Movie Night- Shot Caller with Clint Terrell

2017's Shot Caller isn't the most obvious pick for a season finale but, we've shown many different stories and how violent extremism's insidious nature can infect anyone. Clint joins the conversation and pretty much sends us to school about gangs, prison politics, the nature of copaganda, and shared some strong opinions about Jon Bernthal(that we kindly edited out... mostly). Enjoy!

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Transcript

Samantha 0:15

Welcome to Movie Night, a film discussion by The Daily Former. Today we're discussing 2017's Shot Caller, starring Nicola Walder Costeau, or you might know him as Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones. I just want to put a content warning in that this film covered deeply upsetting themes and depicts gang violence drunk driving, all kinds of stuff, So if you're not in the mood for that today, please feel free to skip. I am Sam. I'm here with Jamie and our returning champion, friend of the pod, Quint. So, let's get started. First question really is what is your relationship to the movie?

Jamie 0:45

thought the concept was interesting when I first read about it. I liked the actor being formally part of the movement. I wanted to see how it was portrayed in the film. So that kind of drew me to watch it. Initially, I've seen it a couple times now. I watched it again last week. It still holds up a little bit. I mean, it's a decent film.

Samantha 1:06

Awesome. Clint, what about you?

Clint 1:08

You know, I came across the film I was actually I was getting a tattoo one time my tattoo artist told me about it And he's like, chicano asian. And I was getting a tattoo from him and he saw like my celtic mikey stuff He's like, hey, you ever seen this movie shot color. It's on amazon. You should really watch it. You mean it's really good you know And I was like, all right, you know, so he's like, tell me what you think about it. So I went and watched it and that, that's my initial relationship to it. You know, just somebody like recommended to me cause they look, cause I look like a prison guy. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, you should watch this movie so yeah, I remember watching again and I definitely have a similar opinion the first time that I watched it, and I think my opinion about it has deepened a little bit after watching it a second time. I have maybe one good thing to say about it, but mostly I don't like the movie.

Samantha 1:44

okay. Then I'm going to be totally transparent about this. I did not want to watch this, nothing about this movie appealed to me. I was terrified of like, There are just so many things in this movie that from the way that I grew up, the people that I knew throughout my life, I didn't want to do it. And I'm going to be completely honest with you guys. I got maybe five minutes into it and I couldn't watch it. I just, there was just something about it that Fucked with me just on this level that like, I don't know. I was crying the entire five minutes I just had this like it reminds me a lot of my dad and just one of those you know, I guess I have more shit to work out than I thought. So that I just needed to Not watch it. So I am pretty much fully relying on you guys why did you hate it?

Clint 2:30

All right, fair warning. If you, if I started going, I'm just going to go off and just finish my whole announcement. I don't want to take up too much time or like, overtake the podcast or anything like

Samantha 2:37

That's fine. And we'll interrupt if we need to. So don't worry about

Clint 2:40

Yeah, no, I mostly, you know, I remember. I remember the first time I watched it. I was really struck by how accurate they got a lot of the politics. they captured the prison politics the racial politics, the intergroup politics. They did that really accurately. And I remember thinking like, damn, they must have has some type of consultant. they had some type of, Inside information from somebody who really knew who had been there and probably had done a lot of times that we're consulting them on this video because they captured those dynamics very accurately. And that's the only good thing that I had to say about the video, everything else what I really didn't like about the video, and I remember my first take on the, on when I first saw it the first time the thing that I really didn't like about it and which has deepened now that I've seen a second time is the the main character, right? The main character, the fact that he was previously this like white collar banker, stockbroker, like I don't know what he was. He was like this upper middle class kind of white guy, right? That gets, you know, this DUI manslaughter charge. and then rises up to the ranks, like that part of the movie, that, that whole part of the movie, just completely unbelievable, like, I can't like that. It would have been much more believable if this guy would have been like some, poor working class. Kid from the desert in Southern California who grew up in a trailer park with abusive parents and went to prison for some kind of juvenile mistake is still in the car and then all the rest of the story checks out, you know, mean him putting in work and catching more time and rising up like that part of the story checks out. But the fact that they make him like this, a white collar upper middle class guy with a nice family, just completely unbelievable. And the fact that someone would like that would actually do what he did because I mean really the part they don't capture, in there You know, he has a conversation with his lawyer like oh You know You got to stand up for yourself gonna be marked Really in california prison like you can just go into protected custody like, you know I mean, you can just go to a police and say hey i'm scared. I don't want to politic They're asking me to do things. They told me I if I don't kill this guy, they're gonna kill me I need help, you know, I mean and like they would just Give it to him, you know, I mean, so someone like that, especially with the family and all that much to lose, would never program on a general population yard in the way that he did, you know?

