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#555 - The Love Guru (w/ Russ Finkelstein) (Patreon)

Published:
2024-08-31 20:19:53
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

At long last, we tackle the question: What, exactly, is love? Will welcomes his old j-school colleague Russ Finkelstein to discuss his documentary LOOKING FOR LOVE (2018), which offers a hair-raising glimpse into the wild world of "international marriage agencies" that connect heartsick American men with women from the Global South. PLUS: Russ shares stories from deep inside the dark heart of corporate media.

Watch Looking for Love - https://vimeo.com/248504253

The New Yorker Political Scene Scene Podcast - https://rss.com/podcasts/newyorkerpoliticalscenescene/

Contribute to Russ's next movie Our Home is Not of This World - https://donate.uniondocs.org/campaigns/our-home-is-not-of-this-world/

Files

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Comments

Cameron F

Seeing the title: "Oh boy, a political reading of Michael Myer's famous flop, The Love Guru." 15 minutes: *mild disappointment* Podcast ends: "Okay, that was actually decent."

Mid-Sized SeDan

Really good episode, will try to watch the movie even though I have little stomach for cringe-inducing stuff. Russ' current project sounds fascinating as well, and he was a great guest Impossible Horror next!

Shane

Very unique and interesting episode.

Blank

Fantastic ep. “Tremor of unease” — nicely put, Sloan

emalco

Will seemed to better understand and be more willing to directly address the troubling implications of the documentary than the film’s own director. I found Finkelstein’s description of his project fairly baffling — he first conceived of it as a “lighthearted” project? He was interested in Barry’s “plight”? He’s not willing to judge anyone’s experience of love, even when that “love” is actually the misogynous expression of men’s objectification of and entitlement towards women? Perhaps the film itself contains a more rigorous analysis of sex and gender oppression, but I found his ‘both sides’ approach to the global sex trafficking of women (which, yes, these agencies are an example of) to be very strange. He seems more interested in preserving an empathy and identification with Barry’s display of vulnerability and loneliness (even drawing a parallel to his own preoccupation with “courtship” as a single man at the time). His gestures towards nuance seem merely to be a mystification of who’s trying to buy whom here. Good work, Will, on the interview questions.

Tradili Porkmen

I felt compelled to brush my teeth after watching this....

Ryan

Need you guys to watch afrAId need to hear your thoughts

George Duckson

Russ seems to be trying to overcome his cultural assumptions about marriage, but not really succeeding. He doesn't seem to be able to set aside the Disneyfied assumptions about marriage. Maybe spend some time with people who have arranged marriages or multiple wives.

Sam Schick

Great episode! I applaud anyone in the news media willing to drag their more idiotic colleagues in such a public way. Take real guts and is sorely needed. Also a great value, for a mere $5 I was able to inhabit and see the machinations of an esteemed ivy league j school, fascinating stuff. I appreciated the documentary, it fired so many synapses around the ideas of US global imperialism, neoliberalism, and the crisis of loneliness and alienation. Breathtaking at some points to see a bumbling citizen of the greatest empire in modern history painfully and embarrassingly articulate his longing, oblivious to the power dynamics that have placed him at the top of a gruesome food chain.

David Flynn

A fantastic episode. I look forward to hearing from Russ again. Will, are you planning to do any more solo episodes?

Jeremy Hawkins

I think you're right about the thing that crosses the line from him being sympathetic to being repellent is the idea that he's looking for a shortcut and he's willing to do bad things to get it. The way he describes love makes me think that he wants a dog, not a partner. Basically half the people in my life are latinos who have been in the US for less than five years who don'tspeak english. Across the board, when I ask them if they like the US they say no, they find it alienating and isolated, most of them have moved around the US to avoid the poverty their finding here, and the one thing they've really got in many cases is their partners and this guy wants to take that last bit of familiarity and fill it with another fucking guy who's "trying to learn Spanish" but you can't connect with. And that's the best case scenario, my brother's boss in high school had a mail order wife and she was stuck in a house in the middle of nowhere. Last note, I definitely thought of the sound of freedom throught the episode.

Guy Nelson

One of the most horrific documentaries I’ve watched! Love it.

Ambrose Honeysuckle

Terrific episode, especially the discussion about j-schools and the very upsetting politics that surround them. A note about The New Yorker podcast: It's depressing how Evan Osnos and Jane Mayer succumbed to Trump Derangement Syndrome (their work during the Obama era was quite good, especially Mayer's work on the Koch brothers), but Glasser is among the most shameless propagandists in recent memory – see her 2018 article "John McCain’s Funeral Was the Biggest Resistance Meeting Yet" as evidence.