I Love You, America (2017) s01e01 Episode Script
Episode 1
1 [bright music.]
I love you, America, from sea to shinin' sea From the East Coast to the West And whatever's in between [laughter.]
I love you, America The ol' red, white, and blue I love you, America And everyone in you, wow! I love your men, I love your women I love straights and I love gays I love all the Americans From places far away I love you if you're Haitian or Korean or Irish I love that you're Mexican and I love that you're from Afghani--Lib--Turk-- - North Carolina.
- Carolina I love black people, I love whites And Asians too I love Latinos, Muslims, Christians Buddhists and the Jew-ews [laughter.]
Wait a minute.
What am I doing? I'm listing kinds of people? I-I'm categorizing human beings and putting them into little individual boxes.
I mean, whether I mean it or not, I'm part of the problem.
I love you, mailman person I love you, bus driver, too I love you, police officer Well, that's-- yeah, that's easy for me to say.
I mean, I can walk into any encounter with the police assuming they're gonna serve and protect me.
That's my luxury.
That's called white privilege.
You know, a few years ago, I was sitting around, and I go, "Wow, there's a real epidemic of cops murdering unarmed black teenagers.
" And then I realized that's not an epidemic.
That's how it's always been.
I'm just aware of it now because of social media.
And I was so fucking ashamed.
And fuck! I just wanna be a good ally.
How can I be a good ally? It's not my job to teach you how to be a good ally.
Right.
No.
I know.
You're right, of course.
But there's no way I can know unless someone whose experience I could never understand is willing to-- - Sarah.
Seriously? Take a class or something.
I'm busy.
I'm not all black people.
I'm just me.
I'm just Retta.
I love that about you-ou I love you, liberal bubble I love you, racist South - Hey.
- I love you all so much I wanna put you in my mou-ou-th I love you, California New York City too I love whatever this state is Uh I said California, right? I love you, Indians I mean Native Americans.
Oh! First Americans.
Oh, I can't keep up.
I said I can keep up.
Ha-ha.
I'm great! [laughter.]
I love you, America Amber waves of grain Those cornfields and those cornfields and-- Jesus Christ, there's so many cornfields.
We make so much corn.
This is crazy.
Holy shit! Fuck! I love you, America Purple mountains' majesty From the Great Lakes to the Great Plains To America's pussy, the Grand Canyon! [laughter.]
I love you, people Who didn't sign waivers for this I love super hot guys And I love big, fat pieces of shi-iit [laughter.]
I lo-- Oh, that--[coughs.]
Oh, that's too high.
I, I, I [notes lowering.]
I, I, I I love you, America The ol' red, white, and blue I love you, America But not everything you do You know, sometimes I just-- I get really, really mad at you and the stupid shit that you do and how you vote for these rich fucks that lie to your faces and then systematically rape you of your rights and your job and your health care, and then you call me Hollywood elite? Dude, I'm from fucking New Hampshire.
And you're mad at me for wanting the best for you and for getting pissed when you vote against your own best interests? I'm caring about you.
I'm condescending to you.
[laughter.]
Oh.
[snap.]
[whimsical music.]
MAN: Shave it off, stay alive, open wide Show us how to conquer first and then divide CHORUS: Don't know if we're stayin' long, stayin' long Used to staying weak And now we're staying strong We don't wanna go where we do not belong Lonely as the day is long, day is long MAN: Hey, it's my buddy and yours, Sarah Silverman! [cheers and applause.]
Hello.
Hello.
Thank you.
[clears throat.]
Hi, everybody.
Oh, my gosh.
Thank you.
Whoa, first show! What's it gonna be? I don't know! [laughter.]
Sometimes it's just gonna be aggressively dumb and silly, and sometimes it'll be super funny.
But, of course, that's subjective.
And, uh sometimes it's gonna be totally earnest, and you'll go into it expecting it to be funny and you'll be like [chuckling.]
And then you'll be like, "Oh.
" That's why I want to manage your expectations, because when we don't know what to expect, our brains naturally kind of, like, fill that gap with something, and you all are shittier writers than me.
[laughter.]
So you're gonna imagine something, and you'll get tied to whatever shitty thing you're imagining, and it's not gonna be that.
So, really, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment if you came into this with any idea of how it should be.
I mean, what are you imagining? What's a like, what's a first show bit in your adorable pedestrian minds, like, uh "Ooh, I'm so nervous.
My friend told me I should picture the audience naked.
" Some bit like that? Um No, no, it's great.
It's I can tell you why you thought of it.
It's because you've seen it before on television.
It's, uh it's a very well-trodden premise, especially in, like, first episodes of shows.
But, no, I don't need to imagine the audience naked.
I'm not nervous.
I've been doing this awhile.
And, uh-- but I would like to see some actual naked people, um, because we can.
We're streaming.
So why not test the limits of what we can do and see what's what? So I brought in a couple naked people.
- Hi.
- Hi.
Yeah.
[cheers and applause.]
Okay, so your name is Scott.
- Yep.
- Hi, Scott.
And, uh, and these are your pubes, et al? [audience whooping.]
Yep.
This is so exciting, you know? We're on Hulu, and the human body isn't something that Hulu deems unviewable, so here is Scott's pubic hair and his penis.
[cheers and applause.]
Does it make for better TV? Probably not.
But I find it interesting, our taboo human outer shells.
Great penis, Scott.
- Thank you.
Isn't it-- it's interesting, right? Because that's jarring.
It was jarring.
And, uh and we've all seen nudity, but it's always sexualized.
