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Tangent: Eyes Wide Shut (Patreon)

Published:
2026-05-31 17:45:59
Imported:
2026-05
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Hi all,

This is one of those Tangents that‘s essentially 3/4 of a video essay. I was strongly tempted to expand the scope well beyond what I could actually deliver in Tangent form, and as a result it’s a bit disorganized and incomplete—trains of thought get abandoned, asides don’t lead anywhere—but it also might be the best Tangent so far? I don’t know, I stayed up all night editing, I can’t think straight.

This may end up being a rough draft of a future main channel video, which I’m envisioning as a weird hybrid of “the Twilight video but for men” and “Conspiracy Part 2.” I’m not 100% committed to the idea yet, and I'm considering a couple other possibilities. Probably a main channel EWS video will happen only if the conspiracists irritate me into it. And then I’ll have to get un-irritated enough to communicate with the public again.

In the meantime, here’s the early access version. Let me know what you think!

Thanks as always for your support,

Natalie

Files

Tangent: Eyes Wide Shut

Thanks so much for your support! ▬ Contents▬ Part 0: The Mystery 0:00 Part 1: The Movie 1:35 Part 2: The Objectively Correct Interpretation 12:14 Part 3: People Can't Be Normal About Stanley Kubrick 36:31

Comments

Tomme

Literally postponing an orgy tonight to watch this, “sorry guys!! 😝”

Mac

Yaaas fidelio!!

Riley Kate

Love the hair !! can’t wait to watch this one <3

Jenna

3/4 of a video essay? In this economy!? 😍

Leonardo Correa

omg i am so excited i literally subscribed to your patreon just for this video thank you imma cry

Kajan - Art Co-op

I never clicked so fast on a notification in my life

Robin Armstrong

Oh golly, another EWS video for me to watch only this time from one of my favourite YTers. Goodbye evening...

Isak

YAYYYY all the angst about the eyes wide shut tangent in Conspiracy disappeared

Theo Stratford

Reading Dream Story honestly makes the conspiracy theorists funnier because everything they think is the unmitigated genius of Kubrick that ultimately got him silenced by the deep state is like…literally in this century-old book set in Austria written by some guy

He_football

There's a bald guy in a trench coat following me every time I leave the house. Anyone have any tips on dealing with him?

Megalomaniac64

The best tangent so far? Better than liminal spaces or psychedelics or the male gaze? Dont lie to meeeee

Jessica Cheeri

That does sound like a good idea for a main channel video Love the new hairstyle too

Kajan - Art Co-op

Every time I hear “Tangent!” my brain releases dopamine and I cannot help it nor explain it.

The Doom Merchant

Just in time to blast it on the TV while I continue the ongoing project of deep-cleaning and reorganizing my apartment.

Tito Mercado

I know what we're doing at the secret meeting tonight, girlies!!!

Kiemrys

Finally!! Watched the film so many times lol it’s such a fun ride

J A G-S

WE DID IT!

SophieT

Yayness! Congrats on reaching a point you are happy to let us see!

Human Being

STOKED! Just broke up with my gf, feeling the need for mother soothing me, she be appearing at the most unexpected times of need

Bored Lacanian

Right in the middle of my Spinoza thesis 100-page-a-day speedrun! The ultimate tangent, if you will. Will save as reward object for later 😌🤍

Fot

More like, eyes wide open 👀

Jair

please conspiracists do your thing and be irritating. We need twilight for men

demlet

Hey it's that vaguely frightening AMC movie lady... Coincidence?

Cassandra Snyder

Ugh, your hair is so beautiful. 💚 Thanks for the tangent.

Catharine

omg I love your hair

Willow Yaar

putting my mask and sexy robe on and then taking my sexy robe off for this video

Donald Trump has narcissistic personality disorder

You asked about computer backups When using the cloud consider using 2 factor authentication. Google authenticator is more secure than text messages.. use a seperate device to receive the codes only for this purpose on a seperate network, maybe a 2nd cell phone. Could backup the video to a dvd -r disc.  Ransomware wont be able to overwrite the data Window computers have error checking and disc defragmentor  for the hard drive. To help prevent ransomware , When browsing websites i either turn off javascript or use the noscript plugin which disables javascript for websites you may not trust. Best way i know of to prevent ransomware is use the tails operating system booted from.a dvd with no hard drive. Tails uses the anonymous tor network for more privacy.  Good luck with everything.

Vessa A.

ja! Get me some schnitzel & cocaine & Sachertorte bc daddy is home and he’s getting cucked!

The Bilderberg Group

I voted against this for some other movie, but I thoroughly enjoyed this

Gothic Crow

More difuse lighting coming from behind the camera. Or, another visible light source closer and to one side and then use your behind-the-camera lighting heavy on that same side.

Imogen

I'm so distracted by your amazing hair that I think I need to watch this several more times.

Eric Williams

This is one of those rare movies where the flaws somehow accentuate it. The corny dialogue, especially the 30-year-old high school kids calling Tom Cruise “Mary.” Tom Cruise‘s terrible acting. And Nicole Kidman’s laugh when she’s high, which I would rank up there with Al Pacino snorting a popper and dancing maniacally in “Cruising”for pure, supernatural levels of cringe. The kind of cringe you put on a loop and watch in horror and delight, mouth ajar. They all give the movie an uncanny quality, which is something I think Kubrick liked. In The Shining, he apparently told Jack Nicholson to give a completely over the top performance as an exercise before the “real take,” but ended up using the almost comically exaggerated one in the final film. It gives things an artificial quality that makes the viewer believe there’s something else beneath the surface. I’m old enough to remember seeing this in the theater, and the cultural disappointment over everyone thinking the movie was going to be a series of hot sex scenes between Cruise and Kidman, not some artsy boner killer.

freff

👀💍

Jozzan

On another note your hair looks great

Aderyn Albarelli

Is Kubrick having a dream about Bill having a dream? Are Kubrick's movies unique in kicking off conspiracist thinking? I don't see it as much elsewhere, then again, I haven't searched for it 🤔 (wait, there was a whole section of the video about that, my bad) You mentioned dreams being about satiating wants like the strawberries, does this mean there's a distinction between dreams and nightmares, in childhood, here? Thanks for the tangent, and sleep well

governmentfunding

Is it possible that Espeon features in this video as a signal? Its *hidden*(!!) ability is Magic Bounce - ie, deflection. Clearly Natalie's trying to say that the movie is in fact a documentary and not psychological. But if the movie's not psychological, why feature a Psychic-type Pokémon?? Because Espeon's Pokédex entry states that its so-called psychic, that is, psychological powers, are not so, but simply extremely attuned senses - which Natalie brings attention to by, in several scenes, obscuring all but Espeon's *ears* (...)

Crescent Minor

Christ, Natalie, I don't know if I can tell you all it means to me that you talk about your project possibilities moving around and not being sure about the best way to explain your ideas. Sounds like an obvious thing, yet some part of me keeps forgetting until you remind me: your creative process is human work and does not form with the ease of divine scripture.

Richard Jackson

You're probably right that it's the best Tangent so far, at least in the sense that it feels the most like a complete video in itself. If it gets expanded into a main channel vid please keep up the density of references to Blue Velvet; it's a good bit.

Maggie

What a treat

Mad Scientist

1:09 is the moment I realized that this vide is pure editing genius! <3 My favorite tangent still remains the Liminal Spaces, but, I agree that this one is the best tangent so far :)

Axxa Axax

It would've gotten you cancelled on X again but I feel like a segment about The Scary of Sixty-First as a sort of jungian conspiracy shit post internet-age equivalent of EWS would've been interesting and funny

Jojogape

Tangents feel good in a place like this

Soffy

Wow the bit on pornë gráphein is super fascinating, did you guys know about this?

