July 23, 2025 • 51 mins
In breaking news, Netflix has released their viewing figures for the shows people are watching and more importantly not watching. And sadly for Holly, With Love, Meghan didn't fare so well—but was it still a success?
Plus, Australia is re-learning how to deal with a political leader who is *checks notes* a woman. This week's conundrum is how much detail the people are entitled to know about her and her past. But it might just be the commentary that's problematic.
And, Jessica Biel's back broke the internet. Mia, Jessie and Holly are divided on whether the new age of celeb transparency is liberating or in fact a curse?
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- Listen to our latest episode: Every Nosy Question About Holly’s Holiday Answered
- Listen: The Coldplay Affair. And What The Internet Did Next.
- Listen: The Salt Path Scandal That Blew Up
- Listen: The Lies That We're Allowed To Tell
- Listen: The Missing Minute & The Missing Body
- Listen: What Is Going On With Justin Bieber?
- Listen: Microefficiencies & The Politics Of A Mean Group Chat
- Parenting Out Loud: Sleep Divorce, 'Hopeless' Dads & Goodnight To The Bedtime Story
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What to read:
- Meghan Markle's show exposes the royal family's big mistake.
- A brutally honest review of Meghan Markle's new Netflix series.
- There's one question we're all asking since watching Adolescence. An expert just answered it.
- Jessica Biel's thriller The Better Sister only tells half the story.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on. Welcome to Mamma Mia
out loud what women are actually talking about on Wednesday,
the twenty third of July. And as you may be
able to tell from my voice, we were mid conversation
when I suddenly remembered we had to start the show.
Our conversation just rolls at all times, so we're bringing
(00:35):
you some of that energy.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I am Holly Wayne right, I'm mea Friedman. I'm still croaky.
I'm sorry. I'm not feeling bad. I'm not contagious, but
it's annoying to listen to someone croaking your ears.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
And I'm Jesse Stevens and you're always annoying in new
and surprising ways.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
That's so true.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I'd like to keep it fresh.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
That's what we love about you. And here's what's on
our agenda for today. Australia is learning all over again
how to deal with a political leader who is a woman.
And this week's conondrum is are we entitled to know
all the ins and outs of her past relationships?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Megan Markle is back in the news this week because
we finally know how many people watched her arrange cut
up fruit into a rainbow on her Netflix show All
of the People of Me.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
And Jessica Bill's workout that went absolutely viral. I did it,
Holly felt personally victimized. We break it down, but first,
in case you missed it, this is breaking, breaking news.
Apparently farts aren't funny anymore. This TikTok by a woman
with the username Tilton has been viewed more than one
(01:36):
point five million times. And here's what she says. Why
are these kids not laughing at farts because I didn't
teach them to not laugh at far I'll laugh at
a good fart, but not a bad farat.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
I'll laugh at a bad fart too.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
What's the difference between a good fight and a bad fart?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Timing?
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Timing?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
And also, people say there's a funny fight and then
there's like a fart that's like genuinely like makes people
really uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Because it's not I think hearts are disgusting.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Okay, Well, her caption says that she saw this on
a teacher's TikTok. A teacher said, guys, I'm serious, these
Jennas so primary school age not finding farts funny.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
This is a crisis. I don't know he's going on.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And then this mother went home and said to her
own kids, who are Jen Alpha, said guys, come on,
farts are funny. And they were like, no, they're not funny.
And she said, what do you mean they're not funny
and they said it would be like laughing at the hiccups.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Like it's not. Oh, it's just it's just a bodily function.
We move on. Why are we shaming people? It's not funny.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
This news is depressing.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
I've just decided it is depressing because I.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Don't find farts funny personally. Unfortunately, my children do because
their father.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Okay, because they're Jen Alpha, so this gives me.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Home they are. But then Brent, when I first met
him and we started dating, I had to just tell
him like, no, not funny, like burps, farts, all those things.
Like he has that humor where he just thinks that's
hilarious and I'm like, no, like not funny. But because
my children are part him and they think it's hilarious.
But what this tells me that they're very young primary
(03:05):
school kids aren't laughing. It was a clue there where
you said it's like shaming some one is they've been
made to feel so anxious about embarrassing their parents in public,
about shaming other people, that they can no longer see
the humor in the fact that sometimes you're not in
control of the noises that come out of you.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Well, that's the thing, right, is that There were hundreds
of comments agreeing kids don't find this funny anymore. And
I go back twenty years to being in a meditation
class at school and a girl farted and it was
the funniest.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
She's probably not lived it down, but was she in
on the joke or not?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
No, maybe it is okay.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
That's interesting. It's like, do you find your own farts funny?
