PragerU Live: Stephen Miller (6/13/17)

hey everyone this is Elicia Krauss and I'm live at our brand new prageru live studio in Los Angeles so thanks so much for generous donations that help keep prageru live and our prageru video is free yesterday of course we talked to John Roseman there are any parents or grand parents watching or I would even say like aunties and uncles be sure to check that out but today I'm kind of geeking out and very excited to get into the world of Wonder Woman Yes you heard that right we're gonna be talking to Stephen Miller he's a contributor at heat Street and Stephen actually had some pretty interesting Adventures at the segregated Wonder Woman screening if you're not sure what we're talking about then stay tuned because I'll be asking Stephen all about it right now Stephen Miller thanks so much for joining us today thank you for having me it wasn't that big of an adventure but uh it it was interesting it was a fun experiment I think more of your adventure occurred leading up to attending the actual movie screening correct yes yeah um I mean I'm so yeah if there's like people watching on the Facebook that familiar um Alamo Draft houses theater chain um decided they were going to try and they advertised women's only screenings for women or for women only uh to Wonder Woman mhm and um and and the specific language on their website said no guys allowed and they said you know we mean it no guys allowed like don't even try to show up well in the state of New York where I live um where the Alam draft houses in Brooklyn that originally did this um they're actually even by advertising they're VI they're violating state law state civil rights protections that say uh a movie theater is won a public place so if they're just offering a public screening they can't say anybody can't go they can't say men they can't say no guys allowed they can't say no gay people allowed they can't say no women allowed no blacks no whites anything um gend yeah right and genders included in that so it kind of just started out as this dumb experiment where I actually just I saw the advertisement for it I saw the Tweet saying they just added more screenings and you just tweeted it right right I just I went into to just buy the ticket and just to see if I could if this was a private event or if it was a public screening and it turns out my credit card went through fine and so I I guess I looked at it and I said I guess I'm going to Wonder Woman I mean I I guess that's what what I'm doing and uh it kind of blew up into a little bit online the reaction was about what I thought there was one you know one shrieking corner of the internet that decided to make this their grievance nrata for you know a good three or four days and provided me with about a weekend of entertainment but uh there there were no problems at the screening itself well that's good to know what was some of the reaction that you received and and I guess who was the highest level person on the left during the feminist movement that that went after you oh let me think well I mean there were there was a I mean as far as like randoms on Twitter turning my mentions into garbage fire that happens daily anyway that doesn't bother me um we did I did have someone who basically offered on Twitter $150 to anyone who would ma me in the face which I explained to them I explained to them politely not so much for my safety um but if you're going to mace somebody in a theater full of women they're probably going to get maed two in the process it's a closed environment yeah so I lightly reminded them you're going to be masing a theater full of women too okay um I had some insults about my my fragile masculinity which I didn't really understand if if my ego is so fragile why am I going to a room a darkened room full of women for two hours being surrounded by powerful woman right exactly a superhero so um there was one there was one gamergate feminist who offered to like $20 to dump a soda on my head that apparently didn't take off because $20 I think is the price of a ticket no one's going to get kicked out of a movie theater for that um but I think I think Twitter took care of that stuff I was never really worried about that um I had I had several writers from film blogs some film websites um van one of vanity Fair's lead writers got in my mentions a little bit and I simply just explained to them that this was you know you want equality and you want empowerment and quality well that's what this is that's you know this was this was not a go ahead you would also think I mean and I'm excited to see the movie I've heard really great things about it uh Emily zenat is a mutual friend of ours you guys work together over at heat Street big fan of her writing too and she'd said it's kind of me she said it's like a you know Captain America but with a woman but I've heard really lots of good things but there's all of these thought pieces and stuff about Wonder Woman that are out now that almost make me hesitant to go see it I mean like you know Wonder Woman's thigh Jiggles on film why this is important for the female empowerment but back to like it's so fascinating to me that one people didn't understand the basic black and whiteness of this being blatant discrimination to say that only one gender could attend um and I think you mentioned in your follow-up piece that there's actually a homosexual man in the state of New York that's suing because uh he was saying right he's he's a he's a law professor at Albany University who he did I don't know if he sued he he filed civil rights complaints with the city of New York um and then he also filed one in Austin Texas um which is basically I I believe Alamo Draft House got their start in Austin correct right and the theater chain and Austin offered a similar screening and then I know that I think the city of Denver did as well as a couple others but I don't know these the Civil Rights protections go from City to City it's nice to see the political left embracing federalism so um but yeah he did file he did file two civil rights complaints and I don't those are pending I don't know what's happening with those but I guess like my original thought in all of this is back to if you really want women to be empowered don't you and to be treated as equals don't you shouldn't you appraise it and and appreciate it when a dude's like hey I'm interested in going to see a movie with a woman as the the lead right I thought that that was kind of curious reaction to it is I was basically supporting the film I I