Maya

Hair is resplendent, we have been fed 😌 i learned: the phrase perverted, jewish shadow; ews is the perfect easter date night movie; ews is better than I remembered; men are gross, though I dearly love some of them, and we have some misandry to work through; slopulist. ty ❤️ also your frequent references to lynch movies warm my heart as do your spongebob ones!

Matt Killmon

I’m imagining some Axe-styled packaging, like “Twilight™ for Men”.

Temerity Lore

Not long ago I watched a few conspiracies about this movie...and now there's a tangent! Interesting timing. I can't believe I'm posting this on a public platform but I definitely had an afternoon cat nap dream about unboxing a really nice jack rabbit. *embarrassed blushy face* It had a whole charging stand and everything lol. I vaguely remember looking at this squishy bunny face on the shaft and putting it on the charger then I woke up...judge accordingly! Thanks for the perspective Natalie and might everyone experience a wonderful life all things considered!

Cassidy Brinn

I see the wish fulfillment angle, but think a Jungian take can include that and be, as you say, more expansive. Why this wish? Why is cuckoldry hot? I think the Jungian answer is always to locate the other dream characters within the dreamer's own psyche. Maybe a cuckold (as opposed to a hot wife guy) is in part getting off on identifying with the powerful woman. The Jungian read of EWS I guess is that the archetypes of the slutty mother-wife or sexy child are also repressed aspects of the upstanding doctor ego. All to say, awesome video, and if you make it main channel, more Jung please! More insights like that about LGBT liberationist's puritanical shadow! So good. Also your hair looks amazing

Grigorios

Immediately upon starting the video I noticed the way the lighting was framing your face, and I thought nothing of it until you brought up the eyes wide shut lighting. So rest assured if someone like me, who treats long-form videos like podcasts, noticedthe lighting instantly, it was immaculately executed.

Marzlz

Euphoria Sunday and Natalie Sunday at the same time I’m getting spoiled

clockworkmikan

Great video. I agree it may be your best Tangent to date. One idea you seem to flirt with but not fully delve into is that a lot of (perhaps all?) eroticism for men is derived from getting off to their own perceived masculinity. As you touch on, this is often homosocial either directly (cuckolding, hotwifing) or indirectly. And I think it's precisely this element that many women find off-putting since it means that the women themselves really play no role in the eroticism of their male partners. Admittedly I'm a AMAB gay man, so I may well be projectin, but I'd be pretty surprised if I was in the minority of this particular perversion

Ibraheem

That’s very un-decadent of you

Hunter Hylton

Great analysis, great tangent. I do believe that the film does have some to say about power and social hierarchy that went unaddressed, but any meaningful commentary on this in the public sphere is going to be overshadowed by the Jones-Roganist takes.

MJayBee

Completely agree with your last point! I also remember the movie being marketed as this hot sex movie with real life spouses - you know back when the public liked that thing in their movies lol. I really disliking it at the time (that piano plodding soundtrack), but it has grown on me over the years

MJayBee

Really loved this tangent video! You could totally spend 3 hours picking this movie and everything swirling around it apart lmao

Cleo Mace

on the cuckoldry thread - would love to know if you've read Daryl by Jackie Ess? An amaaaaaaazing book about a cuck, very funny, bizarre, insightful etc etc

Emily

Hate to be that person, but isn't it pretty mainstream to think The Shining is concerned with Native American genocide? The baking powder is the least of the indications. Not saying it's the whole point of the movie but it's pretty convincingly in there.

anon

Excited to watch!

James

Watching this makes me realise how Dennis Reynolds has so much Bill in him. Would sort of love to see Glenn Howerton in a remake of EWS.

Justine Alexandra

I dunno, I'm almost 50 and my dreams are at times still quite literal. I've been considering a new car and want something capable off-road to some degree. I dreamt of a test drive in a water park, complete with ramps (think Hot Wheel tracks from the 80s). Perhaps Carl would suggest I should also purchase pontoons :P btw, as a film buff I have really been digging the film analysis videos ;) Thank you Natalie!

Anthony D’Andrea

Great tangent. I hope you do end up making a main channel video that discusses the ideas in this tangent. I feel like you’re at your best when giving your insight on theories about the psychology of human sexuality and the interpersonal dynamics of sexuality across genders.

anon

Idk why but the video isn’t embedding correctly for me and I can’t view it

Austin F

i'm definitely biased because i have tons of trauma with straight men's fear of gays (as most gay men do), but hearing that this movie is basically about straight men's sexual fears made me think one thought: "wow, i would really hate this movie" 💀

Viktor KH

The release of a tangent mere hours before my top surgery is making me feel very hopeful about at least 42.5 minutes of my reconvalescence. I have no choice but to make it out alive

Kodak

Re: hotwifing. I think another part of the appeal of hotwifing is about control. Knowing some of these people, it seems to me that one of the things stags like is the knowledge that he can control the sexuality of both his wife and other men. They seem to get off on knowing that they ultimately have control over who their wife fucks and the circumstances under which other men are allowed to desire her. In one particular couple I was close with, before their divorce, she eventually requested poly because she was feeling uncomfortable with the disconnected nature of hotwife, gang bangs, and swinging. Being the stag organizing the parties was a big part of his identity to the point that he actively bragged about it. So, when she said she wanted the opportunity to sleep with other men without her husband being present and to pursue emotional connections, he lost it. It made him really angry and he got increasingly very controlling over her, who she was with and what they were doing. When they finally separated for good, he spread nasty rumors about her to all their friends about how she'd been cheating (she wasn't) and what a bitch she'd been. He was pissed because he lost control over her and that's what he'd liked about their hotwife relationship: he got nearly complete control over her sexuality and he got to control the circumstances surrounding when and how other men could be attracted to her. I don't know many out cuckolds, so I can't comment on them much but I suspect that the humiliation aspect for them is also accompanied by some amount of control given the way those men talk about themselves and their sexuality. Ultimately, you're very correct about that fantasy having close to nothing to do with women's actual sexuality.

Ilana Galpert

diegetic lighting in movies is often cheated. for example, a scene in a car where the light source is the dashboard. There is actually an led light on the dash. sometimes what is in the shot as the light source *is* the main light source, but not usually.

Brian Cady

I take Kubrick’s main theme in his films to be, “Goys think they understand everything and they don’t even understand themselves.” That probably explains the alteration of the main character into not being Jewish. As for developing this essay further, I’d like to see more about male sexuality and whether any sexuality can be a choice and what that would mean to the right of anyone to express revulsion about sexuality.