It's kind of like you find your own the smell
of your own farts is fine, but the smell of
other people's farts is disgusting. What I didn't realize is
that as you get older, sometimes you start farting by axe.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Oh yeah, don't mean that about me, But being around
older people.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
When it happens, it's really awkward because you don't know,
like you try to cover it up trying to make
another noise that's like similar, well similar, you know what
I mean to me, like, oh, that was just though
I didn't fart, that was just well not moving my foot.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
I can't believe you guys don't find it funny, because
I obviously have a two year old who this is
her first joke, and in fact, it is the first
recorded joke in history.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Was a fart shoke.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
It has always been, And I was like, what is
the psychology behind why farts are funny? And it's because
if you're sitting there, especially in a formal setting. A
classroom is an ideal setting because you're sitting there, it's formal,
someone farts, there's tension because it's just like, oh my goodness,
you just did something that broke the social contract, which
was that we're all behaving in this way. And then
(04:48):
what laughter does is it relieves that tension, and so
everyone kind of laughs and it's just real equalize we're
all human. And it also crosses cultural linguistic bounds.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
About funny farts because they often happen in yoga.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
They do.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I actually think they're even funny.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, funny farts are quite funny.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
You've got to own it though, like the little kids
who are like that would be shaming. That's sad, right.
I mean it's good that they consider it, but it's
a bit sad. But the thing is is that that's
why people own their own fart and laugh at it. Yes,
to take the shame back right.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yes, there was someone who was saying in the comments
that twenty five years ago she was at school and
someone farted and then cried, and then they got the
nickname farted and cried.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
I was like, oh, that's a little bit sad.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
That's do you know who thinks fart so funny? Is
elon musk. If you've ever been in Tesla, there is
a mode on Tesla called fart Mode. You can set
it in different ways so that like, you can make
a fart when the driver indicates, you can even make
farts come from different parts of the car. When I
was in a car at Tesla and someone did this,
(05:51):
it actually was quite hilarious. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, you know why I know that because my dad
drove a Tesla for a little bit and he would
arrive at my house.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
He'd say get out here and he'd do it.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And it's perfect for Pete Stevens.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
It was easily. It is the universal language.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Just like that's true.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
It doesn't matter if you two or your eighty.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Like woope, cushions.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
It's just all a bit silly.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
This week Netflix did something it's never done before, and
that is released viewing figures for thousands of its shows.
They don't release subscriber numbers anymore, but what they've started
to do, I think to cover up the fact that
they've probably reached critical mass and they can't grow the
number of subscribers.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
What they are.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Doing is being transparent about how many hours people spent
watching every new show and movie between January and June
this year. So ninety five billion hours of viewing was
spent globally for just the first half of this year.
And the top performer was your favorite show, Hole Adolescence.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Which is very interesting because that is not a laugh
a minute. There are no jokes in that, no fart jokes.
It's very serious, very bleak. But it caught the public's
imagination in a way that I think surprised everybody. So
British more or less independent product.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I am stoked that that oh yeah, that spot because
creatively and experimentally it was so different, it was so slow.
It was something that if you were Netflix, you wouldn't
have necessarily thought taking a gamble on that would pay
off to this extent.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
And I just think it's very exciting to see that.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
At the top. The usual suspects came after that, like
Squid Game. But what people are talking about the big
takeaway from this news is that Megan Markle's lifestyle show
with Love Megan ranked number three hundred and eighty three.