And it's funny, because it's actually jarring to see clinical nudity, like there is a penis.
[laughter.]
Yeah.
All right.
Wait.
This might be a good time to do this.
There are gonna be some moments on this show when you feel uncomfortable, and for that, I've got you covered.
Because, you know, sometimes it is gonna be a lot, and it's not necessarily gonna be what you're used to.
So what we're gonna do is have a white man at a desk, just your average, run-of-the-mill late-night talk show host to go to whenever things get a little uncomfortable.
This is, um [laughter.]
And this is not me being condescending, by the way.
I get it.
I need to watch a "Law & Order" to get to sleep every night, even though I've seen every episode a thousand times.
I need it.
I need that familiarity.
I cannot fall asleep unless it's to the gentle tones of soft-core murder ripped from the headlines of 1993.
I can't.
And for a lot of people, that nighttime comfort is late-night talk shows.
So if things get a little bit too obscure, we've got, um Can we cut over to the white guy at the desk? [late-night style theme music.]
Okay.
[applause.]
So this is Mather.
And whenever things veer off the beaten path, all we have to do is just cut over to Mather, and he will bring us back to the relatable comfort of familiarity.
Isn't that right, Mather? - That's right, Sarah.
We've got a great show coming up tonight.
We've got Sarah visiting a family in Louisiana and an interview with Megan Phelps-Roper! Big show! [cheers and applause.]
That is right.
Okay, so where were we? Oh! Stella, hi.
Okay.
So you are Stella.
Hi, Stella.
- Hi, Sarah.
- And, of course, these are your boobs.
Fun.
- Yes.
I feel like we should censor We should censor something, right? Like, something should be taboo, like hands-- hands.
Hands are filthy.
We don't know where hands have been.
Show me those dirty digits, Stella.
Oh, God, gross! Blur those things out! Yeah! Gah-ross! Fingers go into butts! [laughter.]
Ech! Know what never goes into butts? Tits.
[laughter.]
And yet they're taboo.
Think about it.
Speaking of taboo, we never get to see vaginas! Stella, this is your vagina! Amazing! [cheers and applause.]
And a beautiful vagina.
[applause.]
I can see that you have a full but manicured bush, which I also subscribe to.
Well done.
And, uh-- and you can see just the promise of some lip, which I like.
Labia majora.
Sounds like a constellation, but it's not.
It's vagina lips.
What do you think, Mather? Check, please? [snickers.]
Oh, Mather.
You're not too much! [laughter.]
We'll be back in-- well, if you're super cheap, we'll be back in, like, two minutes.
But if you can part with, like, 4 extra dollars a month, we'll be back in two seconds.
Just a little dip to black.
[cheers and applause.]
[up-tempo band music.]
[up-tempo band music.]
I live in a bit of a bubble.
I'm on the Left Coast.
I work in the entertainment industry.
I generally try not to leave my apartment, ever.
And as a result, it's possible I may have some unfair preconceived notions about what people are like in the rest of America.
But that's the cunty part of me I'm trying to change with this show.
So I decided to go have dinner with a real family whose lives are completely unlike my own.
Do I deserve an award? Yes, probably.
Take a look.
Take a look! [laughter.]
SARAH: So Chalmette is a working-class suburb of New Orleans that sits right on the banks of the Mississippi River in southeastern Louisiana.
And the Standers are a family of crab fishermen who were displaced during Hurricane Katrina.
They are Christian gun-owning Trump voters who like to gather their whole family around for big Cajun dinners.
And on this day, they're going to be joined by a species they had not met before: the Jew--me.
Shalom.
No, hello.
[doorbell rings.]
Hello-ho-ho! - Hey! -- How are you? SARAH: So what do I know about the Standers? There's Michelle and her fiancé, Cody.
Their aunt Queen Janine.
They call her Queen G, which is not what Janine starts with.
The grandparents, who I think are five years older than me.
And Brandi, the 26-year-old matriarch of the house who made sure the whole family voted for Trump.
Oh, and there's Blaze.
He's seven.
He's a tough nut to crack, but I got him the perfect gift for children of all ages.
Press it.
[fart sound.]
[loud laughter.]
MAN: Oh! Yeah! - Aah, she gotcha, huh? - It's a remote-control fart machine.
- Oh, there ya go! We snuck in in the middle of the night and we recorded all the farts of everyone in your family - Oh! - And we put it on there.
I knew it sounded familiar.
[laughter.]
You couldn't've got him nothin' better.
Have you ever met a Jew before? Wait, what? A Jewish person.
Uh you know, that's a good question.
It's like a religion, but I'm not-- I don't really follow it.
I have met a Jew before.
Did they have the little hats? The only thing I know, the Jews wear the little hats.
- Yarmulkes? - Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm from the bai-yoo.
The bai-yoo.
- The bai-yah.
SARAH: What do I sound like to you? [as Sarah.]
Well, you know Ah-ha-ha-ha! I didn't know Jewish people growing up because I'm from New Hampshire.
But then I moved to New York and I was like, "Oh, my God!" - They got a lot? [laughter.]
"They got a lot?" They got a lotta Jews in New York.
You guys, tell me about Chalmette besides the fact that I'm pronouncing it wrong.
We actually just live up here now, but we're from the end of the world down on the bayou, and We got nutria rats for pets.
I don't know if you ever heard of a nutria.
It's just like a oversized rat.
Like a rat like this big? - Yeah, bigger than that.
- Bigger than that.
- The tail's about this long.