Samantha 4:37

let me do a quick pushback on that. Only because I've learned that in my experience with leaving and what I have with the far right and all that stuff, I was extremely naive to a lot of the politics and the reality of it. And there are a lot of things that I didn't know I could do for my own protection. Is there a world where he was just too naive to realize he could have gone to the police where it's like, the scary guy says he's going to hurt me. Like I'm a wuss, so I believe it. And I'm just asking an honesty. Like I said, I didn't see the movie, but I did read a lot about it.

Clint 5:06

no, that's, that's fair. That's a fair take. And I'm not saying that it's impossible that someone like this couldn't go in there and maybe even be struck by the power and turned on by the power of all and say, Hey, you know what? I'm going to make this my new life and like see some type of opportunity in there. It's not out of the range of possibilities, but I'm just saying from my I'd never met anybody like that. Everybody that I ever met in prison every gangster that I'd ever met, comes from a pretty fucked up background, like, didn't really have a lot to live for prior to being in the position they are now come from, you know, poverty, abusive households, you know, foster care you know, group homes, it's just a long, like, like we were career criminals. You know what I mean? He was not a career criminal. he made the transition from a kind of a successful. upper middle class white collar career That part just doesn't really check out for me.

Jamie 5:49

I think that's fair.

Clint 5:50

Yeah. And then, you know how that kind of has deepened for me the second time that I've watched this, what I really didn't like about it and what is, what we call propaganda, it's like the propaganda, the police propaganda that's in it. And it really comes through that character too. Right? And it's really classist and racist in my opinion, because, he basically becomes an informant, right? He cooperating with law enforcement. Basically, he turns over the guns and all this stuff like that. And there's 2 informants. There's 2 informants in the movie, right? The 1 is him, the main character. The 2nd, 1 is the skinhead dude with the P9 tattoo. And that was interesting to me that they actually use real gangs. they actually use P9 and the brand and they weren't fictional gangs. so one thing, the way in which the informants are portrayed in that film, like the one, the penile guy, the way that he's portrayed is he doesn't become an informant out of some type of moral standing because he has a problem with what he's doing. They portray him as being backed into a corner, right? his girlfriend goes to prison he's looking at more prison time. And so he becomes an informant to save his own skin,

Samantha 6:43

So it's pragmatic.

Clint 6:44

It's a completely selfish type of reason that he becomes an informant, but the main character, he becomes an informant because of some moral thing, he is portrayed as better than all his associates and his peers would be. Yeah, his contemporaries, like the rest of his peers, you can tell the film positions him as he understands that he's better than all of them the whole time. He's not like any of them. He comes from this kind of distinguished upper class background. He's smarter than them. He's better than them. And he's morally superior to all of them. I mean, he's just doing this merely for the sake of survival. He's not doing this because this is his lifestyle because of this is who he is. And so when he becomes an informant, it's because of this moral ethnic code that he has. He gives up these guns to get these guns off the streets, and then we're to imagine that when he takes over the position and he becomes the guy that's running the show and kills the other Aryan Brotherhood dude and like he becomes The new head kind of guy, We are to assume that he is Going to continue doing these types of things continue being informative and really dismantle this whole organization from the inside From the top down right and that's the kind of aspect of the law enforcement propaganda and the thing is it's almost like they can't portray the other guy If we're going to do like a close reading, a close character analysis of the other informant, the guy with the penile which what's his, what's his name? He lives here in Ventura too. And he has a podcast Bernthal

Jamie 7:56

John Berenthal.

Clint 7:57

Juan Bernthal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like his character, right? If we get absolutely no kind of background. We get no historical context for his character, for any of the other characters. The only thing that we know about the past is the one main character, right? we don't get any kind of character development of any of the other characters in the movie, I mean, we know that He's like a working class kid from Huntington Beach. we can imagine that he probably, grew up in an abusive household, he's a drug addict, he is a career criminal. Like this guy has been in the game, coming up through the ranks. Like this was his lifestyle before prison and in prison and outside of prison. As opposed to the main character. And it's almost as if the movie can't portray him as having the same moral code, right? They really pathologize him that this poor working class kid is inherently bad. Fundamentally at his core, he is a bad person. He is a criminal, right? And the only time he goes to law enforcement is to save his own skin for purely selfish reasons. Whereas the upper middle class white guy, the morally superior white guy. He has some kind of deeper moral code fundamentally at the core He is a good person. And he was willing to do things, become an informant, to portray his gang for the better good. not to save his own skin, but to get these guns off the streets, to dismantle this organization. he sees himself as better than the organization that he is part of, they can't portray this lower working class, white kid, drug addict as having that type of moral character. Right? And I think that that part of the movie is like, fundamentally just classes, maybe even in somehow some type of way. I want to say it's racist in a type of way, but it's definitely classist, Those are the reasons that I really hate it. But we can get into the more kind of the white supremacist politics and aesthetics that are portrayed in the film too. But that's my kind of initial reading of the movie

