Very early on in the SmartLess episode with Charli XCX as the guest, it became clear that Jason Bateman didn’t seem to do much research on their (the podcast is also hosted by Sean Hayes and Bateman’s fellow Arrested Development alum, Will Arnett) interview subject. For, within minutes of the podcast, Bateman needs to ask such questions of The Moment as, “So you’re sort of playing like a version of yourself?” and “Who directed it?” And then, XCX literally has to explain what her Brat album looks like to Bateman (the font, the color, that it was a cultural phenomenon). Thus, for a while there, it initially seems for the best that Bateman and Hayes pivot toward other topics of a more “personal life” variety, with the conversation building toward the subject of having children as a result of Hayes asking XCX if one side of her culture—Scottish or Indian—felt more prominent to her than another when she was growing up.
XCX responds that both cultures felt present, and that she would tap into one more than another depending on what side of the family she was with (which she’s touched on in past interviews, including a recent one with Yung Lean for Dazed). But she also mentions that, “When I was around [my mother’s family] I would always feel I suppose more white because I guess I didn’t entirely perhaps connect with certain parts of the culture that I wasn’t always present for, you know. And then I think in school, I would often feel more brown, you know, and more Indian just because, um, I think a lot of my school friends, their only kind of reference point for an Indian person was Apu from The Simpsons, you know.”
It’s here that Bateman chooses to make Charli’s sense of displacement about himself by stating that he holds on to the comments and bullying that “really scarred [him] back then but actually gave [him] a bit of a thicker skin.” This spoken like someone of “a certain generation” that insists bullying “builds character.” Bateman’s age bracket, in fact, is something he alludes to multiple times before they reach this part of the conversation, calling himself an “old-timer” and, when Hayes asks XCX to explain her stage name, Bateman chimes in, “For me too, I’m an old man. Help me.” And so it seems that by emphasizing how “old” and “out of touch” he is, Bateman is setting himself up to “get a pass” for any perceived shortcomings. Which make themselves known so quickly that even XCX has to rib, “Doesn’t sound like you’re up for a lot, mate.”
Including the ability to fathom that a woman might know herself well enough to realize that she doesn’t want to be a mother. A subject that Charli has been open about in terms of going back and forth on whether she should “take that plunge” or not. This internal struggle manifested on Brat’s “I think about it all the time,” (the “it” being the decision to have a child), during which she sings, “Would it give my life a new purpose?” and later adding, “Would it make me miss all my freedom?” As of the “airing” of the SmartLess podcast, the answer to the latter question appears to be a resounding yes, she would miss it. Though such candor still landed like a lead weight balloon when pitted against a self-proclaimed “old-timer’s” view on the matter. One that came to light as Bateman probed Charli about being an only child, to which she responded that a part of her does feel like she missed out on something by not having a sibling in the sense that she believes it might have helped her learn how to better deal with conflict early on.
Bateman subsequently takes this as an opportunity to ask, “Does that mean that you would love to have, um, uh, more than one kid or would you like to have a kid that has the same sort of experience as you where it’s the only child and you get to just kind of nurture and protect and—” “I actually don’t really wanna have kids,” Charli breaks in. Bateman awkwardly responds, “No none.” Hayes pipes up, “You don’t?” Charli confirms, “Yeah.” Hayes, himself showing some retro tendencies, follows up, “Wait, why?” Charli shrugs, “Um, you know, that could change…” Hayes then tries to make her feel more “comfortable” by adding, “It’s none of my business” despite having just asked the question of “why?” about her not wanting kids. As if it’s the most outlandish thing in the world that she wouldn’t.
To accommodate these codgers with a response they might grasp, Charli then explains, “I love, like, the fantasy of having a child, like, like, naming it sounds so fun, but I’m like that is exactly a sign to me as to why I should not have one. The fact that that feels like the coolest part about it and, like, maybe I’m not ready, you know?” While the smart thing to do (but then, this is a podcast called SmartLess) would have been to then just move on from the topic at hand, Bateman makes the fatal mistake of doing that thing that “elders”—and particularly men—do when they think they know best, telling Charli, “But you know all that could change… My wife did not want to have kids, so the story goes, so she tells me.” Hayes then tries to alleviate the increasingly bizarre dialogue with the joke, “And she didn’t, and you adopted yours” (but no, in fact, Bateman has two “natural-born” daughters).
Ignoring Hayes, Bateman continues, “And she said once we started going out and she met—she was like, ‘Okay, I think I can have a kid with this guy.’ So you might somebody—” “Well, I’m married, so…” Charli again interjects. Hence, Bateman finally starts to leave the topic alone by remarking, with his tail between his legs, “Ah, there you go. I gotta read a newspaper one of these days.” Game to indulge whoever as usual (see also: her 2014 interview with the woman who genuinely thought she was Lorde), Charli assures, “It’s okay, I knew immediately where you were gonna go, I knew the response, I was looking forward to it.” Bateman, wanting to put his foot in his mouth one last time, tries to salvage it all with the “quip,” “Your next husband [is who] you’re gonna want kids with.”
After this point, the podcast finally moves on to less “bumpy roads,” so to speak, as Charli talks about her artistic process and ingraining herself with the mantra of “daring to suck” so that she can come up with concepts for songs that she otherwise wouldn’t. And, funnily enough, this only happens after Will Arnett “enters the chat,” for he was late to join the episode and didn’t bear witness to any of the cringeworthy “having a child” talk.
Who knows, maybe Arnett’s presence earlier on would have somehow helped avoid this trainwreck portion of the interview. Though probably not, since it would have only added one more middle-aged white man (and apparently, when a gay man [Hayes] reaches this demographic as well, he’s not much help either on the “forward-thinking” front) to the room assuming that, in the end, a woman would be a fool to not want to have children. To do her “duty” and continue to help propagate the species. That all she needs is to find the “right guy” to change her mind. Even if that isn’t what would fulfill her (least of all creatively).
In any case, it’s obvious, by this point, that the only “babies” Charli is trying to birth are her endless production of “art projects.” However, it seems that men such as Bateman, as creatively barren as they are (and often reliant on women as their “muses” [read: a source to steal from like F. Scott with Zelda] for any such creativity), can’t understand what that’s like. For they’ve always possessed the privilege of never having to choose between “art life” or a baby.
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