- And did it love you? Yes.
It was just like a dog.
Yeah.
But it was a rat.
[laughing.]
What kinda guns you have? What else? If you would be good and don't get your gun taken away Why did you get your gun taken away? He shot the bicycle tire, the rubber on it, and the little girl was there when he, uh coulda hit the little girl with it, you know, so I took it away from him.
- I did not.
- Did you hide it somewhere? - Yeah.
I hid it on top of the closet.
Now he knows! Dinner's ready! Hey! [laughs.]
And what else you want? - That's it.
- Okay.
WOMAN: All right, wait, wait, wait, wait.
[overlapping chatter.]
All right, you all voted for Trump.
What were the reasons behind it? What-- what made you love him? I did it for change.
I feel like we've been goin' in the same direction, which is down, for a long time now.
And I feel like he wants the change.
I feel like he can make America great again, and I just wanted to give him a chance.
The things he promised, too, you know, I mean, he made things sound pretty good, but he ain't impressed me so far, though.
You know, I mean, I voted for him and all, and I wanted the change I voted for him, too, for change.
I give him a chance, see what-- He can't do no worse than what the other ones did.
It's not that they did so bad, the other presidents-- - I just think Obama took what it means to be an American out of America-- you work hard, you work for what you have.
He did this to everybody.
Here ya go, here ya go.
Y'all don't work hard.
Just take everything, you know? Get in the system, get it right, find the people who deserve it, and fix it.
Do you get health care through work, or what is your-- - I'm on Medicaid.
- I'm on Medicaid too.
- I mean, I'm a full-time student, so as long as you're a full-time student, that is a job.
- And you get it through what? - The government.
- The state, yeah.
ACA? - Justwhoever gives it.
[laughs.]
I don't know.
The government, I guess.
- The government.
- Yeah, you gotta apply for it.
- You gotta apply.
Well, when Obama was president, I'd hear, "Oh, Obama's not from this country.
" You know, "Obama started ISIS," all this stuff.
He is an immigrant, isn't he? He's from Hawaii.
- I don't know.
- AUDIENCE: Oh! Oh, my God.
Oh, God, Brandi! - I don't know.
- Do you really think he's from, what, like, Africa or something? - I don't know where he's from.
- No, that's what them people-- That's rumors.
- SARAH: Donald Trump started that-- the Birthers.
- I want Obama to come to a luau for me, then.
Come show me what he got if it's natural.
- [laughs.]
He's from Hawaii.
There's pictures of him when he's little.
Why would he - Photoshop? - No.
He is.
- Oh, I'm just kiddin'.
- I know ya are.
- Not really, no.
[laughter.]
All right, new topic.
Gay marriage.
How do we feel? - All for it.
Love is love in all of our eyes.
We don't judge.
[applause.]
We love, no matter what.
Love is awesome.
- I don't know about the marriage thing, but - Well, you old-school.
Still love 'em.
[laughs.]
They can be married if they wanna spend the rest of their life together.
That's their partner.
- BRANDI: I think it's your life.
You're born that way.
- Yeah.
- You should be able to make any decision you wanna make.
As long as it doesn't hurt anybody else.
That's a good way to put it.
You are who you are.
You are who you are.
It's completely normal.
CODY: I don't think they should have kids.
- Why? - What? - A man and a woman, you know, should raise a kid, not two men.
Who's raising these kids? This whole household is.
Ha-ha-ha.
You gotta defend it if you say it.
Yeah, I mean, just the way I was raised, you know? That's always a good reason: just the way I was raised.
Everybody got their own opinion, you know? - That's true, you're right.
- I'm just saying anything can happen, and you should be open to love no matter where it comes from, let 'em give it to you.
I hate to tell you this, but you're a liberal.
[laughter.]
What did I think of the family? I couldn't love them more.
I had a great time! - All right.
SARAH: Did we change each other's minds? Um fuck no.
But we did learn that we don't have to be divided to disagree.
My new best friend.
We can have fun.
We can even love each other.
I know you're gonna come around on the gay stuff.
[laughter.]
BRANDI: It felt so great to talk to somebody with different views and sit in a room and not be judged.
- Bye.
- We coulda just kept her here forever.
[laughter.]
SARAH: Who's my favorite? I mean, I really liked all of them, but I would have to say Blaze, 100%.
[laughter and applause.]
Oh, my Blaze! [cheers and applause.]
[cheers and applause.]
Every show, I'll have one interview, and the common thread is that everyone I talk to will be someone who has experienced change.
Our guest tonight grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church which her grandfather Fred Phelps founded.
You know them-- they protest soldiers' funerals with signs like this.
That is actually her in the photo.
It was all she knew and everything she loved.
But when she was put in charge of social media for the church, she found herself changed.
Welcome my friend Megan Phelps-Roper.
[cheers and applause.]
- Hi.
- Hey, friend.
How are you? How 'bout that picture? I love it.
JewsKilledJesus.
com.
Wow.
I'm so glad you guys got that domain name.
I would - [laughs.]
Be absolutely broken if you had to be JewsKilledJesus1.
net.
- Right.
So okay, the Westboro Baptist Church is considered a hate group.
Why is that? Well, because we did a lot of things that seem hateful to most people.
We believed that it was loving.
We thought that, you know, loving our neighbor was going to warn them, the consequences of their sins.
But we did things like, you know, we celebrated 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina and every sort of human tragedy.
We protested funerals.
Like I said, we did it because we believed that was the definition of love.
We thought we were loving our neighbor with those signs.