Samantha 9:32

what I was going to say was my read through and the way that you're describing it. I got a lot of like white savior complex, a lot of the educated white man always comes out on top, no matter what he does. I felt like that rang. Really false especially in talking to so many men that had been incarcerated like Exactly what you're saying is exactly the truth Like there's not really someone that's like, you know A fucking accountant and then suddenly becomes a drug lord in prison and like sacrifices Himself for his family or whatever. It's just not real but yeah, talk to me jamie first and foremost, Let's get your opinion before we get into the white supremacy of it all

Jamie 10:07

No, that's you've got some really good points there, Clint, that I wasn't thinking about the sort of white savior point. That's interesting, especially if you think of him turning into the guns, you know, being this sort of hero complex, even when he's in prison, he's still got moral high ground, even though, he did kill someone with his car. So there's that fine line there.

Clint 10:24

And he commit the murder in prison too. He commits an institutional murder, you know, he

Jamie 10:28

Yeah. That's true, too. But again, at the end,

Samantha 10:31

Wasn't that supposed to be self defense

Clint 10:33

Well, he gets called on you know I mean he gets called on to put in some work and you know He gets talked into it like hey if we don't do this, they're gonna do it to us And so he goes with it. It's not self defense. No, it's like a two on one.

Samantha 10:42

Wow. Okay, then yeah, let's have a little touch of white supremacy in here. Clint, I really do want to talk about the prison politics when you were saying they were real gangs what about it was like, particularly striking to you? Was it just the general, like, the way that it all worked, it actually felt real in terms of his rising to the top?

Clint 11:01

No, no, just like the actual politics, like the way that it portrays, the whites being allies with the Mexicans, there's like the whole riot scene, where, like, the Mexicans are going to kick it off with the blacks and the white boys could jump in to back them up, and, like, that alliance between the white prisoners and the Mexican prisoners, the southern Mexican prisoners, like, that's real. You know what I mean? That was a real thing. I was really surprised by that. And they don't really get into this whole dynamic between like the kind of ideological white supremacist skinheads and the more just criminally minded that's and you know, it showed some of the swastika tattoos and the lightning bolt and some of the white supremacist tattoos, but they never really emphasized the ideology of that, which on one hand, that was like another aspect that's really realistic about it but I will say that like, you know, a lot of times in prison, these like swastikas and these lightning bolts and these like white supremacist symbols. Are often used merely for shock value. There's not a whole lot of like really sophisticated ideology behind a lot of these things. there are now more so nowadays, but a lot of times the symbols, especially in prison, are really used for kind of the shock value aspect of them. You know? I think in more recent years, there are a little bit more ideologically sophisticated, but it didn't really portray, that dynamic, of, these kind of skinheads and they even used the penai, which was really, really interesting to me. he had the penai tattooed on his neck, but like, it did show how these skinhead groups, these more ideological skinhead groups are willing to do the bidding of this prison gang, right?

Samantha 12:18

Yeah. Interesting that you say it and I wasn't sure if that's where you were going with it, but it is wild to me that It was like the tattoos and all of it was I don't even want to say a safety mechanism But like it was there to just demonstrate this is just who I roll with and that's it I think this movie is also just a it's very much like a scared straight for people like me, where like, I'm a fucking nerd. And I left before, you know, anything, Popped off on my end, but like, I had assumed that like, if you're going into prison, there was some sort of maybe hazing or something that you go through to prove that you believe what they believe, but it's just there because it's a convenient thing. it's just, you identify as this and you're going to be in this gang. But yeah, I guess, I don't know, I guess I'm agreeing with what you're saying and I'm just nervous to say it.