Vitaly Taratut

I think looking at this movie as a psychological psychodrama about repressed sexuality is perfectly correct and legitimate. But I don't think that precludes Kubrick from also using said story and psychological sexual analysis to expose what certain privileged, rich, elite people do with their frustrating void like empty-hearted sexual desires. If the billionaires have the kind of psychosexual gap in their real lives irregardless of their opulence, how do they fill that void, which status and $ hasn't fulfilled? The analysis of this psycho void is accurate. It's true that it exists in both the impoverished layman and the opulent masqueraded billionaire. That analysis which you covered in this video is real. But certain people can do horrific things to fill that void, because of their privilege, and resources. This movie asks how to fill the gaping psycho sexual wound you are describing. For most people this is impossible. There is no answer like you said. But some people have the resources to keep trying to fill that void. Whether they're successful or not is another question. But their attempts do have victims. I think a question left unanswered by your take, is why does the Epstein-Class do what it does. I'm not above thinking that Kubrick could be using this to expose, the elites attempt to fill the void that you are describing and the victims they make along the way. That is of course in addition with the other aspects of the movie that you covered

Cedar

꩜꩜꩜ you want to make a Hannibal tangent you want to make a Hannibal tangent sooooo bad ꩜꩜꩜

Charlotte

My Luthier girlfriend is curious if if you play that Lute in the background or if it's a prop? :)

legpear

pls make a main channel version i need to know how we bring male sexuality into harmony with the dao

Ty

Interesting is the observation that persona can 'take over'; suggesting that *behavior* is what is, per one's triangulated persona, apropos. The reference to memetic desire was insanely poggy. Continue taking formalistic risks

Flemming Funch

Brilliant! I love the movie. Thank you for making it more clear what it is about.

Kris

Love your analysis of the movie and the psychology! A full deep dive into male sexuality as a main channel project would be awesome.

gorji

I too came here to tell diva her hair looks so good. Now I'm about to actually start this video

SOUPCHAMP

I used to work at a call center and occasionally I would just get in casual conversations with the people. One time I was talking to a guy about movies, and he brought up Eyes Wide Shut. I said I had just watched it and I liked it but didn't love it. He says he felt the same until he watched it while going through a divorce and now it's one of his favorite movies. I hope he is doing well.

Mimi

Ugh, I put a comment on youtube instead of here 🤷🏼

abhor

Mamá te amo

Damon Harris

For the most part, I believe that I am a man. I am still trying to fully unpack the revelations that were dropped on me in the Twilight video two years after its release. I don't know if I could survive "the Twilight video but for men" but I will support it anyway.

Sam D.

Second the comment about how stunning Nat's hair looked- and it was looking great in part because of the lighting! Terrific color.

Sam D.

Lovely treat for us patreons! Peak Natalie - this is one of your best tangents. You are always amazing when you delve into complicated psycho-sexuality, almost no one is better and I say that as a therapist (it's actually been really helpful). The choice of movie was a great place to spiral out from. Loved the lighting, your hair, the cozy room (which I thought was missing a skull, but that's just me). What a treat, thank you!

Jessicka Anne

I really appreciated how you pulled out the examples from Kubrick’s other films - I’d never really looked it at that way. And yes to more Blue Velvet references 👏

Adam Finch

"Is it a pyschological thriller or a conspiracy documentary?" Neither. It's a satirical comedy.

Stradiwhovius

Did anyone else check a dash of shade toward another creator who felt the need to give someone who yell slurs for attention and are influencing kids to bash their faces with hammers the whole "oh they're just a symptom!" treatment? I detected that! I did.

Jarrett Poore

I left my husband and a handsome Hungarian on the dance floor to watch this video.

Jarrett Poore

(And I did pause and say “humiliation!” in your lesson and my partner scowled at me.)

Suzy

huuumiliiiasshunnnuh (underlines thrice)

Anthony Behnke

The funniest moment in "Room 237" is when one of the crackpots analyzes the scene of Jack Nicholson meeting with the hotel manager in his office and interprets a paper tray coincidentally situated next to the manager's crotch as a hard-on. "It's a joke....a very serious joke, but a joke." What are your thoughts, Espeon?

Kelly Chartier

Thank you for introducing me to the concept of pornagraphy. Talking about the frustrations of women understanding male sexuality and being horrified by it, or vice versa: It makes absolute sense that there would be a visual component to sexuality. Why wouldn’t there be recordings of people having sex in unusually close detail, or nightclubs, or sex clubs, or a vast array of sexual costumes in sex shops? This is what we do, and we have eyes to see it and enjoy it. Yet there is such dismay with a lot of women… I think it might have to do with how we orgasm. Though there are many ways to orgasm, women have the benefit of having deep internal orgasms through cervical stimulation. How else can a deep, rumbling kind of pleasure be given? Romance novels give extra depth within the sexual themes. Hyper-real visuals ruin the internal image. Tangent upon a tangent.

Andrew May

Former teacher with 15 years of chalkboard writing and drawing experience formally requesting more chalkboard humor. Thank you for your consideration.

Marco

Amazing video as always!

Andrew May

I feel like at this point if you’re going to make this into a full main channel and fold in Twilight for Men™️ and CONSPIRACY lines of thinking, you’ll just be making a review video of those pornē-graphein videos so popular with your generation.

Jake Vaughn

This was so fun. I also appreciated your pushback on Clavicular being uniquely late stage capitalism. I actually am not convinced he’s popular with anyone who isn’t writing articles or making YouTube videos about Clavicular. Like do people actually like him? Or is he a lolcow? Mogging or mooing? Sorry.

Brunoat

I have never seen Eyes Wide Such, for those that have: is this tangent something I can watch without ruining either the tangent or film experiences? Or will watching the tangent before the film greatly diminish my ability to enjoy it?

Di Saurynn

Mother, you missed some nips at 21:45

Deconstruction Interactive

I love this tangentessay! I think your very final point about metaphors is very important. Especially as metaphors can be a very powerful vehicle for conspiratorial thinking in their own right, it's particularly ironic that a lot of conspiracy theories today involve a sort of inversion of metaphor into presumed reality. Maybe that's a result of the media landscape we live in, where something has to be real to be noteworthy. Its own kind of vouyerism...

Ben Bouffard

Came to this Patreon specifically for this video. Eyes Wide Shut scared the piss outta me when I first watched it in high school and it continues to enrapture me to this day. You've scratched the itch left by Nerdwriter's essay on the film.

Sondra R

She does a full synopsis of the movie so if you’re not bothered by spoilers or having movies pre-interpreted, you can definitely watch the tangent before the movie

J

As a man, I feel as though it’s my responsibility to breeze right past the intellectual rigor, adroit observations and deft research skills displayed in the video to discuss your appearance—I love this haircut.

unemployed_waif

I always thought of this movie as being about feminine sexuality instead of about male sexual neurosis. that feels oddly insightful that maybe some male sexual neurosis are grounded in a level of reality about female sexuality?

Cassidy Brinn

I think there can be metaphorical aspects even to literal dreams, reflecting psychological reasons why you want the car, or the off-road experience, and the dream can help you tap into the unmet needs you expect the car to fill

Cassidy Brinn

That's a good point! I would add that Schnitzler also explores the intersection of sexuality and class, in particular how rich men sexually exploit young, less-rich women throughout his work, so it's definitely there in the source text too

Pippa Russell

I feel like increasingly my barometer for if someone has stepped over into the side of being unwell / too deep into a conspiracy is the “nothing is put into [insert media here] by accident.” You see it with booktube, tv show endings, decoding the words of random public figures, ascribing malice to random PR statements from musicians. And on the one hand, sure, nothing is “by accident,” someone somewhere has usually chosen the thing that is being fixated on, it’s just there is almost never the guiding hand of purpose and clarity behind it people assume.

Pippa Russell

Not a perfect book imo, but Jason Pargin’s “I’m Beginning to Worry about this Black Box of Doom” does a pretty great satire of a conspiracy forming in real time cutting between the characters making decisions for their own psychologically driven and sometimes illogical reasons and masses of overinvested internet users piecing together intent from the outside and being outlandishly wrong.

william kirkpatrick

I guess I should watch this again. I am in a quagmire here. Natalie's early work definitely have a definite sense of purpose and I cannot see the purpose in this even though the explanation of the word porn. Its enough that she has the platform to explain that. Porno: Italian for Whore, but also there are Greek derivatives. I wish I had more to say about that, but, yeah, porn provides the means or the guts lacking in people who lack the means or the guts to fuck the person or persons they truly want to fuck. I still just want to hear about positive satanism but I guess Natalie has helped reveal to me something about my self....and Ahri Clevinger........well.....Ahri Clevinger is proof there is some other girl out there like Ahri Clevinger and I will never be alone. Also Tom Cruise is a fascist so how come that was not treated on?