So "God hates fags" was a way of loving our neighbor.
Does that make sense? - [blubbers.]
- [laughs.]
So tell me about your moment of change.
So I got on Twitter in 2009, and that's where my first doubts really came from.
Um Twitter was a lot like pickets at first.
It was really hostile.
I was saying incredibly provocative things, and people were responding in kind.
And then after a while, there was this, you know, group of people, and just individuals, who because we were able to finally have sort of extended, ongoing conversation-- you could have that on Twitter in a way that you couldn't have on the picket line-- people got to know me, and I got to know them, and we got to see that neither of us, you know, neither side was-- was the monstrous, you know, image we had had in our heads.
Okay, so you've said that you married your troll.
- [laughs.]
- Which you did.
You married your Twitter troll.
And how did he how was he able to get through to you? So first I should say that he would probably object to be calling a troll.
To being called a troll.
Uh, but he was arguing from a position of, "Yeah, I'm hearing what you're saying, and I understand, I see these things in the Bible" But, for instance, you know, picketing funerals.
Like, "What about the family?" We literally had a sign that said, "God hates your feelings.
" So I had learned from a very young age to just dismiss people and their thoughts and feelings and how we impacted them.
And my now husband, who at the time was totally anonymous and I didn't know Anyways.
He's an incredible human being.
It's practically like Jdate.
[laughter.]
But it's amazing that he and people like him, like, took the time and had the patience, um you know, to really effectively challenge me.
I mean, I think it's incredibly important and a super effective tactic when you're dealing with extremists.
You know, talking about extremism, I think that your presence in this conversation is so powerful because you literally understand-- You know, Charlottesville.
This is something that you can genuinely kind of understand.
Yeah.
And I think I think one thing that's really important for people to understand is that I think extremists generally are not psychopaths.
They're not you know, they're psychologically normal people who have been persuaded by bad ideas.
And we can't expect to, like, isolate these people and hope that those ideas will just fade into oblivion.
Like, we really have to actually engage those ideas and find ways of, one, understanding the mind-sets of the people that we're dealing with and then effectively constructing arguments and evidence and presenting those things.
And it's not just for the sake of these extremists, right? 'Cause they impact the rest of society.
Like, young people, especially, I think, are more susceptible and vulnerable to them.
So we present the arguments not just for the people who are in it and who are doing things that we find reprehensible, like, you know, what happened in Charlottesville.
We actually have to address it.
You know, it is interesting.
My first instinct, my first impulse, go, "Well, you know, these extremists, "they're not psychopaths.
They're just normal people.
" And in my mind, I went, "I don't know about that.
" And then I look at who I'm talking to, and you're the perfect example of that, you know? Tell me what happened when you left the church.
When someone leaves the church, they are immediately cut off from everyone in the church.
And that's your entire family.
Yeah.
It's been-- Next month will be five years since I left.
Wow.
It's such a short amount of time, really.
Oh, man, it seems like forever.
Like, I can't believe it's been that long since I've seen, you know, my Okay, I'm not gonna cry.
Um, the I've spent a lot of time the past five years, you know, with these communities that I used to target at the church and really trying to find a way to sort of repair some of the damage that I did while I was there, so II don't know.
I've been working with schools, middle schools and high schools on anti-bullying campaigns and with law enforcement on, like, hate crimes and counter-terrorism and extremism and just really trying to find a way to use these experiences to do good.
So, for instance, like, I was staying with Rabbi Yonah Bookstein here in Los Angeles, who I had picketed three years earlier with a sign that said, "Your rabbi is a whore.
" So, like, spending time now with this rabbi-- That rabbi's a whore? You should meet my sister the rabbi.
[laughter.]
I tried.
You are one of the most positive people I've ever met.
What gives you hope? Well, I think a big part of it is that at Westboro, like, we had a sign and a matching website, literally: TheWorldIsDoomed.
com.
And there's, like, this incredibly depressing view of other people.
We basically saw everybody outside the church as inherently evil and, you know, deliberately doing what they knew was wrong and and going to hell.
And when I left and I was meeting all these people and realizing they're not monsters.
They're just people trying to live their lives in the best way that they know how.
And I find so much hope in that.
Megan, thank you so much for coming.
Megan, I have a question.
I understand you took a vacation recently and things got a little wacky? Mather, it's not that kind of show.
Go get the bed ready.
- [laughs.]
Megan, I'm so happy you came.
Let's hug heart to heart like my therapist tells me to.
I love you to pieces.
- I love you too.
Can you believe it? That is basically the show.
We did it.
It's fucking crazy.
I was like, "I wanna make a show," and we made a show.
[lullaby music.]
Oh.
Spoon me.
Spoon me! Mm.
- Mm.
Oh, this is good.
Nighttime is the right time.
Tune in next week when we'll have Tom Berenger, Morgan Fairchild, musical guests The Judds, and audience favorite Hardly Headlines.
Oh, that's not true, but it sounds nice.
Good night, America.
I "lerve" you.
[click.]
MAN: In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
["Law & Order" dramatic sting.]
[whimsical music.]
MAN: Shave it off, stay alive, open wide Show us how to conquer first and then divide CHORUS: Don't know if we're stayin' long, stayin' long Used to staying weak And now we're staying strong We don't wanna go where we do not belong Lonely as the day is long, day is long MAN: Shave it off, stay alive, open wide Show us how to conquer first and then divide CHORUS: Don't know if we're stayin' long, stayin' long Used to staying weak And now we're staying strong We don't wanna go where we do not belong Lonely as the day is long, day is long
I love you, America, from sea to shinin' sea From the East Coast to the West And whatever's in between [laughter.]
