107: Instagram Face/Off

The ladies are joined by Jia Tolentino, staff writer for the New Yorker and author of the essay collection “Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion” this week. First up we fetch the bolt cutters for our first impressions of the new Fiona Apple album. Plus, pandemic dreams! A scientific explanation for why people are having such weird dreams during self-isolation. Then we talk about "Instagram Face," which Jia wrote an incredible essay about. She also describes her experience meeting the Kardashians' plastic surgeon Dr. Ourian. Who has the most Instagram face? What will the beauty standards shift toward next? Can you facetune reality? We take a Night Call about Heidi Montag and recall the first phase of young people getting extreme plastic surgery. Then Tess, Molly and Emily take on another classic plastic surgery movie for Plastic Surgery April: John Woo's Face/Off! First time viewer Emily talks to seasoned Face/Off fans Tess and Molly about the operatic silliness of John Travolta and Nic Cage in this movie, the low-key sci-fi world it takes place in, and whose faces we would personally like to take off. More fun in the new world at Night Call!

Footnotes:

Jia's Book! 

Fiona Apple's Feature in 1997 Spin "Girls"

Emily Nussbaum's Fiona Apple Profile

Rachel Handler's Fiona Apple Interview

And Rachel's Texts from Fiona

NY Times on Corona Dreams

And Nat Geo on 'rona Nightmares 

How to Lucid Dream

Jia Tolentino on Instagram Face

Heidi Montag on her Plastic Surgery

Face/Off Trivia 

Night Call Patreon

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's eleven forty PM in an airplane hangar in Los Angeles,
and you're listening tonight. Call hello and welcome back tonight
call a call in show for our dystopian reality. I'm

(00:20):
Molly Lambert and with me are Test Lynch and Emily
or Shita. Here we are, and today we are super
excited to welcome our very special guest, Gia Tolentino, staff
writer for The New Yorker and author of the essay
collection Trick Mirror Reflections on Self Delusion. Welcome Gia tonight.
Call hi, guys. It's nice to, you know, talk to

(00:43):
someone after a long day a loan. It's nice to
everybody figure out complicated audio setups so we can all
connect to each other as humans at home. This is
how God intended it to bes Master. Now I figured
out all the well we were all last night connecting

(01:03):
with our friend Fiona Apple, whose new album Fetch the
Bolt Cutters. I fetched the bolt Cutters, Um, Emily, Giah
and I all Fetch the bolt Cutters. Oh yeah, we
just wanted to give our our un baked takes on
the album. I had been like I just filed a
thing that I was like kind of Deep Reporting all

(01:25):
day and I had like had my head in it.
But of course I've been listening to Fiona the whole time.
And then I went for like a walk the length
of the album and listened to the whole thing through,
and I mean, I'm still very overwhelmed by it. But
one thing, I just felt so grateful for an album
that like it requires and demands your complete attention, you know,
and like the more attention you give it, the more

(01:46):
it gives you. It's it's just like I wish that
I wish that there were like I wish that I
could be riding the subway and listening to it like
it was gonna be driving and listen to it. It's
like I just hadn't heard an album like that in
a real a long time. Yeah, I basically I was
thinking about maybe taking a drive out to the beach,
not getting out, but just driving and coming back because

(02:09):
that's allowed. This is uh, this is like an honor
that I really only give to like Lana del Ray
albums at this point, as far as like having a
dedicated listen, so I was thinking it might warrant that.
But yeah, and it's also just like she it's it's
really refreshing to hear a new album that really doesn't
sound I mean, it doesn't really sound like it's in
conversation with anything else right now musically or genre wise.

(02:32):
It's like its own thing, and it's just like, oh yeah,
I'm listening to like a completely fully formed artist who
just knows what the funk she's doing. It's great. Um,
I feel like she's an old friend at this point. Yeah.
One of my group texts was saying, like, we're so
lucky that we had her when we were like thirteen,
and also when we were five, and also now you know,

(02:53):
like I feel. I went down a total spiral about
the Spin Girl issue which came out in UM, which
had Fiona on the cover, which I bought at the
small the West Side Pavilion. That was just a knockdown
r I Pu Side pavilion FASTI mall to be turned
into a Google campus. One thing I've been thinking about
with Fiona recently is that for whatever reason, the way

(03:16):
that she's released albums because she doesn't very frequently. This
has been like eight years since I had Their Wheel
and seven years. It was seven years between Extraordinary Machine
and i'd Their Wheel and for whatever, like whenever her
new album comes out. I am. I guess I'm the
age that she was when I guess it's just our
age difference. I don't know how math works. I'm revealing

(03:37):
this right now, but but I am the age that
she was whenever she released the last album. So then
I'm like going and doing my whole Fiona re listen
and like getting excited and everything. And then I'm like, oh,
now I get it in a whole new life, like
passing all these sort of like emotional maturity milestones or something.

(03:57):
Uh yeah, So it was it was weird just to
like remember the girl issue because it just had a
big impact on me. I think it was also the
first time I was like, why would you need a
girl issue? Why can't it just be an issue? So
I am saving my listening party. I had a really
I had a crazy night last night. Um that was

(04:19):
not super like it was. It was crazy just in
terms of like very pandemic e I guess, like my
husband was doing something, recording something, there were technical issues,
my kids were having all of these like meltdowns, and
then I was like nervous that the emotional impact of
listening to this album would be not what I required,

(04:39):
so instead of a fance. Yeah, but so tell me how,
like where were you when you started listening to it
and where were you after? Just so I can prepare
at home and at home right like emotionally, you know,
what did it do to you? I'm nervous. It's like
interesting because it is like we've all been making fun

(05:01):
of the celebrities for putting out entertainment and being like ha,
like captive audience, like people are just going to have
time to consume things. But then when something that's actually
thoughtful comes out and you're like, wow, I have nothing
but time to do like a headphone listen in the
middle of the night right now, and this is like
the perfect thing for that. Is it gonna make me

(05:22):
super depressed? Though? I don't think so. I don't think
it's I don't think it's depressing. It is like I
would say, like alarming is the word that I already used,
but like in a good way. Here's what it is.
It's like for jazz moms, which we all are you
like speak it's like an experimental jazz album. You know,

(05:47):
it sounds and it sounds like like hot Knife was
my favorite song on the last album. So much of
it is like that. It's like depressive and really like
everything circling. I was walking in the woods and I
just felt like very enveloped and clarified, kind of like
I was like kind of it was that like sober,
trippy feeling where everything, like the edges of everything got

(06:09):
really bright and I felt very physically present in a
way that I hadn't for a month. You know. It's yeah,
I recommend, Yeah, you were right to save it. Okay,
So now I'm really excited. I mean, I knew I
was gonna do it. It's I think it's just one
of those things where like often it comes up just
the difference in having kids versus not right now, and