Murguly Mátyás

Hungarian is mentioned so much in this it literally confuse me (more than once). Anyway, the cuckoldry aspect is really interesting and it is truly worth for looking into it. Its like making a dissonance between Father, the Archetype and being an actual, functioning dad.

Arben

24:55-25:40 🤣🤣🤣 holy crap I was laughing so hard I went silent and my eyes watered!

Rose Dombegh

The cuckold/hotwifing discussion reminds me of Ethan & Harper in the second season of The White Lotus. It's a similar dynamic where he's lost interest in her but the thought that she may have hooked up with another man (so ... he's been cuckolded) kind of lets him see her in a sexual way again.

Hannah

You say you can’t pull off the lighting but I think the lighting in this tangent looks particularly great.

william kirkpatrick

I am totally blown away. Of course Ahri Clevinger is reading this because she loves all my Contrapoints comments even though our initial interaction was hostile because she announced that I should "log off." Now that seems so fucking funny because she is the only person in the world who makes me think I can impress a pretty young woman. But yeah Natalie is amazing. On the other hand, why didn't she reach out to Hasan Piker a long time ago? Hasan Piker and Natalie Wynn are very similar. They both make really hard hitting points and want to make the world a better place. Its freaking sad. I don't know why those two are not friends......even though there may have been a period of time where Hasan is right and Natalie is wrong, it really seems as if Hasan Piker and Nataile Wynn had a conversation Hasan Piker would not "kill" Natalie Wynn, but support her and there would be mutual benificence.......shit ......sorry I could not figure out how to spell benifisence but it sounds like something in the english translation of the koran. Shit. well. Life sucks. Natalie Rocks. The subject matter is doubtful. I mean, who cares? Who cares if Kubrick is reporting on the reality of a huge conspiracy that murders sexy women? But Natalie still triumphs. She seems to be the living incarnation of David Lynch and John Waters too. She could probably walk to John Waters' house and say "hey I'm Natalie Wynn, the genius, just like you!" but she won't

urf

i am so excited to get to watch this video

Lara

Hell yeah. Getting ready to watch now. Happy Pride Natalie and everyone!

william kirkpatrick

haha dying for ANY comment. I happen to want to kill myself right now, but I would love to hear from someone who does also worship Natalie and my statements about Piker and Waters......well I worship them too. God bless ANYONE who tries to thwart the right wing takeover of the entire world!

Filippo Testa

This is totally a thing in real life as well. Guy breaks it off with a girl because he is bored and the moment he hears she slept with someone else they get back together. It really shows that desire depends on the context surrounding the two people. I guess this is also where concepts like the "sexual market value" of a person come from. Which is really terrible from a guy's prospective, because I have seen many friends second guess their relationships with a girl that was perfect for them just because they were afraid of how other people would judge her.

Austin F

i definitely agree that literal dreams can have a metaphorical aspect. simplistic example from my own life: one time i was in withdrawal from my medication because of an insurance issue; the meds were at the pharmacy, but i couldn't get them. that night, i had a stress dream about trying to physically get my meds but being blocked by a constantly-moving chasm of lava. i feel like it's pretty obvious what emotion was being represented in the dream, isn't it? i think jung and freud do overstate the case a little, though. there are plenty of dreams that i don't think mean much at all. but there are definitely some that do represent parts of our emotions.

Lasha Bezhashvili

Good thing getting irritated with conspiracy theorists has never been easier

Wissa

I’ve been thinking about why conspiracy theorism is irritating. For me, even though I enjoy the occasional schizopost, I’ve never been seriously attracted to conspiracy theories. The thing that bothers me about it is what I perceive as an attempt to constantly “one-up” reality. It’s a cope disguised as a rebellion. “They can’t fool me this time!!” Everything is viewed through skepticism and mistrust to the nth degree, nothing can be enjoyed or allowed to move or affect you. All art becomes a mix of either manipulative propaganda or hidden cry for help. The whole is reduced to parts to be decoded, not even symbolic parts but literal bits of data. And by design, you never get to the bottom of it. The conspiracist makes himself so fool-proof he can’t appreciate illusion as beauty or vice versa, he is always being tricked, and he always has to dislocate from that. Very thought provoking tangent.

misslcd

I would watch endless movie recaps like Part 1, especially love when Natalie says the exact line then rolls the film clip, even better when interspliced with Spongebob and Lynch clips! I am also frustrated at the Easter-egg hunting videogame-ification of films and tv shows. Enjoy the beauty of the thing for it's beauty, and stop trying to solve the mystery!

Ricky G.

Natalie, this may be one of the funniest tangents you’ve made. I also love the “dropping” of certain ideas you cook with as it’s on theme with the dream logic of the subject matter. I highly approve of expanding this into a main channel video. But perhaps I’m a little partial because EWS is my favorite Kubrick movie :x Love the work you do as always. Much love and Happy Pride Month! 🏳️‍🌈

Kemplify

Just watched this movie for the 1st time in anticipation of the tangent: 1) Nicole Kidman has never looked better, 2) I'd commit crimes, though not the ones in the movie, to have her and Tom's apartment, and 3) I did a double-take and yelled "Allison from Hocus Pocus?!!?" at the screen.

Tineke van Ravenswaaij

I am also very annoyed by conspiricy believers, because I think that their own ego is more important than what is true. You see this with christian people who voted for Trump. Although there are a lot of video’s where Trump talkes about his daughter in an obvious predatory way, the christians need Trump to stand up against abortion. And so they actively do not see what is in the open, but actively do see that what is hidden. There in the conspiracy, they can be a hero, point out evil and lead the way. But in real life they fall short. I think we can be very mad about the people in the Epstein files and also be very mad at people being fking stupid because their ego is too big. This is also why they do not question if children want to be born or tackle the problem ‘what to do with all people who are already born, but still suffer’. Because it is too much reality. And reality is asking for a lot more than conspiracy. Conspiracy is safe place to pretend you really care. Reality needs actions and choices that are hard, and you will not end up being a hero.

Ursula, The Hierothot

Saw this movie for the first time when I was like 13 and it freaked my shit out and I haven’t seen it since.

Ursula, The Hierothot

Also—re: dreams & the subconscious. I’m working on a series of short stories set during the Bronze Age collapse. I’m also re-watching True Blood. I’ve been trying to guide my dreams towards a Bronze Age collapse setting to get into the setting a little more firsthand by reading about day to day life during the Bronze Age collapse before bed. Last night it synthesized the two activities into “the sea people were vampires, actually”

Taikolovesyou

i really love how Espeon featured as she does on gaming streams :)

For Autumn

so many naked women and they all look the exact same, your 'depravity' bores me, kubrick

The Mad Jay Woman

Tell me more about this Por-no-graffy… intriguing, first I’m hearing about it… Dragged my university friends to Eyes Wide Shut opening night because I was a Serious Cineaste(TM) and the moral panic over the supposed salacious sex was so over the top. Wound up dozing off in the last part of the film. Honestly couldn’t tell if I really missed anything at the time. Kubrick always gives one a lot to chew on but you really have to be on this film’s frequency to get something out of it.