Clint 12:58

you're not going to see these dudes, coming out, to these Tiki torch rallies, and going to Trump rally, like they're not doing politics, like they're doing,

Samantha 13:04

drug stuff, crime stuff, yeah,

Clint 13:06

And the political symbology, I mean, especially like even more so as they got even more sophisticated. And I think this is part of what my PhD research is on, this really came in with in the 1980s, when a lot of these David Lane and Matt master started, getting, incarcerated in prison is really when you see the explosion of Odin ism and like, really more sophisticated political ideology. Permeate the prison system and I think that that kind of symbology and that ideology has been useful within a criminal context in recruiting. But I don't think that the majority of these guys see themselves as like revolutionaries, really,

Samantha 13:37

that's interesting. My involvement, it was always, that's what we called ourselves, like the new revolutionaries, the sophisticates, all this stuff. in my head, it was always the idea of the ideology was to be a part of a brotherhood like a family, like they're going to come and visit you. And when you get out or whenever they take over that it was, it was part of a revolutionary cause. I didn't know that There was no like airs about that. It was just very much like we do crime and we're white

Clint 13:59

I think that that part of it, there's this kind of idea that the Italians, there's these different mafia. The Italians got their thing. Even the Irish got their thing. The Mexicans got their thing, but like, whites, white boys, don't really have anything, there's this idea that white people don't have any culture, Like we don't, we don't have any, we And I think that these Odinism viking aesthetics, like that's proof that there's white culture. That's like ancient white culture that we can prove something, and the fact that we can also get our hands involved in these other kinds of illicit activities and have our own organization, That doesn't have to be, super niche, Italian or Irish or German, it can be more encompassing and more broad than that. And we can have like a white type of thing, right?

Samantha 14:34

I don't know. This is all stuff that like so fucking interesting like thank you for talking about this I like This is just not something that I talk about every day and I don't know people that I don't know i'm keeping all of that part in that's really fucking fascinating. that's a really cool way to look at it and Jamie, in terms of the white supremacy, what were your thoughts on it? Like, did you, I guess the question for both of you would be kind of like, what rang the most true and all of it. Was it the prison politics? Was it this man's story? Was it the prison experience at large that, that rang true? But I also want to ask you guys like what also rang is bullshit other than the fact that this fucking Kendall looking accountant ends up in prison and becomes like a gang leader. was there anything else where you were just kind of like, this is bullshit, like, this is clearly just here for effect.

Jamie 15:21

I mean, the ideology was pretty superficial all the way through it. It really didn't get into any of the ideology, which is good. They basically just use it as a weak narrative to push his character along. like, to me, it's more like a gang movie as opposed to, like, a white supremacist movie. Like, it was so superficial. You know, he was a victim of circumstance. You don't really know if he embraces the ideology, if he actually buys into it,

Samantha 15:46

I was about to ask that, he has like tattoos and everything like that, but like you were saying, Clint, that was just to show where he was, in the hierarchy?

Clint 15:54

And there was a distinction too, you know what I mean? Like some of the characters had actually like, swastikas and lightning bolts. He had a white pride tattoo on his back, which is different. there's always been a fundamental distinction between white pride and white power, even though as you know, other people looking in, don't see that like white pride, white power, it's all racist, white supremacist type of stuff. But in prison, we've always made a distinction between people who call themselves white pride and people who call themselves white power people who call themselves white pride. It's we, we almost see it as a lack of commitment. And the movie kind of, like, hints at it, but unless you're, in the know of, like, prison politics, you probably wouldn't really catch it. For the longest time, like most skinheads don't like the like they see them as exploitative, like they're pushing drugs on other white people. They're selling drugs to other white people. They're hurting other white people. they're doing everything that is fundamentally against any type of super politically purist white supremacist kind of project, right? Completely at odds with like a, a white supremacist political, It's just certain skinhead organizations that have submitted and and fallen in line with the criminal agenda, It's only really in recent years that they've really done that. there was this whole kind of war a political war in prison between skinheads, Aryan Brotherhood, Nazis, all these different white gangs. And pretty much that's all squashed now, but from like the late 90s to like the mid 2000s, there was a huge internal power struggle within the white groups in prison,

Samantha 17:04

Is, does that happen with other races?

Clint 17:08

What

Samantha 17:08

is this just like how there are all these different factions? Or is it Jamaicans versus Haitians, in prisons or Mexicans versus Ecuadorians or something like that?