(06:31):
how it made like just how you kind of consume
media when you have like two hours and that's all
you have in the day. So I just didn't want
it to be the thing that pushed me over. But
now I'm like, no, it's exactly what I need. Yeah,
it's great. I can't wait to listen to it again.
I need another Like, actually, you know what, this is
why I'm so grateful for it. It's like it's the

(06:53):
kind of album that made you know right now it's
kind of and I'm sure it's different when you have kids,
but it's like, I haven't felt great full to be
alone in a while, and to be alone with the
album made me feel really glad to be alone and
and to like have that space in my head. And
I mean, that's like the least of the reasons the
album is great, But that was a feeling I had. Yeah,

(07:14):
I saw somebody saying on Twitter that, like, I feel
like we're going to associate this album of course with
the Quarantine, and but like in a good way, like
this was like a bright spot in it or like
something some kind of balm I guess in the middle
of all of it, which it feels like that's that's
what it is. It's also nice to know that, you know,

(07:36):
like every woman from the age of you know whatever
to whatever is listening to the same album today, you
know what I mean totally. I think I just like,
because she was always just a little bit older than us,
I had forgotten how young she was. So I was like,
looking at the Spin cover, I was like, oh, it
is like Billie Eilish, like exactly, it's like a sad

(08:00):
teenage girl making music, but like the way that gets
marketed is very weird. But it also made me be like, oh,
billy II, like she's gonna be fine. Then, well, Fiona
has one thing going for her and that she is
a genius, so that's helpful. Yeah, but she's also like
it seems like she is like very you know, eccentric

(08:23):
and oh yeah, and like you know, uncommercial in a
lot of ways. But again, that's like the fun thing
about listening to something by somebody who's just really doing
their own thing right now. Like she's like both physically
kind of put herself in her own little universe and
then the sound is kind of there too, so it
just feels very refreshing. Yeah, I really liked them dust

(08:44):
Bound profile. Oh that was great. Yea. I think that
also got everybody hyped for the album. And friend of
the podcast, Rachel Handler has basically been like the Fiona
Whisper for like the past year. Yeah, she's just been
like constantly like face timing with her and stuff, which

(09:06):
I'm very jealous of, but she's been doing it awesome,
Like all the stuff that she's written, I would love it. Um. Well,
we also wanted to talk a little bit about some
other coronavirus activities weird nightmares. The biggest coronavirus activity is sleeping.

(09:29):
I had a really scary nightmare. I I usually don't
have nightmares. Um. We talked about this a lot on
the podcast. I think, uh, some of us don't have
nightmares from smoking a lot of weed, and uh, I
may or may not be one of those people. But UM,
I had a really intense nightmare the other night and
then realize realized that I had seen a lot of

(09:50):
people mentioning that they also were having horrible nightmares. Not
super surprising, but G you mentioned you've been having crazy
dreams too, write Yeah, Well for me, um, I think
like something I feel like my brain. You know, if
we supposedly we dream every night, right, and we just
don't remember it, and we go through like seasons where
we don't remember it. I think that like The Times

(10:11):
did a piece on this, kind of trying to explain
like why we're all like why am I having these
crazy dreams? And to me, my own explanation is like
my brain is like where are all the people? And
so it puts all the people in my head at
night because it's not used to like my brains, like
you need to have more people in your line of
sight or something. And for me, it's been weird because
I'm pregnant right now, and it was weird things and I, UM,

(10:36):
and I've been like for the first two weeks, I
was having really intense dreams every night, so much so
that I would wake up and sometimes even write them down,
which I almost never do. Um. But they had nothing
to do with coronavirus or pregnancy. And then very were
worried that your husband had sold has sold at the
devil for I wish you would honestly please Also, I'm

(10:59):
never marrying that man place. But um, but then both
things started to come into my dreams, you know, like
both both things are now in them, and all of
my friends are in them, you know which is I
think why? I think my brain is like, where are
these people? Like? You need? They like they need to

(11:20):
be in your sight? And I had a dream last
night that I couldn't like, I woke up and I
couldn't remember it. But I've been having You do you
ever wake up after a dream and you have such
an intense aftershock of feeling and you spend all day
and you're like I feel like someone is really angry
at me, or that I'm really angry at something, or
that I just figured out something incredibly important, or that

(11:42):
I'm terrified and I don't know why and you've forgotten
what actually happened. But you know, like in your dream
the time lasted like three weeks, and you're right, you know,
I've been having lots of those have Yeah, those are
the like clingy emotional film where you're like, I don't
remember what it was, but I'm like coated in the Yeah. Yeah,
we'll say like, because I've been sleeping so much, I've

(12:03):
just been oversleeping in the morning period when I'm just
like sleeping ambiently to avoid waking up, that's when I
half weird anxiety dreams for half sleep trying to get
out of bed type stuff. Yeah, that's the worst. I
hate that. I mean, I will say, like, I'm very
I've had a lot of other shitty things happened to

(12:23):
me during this quarantine, but my dreams have been great.
Just like parties. I feel like I've mostly been at parties.
That's right, that's so sick, But yeah, I did. I
had to. I had to be let off the hook. Somewhere.
My college ex boyfriend, like so many college ex boyfriends,
was really obsessed with like lucid dreaming, you know, cognitive

(12:49):
whatever there, and and he would try to you know,
he'd right left and right on his hands and he
would stare at them before he like did all the
techniques or whatever. And I was like, that's I was like,
you're being ridiculous. This is so so dorky. But now
I'm like, I would fucking love to be able to
lose a dreams I could, yeah, yeah, exactly. I was
talking with somebody about this, like because we were talking
about how we both like tried to lose a dream

(13:11):
at different points in our life. But it's so like,
the last thing I want to do when I wake
up in the morning is like write a journal or
like write a report of my dream that sounds like
work immediately in the morning. It's like a performance review too.
You're like, how did I do? So? Like I've always
sort of not been able to get into it because
of that. But then I was thinking, like I probably

(13:32):
still like I don't think I would be able to
because I even just tried to keep a journal during this,
which is like something I'm pretty bad at in general,
and I can't do it, so I don't know. It
might not be my time keeping a podcast, like I
also keep a journal of your dreams because they're good,
like whatever you're doing is. A scientist in this National

(13:53):
Geographic article about why people are having weird dreams said,
some dream experts believe that withdrawal from our usual environments
and daily stimuli has left dreamers with a dearth of inspiration,
forcing our subconscious minds to draw more heavily on themes
from our past. Yeah, there was this guy that they
like profiled in this National Geographic article and his he

(14:16):
had had a dream that they described early where he
drew on an obsession with comics and like the and
the constant scroll of political posts on Twitter. So he
was kind of just using what it was like, the
the endless kind of flood of news information had like
lodged itself into his subconscious so that was appearing in