Lise

I'm so here for your Mr Plinkett era, please never stop talking about movies

Jayemdee

I had to completely abandon my plans yesterday afternoon so that I could watch eyes wide shut for the first time and then watch this tangent. I can honestly say the best part of the movie was the last 45 minutes when I immediately played this tangent after the actual movie ended.

shai

loved it <3 looking forward to the potential main channel video on this!

Bob the Fish Productions

I like this new trend of videos about deep and broad topics named after movies and pop culture franchises to lure the normies

Linnea

PLEASE do "the Twilight video but for men". I thought your Twilight video was absolutely incredible and would love to hear more of your takes on sex and desire!

Aderyn Albarelli

The real life officials being in the hall and The pizza party in the car had me cackling The ending reminded me of a DarkMatter video that mentioned something similar to what you expressed but, it was about early scientists having to navigate monarchs and a highly religious public. I don't remember which video it was though. (And I don't know if the parallel helps any)

Jade S

So glad we finally know where espeon stands re the Epstein files

Ivelinata

smokes a joint: "mmmm, sex" lmfao

Gal Peleg

The cult in the movie appears to have some kind of reverence to a ritual, whilst Epstin was just a crass lowlife who just wanted to feel powerful over the most vulnerable people imaginable - children.

Max Hermann

Fingers crossed that there will be some good old Slavoj Z. references up in that bad boy.

Sophie Hallen

This is great! Hope it becomes a main video.

Sophie Hallen

No! They are clearly NOT in ANY kind of vicinity of truth. These guys are as delusional as the guys in Folding Ideas "This is financial advice". Let me say why they annoy me, maybe it gives you some small little thought that leads to something for you: 1) It is dumb, which is annoying in itself, if it was only dumb it would be okay, but that there are so many people willing to listen to it, is infuriation. Because yes 2) that so many people are willing to listen to it, can make one really worried about any positive change in the world (sidenote: getting your view on things always helps me there "Ah, there are smart people out there, using their influence for good" 3) They make themselves greater in their head while being actively harmful.

Ingeborg Olderø

Our teacher showed us Eyes wide shut in high school to analyze. It was a strange strange day

Ben Rowley

I can’t watch it because it’s asking me to sign in to YouTube, does anyone know what’s up?

Lelelula

I think the "conspiracist interpretation is irritating" because they clearly connect emotionally with the material and the sexual anxiety in it. So, instead of enjoying the movie, or feeling anxious about it, they project those anxieties into an imaginary super pervert (you have made this argument better). I think the scene with the father offering his precocious child reveals a special type of conflict men feel. They want to protect their daughters but they are complicit in friendships that encourage this voyeurism that their daughters will experience. So instead of dealing with this classic anxiety, they just want lo launch an investigation. It's frustrating because there's something exhilarating about unabashedly showing the parts of sexuality that scare you. So turning this movie into a boring investigation with no fear and no sincerity is sad.

Ygrec32

I loved the aside on porno-graphy. What a novel concept. Mind blown.

Lelelula

I am queer and the way in which I desire women scares me sometimes, so there is something exciting about seeing an "ugly" portrayal of desire. With its fears and anxieties. The conspiracy interpretation feels cowardly, and refuses self examination.

Max Hermann

Damn, I was just about to ask, if we can have some Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive interpretations at some point and then Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern show up.

fredosauce

Re: lighting, put a transparent container of water (or piss or wtvr) in front of your light source, it often looks very pretty though it can be unpredictable

Dee Harlow

I didn’t even know how badly I needed a deep dive into this movie but to be honest I could listen and watch you talk about literally anything. 👏👏👏👏

George Mitton

I watched the movie so I could watch this right after. Thank you, I had a really good time

Will Ashley

Twilight is easily my favorite video in her body of work so I say yes. More psychoanalysis pls.

Chas Becht

"In fact, I'm prepared to wager that there is an abundance of cuckoldry in the imperial periphery." That seems like it's probably a new sentence. I'm 70% sure.

Kate

I loved every minute of it and appreciate the timely epstein lens. I would like to enjoy even more conspiratorial takes bc we are grasping for ways to process things.

George Washington

Amazing analysis, I really enjoyed, I wish it was a main channel video though....hopefully you talk about this movie more in the future. I love it :D

Quinn

Haircut is perfect

S C

I like writing film analysis but now I am thinking if I would ever reach a conspiracy level obsession with specific details to develop a movie's themes, going completely astray from the movie's themes. Kind of like that Dan Olsen's video on people who believe they do "due dilligence" while maltinterpreting extracts of outdated financial regulations. New concern unlocked.

urf

Might be your best honestly

Olson Cannon

the porno-graphy bit was everything. it went on for the perfect amount of time

Ivywrath

A main channel video on Cuckholdry as a trojan horse essay? God tier. Also the gag about Cuck vs. Hotwifing was THE gag that got my straight roommates to laugh and pay attention long enough to observe "Oh isn't she that lady you always watch?" Q_Q The bonobos only demonstrate abstract thinking when cuckholdry is brought up. It's way too prevalent.

Irina Mirinda

This is actually a good point and probably allows the viewer some distance from the events, like a small reminder that “this is a movie and we’re having fun” just tiny enough to not break immersion, but remind the viewer no one is being hurt or tortured here. I have a theory that porn acting has to be bad, because otherwise the rapey elememts of most of those movies would actually trigger empathy and worry, maybe even self reflection, on the person viewing. A good actress in a pawn shop “you can pay another way” scene would ruin it for everybody

RamblesAboutStuff

Wasn't able to watch this until now but OMG, my life has been leading to this moment... Contrapoints on Eyes Wide Shut (my favorite movie — yes), and Natalie has a really cool new hair color? Yes, please.

Rhiannon

This was so brilliant

frogsmore

Wonderful. I watched EWS when it was released and it has stuck with me ever since, as maybe my favourite Kubric film. Trust Natalie to give me such refreshing and interesting takes, all wrapped up in insightful social commentary. Muah!

For Autumn

I have a PhD in literature and the clown shoes to match, so I've been having thoughts re: consiprational interpretations of art and whether it stems from a failure of public education. You laid out the case beautifully, and I kept thinking about how this Easter Egg Hunt for Secret Clues Left by the Author-God is basically how literature, especially poetry, is taught at a high school level. We're told that art is just a riddle to be solved. Apply it to film, and you have your basic Kubrick-head. It may also be related to why popular media celebrates mediocre writers whose prose is easy to digest, but who are good at slight-of-hand plot-twists (looking at you, JKR). It's a damn shame, because any art slightly more complex than Harry Potter will lose its essence, soul and nuance when analysed like this.

Rae

Thank you mother 🙏🏽 love ur new hair

Kate Haycock

I went to the cinema with friends to see this movie and all we could talk about afterwards was the incessant plinking piano of the soundtrack, so I’m glad you mentioned that

Jo Quigley

I feel like after grad school I just gave up on using the word “homosocial” and it’s like such a useful fucking word.

Sam Rogers

It really is striking, but I think it's more good evidence for the dream read of the second act. That's what Bill's mind conjures for "naked woman."

Ilana Galpert

"hot wifing" is also about humiliating and controlling one's wife

darcey

have already watched twice through - i wholeheartedly look forward to the possible main channel version!

