Jim Gaffigan on Porn, Masculinity and Fatherhood | Big Think

Jim Gaffigan on Porn, Masculinity and Fatherhood

New videos DAILY

Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I haven’t slept in seven years," says Jim Gaffigan, in reference to having his fourth child. "I didn’t always look like this – I’m actually Puerto Rican, but the wear and tear parenting… " he trails off, exhausted.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JIM GAFFIGAN :

Jim Gaffigan is a Grammy nominated comedian, New York Times best-selling author, top touring performer, and multi-platinum-selling father of five. He recently wrapped the first season of his semi-fictitious television show, The Jim Gaffigan Show, which TV Land picked up for a second season and premieres two episodes on Sunday, June 19th at 10/9c. The series, lauded by The Los Angeles Times as “Fun and Funny,” and People Magazine as “One of Summer TV’s bright spots,” was developed by Peter Tolan along with Gaffigan and his wife, Jeannie, who both also serve as executive producers and showrunners. The single-camera comedy co-stars Ashley Williams, Michael Ian Black, and Adam Goldberg and revolves around one man’s struggle to balance fatherhood, stand-up comedy and an insatiable appetite. With multiple projects in motion, Gaffigan is currently preparing to travel the country in a tour bus with his family on behalf of his Fully Dressed arena and theater tour which begins July 7th.

Gaffigan’s fourth special ("Beyond the Pale," 2006; "King Baby," 2009; "Mr. Universe," 2012),"Obsessed" premiered on Comedy Central in 2014 and the DVD/CD was released soon after by Comedy Central Records. "Obsessed" premiered at #1 on iTunes which marked the fifth time Gaffigan reached the Top 25 Comedy category on iTunes. The album also earned a nomination for "Best Comedy Album of the Year" at the 2015 Grammy Awards.

In 2013, Jim’s first book, Dad Is Fat, was released by Crown Publishing and debuted at #5 on The New York Times Bestseller’s List and remained on the list for 17 weeks.  His second book, Food: A Love Story, was released in the fall of 2014 and debuted at #3 on The New York Times Bestseller’s List.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT:

Jim Gaffigan:  The idea of being a man has changed so dramatically, right. But particularly I think not just the responsibilities of being a father which has always been, not to get all Kahlil Gibran like these children are on loan to us and we’re supposed to make sure that we take care of them and we’re the stewards of these human beings. Male roles which is something my wife and I have written about in the show because the concept of a father today is dramatically different. I mean obviously it’s different in every family culture but it’s different from a generation ago. And the idea of what a father’s responsibility whether it’s co-parenting, whether it’s a stay in home dad or just someone that does lip service to the idea of sharing responsibility. Is so different from 1910 and I have this joke where it’s like – and then you go back to cavemen and they’re literally eating their children.

I think it’s perspective on how we treat women, right. That is the beginning and the ending of it. We are animals. I start from that premise. And we choose to not behave like animals. And that’s, you know, a pretty guiding force through humanity whether it gets completely out of control or just panting like a dog when an attractive woman walks by.

I even look at like pornography and all this stuff where it’s yeah, you know, it’s like look, I love naked women, I really do. But I also know that I am a visual human being and I can’t, you know, consume images of naked women and not have that influence how I view other women. I mean that’s my personal opinion. It’s like my sexual desires are very valid and real but if I, you know, follow through on every sexual desire first of all I’d have a thousand children. No but I think then that’s not how you get – I wouldn’t feel very good. Do you know what I mean? When I look at my young sons I think that look, I know that we love and like the normalization of porn and I’m not, you know, it’s like to each their own, right. But I don’t think that I want my sons consuming pornography. I want my sons to look at an advertisement and say that is a beautiful woman but she’s being objectified. And I do want even beyond that I personally think that in the United States we give credit and appreciate attractive people too much. And so I think that I want to instill that, I mean I think a lot of parents who desperately want to have nerdy children. So I don’t know...

For the full transcript, check out