the credits. Right. But the audience would've seen that and gone, hold on a second. Barack Obama's name is on this. Wait, does that make the rest of the information suspect, but by being transparent about it, we can remove those questions or at least answer them as the audience is having them.

Yeah. Was it like another form of citation? You're like,  he is involved. So let's just put that out there.  it. Mentioned a couple of times in the series that you guys were postponed because of COVID and lockdown and stuff. Was there ever a time where you were a little concerned of like, will this even get done?

oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, throughout COVID. Networks took COVID as an opportunity to cancel shows that they were in production on because they were able to use it as a force Azure and get themselves outta contracts. They didn't wanna be in rather than have to,  pay out the talent or the union workers.

They were able to say, oh, you know, force Azure. We don't need to pay anybody. So, you know, this happened to, for instance, drunk history, which is a show. That is also, I wouldn't call it comedy documentary, but it's comedy information,  in the same way my work is, and they had written an entire season of that show and were just about to shoot it.

They were literally,  had cameras practically rolling and comedy central canceled the entire show in the middle of production. Because  they were just paused because of COVID and the economy central said, no, we're pulling the plug on the whole thing. So you know, it was a blood bath out there.

and if it weren't for the folks at higher ground fighting for the show could have happened, I I'm,  I'm not gonna say there's, there's no way to say that it would have or not, but you know, was certainly a, a frightening time in a lot of ways. I mean, that was honestly the, the, the least way that it was frightening , but I did count myself extremely lucky to still be working through the pandemic.

 the shutdown happened a week into our writer's.

Oh,

And so we went from working in a writer's room to working over zoom and we had to write the entire season that way. And it was extremely challenging to do so, but at the end of the day, I was like, Hey, at least I'm working.  I have so many friends who are, who are not, who are out of work now, you know, who are at home with nothing to do, but drink,

That was your, one of the episodes, the money one with the daycare, 

Yes.

even though they were an essential worker because their clients were essential workers, it, it still wasn't able to succeed.

Yeah, it, it is such, it's a really sad story. These daycare owners in Los Angeles, Sandra and Claudia who had a, have a daycare in south LA, you know, in a disadvantaged area where, you know, the folks that they are serving, are people going to work at grocery stores, people working in healthcare nurses they're essential to the essential workers because they're taking care of those people's kids.

They provided infant care at the state care, which is very rare. And they received a total of, I think they said $6,000 in PPP loans, not even a month's salary for their staff, whereas, you know, the various production companies that I work with on this show receive much more because, you know, we have fan, as I say on the show, fancier accountants at bigger banks, it's completely unfair.

But that is how, our government chose to Dole out the money, which is something that we criticize very harshly on the. 

Yeah. And, and thank you for explaining that daycare thing for, for people who haven't watched it yet possibly.  So when I. Was watching it. I was like, it doesn't surprise me that a fancier corporation that had bonds or more money could get more loans versus an independent business. Right. Even though it is more arguably more essential or is still an essential, it, it were like, we're all like, I know. So it's hard to make it, but when they say.

Well, this is more New York, but I think it's like America. They're like, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere kind of mentality, but it is not easy even for Americans. So it was just sort of, do you have an idea after speaking to those who are trying to make changes or are workers something of hope, but also it is our system.

So

Yeah. I mean, well look, first of all, the rich gets richer is the way of the world. That's the, it's a law of nature, right? That if you have more resources, you are able to use those resources to get more. Gains to you to pull more proceeds, to pull more spoils to you. Right? If I, if, if I've got a million dollars to invest in the stock market and you have a hundred dollars to invest in the stock market, who's gonna make more money.

Right. It's just that, that's how the world works. But. Part of the point of the show is that the government is the O one of the only organizations that is able to counteract that trend and able to, you know, for instance, focus on public goods that everyone is able to share equally such as we talk about in the show, weather predictions, such as deposit insurance in the bank, et cetera.

Now. That doesn't mean that the government isn't subject to that same force that causes those with more, to be able to get more to them. Right. For instance, those big corporations who are able to say AHS, the government's handing out PPP loans. Government's handing out money right now. Well, let's make sure we get more than our fair share of that.

Right? Those people will always exist. Or the private business that's tries to take that public good and turn it towards private ends. Like ACU weather is doing to the national weather service. Those always exist. However, It is our duty as citizens to try to fight back against that and to be constantly vigilant over our government, make sure that  it is not being perverted towards those towards those ends, you know, cuz that's really the only structure that we have as for whether or not I have hope I do because our entire final episode is about change and is an attempt to answer the question, how do we change our government when it is not serving us when it is failing in the ways I just described and how do we do that when it's so big?

And we are so small and we end up talking about local government and the importance of local government. And how we can make much larger changes in our government. When we work on the local level that, you know, your donation, your door knocking your activism goes a hundred times further on that level than it does.