It had five point three million views. Now I feel
like this is a little bit unfair. I don't know
when Adolescence came out, But again, you can't compare these
(07:49):
two things because one is a drama and one is
a very niche cook.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, it's not about that. It's not about comparing Adolescence
and Megan. It's about like five point three million views
for a show of that scale is nothing A million
people watch Married at First Sight, Like, think about it
that way. This is a global audience zo point three
million views.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
You know what else month you can compare it to.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
And I think that this is the important kind of
data point is comparing it with other Netflix originals. So
the big Netflix originals have been ones like zero day
running point. Again, a bunch of those are dramas, but
they were in the top ten. And what some precedented,
according to Deadline, is to have a second season renewed,
(08:37):
and that's because they filmed the second season.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Before the first case. So I want to talk about
that for a second, because you're right, they still haven't
announced when that second season is going to be out,
but very soon after the first season finished airing, they
announced a second season. Now, as you said, it was
all filmed at the same time, which is a much
more cost effective way to do something, and then split
into two very smart strategically. With my sort of spin
(08:59):
hat on, if I was Megan probably and Netflix, I
would have done it this way because now people can't
say it was canned after one's So if they'd have
dropped all sixteen episodes at once and then not renewed it,
that would have been a big story. So if I
was Meghan, I don't know if her advisors it very
(09:20):
possibly was a strategic thing.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
It's interesting that all the seasons of Suits were above it.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I know. Well, it's just one of the things that
makes Netflix rankings really interesting because when you're on a
platform like that, you are literally competing with pretty much
every TV show that's ever been made. The first season
of Bridgeton is on there, Breaking Bad is on there,
shows that haven't been made. Let's get through a show
without mentioning that.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Again, I'd like to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
But you know, like you are competing with pretty much
all the television in the whole world. Ever, so probably
a fairer thing to see where Megan's show would be
would be to compare it with lifestyle shows, right, and
the same way that you put daytime shows up against
each other, breakfast TV shows up against each other. All that,
but by any measure, if the five point three million
(10:07):
views is correct, that would have to be deemed not
successful and the other thing, and I'd love to know why,
because I know that nobody liked it. I was the
only one who was, like, I'm watching it. I watched
the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Do you think how many of those five point three
million views will hate watchers? Do you think?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Well, there's that. But also the thing is is that
if we say that awareness is you know, we're in
an attention economy. You can't argue that that show didn't
get any attention? Can Yes, you cannot argue that no
one knows who Megan May is. You can't argue that
it didn't get any coverage, you can't argue that it
wasn't globally all over everywhere, and yet people still did
(10:42):
not watch. So what does that tell us?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
So what's important about that whole? And this is what's
interesting about them not releasing subscriber numbers. Netflix's business model,
they don't really care how many hours you watch. That
shows them what people are interested in and more likely
to watch again. But what they want is new subscribers.
So what they would want to know, and I don't know,
I assume they can track this is how many people
(11:08):
joined Netflix for the first time or renewed their subscription
because they wanted to watch the show. How many new
subscribers did the show attract? And exactly as you say,
it's not necessarily about how many hours, but it's the noise,
and this show made so much bloody noise.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It was interesting that it was very, very badly reviewed,
and that even on your Rotten Tomatoes critics or just
your average viewer didn't appear to like it very much.
And another data point that I think is important is
that adolescents. In its first four days was viewed twenty
four point three million times, right, So that's what five
(11:43):
times actually what Megan's got overall. But it also had
a very long tail, getting to one hundred and forty
four million, eight hundred thousand views. So that means that
not only did people watch it, but they liked it
and they recommended it, which people will know about television.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
People it were.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Again because Adelesta's had a big cultural footprint and people
heard about it and then watched it.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
But you couldn't argue that the biggest shows in the
world are usually all that good. That's not usually the
way things will know.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
But what I do think is interesting about Meghan is
in the first weekend it received two point six million views.
That's half of what then. And this is what they
say about any content creation really is it's all about
the tail. The tail tells you whether or not that
thing was good. My question is, or rather my theory
(12:29):
is that Megan's not disappointed. My theory is that this
was never about getting views. This was about brand creation
and selling products and tick she did that.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I'm so glad you say that, because that's been an
unimitigated disaster, so when I disagree. The show came out
she announced that Netflix was the backer for as ever
the Goddamn jam and the flower sprinkles and the crepe mix,
and people thought, well, that's really interesting. Because Netflix has
had a lot of success with doing merch around some
of its big shows. This is different. Selling consumables is
(13:04):
a very different thing to selling T shirts and baseball caps.
So everyone was interested to see how this was going
to go. Now, there is no question that it has
been the role out of this has been an unmitigated design.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Every single product sold out.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
No no, but but that's not good. That sounds good
the first time, right, but it means that they've got
massive supply issues. The first time you can say, oh wow,
I mean you don't want things to sell out in
an hour. It's a certain strategy, But then you want
to make sure, so you drop a small amount. You say,
sold out in an hour, so you get scarcity, so
everyone comes, But then you make sure you've got the
(13:39):
pipeline ready to then satisfy the demand. So months later
they did another drop disaster, still sold out quickly. People
bought it, and then they got messages saying, sorry, we
sold it, but we don't actually have enough stock. Their
supply issues have been hopeless. So how many more times,
how much more frustration and brand damage is it going
(14:01):
to do when people can't get And now she said,
We're going back to the drawing board and I'm rethinking
all my products.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
I'm looking at five point three and I'm going this
was a new thing for Netflix, this was a new model.