I love you, America The ol' red, white, and blue I love you, America And everyone in you, wow! I love your men, I love your women I love straights and I love gays I love all the Americans From places far away I love you if you're Haitian or Korean or Irish I love that you're Mexican and I love that you're from Afghani--Lib--Turk-- - North Carolina.
- Carolina I love black people, I love whites And Asians too I love Latinos, Muslims, Christians Buddhists and the Jew-ews [laughter.]
Wait a minute.
What am I doing? I'm listing kinds of people? I-I'm categorizing human beings and putting them into little individual boxes.
I mean, whether I mean it or not, I'm part of the problem.
I love you, mailman person I love you, bus driver, too I love you, police officer Well, that's-- yeah, that's easy for me to say.
I mean, I can walk into any encounter with the police assuming they're gonna serve and protect me.
That's my luxury.
That's called white privilege.
You know, a few years ago, I was sitting around, and I go, "Wow, there's a real epidemic of cops murdering unarmed black teenagers.
" And then I realized that's not an epidemic.
That's how it's always been.
I'm just aware of it now because of social media.
And I was so fucking ashamed.
And fuck! I just wanna be a good ally.
How can I be a good ally? It's not my job to teach you how to be a good ally.
Right.
No.
I know.
You're right, of course.
But there's no way I can know unless someone whose experience I could never understand is willing to-- - Sarah.
Seriously? Take a class or something.
I'm busy.
I'm not all black people.
I'm just me.
I'm just Retta.
I love that about you-ou I love you, liberal bubble I love you, racist South - Hey.
- I love you all so much I wanna put you in my mou-ou-th I love you, California New York City too I love whatever this state is Uh I said California, right? I love you, Indians I mean Native Americans.
Oh! First Americans.
Oh, I can't keep up.
I said I can keep up.
Ha-ha.
I'm great! [laughter.]
I love you, America Amber waves of grain Those cornfields and those cornfields and-- Jesus Christ, there's so many cornfields.
We make so much corn.
This is crazy.
Holy shit! Fuck! I love you, America Purple mountains' majesty From the Great Lakes to the Great Plains To America's pussy, the Grand Canyon! [laughter.]
I love you, people Who didn't sign waivers for this I love super hot guys And I love big, fat pieces of shi-iit [laughter.]
I lo-- Oh, that--[coughs.]
Oh, that's too high.
I, I, I [notes lowering.]
I, I, I I love you, America The ol' red, white, and blue I love you, America But not everything you do You know, sometimes I just-- I get really, really mad at you and the stupid shit that you do and how you vote for these rich fucks that lie to your faces and then systematically rape you of your rights and your job and your health care, and then you call me Hollywood elite? Dude, I'm from fucking New Hampshire.
And you're mad at me for wanting the best for you and for getting pissed when you vote against your own best interests? I'm caring about you.
I'm condescending to you.
[laughter.]
Oh.
[snap.]
[whimsical music.]
MAN: Shave it off, stay alive, open wide Show us how to conquer first and then divide CHORUS: Don't know if we're stayin' long, stayin' long Used to staying weak And now we're staying strong We don't wanna go where we do not belong Lonely as the day is long, day is long MAN: Hey, it's my buddy and yours, Sarah Silverman! [cheers and applause.]
Hello.
Hello.
Thank you.
[clears throat.]
Hi, everybody.
Oh, my gosh.
Thank you.
Whoa, first show! What's it gonna be? I don't know! [laughter.]
Sometimes it's just gonna be aggressively dumb and silly, and sometimes it'll be super funny.
But, of course, that's subjective.
And, uh sometimes it's gonna be totally earnest, and you'll go into it expecting it to be funny and you'll be like [chuckling.]
And then you'll be like, "Oh.
" That's why I want to manage your expectations, because when we don't know what to expect, our brains naturally kind of, like, fill that gap with something, and you all are shittier writers than me.
[laughter.]
So you're gonna imagine something, and you'll get tied to whatever shitty thing you're imagining, and it's not gonna be that.
So, really, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment if you came into this with any idea of how it should be.
I mean, what are you imagining? What's a like, what's a first show bit in your adorable pedestrian minds, like, uh "Ooh, I'm so nervous.
My friend told me I should picture the audience naked.
" Some bit like that? Um No, no, it's great.
It's I can tell you why you thought of it.
It's because you've seen it before on television.
It's, uh it's a very well-trodden premise, especially in, like, first episodes of shows.
But, no, I don't need to imagine the audience naked.
I'm not nervous.
I've been doing this awhile.
And, uh-- but I would like to see some actual naked people, um, because we can.
We're streaming.
So why not test the limits of what we can do and see what's what? So I brought in a couple naked people.
- Hi.
- Hi.
Yeah.
[cheers and applause.]
Okay, so your name is Scott.
- Yep.
- Hi, Scott.
And, uh, and these are your pubes, et al? [audience whooping.]
Yep.
This is so exciting, you know? We're on Hulu, and the human body isn't something that Hulu deems unviewable, so here is Scott's pubic hair and his penis.
[cheers and applause.]
Does it make for better TV? Probably not.
But I find it interesting, our taboo human outer shells.
Great penis, Scott.
- Thank you.
Isn't it-- it's interesting, right? Because that's jarring.
It was jarring.
And, uh and we've all seen nudity, but it's always sexualized.