(14:37):
his dream, and like you know, lot points, which is
my that is a that is a nightmare. Dreaming about
treating does sound like a nightmare. Yeah, I don't. I
have y'all ever dreamed about Twitter? I have never. I
don't think I everything. God, how boring. I think I've
had nightmares where I made him like it was probably

(14:59):
right after that the woman who was on the plane
and then her life was ruined. I had an anxiety
nightmare that that happened. I definitely had a did a
mistake on Twitter? Did a mistake on Twitter? It's like
my number one panic. Yeah, because it always seems so passive.
It's like it still is. It's always possible one of

(15:20):
these days your number is up. And yes, you're turned
to funk up on Twitter. Well, TuS, you were also
posting about Sam Junipero the Black Mirror episode. Yeah, so,
I because again I'm I feel so fragile. But that's
also because I'm unlike a lot of people. And this
is for better or worse. I am literally never alone

(15:41):
during self isolation, and it's like normally I carve out
at least like an hour or something during the day
where I can kind of just like think thoughts quietly,
but that doesn't exist anymore. Um So, I feel I
felt like the only thing that was like safe to
watch was just mindless garbage or something that I'd already
seen and knew how it would make me feel, And

(16:03):
so we turned on San Junipero and I was like,
whoa it we are kind of in San Junipero because
it's I mean, that's just the fantasy of like leaving
the physical world, because you're going to leave anyway. It's
we didn't want to leave the physical world, but here
we are kind of in a like fantasy space. Although

(16:24):
it mostly sucks, I know, I totally I interpreted it
in a slightly different way, which was like, oh, because
like no one can have like really new experiences, you
just can sort of sit on dwell on the past,
every good experience from your past, and so but yeah,
definitely been thinking like and also because there's no fomo

(16:47):
because it's like no one can do anything exactly. Yeah,
beving like party like my friends are like literally it
was like that, you know, post a picture of yourself
when you were twenty. We were talking about how we
all fall to this gap where like there are no
pictures of us online when we were twenty, although maybe
on like friends are oh yeah. But then my friend

(17:08):
Max Sylvestry like posted a picture of us together from
a Halloween party in college, like a picture I've never seen,
but I was like, wow, that was the best party
in all of college right when heyya came out. It's
like sence the beginning of our the big chill. Yeah.
I mean there's also the feeling of like trying to

(17:31):
evolve friendships or just kind of trying to keep up
relationships in a completely virtual way. And in a way
like that too. When I was watching san Ju and Appero,
it was like, Oh, it's this weird like virtual connection
and you kind of just want like new to invite
new people into it also, but it's just too weird
and it just doesn't feel right. It's like this weird

(17:53):
test on relationships that the you know, keeping things up virtually.
But it's like, I don't think it's a test that
means in anything. I think that people are putting too
much stakes on, Like, oh, if I don't keep up
with somebody during this pandemic, that means that we weren't
really friends. It's just like, no, we have like friends
that we interface with in all sorts of different ways,
and I have lots of friends that I'm not exactly

(18:13):
like let's hop on zoom right now. But I think
that people are really like, oh, like, so many friendships
are going to be over after this, it's like, no,
that's that's not what friendship is. It's also like it's
also like I I mean, I spent a whole year
completely off the internet when I was in the Peace Corps,
like not talking to anyone, barely had a cell phone,
you know, middle of nowhere, halfway across the world, and

(18:36):
my friendships, like it felt interminable obviously, like it's only
been a month for us here, Like Peace Corps was
like this basically but with no internet and um, and
it felt like forever. And I felt like I had
missed out on so much. But then but friendship wise,
it didn't matter. I just removed myself. And I mean,
it's different when we're all in the same situation. But

(18:56):
it's like I've been reading wolf Hall and I keep
thinking like it's just a month, Like like our our
whole lives are so short anyway, this is just a
month of them like it it's our brains are making
it feels endless and it will be kind of endless.
But yeah, when you think about how short it actually is,
it's like, yeah, you don't need to keep up with
people really. Yeah. I've been reading also about like the

(19:18):
Cambrian era and stuff like that at the timeline of
human experience. I do that all the time. It's like, yeah,
speaking of the timeline of human experience. We wanted to
talk to Gia a little bit about a subject. She
is the expert on Instagram face. It is plastic surgery
April here on night call. Never let anybody forget it's

(19:42):
plastic surgery April. This is very Wait, have y'all talked
about what what do you what do you think it's
going to happen to everyone's face? Like, do you think
that all of them are getting That's how we kicked
it off. We talked about some people clearly still have
people on call, like Madonna and the Kardashians. I think
it's like a personal chef, like they're just yeah. But
a lot of the B level influencers, Yeah, if you

(20:05):
didn't already have your person on call before this all started,
like you didn't have a lot of time to get that.
Influences are unemployed to guys, they're um, can you tell
our listeners a little bit about Instagram face and what
got you into it? Yeah? So Instagram face just seemed
to me to be one of those things that, you know,

(20:26):
any woman between the ages of I don't know, twenty
and thirty five, who was on Instagram was aware of
and talking about but just hadn't been like written about
in a really head on way, or I guess it had.
But I was like, Okay, so there's this thing where
every influencer you know looks like a combination of every

(20:46):
professionally beautiful woman looks like a combination of Emily Radikowski,
Kylie Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Kendall Jenner, who looks the
same as Emily Radikowski. And I was like, they're like,
you know, like the my Marxist instincts were like, okay,
what is the material reason for this? Like who what?
What are the material conditions for this production of Instagram face?

(21:07):
You know, and um, and so some of my friends,
who are better Instagram observers than me, we're like, okay,
it's you know, it's this doctor, this doctor, and this doctor.
I started following them on Instagram, and you know, watching
their sort of before and after time lapse videos where
you would see people get their Instagram face in real time.
You know, everyone's face just started to look like what
one of my friends called a sexy baby Tiger, and

(21:30):
it was just like, you know, I had already been
thinking like there's something about being alive today that I've
always been like, I'm a little suspicious of how it
sort of seems like social media systems are shaping identity
into whatever increases engagement, you know, like they're they're they're
sort of shaping thoughts and identity. They're incentivizing that, right,

(21:50):
And and it seemed to me to be really interesting
that the same thing was happening literally with your face.
That your face, because all of these new technologies were
available to tweak and alter your face, both digitally through
face tune and physically through fillers, that you could just
go back and forth forever, you know, the sort of
endless arms race of incremental improvement, until you looked unrecognizable

(22:14):
and you looked like the same sort of cyborg that
every professional person, professionally beautiful person on Instagram looked like.
And um, and so yeah, I just I went to
Kim's plastic surgeon, Simon Orion, uh and you know, anonymously
as a patient for a consultation, and you know, he
like it was terrified, like I felt like if I yeah,