And if I go, that was five point three million
people watching an ad, which essentially they were, and they're
selling products, and we know, do I want to matter?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
If you can't supply the products that people want to buy.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
I reckon that they've made money.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
The thing I'm interested in the margins body.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
It's like an eight dollar bottle of whatever, jeah.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
The thing I'm interested in is what it says about
the Megan and Harry brand going forward. Because also this
isn't all about Megan Harry. They've got a content deal
with Netflix, much lauded content deal that cost them jillion.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Dollars actually one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
One hundred million dollars back in the day, and famously
they made their documentary about themselves that was a massive smash.
It remains the most watched nonfiction show that Netflix have
ever made. It was huge, just like Prince Harry's book
was huge, and then everything they've done since because as well.
Buried in these numbers are Prince Harry's show about the
Invictus Games and Prince Harry's show about Polo, which was
(15:06):
trying to be Drive to Survive. Drink That how that
do well?
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Okay? That came in at number three, four hundred and
thirty six. It only had half a million views.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So again what that tells us is despite all the
attention in the world, every headline, all the social media pylons,
all of the stuff, people are only interested in them
for them and their story, which is what you've always
said me. So where does that leave them in terms
of what they're trying to establish, Because not everything that
(15:36):
any creative makes is always going to be a success,
and there are lots of different measures of successes. You say, Jesse,
and you could slice it different ways and put it
up against another cooking show and then see how it did,
and that's all fair. But they are establishing themselves as
a brand who make content that they know things about that,
and yet everything they've made that hasn't been about their
royal story has not been successful at all. Where do
(15:57):
they go now?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I think obviously not renewed with Netflix, And there are
lots of lakes and sources saying that, you know, Netflix
still will be over by the end of the year
and they're not going to renew it, and they all
know that. But the success that Meghan has had, and
this has even been as recently as this year, is
she is photographed wearing a gold bracelet and everyone works
out where the gold bracelet is from and you get
(16:19):
one thousand percent increases.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And she does have a shopper ball fash.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
She has a shopper ball like I do think that
that's where her sweet spot is.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yes, of course, yeah, fashion and beauty, And she talked
about that with Emma Greed he's one of the co
founders of Skims when she did that Entrepreneur interview when
all the entrepreneurs were interviewing each other on their entrepreneur shows. Okay, so,
as someone who has been running a content business for
eighteen years now, let me tell you it's not easy.
And I came into this business. My husband, who's my
(16:49):
co founder, has business acumen. I had fifteen twenty years
of content, you know, experience doing that when you've got
people like Meghan and Harry who, look, I'm going to
give them the benefit of doubt and say that they
don't want to have to be telling their story all
the time. And we've spoken about that, about the cost
of just selling your life and your personal life all
(17:09):
the time. They were like, no, But what everybody made
the mistake of Netflix, Harry and Meghan Spotify, who also
gave them one hundred million dollars or close to is
that they are not content creators unless that content is
about themselves. And even when it's about themselves, it's very regarded.
If it's not about their personal life, people aren't interested.
(17:32):
They're not interested in watching Harry at the Invictus Games
or Megan cooking in the kitchen with her celebrity friends.
They're not interested. They're not interested in her talking to
entrepreneurs about being an entrepreneur, or talking to women about
feminism and stereotypes archetypes. They're not interested. And I think
the Obamas had a similar experience when they left Offers,
and you know, they had a lot of success early on,
(17:53):
particularly with Michelle Obama's book. Interestingly, Obama did the first
half of his book, never followed up with part two.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
But they have had successes, but how they scenes their
production company has had a lot of big successes, but
they're not in them.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
But it took a while, right because they also try
to few things it didn't really work. They then partnered
with people who really knew what they were doing. Now,
by all accounts, Harry and Meghan's greatest weakness, I suppose,
has been that they don't want to listen to people
that they're like, this is what I think we should do,
this is what I think we should do. So there's
been a lack of perhaps self awareness and recognition that
(18:28):
they're famous, but everything they touched doesn't turn to go.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I will say though, that most people get to fail
at their jobs privately, and everyone fails at parts of
their jobs or promotions or whatever every single day, and
we get to do that privately. And the glee with
which this reporting was published did make me sad to
kind of go, why are we all so excited that
there was a failure, Like she was just a woman
trying something.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I'm not excited. And I also think, as you said before,
if they can establish a rich niche and they're fine. Like,
I'm not worried about them. They've got their beautiful home
in Montecity. No, they've got bags of money coming at
them from all directions, Like they're gonna be fine. It's
just so interesting, you know, in that you can be
the most famous person in the world and you can
get all of the attention in the world, but it
(19:12):
won't necessarily translate in the way that you want it to.