Nick Denton

Natalie you know better. You cannot explain the difference between a cuckold and a stag with Girard alone. You need Hegel. Girard explains why the third party’s desire matters; Hegel explains why that desire feels either like theft/negation or tribute/recognition. Meaning mimetic desire can describe the triangle, but it cannot explain the valence of the triangle: why mediation becomes degradation here and empowerment there. To explain that, one needs the dialectic of recognition: the struggle over whether the other’s freedom confirms me, displaces me, subordinates me, or returns to me as my own reflected power. This is why the distinction is not merely sexual, but ontological. The subject is not first whole and then wounded by desire; a subject becomes coherent and feels whole only through recognition. Hegel’s master-slave dialectic helps explain why infidelity so often produces enormous emotional upheaval: the beloved’s desire is not just affection, but a privileged form of address. To be loved is to be singled out by a free consciousness, to be chosen by someone who could have chosen otherwise. What stabilizes the ego, then, is not simply the beloved’s presence, but the experience of being uniquely desired/recognized by the beloved. Infidelity is so destabilizing because it exposes the contingency of that recognition. The third party does not merely enter the bedroom; they enter the very structure by which a self knows itself! From this perspective, Cuckoldry and Hotwifery are not rival moral systems but rival aesthetic forms. Each arranges desire, recognition, and vulnerability into a different fantasy of coherence. The cuckold experiences the third party as the theft of recognition, but that theft is precisely what becomes erotic. He is turned on not because he ceases to care about being the beloved’s unique object, but because the loss of that uniqueness stages the very drama on which his desire depends. The rival’s presence wounds him, but it also confirms the beloved’s desirability, the freedom of her desire, and the stakes of his dependence on it. His arousal comes from eroticized negation: from being displaced while still remaining central as the one who witnesses, suffers, authorizes, or is addressed by that displacement. The stag, by contrast, converts the third party’s desire into amplification. His fantasy is not “I am whole because I alone possess you,” but “I am magnified because your desirability returns to me as reflected power.” The rival does not primarily steal recognition from him; the rival becomes the medium through which his own status is intensified. The cuckold remains the deeper romantic because he still organizes desire around the wound of lost singularity. The stag is less wounded by mediation because he can aestheticize it as proof of abundance. Of course both positions remain bound to the same impossible demand: that love should resolve lack by making the self finally whole.

Nick Denton

And that concludes my Ted Talk. Thank you for listening.

Sirenkai

I got a disagree with Natalie on this one. The simple two note melody is perfect.

léonard

Professor Xiang explaining the difference between cuckolding and hotwifing is PEAK.

Antonie Gottfried

HELP what's the piano piece playing at 36:00 (awesome tangent as always btw <3) ??

Leahbunny

Summoning The Dark Lord can wait, this is important 👹

Ilana Galpert

idk about the peace pipe nonsense, but the hotel in the shining was built on a native american burial ground, so there is at least a scrap of information to substantiate theorizing on the topic

Hanna Lisowska

We have no bananas for you playing in the video took me out 💀

Juniper

amazing amazing tangent! and i would love a male twilight, would be great to see you wearing a fedora and hearing you say 'my boys' again

lipdirt

You are great at lighting. Kubrick just had many many more lights of diverse varieties to work with.

lipdirt

Your Aussie accent on the other hand...

frankgrim3z

There could be a whole other tangent on the politics of cuckoldry

Alamareth

Thanks for watching this new episode of "Are The Straights ok?" by Contrapoint, 45min to explain why they are not XD Thank you for the video and the work, I finally watched this movie for the first time yesterday for this tangent and I appreciated my own way, your view and research on it was a great addition. Good day!

Kamel Al-Sharif

Oh if you only lived through the late 2010s and The Arrivals series that took everywhere between Morrocco and Bangladesh by storm; every other mish-mashed scene being this movie. But lady, you haven't lived until you've scene masculine cuckoldry completely ziofied it's deliciously stupid.

Mac

I feel like I neeeeed to see Men in Love discussed more. I genuinely struggled with that book so much (despite the fantasies not generally shocking me that much) because of the insane amount of disclosure of incest abuse or CSA that just gets justified by the men as enjoyable??? I really can't find any discussions of why this might be in a serious sense, were the men making it up? Was it a biased sample? Was CSA and incest abuse of men just MUCH more common? What does it mean that a lot of them claimed to like/enjoy/fantasise about it??????? Recent literature about incest (from like, the 2000s) indicates that mother/son abuse is the least common form, and does find that it fucks men up who experience it, with those who have mixed feeings about the abuse being more fucked up than people who find it purely bad. Also found it really funny that the women's fantasies were overwhelmingly about scenarios, but the mens' were about specific women. It makes me uderstand a little more the incel mentality, mens' sexuality is just a lot more about specific people than womens'. Maybe it just freaked me out so much because I was pregnant while reading it, and that means the freudian stuff felt a lot more gross. I didn't love NF's words about how mother is the great depriver because she weans us from the breast, and that's why men are the way they are. Gross Freud, gross.

chatargenté

she's so good at bringing those obscure details in

Jae Jane

Looking fierce with this haircut/style! Girl, it’s giving! 💅💃🏻

Cyber Darlings

I love this movie so much. I don't know why. But I love it.

Ethan O'Connor

Highkey one of the best tangents in recent memory. Was structured well and had a reasonable thesis. I enjoyed this one Thumbs Up

Noel S

The novella is so much better, as is the Austrian TV version from 1969, starring the original Peeping Tom himself, Karlheinz Bohm. (It's on YouTube with English subtitles.) And at a lean 75 mins., it's 1/3 the length, yet three times the quality.

Wenyi Guo

Twilight for man and conspiracy part 2 would made the sexiest video essay baby.

Karen Lowe

Love your fake Aussie accent, please do it in every video

Darren DM

I concur. This was a banger of a tangent. However, the Paglia mmkay needs work.

Laura

German person here 🙋‍♀️ reading the Dream Novella by Schnitzler was part of our German curriculum in High School. We discussed sexual desire and sexual deferment as 17 year olds with our German teacher in her 50s. I remember analysing how Bill's/Fridolin's desire grown with every woman he encounters, indicated by a) their names get more and more abstract (full name, just first name, nickname , nameless) and b) by the intensity if their lip color (pale lips, pink, red, scarlet).

Aninja

No one does it like you 🩷 I haven’t even watched the film but I’ve watched this twice

Lasha Bezhashvili

I personally love it for the same reason I love Lynch. Watching it re-enchants the world for me. Like I get promised there’s way more to the human world that what I see

Anna Glin

same here! I had to write about it in Abitur. we also watched the EWS movie and analysed it in class. (that didn't seem weird too me but I absolutely hated the movie)

Kavi Montanaro

Shit my wife was laughing in her sleep this morning…

J Jones

Video unavailable?!

Mary Bedell

So much of the film for me is about status anxiety and how Bill's obviously extremely enviable life (good job, incredible apartment, hot wife) are the kind of thing that would be audience wish fulfillment in any other film, but are revealed to be totally inadequate by the standards of the elite partiers as the movie goes on. Like, leaving a cab with a running meter is unfathomably rich behavior to me, but within the context of the film immediately outs him as someone of lower status because he doesn't have a limo. There's a theme of "nothing will ever be good enough" that I think under girds a lot of conspiracy mindsets. Conspiracists think the elites are all General Zaroff in The Most Dangerous Game or Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. When you have everything, nothing is ever enough, and the hunger eventually eats what makes you human

George Costanzo

I love this fledging idea for a main channel video, and feel so fortunate that you're willing to rough draft ideas for longer videos in these tangents for a patreon audience. Please carry on <3

J Jones

Why am I the only one with this problem? I tried Chrome, Firefox, Safari - all have the same problem: Video unavailable This content isn’t available.