(22:36):
well he and he like told you how like what
specifically you would need to do to your face to
get that yes? And you know, like I just walked
in and I was like, I'd like to be prettier.
What would you suggest? And he did tell me, like
he told me what it would take, like he I
genuinely felt like, I mean, he he he's clearly an

(22:56):
amazing doctor. And he was, you know, responding ruthfully to
this thing that I had said. But then the thing
that depressed me was that I went to a couple
of other doctors and said the same thing, and within
like thirty seconds they looked at my face and they
were like, yep, cheek filler, chin filler, you know, like
do suck the fat out of your lower face? Like
and then you And I was like fuck yeah, Like

(23:18):
the whole thing made me think, you know, about like this,
like I always think about the line between like seeing
your body and life as a source of potential is
both like amazing and deeply punishing, you know. And and
I was like, oh, I'll try to be really sort
of mercenary and pragmatic about this, like I you know,
I think I'm cute. I don't care, like I'll just
be I'll just like ha ha, immersion journalism. See what

(23:41):
they say. And then I left Beverly Hills and I
was like, motherfucker, Like I can't look at my own
face anymore. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta read Helter Skelter, the
manga by Kyoko Okazaki that we just talked about. I will. Uh,
somebody may have just found a pdf off it online.
Oh really, Oh great, somebody it was my dad. We're

(24:03):
gonna take a quick break, welcome back. Maybe now it's
a good time, actually to take a night call to

(24:24):
talk about the rubicon of how this began, how we
got here. Let's do it. Let's take this night call.
Hey guys, this is Brooke a long time, long time
really enjoying classic surgery months. Um, I've been rewatching the
hill famously got ten surgeries done in one day, um,

(24:45):
and now regrets it and has a lot of pain.
But I think she is one of those people. I
think she kind of marks this like demarcation between numerous
surgical enhancements and sort of the objections, because when you
think about people that have like really changed the way
they look, kind of sense Heidi Montag, like someone like

(25:07):
Bella Hadid. She's done it so piecemeal, and a lot
of the things that she's done is more injection based
as opposed to surgery. UM and Heidi, I mean, I
think in a desperate attempt to be the star of
the season, like did this like huge dramatic kind of
like the fox that or Foxes like the Swan, like
full body rehab thing. Um, and she was like pilloried

(25:30):
for it, and ultimately like they left the show and
we're kind of living in Danna Barbara and ob security
like after the Hills until the new season. So anyway,
I just think she's like a really interesting person in
this story and UM loving living this month. All right, guys,
by great question from our friend Bruck Baker, who um

(25:53):
really really smart to bring up Heidi mont Tak. Yeah.
I think what happened is that this happened in two
waves in the two thousands, and first there was the
wave of people in their twenties and younger getting plastic
surgery for things that were traditionally reserved for older women
trying to look young. And then they became about like
younger women trying to look like trans human. So at

(26:14):
first it was kind of you know, like a like
freakish I want to say it was like treated as
a novelty and sort of you know something still that
like very over the top people only were doing, and
then it became normalized via Kylie Jenner. Then there was

(26:35):
like a second wave with Kylie Jenner of like, Okay,
everyone's gonna do this, maybe we're gonna acknowledge it, or
maybe we're just gonna say we're overlining our lips with
lip liner, And like Deny, a lot of people would
be like, puberty is what made my lips get big? Suddenly.
It's interesting to me that people are still thinking about
Heidi Montag. Montag was a blip for me. I mean

(26:58):
it was it just seemed sad and then I moved on.
But I was never that immersed in the hills. But
I guess she was twenty three um and she I
do remember her kind of like appearing on um, you know,
the covers of magazines and stuff about ten years ago,
talking about I think she had ten. So we're gonna
start the list because it's like really like it's the

(27:19):
first time I've ever heard of like a back scoop
um um. It's like a thing. It's like I guess
it's like kind of like, I guess a Brazilian without
the um without the taking the fat and then putting
it in your butt, like it's just you take you
basically like I don't know, it's just like taking some

(27:41):
of your back fat out so that you're like Coop
but looks more pronounced or something. Um I need to
find Okay she got, Okay, here's the list. This was
a This is a spread in um People magazine at
the time. Also, wait, didn't she have like a bunch
in one day? It was all at once, It was
all the way. So it was minni brow lift, boat

(28:02):
talks in her forehead and frown area, nose job revision
because she had already had a nose job, fat injections,
and her cheeks, nasal labial folds and lips, chin reduction,
neck lipos section, ears, pinned back, breast augmentation revision, LiPo
section on her waist, hips in her and outer thighs,

(28:23):
and a butt augmentation all at once. That's so dangerous. Yeah,
and I she did have a lot of complications with it. Yeah.
Really she said that her heart stopped and they had
to Yeah, yeah, I mean that. See. I think of
that episode which I wrote the episode where she unveils

(28:43):
her face and like she she goes home to her
parents and like Colorado or whatever, and um, and like
her mom sees her daughter like completely remade for the
first time, and it's like it's truly one of these
moments in that show. And there are many in that
show where it's just like, Okay, I am watching a

(29:03):
work of high art, like this is like I've never
seen this happen before in any medium. Um. What was
the reaction was her mom was really upset, but she
was trying to make yeah, and she was trying to
be nice about it. She was just like, well, if
this is what makes you happy, but she was like
crying and stuff, and it was just like it was

(29:25):
really rough. Her mom's kind of normal. Her mom is
not like a momager at all or even like an
Orange County like housewife. I'm very like rich like Boulder types,
rich religious people. It's funny, Like I think that the
Heidi montage saying like, I also don't think of her
very much at all or at all, but I think

(29:46):
that it's funny she is. She was that sort of
early precursor to both this idea that you know, it
makes obvious practical sense in a too, in a very
sort of unabashed open way, just modify your body according
to whatever will make it more money, you know, And
it also makes complete sense, you know, as an ordinary
person to you know, use your own body and personality

(30:12):
as a vehicle towards um like economic success, like like
like she's so so ordinary that that the fact that
she did both of those things, she was already like
the bitch on a successful soap opera, you know, like
she or she became the bitch when she did the
plastic surgery because actually the thing about it that was

(30:33):
concerning I think was also that it was like maybe
Spencer's idea that was that was why I was always
so repelled and maybe why I never let myself become
interested in what was going on with her was that
it just seemed like such a gross, toxic relationship and
it didn't seem like I couldn't get interested in it
if the dynamic was that it was just like two

(30:53):
awful people and one of her was forcing the other
tastic to turn in the shows her rent like when
she gets with Spencer, her friends are like, we don't
like this guy. We think he's bad for you. And
then she's just like in it so deep immediately that
there's nothing they can do, and then they are together
forever and uh still together now. But she came out

(31:18):
later and said she regretted it. She had a lot
of them undone. She said it was like a terrible idea. Um,
but I think, yeah, Heidi Kim Kardashian obviously. I mean
the thing about Heidi that I feel like is kind
of pretty different from the kind of work that a
lot of people her age at that time are getting