Clint 17:15

Yeah, and there's some of that stuff that's going on right now, actually but you know, this is why there's kind of like four main racial groups that have kind of like attempted to establish dominance over their groups to squash to all this because you do. I mean, you have like, you know, you have Mexicans, Latinos, From Southern California, that are from all kinds of different street gangs, like people from 18th street, gang bang on people, you know, they kill each other, but when they come to prison, that all that has to stop. I mean, they all ride under one Southern Mexican banner, And same thing Mexicans from Oakland and Mexicans from San Francisco hate each other. On the streets, but when they get to prison, all that has to stop. You know what I mean? They all have to come together under this Northern Mexican kind of banner. Right. they've been really good about squashing all that, Yeah. And, and, you know, racial ideology is part of it and being in the Mexican games, you get this just like we have our Vikings and our Celtic network. They have their Aztecs, their mind pyramids and their mind calendars and their whole aesthetics, to unite them around a racial ideology, And with blacks too, I mean, they're a little bit more loose you know, in some ways, like they have crips and bloods, and like, If a Crip and a white guy are fighting or something, all the Bloods and Blacks and Muslims and everything are going to back that Crip up. But you still might have them fighting against each other, like the Crips have their own territory in the yard and the Bloods have their own territory in the yard. And they might have their own little Crip and Blood rights every once in a while. But when it becomes a racial issue, the Crips and Bloods will come together, right?

Samantha 18:27

So does that happen that, Crips and Bloods and, and just people will gang up on the white guy in the yard. will, like the Nazis and the Aryans, or the Aryan Brotherhood, or the Skinheads and the Aryan Brotherhood, will they gang up together to get someone else as well, or is it like the United Front is only because these other races understand that they need to get together for this dominance?

Clint 18:46

and so, the little power struggle that was going on for, about a decade, really, it was unspoken, we knew it was going on within our and probably the other racial groups knew it was going on, too, but it was an unspoken. War, we didn't want to let any other race know our business. We didn't want to seem weak. Whenever there was a racial conflict, whether you were a non affiliated white guy or a skinhead or brown or not, or whatever you were, if there was a racial issue, like, yeah, it was a racial issue and all the whites united around that at the same time that we were still having this kind of internal power struggle and this internal war going on, you know? but it was less, it was less defined than Crips and Bloods, or Northern and Southern, or something like that, right?

Samantha 19:20

Yeah. Wow. That's fucking wild. I am so fascinated by this. I just want to talk to you about, prison politics as opposed to this fucking movie, but we're going to have to talk about this movie for a little bit. What,

Clint 19:32

yeah, you know, there was like, that was hinted at, it was almost like the narrative of the movie was really favorable to the more kind of as portraying the skinheads as like, Weaker, unreliable, dope fiends, the penile guy, he was like doing lines of coke as he was driving away. They portrayed him as a dope fiend, as a drug addict, juvenile delinquent, don't really have their kind of shit together, you know, talking all this kind of crazy political ideology when really they're just riffraff. You know what I mean? That's what they see him as, right? And then there was that one scene at the end where he comes in and, When he gets made Aryan Brotherhood and he has that little speech with the Beast, And he's saying, we're real selective about who we let in. And that's true, they don't just let anybody in. there's probably, out of, tens of thousands of white guys in the California prison system, there might only be like, 20 actual, made people within this organization, they're a very small organization.

Samantha 20:15

Do you think overall, if you were to show this to like an Aryan, brother after they leave prison or something like that, do you think they would find value in this movie?

Clint 20:24

They would hate it because this is another thing that it does, too, because the guy becomes an informant. So they would see it as a snitch movie. You know what I mean? They would see it as an informant kind of dropout kind of movie, right? and really too, I mean, there is one thing too, that the movie kind of does, it kind of satisfies agreement. there's a kind of a gripe among especially generational older convicts. We'll have this thing like, imprisoning, used to be snitches run the yard these days. You know what I mean? It's all a bunch of snitches and shit that are calling the shots and shit And that's literally what it portrays. It portrays the guy at the head top being an informant, and still running. And so in some ways the film gratifies, satisfies that kind of, convict grievance that you have is really a generational thing, and of course, you tell that to any kind of convict or anybody who's active in prison that snitches are running the yard, you're going to get fucked. They're not going to take kindly to that type of critique, right? And it's almost a dropout critique that, they have right there. And so, they would not like that aspect of it, right? they would hate this movie because of that. but I think that they would be very impressed by how accurate some of the actual politics are, like some of the scenarios and the way that the politics portrayed, they would be very shocked. Like, who the fuck were they talking to when they made this movie? I want to know, like, who helped them with this movie? Because I've seen a lot of prison movies and most of the times they get it completely wrong. Like, there's so many things I could watch any movie on prison. I'm like, Oh, that's bullshit. That's bullshit. But there were so many times this movie, like, wow, like, how the fuck did they know that?

Samantha 21:36

You and I were casually on Instagram chatting and you had asked about American History X and that there was a slight tie in what is the relationship to American History X?