And it's funny, because it's actually jarring to see clinical nudity, like there is a penis.
[laughter.]
Yeah.
All right.
Wait.
This might be a good time to do this.
There are gonna be some moments on this show when you feel uncomfortable, and for that, I've got you covered.
Because, you know, sometimes it is gonna be a lot, and it's not necessarily gonna be what you're used to.
So what we're gonna do is have a white man at a desk, just your average, run-of-the-mill late-night talk show host to go to whenever things get a little uncomfortable.
This is, um [laughter.]
And this is not me being condescending, by the way.
I get it.
I need to watch a "Law & Order" to get to sleep every night, even though I've seen every episode a thousand times.
I need it.
I need that familiarity.
I cannot fall asleep unless it's to the gentle tones of soft-core murder ripped from the headlines of 1993.
I can't.
And for a lot of people, that nighttime comfort is late-night talk shows.
So if things get a little bit too obscure, we've got, um Can we cut over to the white guy at the desk? [late-night style theme music.]
Okay.
[applause.]
So this is Mather.
And whenever things veer off the beaten path, all we have to do is just cut over to Mather, and he will bring us back to the relatable comfort of familiarity.
Isn't that right, Mather? - That's right, Sarah.
We've got a great show coming up tonight.
We've got Sarah visiting a family in Louisiana and an interview with Megan Phelps-Roper! Big show! [cheers and applause.]
That is right.
Okay, so where were we? Oh! Stella, hi.
Okay.
So you are Stella.
Hi, Stella.
- Hi, Sarah.
- And, of course, these are your boobs.
Fun.
- Yes.
I feel like we should censor We should censor something, right? Like, something should be taboo, like hands-- hands.
Hands are filthy.
We don't know where hands have been.
Show me those dirty digits, Stella.
Oh, God, gross! Blur those things out! Yeah! Gah-ross! Fingers go into butts! [laughter.]
Ech! Know what never goes into butts? Tits.
[laughter.]
And yet they're taboo.
Think about it.
Speaking of taboo, we never get to see vaginas! Stella, this is your vagina! Amazing! [cheers and applause.]
And a beautiful vagina.
[applause.]
I can see that you have a full but manicured bush, which I also subscribe to.
Well done.
And, uh-- and you can see just the promise of some lip, which I like.
Labia majora.
Sounds like a constellation, but it's not.
It's vagina lips.
What do you think, Mather? Check, please? [snickers.]
Oh, Mather.
You're not too much! [laughter.]
We'll be back in-- well, if you're super cheap, we'll be back in, like, two minutes.
But if you can part with, like, 4 extra dollars a month, we'll be back in two seconds.
Just a little dip to black.
[cheers and applause.]
[up-tempo band music.]
[up-tempo band music.]
I live in a bit of a bubble.
I'm on the Left Coast.
I work in the entertainment industry.
I generally try not to leave my apartment, ever.
And as a result, it's possible I may have some unfair preconceived notions about what people are like in the rest of America.
But that's the cunty part of me I'm trying to change with this show.
So I decided to go have dinner with a real family whose lives are completely unlike my own.
Do I deserve an award? Yes, probably.
Take a look.
Take a look! [laughter.]
SARAH: So Chalmette is a working-class suburb of New Orleans that sits right on the banks of the Mississippi River in southeastern Louisiana.
And the Standers are a family of crab fishermen who were displaced during Hurricane Katrina.
They are Christian gun-owning Trump voters who like to gather their whole family around for big Cajun dinners.
And on this day, they're going to be joined by a species they had not met before: the Jew--me.
Shalom.
No, hello.
[doorbell rings.]
Hello-ho-ho! - Hey! -- How are you? SARAH: So what do I know about the Standers? There's Michelle and her fiancé, Cody.
Their aunt Queen Janine.
They call her Queen G, which is not what Janine starts with.
The grandparents, who I think are five years older than me.
And Brandi, the 26-year-old matriarch of the house who made sure the whole family voted for Trump.
Oh, and there's Blaze.
He's seven.
He's a tough nut to crack, but I got him the perfect gift for children of all ages.
Press it.
[fart sound.]
[loud laughter.]
MAN: Oh! Yeah! - Aah, she gotcha, huh? - It's a remote-control fart machine.
- Oh, there ya go! We snuck in in the middle of the night and we recorded all the farts of everyone in your family - Oh! - And we put it on there.
I knew it sounded familiar.
[laughter.]
You couldn't've got him nothin' better.
Have you ever met a Jew before? Wait, what? A Jewish person.
Uh you know, that's a good question.
It's like a religion, but I'm not-- I don't really follow it.
I have met a Jew before.
Did they have the little hats? The only thing I know, the Jews wear the little hats.
- Yarmulkes? - Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm from the bai-yoo.
The bai-yoo.
- The bai-yah.
SARAH: What do I sound like to you? [as Sarah.]
Well, you know Ah-ha-ha-ha! I didn't know Jewish people growing up because I'm from New Hampshire.
But then I moved to New York and I was like, "Oh, my God!" - They got a lot? [laughter.]
"They got a lot?" They got a lotta Jews in New York.
You guys, tell me about Chalmette besides the fact that I'm pronouncing it wrong.
We actually just live up here now, but we're from the end of the world down on the bayou, and We got nutria rats for pets.
I don't know if you ever heard of a nutria.
It's just like a oversized rat.
Like a rat like this big? - Yeah, bigger than that.
- Bigger than that.
- The tail's about this long.
- And did it love you? Yes.
It was just like a dog.