(31:40):
now is that I don't know what she's emulating other
than like Barbie or like you know, Anna Anderson or
something in Courtney Stotton and people that's like a very
specific type of person. Not gonna say it's l a
specific although obviously, you know, like the good version is Angeline,
Like she this idea of you know, or Marilyn Monroe,

(32:03):
just the idea of like, yeah, use what you have
augmented a little bit and then make yourself like a
vehicle for selling glamour on your own term. In a way,
that's why it doesn't seem as insidious to me, because
it's like this came out of somebody's like imagination and
had very little to do with peer pressure. I wanted
to throw it to Gia about that because when you

(32:24):
look at the pictures of Heidi Montag it's there's a
kind of dated nous just in terms of comparing it
to Instagram phase and Gia like, when you started noticing
this kind of homogeney in in the look, like the aesthetic?
Have you been able to unsee it? Is part one
and part two like are you starting to notice a shift?
Are you noticing like an evolution of that look? Yeah,

(32:46):
I mean I think it will continue to shift because
the thing about Instagram face that's so uncanny is it
it's so gradual. It's like the celeb face things where
you can't where Sometimes even if you see a picture
being photoshop before your eyes, you can't tell which is
the fur and which is the after. Sometimes you can't
even see the change. You just know that their face
looks different. And I think in the difference like the

(33:07):
real evolution from Heidi Montage two or whatever to this
sort of thing is that you know that was all
at once, everything in a day with the Gardashians, right,
It's it's over the course of four or five years,
and even their doctor said to me, like talking about
them specifically, like he was like, you know, my most
famous clients, you will not be able to tell the

(33:28):
difference between you know, before and after a visit or
even month to month. It's just over years that you
can tell a difference. And and so it's built in
that it always it's a it's a like it makes
it more insidious in terms of with the Courtney Staddon
Heidi Montage thing, it's like, right, you have this one
idea and it's Marilyn Monroe, right, it's bombshell pin up

(33:49):
like Jessica Rabbit, hyperd Blade whatever. With these things, it's
this continually shifting cyborg. Right. It's like the the ideal
itself is being collectively create did and then continually altered
in real time, both by face tune and by fillers
and botox, and both of those things just keep building

(34:09):
against each other. And I think the ideal will shift
based on a sort of almost collective voting right way
of um Instagram likes and sponsorships like whatever, wait, whatever
face performs the best, that's what. And I think it
will kind of shift a little bits. But I think
I mean The thing that really got about another difference

(34:31):
between the Montag look and the whatever we're seeing now
is that one of the things I find most um
disturbing about today's beauty ideal, like the Glossier whatever vibe,
is that it's it's a sort of performative natural nous,
right like bear skin you know, yeah, bear skin you know,
eating Like, yeah, you just pump all of this, like

(34:56):
you pump all of these chemicals and all of this
money in to your sort of diet and wellness and
skincer so that you can give off this like very
faux natural aesthetic. And I think like the way in
which you know this it's it's it's deliberately it's both
like deliberately on canny and also supposed to be this
very sort of clean, you know, probably healthy like interesting

(35:22):
thing too, it's like like you know, eating clean and
also putting botulism in your face. Yeah, and and those
things are and and both of them kind of dovetail
under this like you know bullshit like girl bless idea
that you know, whatever you do to live your best
life is good and both of those things qualified or
anything a woman does this feminism, yeah, especially anything that

(35:44):
makes her money right, or like makes you happy or
makes your perform better on Instagram right, And that the
hiding Montague thing is like a jackhammer to a piece
of marble, and this is more like you can tell yourself.
It's like, no, you're chiseling away. The doctors presented like
going to the gym, I'm and that's what they you know,
like because I asked them about Instagram face, you know,
and I interviewed one of them like as myself and

(36:06):
not as an undercover patient and um, and he was like, listen,
you know we it's no longer sort of a shameful
thing to you know, want to be happy in your body.
And I was like, you know, my eyes are despiraling,
because I was just like deeply in despair. And then
because like Kylie came out about it eventually, she was like,
I've had some stuff done. The Kardashians are all still

(36:26):
really squorely on like what specifically they've had done, even
though the human eye can tell, you know, from looking
at them. But yeah, I think what you were saying
about it being an arms race especially, so it's like
any time a new procedure is invented, and it's like
any tech thing where they're like constantly like on the

(36:46):
bleeding edge, trying to come up with new things to
sell people. So it's like I personally will learn about
something that I didn't know people did to their faces,
and then I won't be able to stop seeing it.
There's so many new things out lift which people say
allegedly Ariana Grande has had that makes her look very

(37:08):
entirely and everybody um. And the other one is the
the eye threading thing where people because also Bella Hadid
was like photoshopping her eyes into a cat I before
she did that, they would point it out on selub
face that she was like photoshopping her eyes like up
a little bit um and it looks like when actresses

(37:29):
do that. It's called like the Hollywood facelift where you
just like pin your face back tape. That's what it
looks like, which doesn't remind me of Brazil. It's the
subtle Brazil. Is this like a thread lift on your eyes?
Is that what it is? Yeah, it's a lift on
your eyes, and Bella Hadid did it. But like now again,
like now that I have seen it, I can't stop

(37:50):
seeing it. Yeah, there's a thing called one of my friends,
Um who used to work in beautypr and like fully
does Instagram face to herself. She always like, we always
send her pictures of like, you know, like Jared Kushner
looks super whack these days, like you know, mobile text
pictures of like Jared Kushner or Joe Biden or you
know this new adel face and you know, like be

(38:14):
like tell us what, tell us what they got. And
she was and she was telling me about this thing
called boogle fat removal. You all know about that. We
talked about it. Yeah it's so And I looked at
and I was like, oh, yeah, it's but she said
she ate a lot of japanesewee potatoes in her face change.
I remember that we were talking about too, because we
were saying, like, because we all wrapped for like the

(38:35):
Round Face Crew, It's oh yeah, it's like having that
done makes you look it doesn't. It like doesn't make
you look more youthful. It makes you look like more
high fashion in this way that it's like more of
a smoker, like you look like an as twin. It
also makes you look sad because it kind of unless
you do something to fix the fact that it drags

(38:56):
your face down a little, like it drags the corners
of your mouth down unless you have something to pat
it and keep it up. Um. After we wrapped last week,
I was like, now I'm going to be thinking about
removal for the rest of my life. It's also like
it targets insecure people obviously, but like I've known people
who aren't, like the most insecure person who, like you said, Jia,
it's like you go in and then they just like

(39:18):
look at your face and they're like, m you know
what you should do? And like, even if you are
a person who is comfortable with your face at this point,
it's like just having someone be like, you know what
would make your face look better and suggesting it. Yeah,
And it's really crazy, like especially if with UM clinics
that serve Asian people too, there's a lot of stuff