Clint 21:46

Oh, well that what I was just talking about that disconnect right? Like he didn't that movie and he like he sees what they're doing business with the Mexicans getting drugs selling drugs doing all this stuff You know exploiting and extorting other whites, you know mean and like not really being you know, viable political project for white people hurting other white people hurting their own race, and having a problem with that and standing up to that and speaking out against that. that was a representative of a larger problem that used to be in California prisons really back in the late 80s, early 90s, like, you would hear stories about that skinheads would come to prison and see what was going on there. And they'd be like, fuck this and be completely against it. Yeah. And what happened is they all just got killed. They all just got whacked or ran off or, stabbed or, witnessed in custody and dropped out. They were ran off the yards if they tried to stand up to that, and so that, that aspect they, they portray that as like one individual person taking that stand against them, but that was like very symbolic and representative and metaphorical of a larger thing that was going on in California prisons.

Samantha 22:36

What, other than copaganda, what was the message in the movie? Like, what was the point of it? Don't drink and drive?

Clint 22:42

I think it was very insidious. Actually. I think that there was some very very subtle and insidious Underlying kind of messages there, right? think at the core of it, you know, as far as the propaganda goes I think that it was almost theorizing and strategizing how to take down some of these criminal organizations, right? And I think that the idea was that we need an informant that's really at the top that is loyal to law enforcement, that is morally and ethically superior, and we need to plant them within this organization and get them at the very top so they can dismantle it from the inside. And I think that at the heart of it, the movie was really imagining how to dismantle criminal prison organizations,

Samantha 23:16

almost like a cop fantasy

Clint 23:18

very much. it is a FBI ATF, DEA, fucking Probation and Parole Department, fucking fantasy is what it

Samantha 23:26

your cop session. what happens to the main character? He goes by what money? what happens with his family?

Clint 23:34

They probably it seems like they just move on and forget about him. My dad is just, you know, being completely fucking committed to this life of crime and being a gangster he's basically dead to us. I think that's that's that was my take on in many ways. And that seems to be like, what he wants. Right? and he does that. he manipulates that scenario, that outcome to save them to protect them. Right. Yeah.

Samantha 23:54

Always the white savior man.

Jamie 23:56

classic patriarchal

Clint 23:58

Yeah,

Jamie 23:59

like, I'm going to protect my family and push them away.

Samantha 24:02

would the movie have been more interesting if it were from another character's perspective?

Clint 24:07

I think it would have been much more the, the penile, I forget his name, what his name is, but the guy with the penile tattoo or chopper, even if any one of those would have been the main character and we would have got their background and their backstory, I mean? I think the movie would have been much more interesting, but from a cop again, the perspective, you can't portray those types of people in good lights or make them redeemable in any kind of way. They have to be fundamentally pathologically criminal.

Samantha 24:29

Yeah, just constitutionally incapable of being a good person.

Clint 24:32

Yes.

Samantha 24:33

well, is there anyone in there that you really wish they had a second chance at life and weren't stuck in the prison system?

Clint 24:38

Yeah. I wish I remembered the character's name. It's Shotgun. His name's Shotgun, right? Shocking is the guy that he kills the guy that's being an informant. Right? I think shotgun man. I want to rehabilitate shotgun a little bit and he's a hard character rehabilitate because of the way that he becomes an informant and the way that he's really selfish. But I think that part of that is just the film and the narrative that The film is trying to create, but I think that he is a very redeemable character. You know what I mean? And like, if I was going to go about and try to rehabilitate anybody in the movie or who I want to give a second chance to, it would be someone like him,

Samantha 25:08

What about you, Jamie?

Jamie 25:10

I agree with that. That's good. the other character I liked was the young kid that set up the gun thing, sort of bit of redemption with him at the end. He's kind of like, I don't want to be part of this. Because, you know, he sort of got involved, he's looked at what's happening and he steps back and goes, I don't want to be in the gang. Like, this is not for me.

Clint 25:26

Yeah. I was wondering like, what was he in it for? Is he just trying to make some money? Was he just trying to make some quick money or something? Like, what was his,

Jamie 25:31

Yeah, well, he said the day he served with someone that had been in the gang and he got.

Clint 25:36

Oh, right. he'd be friend is somebody who was

Jamie 25:38

Yeah, and he got attached to it that way and looked at the power dynamics and all that. It's enthralled with the group, but then once he got into the group and realize, you know, took a look around, he was kind of like, well, this isn't for me.