Like you being able to harness that and point it
in the direction you want it won't work because people
are stubbornly interested in the things they're interested in, and
they won't just go where you point if it's not
what they.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Won't be Like the Kardashians and Chris Jenna is the
damn master of this. It would be as if they went, oh,
everyone's very interested in us, We're going to now go
behind the scenes and make you know documentaries or we're
going to make you know stories about fashion that we're
not in. Like, that's not what people want.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I want to do a quick call out to the
Australian shows that absolutely nailed it, and the big ones
were Apple Side Vininger, which came in at number fifty
and also the survivors to Australian shows that really succeeded
love to see.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It in a moment, the job interview test that you
had no idea.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
You were taking.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
If you go to a job interview and it's been
a while obviously, but I've been in plenty and someone
offers you a drink of water or a cup of coffee,
what do you do with your cup afterwards? Whatever it is,
it's a trap. A guy called Trent Innes, he's the
former MD of Zero Australia. Actually, an old podcast with
him has resurfaced and been given a new life on
(20:32):
TikTok where he said this. He said, when he was
interviewing candidates, if you come in and have an interview,
as soon as you come in and you meet me,
I will always take you for a walk down to
one of our kitchens and somehow you'll always end up
walking away with a drink. At the end of the interview,
he says, he observes what the candidate does with the
empty cup. Does this person, he says, want to take
(20:54):
the empty cup back to the kitchen. He says that
if they do, you can tell that they're a person
who's going to have attention to detail, consideration for others,
and see a project through.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
And they're also going to stack the dishwasher in the
communal kitchen, which is an incredibly important quality in a
big office.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
TikTok has seized on this old interview with oodles of
content about whether or not they failed this test themselves,
and whether or not this test is in fact fair
in any way. What do we think? I think I'd
fail it.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
You definitely fail. I would definitely I'd fail to.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah, I just don't think I'm aware enough of my surroundings.
And you know what, I think probably a potential employer
should know that. Like, I think it does reveal something
deeply flawed about my personality.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
But this you might just be nervous too, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Nervous, And also like I feel like maybe they just
want me to leave. I will just be annoying them
by going into the kitchen. I have a friend who
went for a really important job interview at a really
important company and was given a mug that was like
branded and he was, you know, just having a drink
(22:01):
of water out of it. At the end, they were
being ushered out and kind of ushered in back into
the car. Park and said thank you so much for
coming into this job interview, close the door, and this
I found himself in the car park holding the cup.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
What do I do do?
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I thought he was so strange walking out with the
cup of his hands, like he hadn't realized and he
was like do I leave it by the door or
take it home? And he didn't know what to do.
He felt so awkward. He was like, that's gonna look
weird if I put it by the thing. So he
walks towards his car, at which point the very important
boss opens the door and goes, mate, can I that cut?
Speaker 6 (22:36):
No?
Speaker 5 (22:37):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
And did he get the job?
Speaker 4 (22:39):
He never got to go.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Of course he did it.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And that was the test that it feels like some
sort of test. This friend has never slept.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Wow, I don't think taking the cup home with you
was one of the options. It's funny thinking about this
because I haven't been in an interview where I was
being interviewed for a while.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
But you interviewed people. Would you like this?
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I said, a different kind of trap. Although it's not
a trap, it's more just a test, a test of sorts.
So my version of passing this test, though, is al offer.
Always say no. Anything more complicated than a water yes,
say no.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Agreed, because some.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
People will go, oh, yeah, do you have green tea?
