You know, as part of my job, I talk to a lot
of men, a lot of dumb men.
We treat women with respect here.
Yes, we do.
- That's an American ideal. - Yeah.
Tell me about your shirt.
What's it say?
It says, [laughs] Hillary sucks, but not like Monica.
Read the transcript right.
Have you read the transcript.
I have not read it.
Look at the transcript, right?
Yeah, look at the transcript.
Have you read the transcript?
Come on, fake news.
What you got?
Go find yourself a safe space.
Let me get this straight.
You're yelling at me to find a safe space,
and you have elevated yourself with a megaphone,
and you have a shield.
[laughter]
We-- well--
[cheering]
We never kept in touch.
But outside of my job interviewing dumb men,
I'm also the father of a young son.
And as a father, my biggest goal
is to not end up interviewing my son as part of my job.
To make sure that happens, he's going to need some help.
And that's what I want to talk about
in tonight's Long Story Short.
[cheering]
America is in the midst of some long overdue changes
around gender and power, reexamining ideas
of masculinity, femininity, the spectrum in between,
and how fluid it all is.
It's a difficult and necessary conversation.
But luckily for us, we get to have these nuanced debates
on Twitter.
Now, this cultural change is important.
And I'm glad it's happening.
But when there is a cultural shift,
it's easy to get lost within it.
And even though it feels strange to say this,
a group that is being left out is young boys.
And I know. I know.
I know. A war on men?
I sound like I'm on a network that just
got sued out of $780 million.
[laughter]
But-- I know.
I know.
Joke's on you.
Comedy Central doesn't have that kind of cash.
My point is we've had a great conversation
about what men shouldn't be.
Men shouldn't be toxic.
They shouldn't be overly aggressive.
They shouldn't pay a porn star to keep
quiet about an affair they had right
after their son was born.
It's a high, high bar.
But we haven't been showing men what they should be.
And that matters to young boys who
are looking for an identity, for a narrative about what
it means to be a man.
And that vacuum is being filled by people with the worst
possible idea of manhood.
REPORTER: Former kickboxer and Big Brother contestant Andrew
Tate, infamous for being the self-proclaimed King
of Toxic Masculinity.
Tate's core message centers around the belief
that masculinity is in the crosshairs.
And he's defending it.
His target audience, young men.
This whole idea of being toxically masculine
is complete garbage.
Empowering females is the easiest
way to weaken the will of men.
I need action.
I need constant chaos in my life to feel content.
I need to be driving a supercar and [bleep]
fighting, [bleep] a bunch of [bleep] champagne
and going crazy.
OK, OK, OK, we get it.
You have a small penis.
[laughter]
[cheering]
Even through the video, you can tell this guy
wears too much cologne.
And, by the way, not to tarnish his sparkling image,
but Andrew Tate is currently under investigation
for human trafficking.
I know.
It's always the first one you suspect.
[laughter]
Now, maybe you don't know Andrew Tate.
Maybe you're thinking, who is this porn-parody Vin Diesel?
You may not know him, but trust me-- your sons do.
REPORTER: With over 13 billion views on TikTok,
Tate's rhetoric is moving from online to the classroom.
REPORTER: One teacher says she hears blatant misogyny
from the boys in her class, hearing
them say that girls belong in the kitchen
and only exist for reproduction.
And another claiming they talk about alphas in sixth
grade now.
One teacher in South London noticed that his students were
parodying Tate's ideology.
About a third of the 30 students
in the class passionately argued
that women were responsible for their own sexual assaults,
one of Tate's top lines.
Wow, times have really changed.
When I was in sixth grade, the most toxic role model for boys
was Michelangelo.
[laughter]
He eats pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
That turtle doesn't give a [bleep]..
Seriously, how can you be misogynistic in sixth grade?
That's like the one year in life
where all the girls are bigger than you.
[laughter]
I wouldn't be running my mouth about Allison
if Allison could hang me by my underwear on the flagpole.
The solution to this problem is not to cancel Andrew Tate.
Interpol is probably going to do that for us.
Because even if he disappeared--
[applause]
Even if he disappeared, someone else
would take his place and spew toxic shit at young boys
just as well.
And social media algorithms would pump it into young boys'
eyes and ears just as fast.
Because that's really all this is about.
Andrew Tate is not interested in being a role model.
He wants clicks for money.
He doesn't want to raise your son.
He's taking dad's seat at the table,
but he's really the loudmouth uncle, that uncle who
seems cool when you're a kid.
But when you grow up, you realize living in a hotel
is not a vacation.
[laughter]
What we need is an alternative positive narrative
for young men to follow.
And it's ironic that these guys are
talking about taking the red pill
and using these Matrix metaphors.
Because if you're looking for a complex, emotionally-available
male role model to counter their bullshit idea
of manhood, just look at the guy who took the red pill,
Keanu Reeves.
This--
[cheering]
This is a man who is widely considered
to be kind and decent.
He donates huge sums of money to cancer research.
He gives up his seat to women on the subway.
He bought Sandra Bullock champagne and truffles because
she had never had them before.
He's the perfect man.
Yeah.
[applause]
Maybe his movies glorify gun violence,
but nobody's perfect.
And that makes him even more perfect
because our children shouldn't strive for perfection.
That will only make them sad.
And those movies sometimes are pretty cool.
The point is young boys need a cultural role model who
is kind and comfortable in his skin,
not guys who are so fragile in their masculinity,
they can't puff a cigar without putting
it on every social media platform
like they invented fire.
Hell, Keanu Reeves-- he isn't even on social media.
That's how healthy he is.
So--
[cheering]
So as a society, we have two options.
We can either follow Keanu Reeves around and put
everything he does on TikTok.
Or, probably better, we make sure that the conversation
about modern society includes a role for men
that young boys can look up to.
Because, long story short, if we don't talk to our boys,
Andrew Tate is going to talk to them.
And that means 10 years from now,
I'm going to be talking to them.