(39:39):
that's assumed that you want because everybody wants it if
they're Asian, and the Boogle fat remover is one of
those things because you know, Asian people tend to have
full their faces, not necessarily always, but a lot you know,
uh eyelid stuff, um, you know naso labial stuff that
all ends up like that, that stuff that's just like,
well you could you know, that's just like assumed that

(40:02):
in the battery of things you might be going in
for that you would want that if you're Asian, which
is just you know, a whole other layer of it
to me thinking about these procedures, because I mean there
was of course, like after there was a part of
me that was like, well, if if my looks were
directly connected to my livelihood, i'd probably get this ship.
Like after talking to them, they were like, oh, it's

(40:23):
a couple of thousand dollars like last for a year,
you know, I would like, I'm like, maybe I would
put that on a credit card. I was really thinking
about that. Gia had to leave. She had a little
bit of a technical difficulty. So we're sorry for the
abrupt ending. But you can find her book Trick Mirror
and all of her other writing on her website gia
dot blog, and you can find out where to purchase
her book and all sorts of other good stuff. So

(40:45):
we are so glad that she came by this week.
This was great. Um, we're gonna take a quick break
and when we come back, it's time to take our
faces off. Welcome back tonight. Call a podcast for Taking

(41:22):
Your Face Off. It's plastic surgery, April. What better plastic
surgery classic to dive into than John Wu's Face Off,
the movie where two people get facial facial taken off surgery,
they got face swapped two people. Feels like it's under
selling it when the people that you're speaking of our

(41:44):
John Travolta and Nick Cage, like, I feel like they're
they're like demigods, They're like on another level. And is
it true you had not seen seen Face Off before?
How did you miss it? Um? I don't know. I
I don't know. I mean, it's just when these I
feel like, this is a movie you see you with
a bunch of friends in college and like a somewhat

(42:04):
rambunctious setting where there might be some substances UH enjoyed
or something. I never sure I saw it with my parents. Okay, well,
I don't know. This feels to me, like I this
feels to me like the kind of movie that I
now know, like the kinds of jokes a lot of
my like high school and college like guy friends would

(42:25):
make a lot and it's all kind of based out
of this. But it was sort of weird to see
the Rosetta Stone. Finally, I mean this movie is is justified,
like the hype around it is justified because it is
um super crazy, um fucking rules. Yeah. I love John
Woo and I love the John Woo Hollywood movies. I

(42:47):
was thinking about it because I watched Birds of Prey recently. Yeah,
I was like, it's like the best action movie, best
like superhero movie definitely, but also the best like action
sequence is I've seen a long time. And then I
read it was because they were doing a lot of
Hong Kong style fight choreography. Um, and Face Off also

(43:08):
just sort of was one of the first movies. I
feel like that brought that kind of fight choreography into
American brains, American brains that didn't watch martial arts movies
already and Chinese action movies. Um. But you know it's, um,
it's a perfect movie. It's basically like Death Becomes Her

(43:31):
but with men. It's also though it's like it is
I think Molly you may have said, it's like it's operatic.
It is the most heightened emotional movie. I've never seen
anything that jumps off from the point of like that
elevated kind of like hysteria and only goes up from there.
I mean, the whole movie feels like a trailer, which

(43:52):
I feel like the John Mouse style where everything is
just high, like everything is punctuated with like seven exclamation points,
which is yeah, but it's also I think I think
it's partially due to the fact that if you're an actor,
especially if you're an actor like Nick Cage or John Travolta,
You've got to show up to that movie being so
excited to get to do this, like it's a dream

(44:14):
or yeah, why don't we explain the setup in case you,
like Emily, haven't seen Face Off and to believe that
anyone else hasn't seen Face Off. My Face Off story
is that I saw a face Off with some other
friends parents. This is another story like Death Becomes Her,
where somebody else's parents took me to see a movie

(44:35):
my parents would have probably thought was too scary for me,
even though I was in the seventh grade. They would
have just thought it was like super violent. So I
saw it. I loved it, like I did anytime I
got to see an R rated movie. And then I
came home and I was like, Mom, Dad, we have
to see this movie Face Off and just saw it.
I want to see it again. You got to see
it with me, and we went to see it the

(44:56):
next day. Um, and my parents after we came out
of it, were like, that was so violent. Why did
we let you see this? And I was like, no,
I told you we were trying to see it. Maybe
you shouldn't have let your parents see it. They obviously
couldn't handle it. Definitely, just like one of those moments
where I was like, I am differentiating myself in taste

(45:17):
from my parents being into like, you know, just violent.
So the plot if you have kids kids, So John
Travolta plays um Shawn Archer. He's an FBI agent who
is has been basically like destroyed, you know, by the

(45:39):
fact that his son was killed by a terrorist, Nick Cage.
I'm trying to remember Shawn Archer. No wait, so the
and the deal Like Also, it's like he has a
brother who's like Pollocks Troy. There's so many things in
this but any really high our movie. It has references

(46:01):
to ancient Rome that's super high brow. So Travolta is
trying to like, you know, find and catch Cage. And
Nick Cage has recently planted a bomb where do you
plant the bombs Angeles Convention Center? The convention Center, there's
so many good locations. Yeah, I've recently I've been seeing

(46:24):
maybe because I've been watching all these nineties movies, I've
been seeing the l a convention center in a ton
of movies, and I've seen it filling as airports a lot,
a lot of things. Also, they were talking about turning
it into a shelter, yeah VENTI latter hospital, although that
has not happened, which is stupid. Uh. Yeah, they should

(46:45):
definitely could use it for a lot more things than
they do, but apparently they're too busy using it. They
might still be using it for anime x XPO, which
is still like the only con that hasn't been canceled,
just somewhere it has then their avatar. Um So anyway,
travilled just trying to catch Cage then to find this

(47:05):
like biological weapon and also just like fuck him up
because Nick Cage's character killed his son, and so they
decide that like the bust, can someone else help me?
I'm like trying to dig through it, and I'm like
talk about the fucking boat. No of course, um so
he um tries too hard to describe. Wait, you're talking

(47:27):
about which part? No, it's just to get like how
do they get I forget, how do they get to
getting their face? She wants to go undercover in the
PRIs Nick cave because he the only person who's alive
who would know how to defuse the bomb is his
brother calls, and the only person he would talk to

(47:47):
would be his brother. So naturally, the only thing to
do is for somebody to surgically take Nick Cage's face
castor Troy's face and put it on their bodies so
that they can pose as him. M. Yeah, and and
and of course the person who has to do this

(48:08):
is Sean whatever his face is Sean tv Um, so
he undergoes the the surgery. I was shrieking at the
at the screen because it's so like I don't even
know anything about science, and I was like, this seems
really stupid. The order of operations doesn't matter. That's why

(48:31):
that's I think, there's so much like every single scene
in this movie contains like all of these like distracting
crazy things and plot, and everyone's like screaming and crying
like an upset and then like diabolical. It's so that's
why it's so great. It's just like it's like a
bunch of it's a genre mash, it's like a bunch
of different genres. So uh, Sean Archer gets Castor Troy's face.