And I'll be like, dude, I offered because it was
a nice thing to do. Don't give me work.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Really, I totally agree with that. Again, it's like if
you're like, yeah, I'll have a latte with soil and
two and blah. Like sometimes you'll go into a meeting
or an interview, they'll be like, we've got a coffee
person outside. She'll take an order, and that's fine. But
if they're literally like, do you want anything? Water is
the absolute limit? I agree. The thing that's interesting that.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
This guy come along with no needs. But back to
the test that I do do I just chat. I
just like chat with someone and just throw random questions.
So why I'd never allowed to interview anyone by myself
because I don't ask the proper. The thing I hate
most in the world is doing job into years. Why
I don't do them anymore and haven't for a long time.
(24:04):
But what I used to do is just see how
people react. It does no matter what you talk about.
And at first, when I was with someone else, they'd
be like, oh, We've got to get onto the interview
and why were you talking about that? And I'm like,
I just want to see what they're like. You know,
you can learn about someone.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I know, but but what they're like isn't always going
to tell you whether or not they're going to be
good at their job.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Not all.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
It's just a data point. It's not enough. I don't
make a decision based on that, but it's just an
extra data point.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
The thing is, the guy says is that all you
have to do to pass this test you don't actually
have to take your cup back to the kitchen, because
there are a lot of people on TikTok who, like you, Jesse,
are feeling awkward about that, Like what, I'm just wandering
through an office that I'm not welcome in putting. You
have to offer. That's all you have to do. Is
you have to say, oh, what daught me to do
with the cup? Shall I take it about in the kitchen.
That's all you have to do. You have to offer.
You have to think about the cup. That's the test, Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
My tips also are don't talk too much about your
personal life. Keep it top line so when someone asks
you a question, don't be too honest. I know there's
all bringing your whole self to work. Don't bring your
whole self to a job interview.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Don't talk about your IBA no exactly. Do you know
when farts aren't funny? Probably in that interview.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Not bitch about your boss, oh.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, your former employee.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
All your current like and sometimes your interviewer will try
and lead you into that trap. Do not do it.
That's my number one tip. The new season of Australian
politics has started. I don't know if you've noticed. The
Parliament came back this week. They've had an even longer
break than I had on my holiday. They've been gone
a very long time, but it all came back this
(25:38):
week and with that attention, obviously there are some new
bit part players who've stepped into main character. One of
them is the new leader of the Opposition, Susan Lee.
So she was the subject of a shiny sixty minutes
profile on the weekend, because that's what you do when
you've got a new leader. We've all seen them before.
We've seen them with albos in Mascomo. We've talked about
them lots of times, like in themselves. Are they a
(26:00):
bit problematic? Like you always have to have all these
sides of yourself that you're showing.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
The two things that you used to do is an
interview with the Women's Weekly YEP and an interview with
sixty Minutes.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Ye, and so they will have been like Susan Lee's
team and the sixty Minutes people will be like, well,
what can you show us? And they'll have been like,
Susan flies planes, which is very impressive.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
That's quite interesting, greag astronaut lane.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
So they go up in a plane. Susan likes to
go to the pub and talk to the locals. Okay,
so we'll go and order a beer like that's that right,
That's what it is. But one of the things that
we want to talk about that came up in this
is that when Susan Lee first stepped in as the
opposition leader, she gave a press club address in which
she alluded to the fact that she unders because obviously
the Liberal Party are making a play to show that
(26:44):
they understand Australian women because they've lost female voters in
enormous numbers.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Except they refuse to do quotas and they won't seem
to pre select any women.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
But if you go he seemed to be the problem anyway.
In her press club address, she alluded to the fact
that she understood what Australian women going through, that she
had been herself in a relationship that maybe involved coers
of control, and that she understood the issues of coers
of control and domestic violence. So Tara Brown, the interviewer
from sixty Minutes, pushed Susan Lee a little bit on
(27:13):
this in the interview this is how it went.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
You described domestic violence as a great shame, a great
in Australian shame. Is it something you have personally experienced.
Speaker 6 (27:24):
Like many women in Australia, my life has been touched
by domestic violence.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
At the time that you were experiencing it, that you
were touched by it, did you realize you weren't alone?
Speaker 6 (27:35):
I think as a young woman, I didn't really understand
what was happening. And I've talked about being in challenging
workplaces and the approaches that have been made in those workplaces.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
So just for clarity, the domestic violence that you experienced,
did that happen in your home or did that happen
at work or both?
Speaker 6 (27:54):
I've talked about it in general terms, and I'm not
going to go into further specifics.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
Why is that just not do you realize obviously people's
interest and concern.