Jason

I’m trying to think what could be a popular mediocre IP through which you could talk about male sexuality…like all I got is the fast and the furious. Ofc you could really use any franchise because the male gaze but you know.

Veronica Pomilla

I totally agree that the conspiracy narrative is reductive and lazy BUT what is the deal with the last shot of the movie, the daughter being lead away?

Charles Stephens

Watched Eyes Wide Shut as a new Christmas movie (this past Christmas). Proceeded to only talk about Eyes Wide Shut at my and my husband’s family Christmas gatherings.

patroclus

I love Room 237, yes it's just crackpots talking about The Shining, but that's the point of the doc. Its not trying to actually answer what the movie is about, that's what its subjects are just trying to do. It trying to say you can read anything into anything. That said, I think dismissing the Native American Genocide theory is doing a disservice. The points brought up by the crackpots are legitimately intriguing, calumet baking powder preoccupation aside. Wendy Carlos' score even suggests it, interspersed native american musical motifs that suddenly transform into high register tones evoking a woman screaming. Plus the soundtrack, the 237 not the Carlos one, is amazing and has a track titled "Universal Weak Male". Overall, watching the movie feels like a weird dream

M.D

As a woman with a lot of hangups about my body, its perception, and representation, I was never able to really enjoy this movie in the past, as it felt, to me, like the height of female objectification in media (faceless, dehumanized, conventionally attractive naked female bodies everywhere). But I found your point about male sexuality really interesting, and viewing this film as an exploration of repressed male desire has given me a new appreciation for it. It also makes me wonder about what the female equivalent would look like. Are there any good films that explore similar taboos, but through the lens of female sexuality instead? What would a movie like this look like, on the female side? Do such movie(s) even exist?

Maxwell Kessler

My eyes are wide OPEN for this video essay [eagerly awaits high five]

demlet

The word thrice is so underutilized.

Fake Name

I finally decided to stop pacifying with easy listening like Contra's gaming streams/AMAs and watch her real c o n t e n t again, and omg I actually feel like reading and stuff now instead of doomscrolling. 🎓 🤓

william kirkpatrick

I gotta admit fully I did not even read what Natalie said and this is wholly addressed to Ahri Clevinger who introduced herself to me in an Anne of Green Gables way calling me "carrots" saying "time for you to to log off." I can only say, well, you were so shocked by what I am saying you could not stand it. And I have to confess that my profound admiration for Natalie and my love for Baudelaire has led to a profounder admiration for Baudelaire because I had to beg her for a "Positive Satanism." That quote "the greatest trick satan ever played is that he does not exist" is from a prose/poem called "the Generous Gambler" or something like that(too lazy to look up) where Baudelaire hangs out with Satan "underground" and he is talking about a hypothetical evangelical or catholical type saying that at one of those stupid universities hypothetically saying that: "the greatest trick the devil plays is he does not exist." This is something that Baudelaire made up to screw with the Evangelicals and the Catholics who are ever the same, the same in every god-damned century. And to HELL with THEM. May they enter the HELL THEY have CREATED. And Natalie, as the most beautiful divine transexual ever........OMG..........OMG again.........I do not understand why Hasan Piker does not enter the domain of Natalie without an ounce of respect for the incredible work she has done. I would love to see a podcast where Natalie, and Brigitte, and Hasan talk to eachother for a long time, but its not gonna happen because transphobic bigotry is so profound, nobody can stand up for Natalie because of the extent of BS leveled at her because of universal trans bigotry.....and I have to admit.......I was a trans bigot myself before I watched The Darkness, and it is a big deal for a man to get in touch with the female within himself and for the woman to become the man within herself, and Natalie has scored an infinite win on the evolution of humanity with her huge miraculous body of work.

william kirkpatrick

I am so sorry but I can't read this as much as I worship Natalie she says 3/4 and I can't stop thinking of Swan Lake....damnit I wish she would talk to me, maybe one day she will when I deserve it

Mihaela Haiduc

I love the main channel video idea. You should do it, i no other creator talks about these topics the way you do (or at all)

Mihaela Haiduc

yeeees, they really make the woman into an object, which is why women are uncomfortable with male fantasies.

floći

As an Austrian I feel ashamed to admit that it needed this tangent to make me read "Traumnovelle". But I'm very much intrigued now by the material, so thank you for picking this topic.

Jackson Fairchild

Gosh, what an extraordinary tangent. I’ve listened to it many times and take something away each time. If you do a main channel “twilight, for him” then Lost Highway could be another dreamlike film with misogynistic themes to include?

Suzy

lolol kinda. tbf it is quite silly sounding but y'know I still like it

Mary L

❤️ “It’s a cope disguised as rebellion “ ❤️ Seems related to one of my longtime bugs about cynicism - being a lazy substitute for sophistication 😉

demlet

Disgusting. Where?

Kia Nicole Tudor

Interesting. But now I don't want to see this movie lol

Daniel Venegas

Natalie, if you make "Twilight but for men" - I cannot exaggerate how excited I would be. I'm my opinion, Twilight is your best video, and one topic that is lacking in cultural and gender theory is proper theorizing of male sexuality. When I saw Eyes Wide Shut a few months ago for the first time (while high) - I was surprised to find that the movie indeed was not at all "about a sex cult", but strangely about Tom Cruise getting cockblocked in various ways while trying to cheat on his wife. I love the depth your analysis adds.

Aderyn Albarelli

If the cuckold and the masochist see humiliation as a benefit, do they both also draw up a contract of sorts for their arrangements? The stag doesn't appear to have a parallel, in Coldness and Cruelty. Since he doesn't necessarily "shred the contract"? 🤔 I'm finding the read challenging but, interesting. Thanks for the tangent, and the recommendation 💜💙💚💛🧡♥️ (finally got around to doing one of these 🙌) (The chapter "the role of descriptions" is proving to be much more difficult 😔)

Aderyn Albarelli

In an AMA, comedians and thinkers came up. I'd forgotten but, Jena Friedman is pretty good. And I was just made aware of someone who goes by Emmy's Existential Zone, would you be interested in them?

Andi

I’m certain you won’t see this comment Natalie, but I’d like you to do a book report on Lena Dunham‘s new book, ‘Famesick’ because I think it evokes a certain experience of leaning into humiliation for entertainment and validation 😬 I’d be interested in hearing what you’d have to say.

James

I started Sexual Personae at the behest of your tangent and it’s given me a brainwave about how Bill is written throughout the film. Incredulity at women’s sexual fantasies is a common solipsism among men - acknowledging that women are capable of their own erotic projections shatters the doublethink we engage in that our own sexuality is the culmination of an Apollonian narrative. If we don’t see women as a sacred vessel, we have to contend with the beauty and the horror of sex as a thallassic/cthonic thing.

pjkc

Broke: Psychic-type pokemon Woke: Espeon class

HoustonGirl

I still say it could be both. A very accurate adaptation of Traumnovelle, and a film where Kubrick worked in the rumors of the sex trafficking organization that was patronized by people in Hollywood. When I rewatched it recently and saw an absolute doppelgänger of Epstein and Maxwell as two extras in the opening party scene…my jaw hit the floor 💙

Jonathan Kiely

If patrons won’t vote on a Hannibal tangent you should just make a main channel video about Hannibal

Max Oakland

The line between lolcow and genuinely liked barely matters now. Donald Trump went from lolcow to fascist president. Reality tv stars make millions for being hatewatchable. Clavicular got modeling gigs and walked runways. It doesn’t matter *why* you get attention in an attention economy. It only matters *that* you get attention

Max Oakland

That would be a very important video

Max Oakland

The hedonic treadmill. And religions and philosophers have been talking since day one about how to get off it

Max Oakland

That would make sense in the context of people saying hotwifing and cuckoldry basically remove the woman’s sexuality and control from the equation. Men who can only get off on control will not be able to handle women taking control because it feels threatening

clockworkmikan

Put another (cruder) way, I think many men are only able to achieve orgasm by actively perceiving of themselves as masculine in the moment of climax. I'm reminded of the scene in American Psycho where Patrick Bateman is watching himself in the mirror instead of the woman he's having intercourse with. I know in part the scene is meant to highlight his narcissism, but aside from his Patrick-specific narcissisism, I believe that for many masculinity has an inherent homosocial rivalry element with either actual real men or an abstract idea of men (i.e., "I bet any man would kill to sleep with my partner").