(48:57):
Castor Troy is theoretically knocked out, but then he comes
to and demands that he'd be given which is just
like face. It's sitting around and he doesn't have a face,
but it makes sense. It's like even if even he's
such a like horrible villain, but if you see someone
with like no face and there's a face city right

(49:18):
there to so you know, he says, I want to
take his face off. At some point the highlight of
the movie, Um, they switch faces. What you need to
know is that character Castor Troy is like a lecterous,
insane person. Yes, and that Sean Archer. John Travolta's character
is a family man, good man, and his daughter is

(49:42):
Dominique Swain, who is a wayward teen and is so good.
It's so good playing a wayward teen wearing some brown lipstick.
The makeup is so specific. There's a really good line
where he's like, if you dress up like it's Halloween
all the time, you're just gonna get tools trying to
get in your pants, which is like, yes, yes, please.

(50:07):
His wife is Pat Nixon. I believe I thought she
was Joe and Allen, Joan Allen, who was acting in
a different movie. She's in a Sundance movie. She played
Pat Nixon in the Nixon movie, so I just always
think of her as Pat Nixon. But yeah, it's also
like she's definitely in a different movie. She's supposed to
be the hot wife, but she's like playing it very psychologically.

(50:30):
Uh you know, she's playing it the same way that
she played her character in the Ice Storm. Yeah, but
in a way it's good because she's kind of like
an audience stand in. She's just like so down in
the normal emotional range that you're like, wow, this is
really off the rails. Like Joan Allen's kind of looking
around like should I let my husband touch me? It

(50:53):
seems like everyone's kind of crazy stranger in the house now.
And his name is Sean Arch with the body with
the soul of castor Troy the body and without without
that tell tale scar. It's not very explained how their
bodies are also switched, because they're definitely like different. They
said the doctor. I think at one point is like,

(51:15):
you guys have like pretty similar bodies, and it's like, no,
they don't, but he does some like doesn't he do
some light work on their bodies? And then yeah there's
the bullet enough, Yeah good enough, good enough to spend
the disbelief everybody. So then of course Castor Troy is
really Sean Archer goes undercover at the jail. It's like
a super jail. It's called Boots arra one, which made

(51:38):
me think because it was supposed to be like the
prison that nobody knows where it is because it's nowhere backwards,
and like, is this where they got the idea for
the grocery store from the prison from Face Off? Because
if so, I love it that all of a sudden
that just improved standing Free dates Face Off And it

(52:00):
comes from a like a novel called Arajuan that's about
an imaginary like Utopia. Oh boring. I wanted. I wanted
the founders of Arijuana to be huge John Wu fans,
but they are low Kia cult so so um. He
goes to the super jail. He finds his brother, who's

(52:23):
very weird. I such a crush on Alexandra Novola in
this movie. Wait, what really such a type for me,
like weird, wiry, like I'm so not surprised by the
nineties guy with like a blur haircut, and he's like, hello, brother, brother, brother,
And then they escape from the jail um and go

(52:46):
to a super sick party where Gina Gershawn is there. Yeah,
she's and she's in the same movie as she's not
in Joan Allen's movie. She's always knows, she always knows
what movie she's in. She's very good at that. She
just showed up on melrose Place and she knows what
show she's on there as well. God bless yes. Um,

(53:08):
I forget what happens after that. So okay, Gina gershon
was Castor Troy's girlfriend and they have a son. And
that's like another weird thing that comes in where it's like,
you know, Archer and Troy both had sons, but Nick
Cage took John travolt does, And now John Travolta, what's
he gonna do with the kids? Isn't the son played

(53:29):
by the same actor too, like a kid actor John
Travolta sons. So he's like sees so and he gets
all overwhelmed. I know that's crazy. I don't know, or
maybe like that's just the Moppett kind of hairstyle at
every child actor had in the nineties ninetie boy. Um.

(53:49):
But yeah, oh and she's like also Gina Gershawn is
also like the sister of his drug dealer. But like,
are they like kiss on the mouth? Are they? Also?
Is she having a thing with her brother too? There's
a lot of incest vibes in this movie. Yeah, well, yeah,
of course there's one really uncomfortable scene everyone will recall immediately.

(54:15):
Um where uh Sean Archer who's really castor Troy like
kind of hits on his daughter. It's so gross. I mean,
but that's but that's why I love this movie. Is
like it just won't spare you. It's like, you're here,
you want to see a movie or not? Yeah, yeah

(54:36):
this is a movie. Yeah, you will be fucking entertained
by this movie. Um. I do know that face transfers
really do exist, but they don't work like this at all.
What's what's cool is that I am dB trivia for
Face Off included the nugget that the first real life

(54:56):
phase transplant was accomplished in on Richard nor Is, who
had accidentally shot himself in the face with a shotgun
the same year the movie came out The Bizarre. Do
you think the movie made him be like, there's hope,
Like what what do I have to lose? Just my face? Maybe? Yeah?
He do you think after he saw the movie he
was like, I'll just wait until this technology is invented.

(55:19):
I don't think so. No, but but phase transplants. I
remember hearing about face transplants like a while ago and
going on a deep dive of the face transplants and
how it's like, I mean, it's it's that that's just
like a very very sad, horrible thing. But also it

(55:39):
makes you think, like that's what plastic surgery is, like
that I can save lives. So there's things that like
plastic surgery is legitimately needed for. There's of course, like
and especially yeah, that's amazing you can give somebody a
new face. But it's really I mean, I don't know,
I wonder how far they'll be able to come with that,
because right now it's it's nowhere near face off technology.