You know,  the national election, the national government gets so much attention and our local governments get almost.

That was my biggest takeaway from just like watching the whole show. But particularly the last episode, I was like, the big thing is we need to know as citizens that we do have a, a possibility to have a say locally. And that is just as important as nationally. And oftentimes, unfortunately, that gets ignored.

So I really liked that a big chunk of that, particularly the last episode talks about it. And one thing that I noticed. There's a sort of a skit where an elderly woman's like the young people don't even vote locally. You should be paying attention to me. And the young people are like, oh, what's going on?

And I said, I feel like that also shows we need to work as a community and listen, because everybody has their own. They're thinking of what their needs are, but also the community's needs. So if we listen to each other versus fight each other, possibly we can start progressing. It will take longer. And it's more frustrating at times, but it was getting involved locally, as well as nationally and working with and in consulting with all forms of different generations and different backgrounds, we can start making a better change.

I agree with that. I also think that people who until now have not spoken up locally need to begin to do so. I mean, you know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease in local politics as much as anywhere else. And the people who have been speaking up are the. Old wealthy homeowners who don't want anything to change.

Right. And for instance, in Los Angeles where I live there's a big effort to try to get renters more involved in local government because homeowners, you know, once they buy a home, they settle down. They're worried about their property values. They're the people that go and yell at the city council.

Right. But. Renters there's far more renters and renters need more help because they are living more precariously. Right. And it's sort of, honestly, especially in our cities, despite the, the prevalence we give to to, to homeowners renting is like the more important mode of housing in a dense city.

And so there's been a big effort to get renter issues elevated, right. To have renters show up at those meetings and say, hold on a second. Build apartment buildings, you know what I mean? Like please offer rental assistance instead of just bailing out, you know, people who have mortgages. Right. And so, you know, making sure that we speak up is incredibly, incredibly important.

And my last question is  what is your hope that the audience's biggest takeaway will be after watching the series?

Honestly, it's to have them think a bit more critically about the world around them and about the government that, you know, supports their lives. I mean, we, we have such a narrow. Political conversation about government in this country. We, we argue, as I say in the show for four years, but who's gonna run a government, almost none of us know anything about.

And so we don't know to safeguard what we need to safeguard and we don't know to change what needs to be changed. And,  making people realize, hold on a second, this stuff really does affect you. You should care about it and you can have an influence on it. Will hopefully make a big difference.

I do wanna leave you with this personal experience. That I was working at the Georgetown university's school of foreign service career center. And when the us elections of 2016 came out the president of. School foreign service asked me cuz I was in charge of the Twitter.

To tweet it out and to make sure it gets quite a bit of coverage because they started to notice a lot of students undergraduate graduate and so forth. So young people were really disheartened by the election results. And his letter was basically summing up that saying, remember, you want to work for the people.

The president changes every four to eight years. Your career will be for the next. Years. And even if you will not always get the president that you voted for and that's okay, because if you have a difference, you can also be part of the discussion to help the president as well, because all of you are working  for the greater, good and, and the people.

So don't let this be a discouragement. And I always appreciated that because it was tough. I mean, I was a little older and a, a lot of people were because when you're in a university campus, everyone's like voting for the first time and they're like, damnit, it's not who I wanted. And it's just, and I do think a part of it is a little bit of being in this digital age.

We can customize so much of our lives. If you want a purple phone, you can, if you want, you know, something to order grub, Second away, you know, that kind of thing, that it's hard to realize you can't control everything and you won't always get what you want. So I really liked that. I don't know if you have any thoughts, but I felt like your documentary also touched on that and be like, remember the people who work in the government are still the people.

So we're all not perfect, but we can still work together.

Yes. It, it, it is one of the real purposes we're trying to get across in the show is to let the audience know the government is made up of people, right? People like you and me, everybody is a person and for good and for bad, every per every problem that is caused in the world is caused by people. Every solution in the world is caused by people, right.

That it, it's not malign forces from space. Right. And The that's thing. Number one thing. Number two is I really try to reinforce with folks that no matter how bad things get there is always something you can do today, that'll create a better tomorrow, right? There's something that you can do. You can wake up.

And say, well, I can do my bit today, you know, and your bit doesn't even need to be that much, but you always have that option available to you. And if you wanna see that as a duty, which I do, you always have that duty every day, no matter how bad things get. And that to me is an antidote to sort of the apocalyptic doom Laden thinking that we've had over the last couple years.

 well, thank you so much, Adam, for speaking with me and everyone should check out the G. On Netflix  

that's it for this episode and for our inaugural season of media and monuments, we'll return in a couple of months with fresh new content for season two. But in the meantime, check out our season one episode archives, you'll find lots of interesting and informative content in episodes that range in subject matter.

And during the season break, our very own podcast team will help you pick some great ones to listen to. Again, in many episodes called producers picks.