Yeah.
But it was a rat.
[laughing.]
What kinda guns you have? What else? If you would be good and don't get your gun taken away Why did you get your gun taken away? He shot the bicycle tire, the rubber on it, and the little girl was there when he, uh coulda hit the little girl with it, you know, so I took it away from him.
- I did not.
- Did you hide it somewhere? - Yeah.
I hid it on top of the closet.
Now he knows! Dinner's ready! Hey! [laughs.]
And what else you want? - That's it.
- Okay.
WOMAN: All right, wait, wait, wait, wait.
[overlapping chatter.]
All right, you all voted for Trump.
What were the reasons behind it? What-- what made you love him? I did it for change.
I feel like we've been goin' in the same direction, which is down, for a long time now.
And I feel like he wants the change.
I feel like he can make America great again, and I just wanted to give him a chance.
The things he promised, too, you know, I mean, he made things sound pretty good, but he ain't impressed me so far, though.
You know, I mean, I voted for him and all, and I wanted the change I voted for him, too, for change.
I give him a chance, see what-- He can't do no worse than what the other ones did.
It's not that they did so bad, the other presidents-- - I just think Obama took what it means to be an American out of America-- you work hard, you work for what you have.
He did this to everybody.
Here ya go, here ya go.
Y'all don't work hard.
Just take everything, you know? Get in the system, get it right, find the people who deserve it, and fix it.
Do you get health care through work, or what is your-- - I'm on Medicaid.
- I'm on Medicaid too.
- I mean, I'm a full-time student, so as long as you're a full-time student, that is a job.
- And you get it through what? - The government.
- The state, yeah.
ACA? - Justwhoever gives it.
[laughs.]
I don't know.
The government, I guess.
- The government.
- Yeah, you gotta apply for it.
- You gotta apply.
Well, when Obama was president, I'd hear, "Oh, Obama's not from this country.
" You know, "Obama started ISIS," all this stuff.
He is an immigrant, isn't he? He's from Hawaii.
- I don't know.
- AUDIENCE: Oh! Oh, my God.
Oh, God, Brandi! - I don't know.
- Do you really think he's from, what, like, Africa or something? - I don't know where he's from.
- No, that's what them people-- That's rumors.
- SARAH: Donald Trump started that-- the Birthers.
- I want Obama to come to a luau for me, then.
Come show me what he got if it's natural.
- [laughs.]
He's from Hawaii.
There's pictures of him when he's little.
Why would he - Photoshop? - No.
He is.
- Oh, I'm just kiddin'.
- I know ya are.
- Not really, no.
[laughter.]
All right, new topic.
Gay marriage.
How do we feel? - All for it.
Love is love in all of our eyes.
We don't judge.
[applause.]
We love, no matter what.
Love is awesome.
- I don't know about the marriage thing, but - Well, you old-school.
Still love 'em.
[laughs.]
They can be married if they wanna spend the rest of their life together.
That's their partner.
- BRANDI: I think it's your life.
You're born that way.
- Yeah.
- You should be able to make any decision you wanna make.
As long as it doesn't hurt anybody else.
That's a good way to put it.
You are who you are.
You are who you are.
It's completely normal.
CODY: I don't think they should have kids.
- Why? - What? - A man and a woman, you know, should raise a kid, not two men.
Who's raising these kids? This whole household is.
Ha-ha-ha.
You gotta defend it if you say it.
Yeah, I mean, just the way I was raised, you know? That's always a good reason: just the way I was raised.
Everybody got their own opinion, you know? - That's true, you're right.
- I'm just saying anything can happen, and you should be open to love no matter where it comes from, let 'em give it to you.
I hate to tell you this, but you're a liberal.
[laughter.]
What did I think of the family? I couldn't love them more.
I had a great time! - All right.
SARAH: Did we change each other's minds? Um fuck no.
But we did learn that we don't have to be divided to disagree.
My new best friend.
We can have fun.
We can even love each other.
I know you're gonna come around on the gay stuff.
[laughter.]
BRANDI: It felt so great to talk to somebody with different views and sit in a room and not be judged.
- Bye.
- We coulda just kept her here forever.
[laughter.]
SARAH: Who's my favorite? I mean, I really liked all of them, but I would have to say Blaze, 100%.
[laughter and applause.]
Oh, my Blaze! [cheers and applause.]
[cheers and applause.]
Every show, I'll have one interview, and the common thread is that everyone I talk to will be someone who has experienced change.
Our guest tonight grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church which her grandfather Fred Phelps founded.
You know them-- they protest soldiers' funerals with signs like this.
That is actually her in the photo.
It was all she knew and everything she loved.
But when she was put in charge of social media for the church, she found herself changed.
Welcome my friend Megan Phelps-Roper.
[cheers and applause.]
- Hi.
- Hey, friend.
How are you? How 'bout that picture? I love it.
JewsKilledJesus.
com.
Wow.
I'm so glad you guys got that domain name.
I would - [laughs.]
Be absolutely broken if you had to be JewsKilledJesus1.
net.
- Right.
So okay, the Westboro Baptist Church is considered a hate group.
Why is that? Well, because we did a lot of things that seem hateful to most people.
We believed that it was loving.
We thought that, you know, loving our neighbor was going to warn them, the consequences of their sins.
But we did things like, you know, we celebrated 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina and every sort of human tragedy.
We protested funerals.
Like I said, we did it because we believed that was the definition of love.
We thought we were loving our neighbor with those signs.
So "God hates fags" was a way of loving our neighbor.