Elias

I never knew a movie like this was made. Let alone have it a Kubrick flick. Huh the more you know...

Grady Wiehe

Is there no June tangent? I know well enough not to expect punctuality from Natalie, but I haven’t seen an announcement or anything. Did I miss something?

Max Hermann

I'm glad you had this association. I wish I could've talked more about this central element of the white lotus s02 with my friends. It seems like a dire notion though: you have to get forcefully reminded that you could lose your partner to someone else and be thrown into a pit of angst, anger and jealousy to reignite passion for one another.

Max Hermann

Also, conspiracists just suck. My irl interactions with conspiracists so far have been extremely uncomfortable. It feels like you're talking to an emotionally highly unintelligent child. At this point I perceive conspiracism as a kind of mental illness that usually stems from social isolation. As kind of an intense deflection of the pain and the grief that comes from being in this lonely state. Also: The projection part. That rather than admitting that you have an intense desire for many a things (probably heightened by your state of social isolation) you project all your non-pure desires onto others...

wotan1750

Great video. I’m new here and really appreciate your work. My own two cents: Maybe the movie resonates with conspiracy theorists because it reflects feelings of being excluded from, and symbolically castrated by, the sexuality of their parents, as in the primal scene. However, by locating the cause outside their own inner life, they can hold external forces responsible for these feelings (e.g., Satanists or “pizza liberals”). In this way, they may preserve their loyalty to their internal parental couple. I could imagine that acknowledging these experiences as being related to inner life - as part of a dream-like psychic reality - would make it more necessary to establish a connection with one’s inner world and allow for psychological transformation. In contrast, when the apparent perpetrators remain external, the child, in fantasy, protects the family structure while still remaining in touch with the helplessness and aloneness associated with the primal scene.

Isaac Jensen

I just re-subscribed after quite some time and just a few minutes into this video, I just have to say - if you're thinking of doing any David Lynch tangents, I would LOVE to see one of my favorite YouTube voices talk about my favorite filmmaker

JBJGoat

Contrapoints delivering movie dialogue with the quick cut to that line from the movie will always be amusing to me. I laughed during the twilight video, I laughed here, I’ll laugh next time it happens. That’s good comedy

HoustonGirl

I love this so much! Eyes Wide Shut is one of my favorite Christmas movies and probably my favorite Kubrick. Have you seen Blink Twice directed by Zoe Kraviz? It’s the modern version of Eyes Wise Shut. But Is it possible that this movie could be two things at once? That it’s both a faithful adaptation of the novella Traumnovelle AND a story that weaves in the rumors that Kubrick overheard about sex trafficking involving actors and other powerful people. I mean in the opening party sequence he has two extras that look exactly like Epstein and Maxwell front and center…

Max Fenton

Room 237 is crackpot nonsense for sure, but MSTRMND's audio commentary track is great.

Luke Hanaike

cuckholdry/hotwifeing/humiliation/mimetic desire/gender politics is the entire aubrey plaza couple storyline in white lotus season 2

warren

Hey girl where's the June tangent

Grady Wiehe

Gurl, where’s the July Tangent? Is this page just defunct now?

lotusmaglite

Honestly, I think my favorite thing about this is all the Junior Varsity Male-ologists in comments, sounding like the 14 year-old boys that were my peer group at that age. Overconfident, weird, BS hypotheses delivered with unearned certainty - it's all just so *chef's kiss*.

Vasilii Zubarev

"The Twilight video but for men" sounds amazing. Great tangent, their love for EWS put conspiracists into perspective... Is there an element of a cuck fantasy in their delusions?

Martin Cornejo

Did she give any timeline for the next patreon? Am I missing something?

Blake Cook

Mother we hunger. Please. We yearn for any blessing you are willing to give us.

Grady Wiehe

Natalie, I am genuinely asking now - what is going on with this page? I have to imagine you’re anxiously avoiding at this point, but can we at least get an announcement about what’s going on? We’re approaching three months of total radio silence. Yet you’re tweeting and appearing on other videos, so I have to assume you’re at least safe.

Jack

As a man I fear the self reflection a twilight video for men will subject me to

Jaime

are we not doing the one tangeant a month thing at all anymore??

Mattie Wiseman

omg omg omg pleaseeeee do a full video on cuckoldry i would die of happiness!!!

Electro_Static

I work in silicon Valley, and have a friend who used to be a high ranking crypto lawyer, she described eyes wide shut as a documentary matching many of her experiences with billionares.

Electro_Static

I don’t understand how your analysis of the themes and narrative that Kubrick was exploring in eyes wide shut invalidates idea that the movie depicts the actual behavior of the Epstein class especially with all the lurid details that have come to light.

Electro_Static

I agree with this take, I think that Natalie has a great interpretation of the art and themes of the movie, but refuses to speculate on purpose of context of it as part of telling a broader story about the depravity of elites who feel beyond consequences and morals. I think in part her ick at agreeing with any points a conspiracy theorist might make is because she is still mourning the death of rationality as a driving force in politics and culture.

Patrick

Dear Ms Wynn I am writing to you on behalf of Phoenix Charity. Phoenix is a UK-based registered charity that offers free treatment and support to people dealing with addiction. Their services target people who have fallen through the cracks of the usual support systems, such as those on low incomes, etc. Given your previous experience with addiction, which you admirably opened up about on Jameela Jamil’s previous podcast (iWeigh), I have an unusual request: It’s not lost on me that this is a long shot, but I was wondering if you’d be open to giving Phoenix a shoutout in the way that you see fit? Phoenix is a very local charity based exclusively in [Message for details]. They have one charity shop only. Given they do not have the platform and the resources that the likes of The Salvation Army (who I do not condone) have, I have reason to believe they are at significant risk of going under. I strongly believe your platform could do a lot of good for an organisation that’s passionate about helping people who’ve been in painfully similar boats to yourself. Thank you for reading my message to the end. Feel free to ask me any questions, or you can find out more about Phoenix from their official website here: https://phoenixcharity.co.uk/about-us/

Patrick

P.s. No worries if this request of mine isn’t for you personally. However, if possible, could you please get in contact with Dorian Bridges (A.k.a. Of herbs and altars)? They are a UK-based Addiction recovery influencer, who uploads content to YouTube and Insta. I’ve also DMed them on Insta & Patreon, but given it’s just me, they might think I’m a bot or a scammer. Thanks, Patrick

Patrick

P.p.s. Please reply either a yes or a no to one previous comment.

Crescent Minor

Only if you find this movie to contain some piece of reality about the way women behave or feel about sex. Beyond that, sure, something about a larger trend of fear in men could come from some common choice from a lot of women?