Clint 25:48

Yeah, it almost seemed like he he's this kind of veteran that's aimless after the military. He suffered some family tragedy. Maybe he's had some ruined family relationships due to his role, as an R, he's trying to, recover from this. And he's just you know, this kind of a drifter that's being lured in by, a life of crime or, looking for a new home, looking for a new family post military life

Jamie 26:05

it's a weak character, but at least there is a little bit of redemption at the end.

Clint 26:09

yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Samantha 26:10

This movie sounds extremely heavy.

Clint 26:12

I mean, the movie itself is really the whole narrative is very superficial. The acting is like, it's not like a very, like, profound movie. It's not like an epic, you know, instant classic saga. It's not like, you know, Blood and Blood Out or American Me, where people are going to be talking for years. I I don't even know if this movie was ever even in theaters. I think it's like an Amazon original or something like that, right?

Samantha 26:29

it didn't get a whole lot of traction There wasn't a huge release or anything like

Clint 26:33

yeah, but there's like some super like important, historically accurate little details sprinkled throughout it, which makes it interesting.

Samantha 26:39

Yeah, that's the part that's really interesting that they seem to have picked a very particular time And a very nuanced portrayal of something that doesn't really seem to have too much to do with the movie like it's clearly about this guy's ascent into gay

Clint 26:53

mean, I, I suspect that John Bernthal is behind all of that. You know what I mean? Because he has the podcast, the real ones. I don't know if you ever watched that podcast, but I mean, he has a lot of connections then he has, you know, under X undercover ATF agents, x Hells Angels, all types Well, he has a, he is a very connected kind of person,

Samantha 27:09

is this movie for then? like, who should be watching this?

Clint 27:16

People that are trained to go undercover for law enforcement, ATF agents DEA agents,

Samantha 27:21

please correct me. And I know that, I haven't seen the movie, so I'm being an asshole and just speculating this, but it sounds like it was luck of the draw that they just got this good boy stock broker guy who just got nervous. And it was like, what the law enforcement coordinated his assent into all of this stuff.

Clint 27:37

Oh, no, no, no. I'm just saying that the movie overall is for that. but in some ways like I said, it gratifies a lot convict grievances and reinforces a lot of things that we already know. Right. So in some ways for somebody coming out of prison, who's been immersed in that, it's fun to watch, and it's fun to see. it's entertaining. It's like, oh, wow, they get this. It's cool in some ways I want to like the movie because of how much accuracy there is. I mean, the way that they really get the prison politics accurate. And right for me, I want to like it because of that. And it's fun to watch because of that. But if you take a step back and do a closer reading of all these insidious kind of pro law enforcement, little, See that are planted throughout the movie, right? It's very easy to just watch that movie and not think about it and just be like, oh wow This is cool and fun, you know, I mean, especially for someone who's been in prison like they get it they get it Oh, they it's so accurate. They get it.

Samantha 28:20

what do you think would've been then, like a more realistic or like understandable ending than what they have?

Clint 28:27

Or more realistic ending is that dude you get the when there's the whole fight between the beast and that guy is the beast kills Him, you know, I mean or it's not even gonna be a what it's not even gonna be a one on one fight You know, I they're gonna open his door that one crooked cop that lets them out, like, that stuff is real, the correctional officers, they really do have people working for them. what would really happen, the more realistic scenario is, they would be in their pod together, they wouldn't be out in those cages. the cop in the tower would just accidentally open his door when a couple other guys out in the day room, let him in, and they would just attack him and kill him, and that's how that would really happen,

Samantha 28:53

Yeah, but that would exactly as you're saying, that would have to portray cops in a way that they probably don't want the public to

Clint 28:59

and it would reinforce the narrative that convicts are the ones that are running the prison and not the correctional officers, the ending really does take away power from the convicts,

Samantha 29:08

Yeah. I'm really glad that you came on and that this is happening. Jamie, who do you think should watch this, if not cops? Or do you think it's just cops?

Jamie 29:16

Cops in your classic middle aged white guy,

Clint 29:19

Yeah.

Jamie 29:19

you know, roughly 40 to 55, midlife crisis thinking he's a badass, you know?

Clint 29:26

No, there's definitely that kind of like stoic kind of masculinity that's being promoted Like, there's that taps into this whole masculinity crisis,

Jamie 29:33

Shut down character pushes his family out.

Clint 29:35

40 year old man needs to start lifting some weights and get a tattoo, and reassert his dominant role in the family. That kind of thing, right?