Does that make sense? - [blubbers.]
- [laughs.]
So tell me about your moment of change.
So I got on Twitter in 2009, and that's where my first doubts really came from.
Um Twitter was a lot like pickets at first.
It was really hostile.
I was saying incredibly provocative things, and people were responding in kind.
And then after a while, there was this, you know, group of people, and just individuals, who because we were able to finally have sort of extended, ongoing conversation-- you could have that on Twitter in a way that you couldn't have on the picket line-- people got to know me, and I got to know them, and we got to see that neither of us, you know, neither side was-- was the monstrous, you know, image we had had in our heads.
Okay, so you've said that you married your troll.
- [laughs.]
- Which you did.
You married your Twitter troll.
And how did he how was he able to get through to you? So first I should say that he would probably object to be calling a troll.
To being called a troll.
Uh, but he was arguing from a position of, "Yeah, I'm hearing what you're saying, and I understand, I see these things in the Bible" But, for instance, you know, picketing funerals.
Like, "What about the family?" We literally had a sign that said, "God hates your feelings.
" So I had learned from a very young age to just dismiss people and their thoughts and feelings and how we impacted them.
And my now husband, who at the time was totally anonymous and I didn't know Anyways.
He's an incredible human being.
It's practically like Jdate.
[laughter.]
But it's amazing that he and people like him, like, took the time and had the patience, um you know, to really effectively challenge me.
I mean, I think it's incredibly important and a super effective tactic when you're dealing with extremists.
You know, talking about extremism, I think that your presence in this conversation is so powerful because you literally understand-- You know, Charlottesville.
This is something that you can genuinely kind of understand.
Yeah.
And I think I think one thing that's really important for people to understand is that I think extremists generally are not psychopaths.
They're not you know, they're psychologically normal people who have been persuaded by bad ideas.
And we can't expect to, like, isolate these people and hope that those ideas will just fade into oblivion.
Like, we really have to actually engage those ideas and find ways of, one, understanding the mind-sets of the people that we're dealing with and then effectively constructing arguments and evidence and presenting those things.
And it's not just for the sake of these extremists, right? 'Cause they impact the rest of society.
Like, young people, especially, I think, are more susceptible and vulnerable to them.
So we present the arguments not just for the people who are in it and who are doing things that we find reprehensible, like, you know, what happened in Charlottesville.
We actually have to address it.
You know, it is interesting.
My first instinct, my first impulse, go, "Well, you know, these extremists, "they're not psychopaths.
They're just normal people.
" And in my mind, I went, "I don't know about that.
" And then I look at who I'm talking to, and you're the perfect example of that, you know? Tell me what happened when you left the church.
When someone leaves the church, they are immediately cut off from everyone in the church.
And that's your entire family.
Yeah.
It's been-- Next month will be five years since I left.
Wow.
It's such a short amount of time, really.
Oh, man, it seems like forever.
Like, I can't believe it's been that long since I've seen, you know, my Okay, I'm not gonna cry.
Um, the I've spent a lot of time the past five years, you know, with these communities that I used to target at the church and really trying to find a way to sort of repair some of the damage that I did while I was there, so II don't know.
I've been working with schools, middle schools and high schools on anti-bullying campaigns and with law enforcement on, like, hate crimes and counter-terrorism and extremism and just really trying to find a way to use these experiences to do good.
So, for instance, like, I was staying with Rabbi Yonah Bookstein here in Los Angeles, who I had picketed three years earlier with a sign that said, "Your rabbi is a whore.
" So, like, spending time now with this rabbi-- That rabbi's a whore? You should meet my sister the rabbi.
[laughter.]
I tried.
You are one of the most positive people I've ever met.
What gives you hope? Well, I think a big part of it is that at Westboro, like, we had a sign and a matching website, literally: TheWorldIsDoomed.
com.
And there's, like, this incredibly depressing view of other people.
We basically saw everybody outside the church as inherently evil and, you know, deliberately doing what they knew was wrong and and going to hell.
And when I left and I was meeting all these people and realizing they're not monsters.
They're just people trying to live their lives in the best way that they know how.
And I find so much hope in that.
Megan, thank you so much for coming.
Megan, I have a question.
I understand you took a vacation recently and things got a little wacky? Mather, it's not that kind of show.
Go get the bed ready.
- [laughs.]
Megan, I'm so happy you came.
Let's hug heart to heart like my therapist tells me to.
I love you to pieces.
- I love you too.
Can you believe it? That is basically the show.
We did it.
It's fucking crazy.
I was like, "I wanna make a show," and we made a show.
[lullaby music.]
Oh.
Spoon me.
Spoon me! Mm.
- Mm.
Oh, this is good.
Nighttime is the right time.
Tune in next week when we'll have Tom Berenger, Morgan Fairchild, musical guests The Judds, and audience favorite Hardly Headlines.
Oh, that's not true, but it sounds nice.
Good night, America.
I "lerve" you.
[click.]
MAN: In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
["Law & Order" dramatic sting.]
[whimsical music.]
MAN: Shave it off, stay alive, open wide Show us how to conquer first and then divide CHORUS: Don't know if we're stayin' long, stayin' long Used to staying weak And now we're staying strong We don't wanna go where we do not belong Lonely as the day is long, day is long MAN: Shave it off, stay alive, open wide Show us how to conquer first and then divide CHORUS: Don't know if we're stayin' long, stayin' long Used to staying weak And now we're staying strong We don't wanna go where we do not belong Lonely as the day is long, day is long