paid my money to go see the film and people were still screaming at me you know as opposed to you know with with past films like this if people threaten to boycott then you know you're misogynist or you're sitting it out and you know you know you're you're being a poor sport by not supporting these things so that was kind of really the weird reaction I never really understood is I'm I'm paying the studio money to go see it um I wrote a pre favor review and that wasn't planned I I I was honest about how I felt about the film and I you know I got several responses of people saying they're going to go see the film now they're going to give it a shot and things like that so any publicity from anybody is decent news um I don't necessar consider myself a journalist but I am in media I do contribute to Media so I found that the other thing is odd is I you know I never pulled the I'm just doing this for you know to write a piece on it but in this great age where journalists are defended to the High Hill um I found it interesting that that was never kind of something that came up from that side either um so it was kind of like oh I'm doing this I'm doing this to give exposure and I wanted to see what this was like so and again it turned out to be really anti-climatic there there wasn't really any incidents at all at the uh theater so was there security I mean were people making sure that there were only women entering the theater once you went to the Alamo Draft House no there was so I basically to kind of avoid a scene I I didn't want to make this a huge big to-do like you know I think that the political right's been prone to do now is to make kind of a big you know media circus of every single thing that happens and I kind of didn't want to do that I just wanted to make the the point itself I think was already made that this was an advertising gimmick that backfired and I didn't need to do much beyond that but So to avoid any the media I went to an earlier showing of a film of a different film right across the hallway from the Wonder Woman screening so at the 15 minutes before Wonder Woman I simply just walked out of one screening and I walked into a different one got it and or of a different movie so I was in the theater two and a half hours before I didn't I don't know if anything was happening in the lobby there was one security guard outside the theater entrance like right outside the screening entrance and I simply just like put my head down and walked right by him and went and took myat there was no there was no issue they didn't ask for you know my ticket they didn't ask for anything I got into my seat um alamoo Draft House for people unfamiliar they have servers so and it's it's kind of a dinner theater so you have a server who comes up takes your order for things and she came up and asked her my ticket and I showed it to her and she was very polite she was very lovely and didn't ask for my gender didn't ask how I identify didn't do any of that she you know just said hey you know great you've been here before great and took my order and that was the end of it so were you the sole male or were there other men in the audience I I do there was one either um someone who was either cross-dressing or it was they could have been transexual I didn't really take a headcount you know I didn't really want to stand up and you know kind of do this thing how many other dudes are there yeah I think I was the only one there might have been one others blending in or you know again they could have been going through transition or something I don't I didn't really count I didn't really care I you know kind of just went and sat down and you know one of the things I said before the film was when people were saying you're going to ruin this or you're barging in is no everybody's going to be watching a movie no one's going to be watching me like nobody's going to care when you go to a movie theater you don't care about who's around you until their cell phone goes off exactly or they're talking so I was never again worried about that I we just when sat down that the the ladies next to me you know were were fine they didn't talk or anything like that and there really wasn't I thought I saw one person maybe take a picture but I haven't seen that pop up on online anywhere so um I don't know I I just I didn't pay attention to the crowd and the crowd didn't pay attention to me and I thought that that's kind of how it would have gone I mean previous to this like you actually attending the movie you were hit up with a lot of metor requests including The Daily Show who offered to send cameras along with you right right I got I got an email from The Daily Show who basically wanted to film The SE they wanted to film me for a segment and go along with it and um that's that's great I've watched a Daily Show for years and years so I know what they're going to do so I did a hard pass on that I was very polite you know they twist it in some way right they're going to edit you they're going to they're going to chop it up they're going to they're going to do their best to make their point while not giving you really a chance to be your point and that's kind of what they do they do this clown nose on clown nose off where we're journalism show and then there we're a comedy show no we're a journalism show and so I had no desire of going through that um I did have so I did I did post a daily R shows Quest on my Twitter feed and then they the same uh Studio person or producer or whoever got in touch with me and they were like can you take that tweet down and I never respond to them I'm under no legal obligation to take the Tweet down so I left it up wow um they they tried to play it under I gave you the you know I gave you the you know I gave you the courtesy of you know reaching out for a media request so I don't really need this on Twitter with random people well no you don't want it on Twitter because right you're gonna see they're gonna see what you do you're trying to play cool to me trying to be like hey man we're going to be friends yeah and then the second thing is they actually mentioned gender discrimination in the email he actually says the gender discrimination at this Alamo Draft House and so I'm thinking his higher up saw that and went you need to get that email down because if there was ever a legal case I can use that email of course um but no I did not take that tweet down that tweet is still on my feed good for you for not doing that because I mean I've worked as a producer in talk radio for a very