Speaker 6 (28:05):
I'm not remarkable when it comes to the statistics that
Australians are staring down the barrel of and this is
not about me, this is about the women of Australia.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I think she handled that incredibly well. I recoiled a
bit from the persistence of the questioning because as she
said it, I was thinking it might have been her parents,
it might have been a friend. She said, my life
has been touched by it. That's not necessarily her story
to tell.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Exactly, but I want to tell you the criticism she's
got so that we know what we're talking about here, right.
So she said what she said, and then some journalists,
not everybody, but said she should know that people are
going to push on that, which I'm sure she did,
and that's the decision she's made. So in The Nightly
a writer called Aaron Patrick wrote, for example, saying this
is not about me and about Australian woman is a
(28:52):
questionable assertion for anyone to make in a television profile.
Miss Lee is entitled to keep a sensitive aspect of
her personal life private, but having presented herself as a
victim of domestic violence to win over voters, especially women,
she should expect journalists to ask for the details. Is
that true? Should she expect journalists to ask for the details?
(29:15):
And is it fair game to push?
Speaker 3 (29:17):
I thought that Tara Brown's line of questioning was fair
and was direct, but wasn't necessarily insensitive, And I thought
that Susan had every right to respond by saying that's
kind of a boundary. What I found incredibly inappropriate was
a commentary, the commentary in The Nightly that suggested that
(29:39):
she owed us the exposure of her wounds in order
to justify what claim she had over domestic violence. I
think to say this has touched me in some way
is fair. And I think that Brown's questioning about did
it happen at work like Britney Higgins context, you know
what's happened with the Liberal Party? It would be remiss
(30:01):
of her not to have asked question.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Slightly confused about that because domestic violence suggests that it's
not a workplace issue. That's a diff it's called a
different thing.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I think they're talking about two different things now. A
fresh club address, she kind of when she said about
the workplace. I think what she meant was issues that
affect women, from sexual harassment to coercive control.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
To being scared walking down the street at now.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I see you, I recognize that I've experienced that that I.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Feel a tiny bit clumsy. To me, it felt a
tiny bit and again, you know, it's so easy to
sit back. I think it's great that there's a female
opposition leader, if that's not just window dressing for an
endemic problem within that party, which there is one. The
newspaper came out this week showing that support for the
Coalition is the lowest it's been since nineteen eighty five.
(30:52):
My frustration is more if the party thinks that that's
going to be enough to show cultural change.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I think it's interesting because traditional political journalism is that
you do push very hard, right, we push male leaders
to very hard. It's that, you know, there's a cliche
at any time a journalist interviews a politician, they should
be thinking, why is this lying fucker lying to be
like that's the.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Bastion, not about their personal life. You wouldn't have Lee Sales.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
You wouldn't No, you wouldn't have Lee Sales doing that.
But there's no question that we are very interested in
their experience. Think about Bob Hawk and his daughter experiencing
drug addiction extramarital affairs, Like, I'm not saying that we
push them that hard word toward, but I think that
we do expect a level of transparency from politicians that
we wouldn't necessarily expect from other people. Right, because it's
(31:43):
your public person who's asking us to vote for you,
so show us your stuff, right, That's why they do
these profiles. The problem is, I don't think the traditional
media understands how to deal with that when it comes
to women, like because some of these female issues in
inverted commas overlap with policy issues, like what do you
think about women's health? What do you think about domestic
(32:03):
violence funding? What do you think about making women safer
on the streets? They're kind of flapping about, going, well,
is it okay to ask? Have you ever been hit?
Have you ever had an abortion? Like, no, it's not
okay to ask. Of course, it's not okay to ask.
But I think that there's like this mucky confusion there,
do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
And sometimes you don't have to explicitly ask. So Caroline o'donna,
who wrote a newsletter this week in Sentimental Garbage, which
is her substack about the expectation of female authors to
write personal essays. This sounds unrelated, but I actually think
it is exactly what we're talking about, which is that
when you are a female public figure, be that an author,
(32:43):
an actor, a politician, you are expected to share the
worst things that ever happen to you in order to
validate your existence in this sphere, to validate why you
might position yourself as an activist, to endear yourself to
people for connection. And she says that male authors, and
(33:05):
I would say male politicians too, they get to talk
about ideas, They get to talk about the the stuff,
the concepts, whereas women and I think that that is
where she has found herself. Lee has found herself is like,
what's your story that you owe us? And the irony
in it is that then we will use it against you,
(33:25):
And she knows that that. What will happen is then
when you google her, the first thing will be, oh,
she's a survivor of domestic violence. She'll be asked about
it in every single interview. Then the opposition will suggest
that she wasn't or that it wasn't bad enough for well,
your policy isn't good enough, like women then have it
weaponized against them, but they're forced to disclose, which is
really dangerous. You know.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Also, then someone goes and looks up the person maybe
and tries to do yea, and who was it and
where are they now and what happened and what's the narrative?