(56:03):
I'll say that I was freaking myself out last night
doing some of the Instagram filters. Do you guys ever
do that? No? I did for a while, and then
I was just like, I don't know if this. I
think I'm too old for this. There's just all kinds
of weird ones. Now you know that makes you look
very like a York cover. Um, but a lot of

(56:23):
them do you just sort of like change your face
in a way that you were like, it makes you
feel weird? But didn't you didn't you once postulate Molly
that they were just trying to get you to like
give enough angles and spend enough time under that case
that they were like stealing your face. Face off. They're
definitely also stealing your face. But that's like what all
social media is for, so why not have fun? This

(56:45):
is some fun. I want to do it. Yeah, well
some of it. I was doing something because Emily posted
a really good vampire selfie. Yeah, accomplished just with makeup.
But then I was like, oh, I bet there's some
good vampire filters and I looked it up and they're
really good vampire filters, but like they'll make your eyes
red for example, Um, and some of them have fangs

(57:07):
where if you open your mouth there's fangs. You know,
it is cool, but then like some of them were
also just like really creepy, you know, um horror core,
and I just kind of was like, I don't know,
it's it's a fun disassociated experience experience. If you guys

(57:27):
could have anyone else's face, if you had to do
a face off and you could swop faces with somebody,
who would you face swap with? Oh that's such a
good question. I mean did they have to be alive
so that you can take their face? And did they
take your face? Or it's just like hypothetically so we
can three D print their face, Oh okay, and like

(57:48):
grafted onto your face the way that they put like
teeth on top of teeth for famous people. Honestly, I
really liked all the faces and where the boys are.
I was like, they've all got great faces. I might
take one of their faces. Yeah, I don't know. It's
hard for me to. I can't really think of anybody
or I would actually want their face, um, other than

(58:11):
like any number of the like Instagram face girls that
Gia was talking about with that or just be like
kind of interesting to be a hot for a second,
but you want that? Would you want like the era
face or would you want you could go from any era?
I don't know. Yeah, I mean I I literally have

(58:33):
my choices. I mean, you know the one that I
would do. I would probably do the one that feels
like the only celebrity uh comparison I've ever had, because
then it wouldn't be that weird, I feel like. But
but in speaking of York, I would like take a
young York's face, which is like, you already look exactly already,
so like that's the thing. I would just like want
to look more like your Molly Who's face would you take? Oh? Really? Yeah?

(58:59):
I wouldn't that be fun? I mean he's got such
an interesting well oh for a day it was permanent. Well,
that's I would take. I would be like in Game
of Thrones and take everyone's face on a different day,
would be swapping them out, remember, and returned to Oz
when she has all the different faces. That's one thing
I think about, though, is like, because Instagram face is

(59:19):
like one thing, and the whole thing about like beauty
is that it's multifarious in some way, and you can't
be every type of hot. You know, even if you're
a Betty, there's always going to be a Veronica, So
I always think about, like, yeah, it's just like what
when when when we get to the point where people
can like swap out their face for like a variety
of slightly different faces. Well interesting you should say this

(59:42):
because our night call listener, Evan wrote us an email
and said, no magic movie science could explain how John
traveled does giant face was going to fit on Nick
Cage's regular sized head and vice versa, And then all
of a sudden you have to think about, like how
a face would fit on your head? H yeah, because
you have like this movie takes for granted that people

(01:00:03):
have different skeletons or like the people don't have the
same skeleton. Um, yeah, because it doesn't like your face.
You wouldn't just be able to slap one face onto
the other, like people's skulls are totally different. You'd really
only be able to do it with your twin And
then what would be the point unless one of you
got disfigured. And now I've turned this into not fun

(01:00:24):
well a thing that what we were talking about, like
the weird like making yourself feel weird by doing Instagram
like the weird art Instagram fillers like or if filters
rather like there are, Yeah, but like I feel like
that's one of the fun things about about Face Off

(01:00:44):
is like this sort of weird, not quite magic thing
that happens with the face where it's like like Sean
particularly like he's like wearing the face of the person
that he hates, and so every time he looks in
the mirror, he's like, I want to kill you because
like looks like the guy he hates most. Um, but
I I just and and then it kind of like

(01:01:05):
he kind of ends up inhabiting the character because he
like that's the person that he sees in the mirror.
I like that that stuff that much, Like it's like
persona in some way. Total it's like, what does make
you unique as a person? Like? Who are you? Actually?
If you change your face, do you become the person

(01:01:26):
whose face you have, the way that people in horror stories,
like Inherit the personality of the heart transplant. Yeah. Yeah,
Well there's also the fact that they when they swap
faces and face off, they start to adapt each other's
patterns of speech, which I think is you're meant to
just not really think about the fact that a larynx

(01:01:47):
um like a box that changes your voice, wouldn't change
the way you express yourself. But but I guess it
also makes you. It makes you wonder like, is it
because your face has more to do with how you
express yourself and communicate? Then you might assume is there
some kind of like secret sauce there. I think it's
because they're trying to passes each other, so they're like

(01:02:07):
adopting each other's speech mannerism. No, no, they are, but
then there are times when they're like kind of talking
to each other or whatever where they wouldn't have to,
but you know they do. I will say John Travolta
does a really good Nick Cage impression in this. Yes,
that's like a very low key great for four people.
It's it's a fucking incredible performance. These are like to

(01:02:30):
such great performances. And yeah, that's the thing is like
the face off, like the surgery is a mcguffin. You know,
it just like doesn't matter at all. It just allows
you to set up this thing that's a body swap comedy. Basically, Yeah,
as a as a cool action thriller, we also really funny.
We also have a minor mystery um that a listener

(01:02:53):
wrote in about listener Craig wrote, I seem to remember
a face Off game for PC, but I can find
no evidence of it. I think it was maybe web
based or a demo disc. The only gameplay I recall
was a level escaping the prison with the magnetic boots.
Curious if this will ring a bell with any listeners.
I have no recollection of this, um, but I didn't

(01:03:13):
want to. But if anyone knows about a face Off
CD rom, give us a nightcall at two four oh
four or six night. It's probably a good time to
wrap up our little face Off chat. Any last thoughts
on Face Off? Well, I'm glad I finally watched it. Um.
It is like fits in right, like very well with
all the stuff I've been watching during the quarantine. So

(01:03:37):
shout out to pigeons flying away during gunfire. Shout out
to peaches. I could eat a peach for Oh God,
I hate to see you go, but I love to
watch as always. I love like a line about kind
of lingus is the line that they test his new

(01:03:59):
voice on, because that's the one he has to like
say over and over and over again while they're calibrating
his voice. It's a perfect movie. You guys. Well, we
will be back next week with more plastic surgery April. Um.
It feels like months are going on both for a
very long time and going by very quickly, but we
are still in plastic surgery April. So if you have

(01:04:21):
any thoughts on plastic surgery faces in general taking faces off,
give us a call at to four oh four six
night or you can email us at Night Call Podcast
at gmail dot com. Also, if you're enjoying the pod,
please don't forget to subscribe and review and all that stuff. Uh.
We are on Facebook at Night Call Podcast, Instagram at

(01:04:42):
Nightcall Podcast, Twitter at Nightcall Pod. Thank you so much
for listening and we will see you next week. And
you can also subscribe to our Patreon at patreon dot
com slash Nightcall where we just put up another bonus
episode on Helter Skelter by Yoko Kazaki, so check that out. Yeah,
and thanks for I Guess this week, Gia Tolentino. If
you've got any more questions about Instagram Face, we'd love

(01:05:04):
to know them. But also it's why to May after that,
so start preparing your two thousand based quarries and we'll
see you soon. M