long time and I get there's like some finessing and stuff and relation ship that occurs because you want to book people on your boss's show or as a host on your show or you know PR are you live we love to talk to people like you so I'm like nice to people but I'm very straightforward with people but I've noticed that a lot of times the mainstream media and Comedy Central is definitely guilty of this they try to reel people in um and and then you become like a fish out of water because they stab you in the back once you actually show up so good for you for kind of like playing them at their own game I I really like that I have to get your thoughts there's this woman who um is a breastfeeding Advocate and which kind of breaks my heart because I'm like it's people like who isn't who isn't breastfeeding ad I'm like it's people like her that make us like breastfeeding mamas look bad but anyway um and she is like has done these TED talks and is a researcher and obviously a feminist who hates the use of spirit animal but she had this tweet yesterday where she went to a Target and I know it's a Target because I'm there far too frequently spending a lot of money on my three and a half-year-old because they have such adorable kids clothes and uh and she moved some T-shirts from I believe they're part of the Buzz Aldren collection from the boys Department with NASA logos on them to the girls Department it of course has 25,000 likes you know over 15,000 retweets she's getting some flak for it rightfully so but what's fascinating to me is this like war between the feminists where she says oh I you know hope that they can have NASA shirts in the girl section because we can be scientists and Mathematics you know mathematicians as well and then there people in her feed that were like Black Or Hispanic feminists saying you know you're not woke this is inappropriate now you know why we don't include you in our level of feminism and it's like the them fighting their own that's just so fascinating to me I mean I tweeted like well one you're blatantly wrong I bought my kid a glitter NASA shirt at Target a couple weeks ago and two you just made the job of a minimum wage worker a lot more annoying but I wanted to since you've been in this realm of like this social media craze and feminists coming after you what are your thoughts on this I mean I I I saw that pop up on Twitter my first question was I don't know who this person is I mean you gave me some like good backstory there because I had no idea who this person was I mean it could have been a private citizen just being obnoxious it could have it could have been like you said a a edu Professor who just wanted to make a point by like messing up the aisle and then putting it on Twitter U I I don't I guess I don't understand the point other than you just made everybody else's shopping experience really really difficult this is this is part of the hearts and Minds aspect of that I don't think this that far side of the political aisle really gets is you're not you're not fighting Injustice you're just inconveniencing people because now people who want to go shop at Target are going to have to go through all of these clothes and they're going to wonder why this shirt doesn't fit their daughter or their son and then they're just going to give up and they're going to quit they're not going to even know who pulled the stunt they're just going to maybe think a worker there is incompetent and did everything wrong which is unfair to the workers there because they're generally you know hardworking people people and and working in a stock room like Target is not an easy job it's a long painstakingly generally probably low-paying job so my first thought was like you're just kind of being obnoxious the other thought is is there's like I said there's this aspect of hearts and Minds that the protests left I don't think understands it's a similar when they you know when they protest and they go and they shut down a highway and they block a highway um you're not making a point about social justice all you're doing is preventing these people from getting home from work to see their families at night and if they're going to take that out they're not going to run you down with the car they're going to go to a voting booth and they're going to vote Donald Trump and that's going to be their protest so I don't understand this um this need to inconvenience other people with the way that you're protesting um so but that's just me I didn't I don't know who this person is so I kind of laughed and I was like well that was kind of just a douchy thing to do okay next and yeah if you say like feminists are fighting why why get in the way of that Let Them Fight let them I kind of love that they're eating their own it's fascinating to me bring up a really good point about inconvenience you know it's hard to win someone over to your side of the argument whether it's emotional political religious whatever um when you are inconveniencing them in such a way and it it kind of is reminisent of the Westboro Baptist Church people that people on the right and the left dislike uh and it's just fascinating that the left says that they hate them and despise them but they're kind of using a lot of their obnoxious tactics but I will not take up any more of your time because I know you're trying of vacation thank you so much for being on this edition of I'm in the beautiful yeah I'm in the beautiful Woods of Upstate New York here and there's all kinds of wildlife roaming around out there and I I'm afraid to go out there so I come up to the woods for I come up to the woods for New York I run into bears and deer if I go back home to Brooklyn I run into Wildlife like Lena Dunham oh so be afraid be very afraid prefer it up here not gonna lie Stephen thank you so much for your time today we really appreciate you appearing on this edition of Facebook uh live for Prager you live everyone if you like these PR lives be sure to like and share them or you know Pride it and share it whatever flag is special this week on Facebook and be sure to donate to Prager youu because it's because of generous donations from people like you that keep our videos free and reaching young Millennials like myself so they are the majority of our audience and we want to continue to reach their hearts and Minds without inconveniencing them anyway thanks for tuning in to this Edition and if you see Wonder Woman let me know what you think thanks and I'll see you next time e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e