Samantha 29:41

I love it. What yeah, I mean, talk more about the masculinity of all this. does his idea of masculinity change throughout the film? I mean, obviously it does. It sounds like clearly he as a person is completely transformed, but like, does he become more traditional masculine as the film goes on? Or like, what is the role of masculinity in the movie? I guess is what I'm asking.

Jamie 30:00

I'd say he definitely switches to more of like a traditional role, tough guy, role of masculinity, hegemonic controlling, dominating patriarchal. Especially when he takes on the beast's role at the end. Like he is the echelon now of the masculine man in that yard.

Clint 30:14

the alpha, right?

Jamie 30:15

Yeah. He becomes the elf. So, bit of masculinity at the beginning. Like he's your classic white guy, make some decent money, drives a nice car, good family and all that stuff. But then it sort of shifts to more like a hegemonic controlling dominant form at the end.

Samantha 30:29

so what's next for him now that the cameras aren't rolling, what happens to him next? He just stays in prison and just stays a part of this gang.

Jamie 30:37

essentially, yeah. He takes over, until somebody younger comes in and pushes him out, I guess.

Clint 30:44

I think my reading of it, from the cop perspective is that now that he's in that role and he has that power to call the shots and dictate. And he's also sending text messages to his parole officer and showing when the gun's at, My reading of it, if I were to imagine how this kind of goes on, is that he continues to be that informant and take the tank, the gang down from the top, like he's going to, proceed to dismantle the gang from the top down as part of his moral ethic at the code. Right? don't see the masculinity of his character as being particularly toxic. he does become an alpha and there is buying into that, but like that protector thing, wanted to protect the family, protect the children, protect the women. nothing particularly wrong with that, the whole joining the prison gang and getting the tattoos and being muscular, and the super violence. That part. Okay, sure. But it's always from this kind of self defense, as you said, there's always this kind of like self defense element and kind of survival element to it. Like he's not initiating violence just for the sake of violence and, and, asserting his dominance and, exercising his power over people. Right. So, I think that the masculinity is a little bit more complex for me to pin down. it's hard to separate the way in which masculinity is portrayed from the whole kind of gang

Samantha 31:52

Yeah. Because it's so male centered.

Clint 31:55

And you know, that's very much Jon Bernthal. I very much indict Jon Bernthal for the way in which is that portrayed. his podcast is very pro cop and pro law enforcement, but he has an interesting character. He's one of these kind of like Joe Rogan esque you know what I mean? he does the same thing that like Joe Rogan or Lex Freeman does. Well, he'll have different people on from complete different perspectives. Like he'll have Bernie Sanders on one day and Donald Trump on the next day. Like, Oh, let's just hear what they have to say kind of thing. Or like, have to say? that's why I say I don't particularly hate him. But Bernthal, he tries to have, serious conversations about, masculinity But he takes some of this stuff seriously, and so I definitely see a lot of John Bernthal masculinity influence on this character,

Samantha 32:32

interesting interesting layout. It's like it's softballing a couple tough questions.

Clint 32:38

Softball and a couple of test questions. That's a great way to put it right there.

Samantha 32:40

thank you. it seems like the whole point of the movie is that one mistake could change your whole life and really change it. And It's so much more insidious than that. It's not just, Oh, like you go to prison forever. It's like, this man purposely made decisions and did all of this like it wasn't calculated necessarily but he was clearly making moves to benefit the things that he wanted to and I don't know I don't think he sacrificed himself but he certainly made decisions out of a moral

Clint 33:10

Yeah, it was really an appropriation of the anti-hero kind of character, right? Because he was an anti-hero, but he actually wasn't an anti-hero. He was actually a hero the whole time. forced into a kind of an anti-hero role.

Samantha 33:21

I was the good guy the whole time

Clint 33:23

kind of

Samantha 33:24

Is there anything that you guys thought was worth mentioning before we go?

Clint 33:27

You know, I was actually worried that I wasn't going to be able to say everything that I wanted to say about this film. But I think I feel pretty good. I think I

Samantha 33:32

mean, you even got in a really great lesson about different types of politics in the way that all this stuff works. I really appreciate you coming on and talking to us. And Jamie, thank you for coming on and talking to

Jamie 33:43

It was more Clint than me.

Clint 33:44

Yeah. I know.

Jamie 33:44

no, that was perfect.

Samantha 33:47

thank you so much for like educating and just having fucking awesome opinions. I think it's great. But yeah, so thank you for coming. We are Gonna end it there. This was shot caller. I hope you guys enjoyed listening to it. i'm pretty excited about it. thank you guys so much For coming in. i'll talk to you both soon. I'm sure

Jamie 34:04

care.