Because that's more interesting than policy, to be honest, and it.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Opens it up for debate. Then it's kind of like, well,
was it really this? And was it really that? We
all see women's stories being questioned all the time.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I think the part that friend of the Pod Charlotte
Mortlock pulled out was really interesting.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
This is in the Nightly column, it said, which was
about the interview. Yes, it said, who if anyone provides
the personal advice and emotional support only an intimate partner
can to this public figure is a mystery. For context,
she's been married, divorced. The suggestion is.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
That she's currently unpartnered, right, and what.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
This statement suggests is that there is something wrong or
devoid or like, can you trust a leader who doesn't
have an intimate partner to throw around ideas with? Which
is ironic and this is the point that Charlotte made
with Scott Morrison when he conferred with his wife. It
(34:51):
was almost like used to undermine him, as though he
doesn't have enough of a mind of his own.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Well, because men don't need any support.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Now I pushed back on that. I think we were
very suspicious of single male politicians like Albo. Being engaged
has excused him from that, but he was the first
on Marria Prime minister by one. We have always been
interested in politicians' private lives, and politicians have always known
that and pulled out bits of their private lives to
(35:19):
help explain who they are to the public. Because remember,
these are not your normal public figures. They're asking us
to vote for them. So think about how many times
Albo talks about his origin story, his single mum, growing
up hard scrabble in public housing all the time. That's
his narrative, right, you know. Think about politicians who've talked
about their family breakdowns and being raised in as the
child of divorce or whatever it is. You need a narrative, right,
(35:42):
And I think we've always been interested an interesting thought
experiment about why it irks me that they're pushing on
Susan Lee's personal life is Was I bothered when they
were pushing on Peter Dunnan's You know how Peter Dutton
had a slightly complicated had a child when he was younger,
and then a marriage that didn't work out and whatever?
Was I upset when journalists were pushing him on that.
I don't think I was upset about it.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
I think that as human beings we can accept that
there are some subjects that are more sensitive than us.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Sure, yeah, no, no, oh no, sorry. When I say that,
I'm comparing it to the commentary about whether or not
she's single, not about the not about the commentary ABOUTDV.
My god, No, I think that's so different. I think
Susan Lee has every right to do exactly what she did.
I think that's actually really smart. As you do me,
I say yes, but I'm not going to talk about it,
and you just close the door. The criticism about her
(36:31):
refusing to talk about a personal life, and the writer
who wrote about that said her office refuses to discuss
it like very blatantly, is again. I think she has
every right to keep that door shut. But I don't
think it's true that we don't press men on their
personal lives. We absolutely do.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
My theory is that we punish women for not disclosing
more than we punish men.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, I'm sure that's true.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
After the break, why Jessica Bill's back has sparked an
online frenzy What unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes
every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mum and MEA subscribers.
Follow the link in the show notes to get us
in your ears five days a week, and a huge
thank you to all our current subscribers.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
In case you missed it. South Koreans are checking themselves
into relaxation prison to escape stress and also life.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
This feels like that thing that women have spoken about doing,
where they fantasize about something mildly inconvenient happening that lands
them in hospital for a week or two with no
visiting hours, and you can just lay in a bed
and just relax.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
The relaxation prison is a hotel. It's called Prison inside Me,
and it's located outside Seoul, and people voluntarily pay to
lock themselves up. Now, the most popular types of guests
like office workers, interestingly, university students, entrepreneurs, hard relate, people
experiencing burnout or anxiety, and mothers of small children. Yeah,
(38:02):
I made that up.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I like their uniforms.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Did you say you get like a onesie?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yes, because you don't want to have to make decisions
about what you're wearing.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
It wouldn't be mother of small children mare, because they
wouldn't be allowed.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
True, they just think on the website inquiring, but they
never actually.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Make a book keep.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
It was actually founded almost ten years ago by a
former prosecutor who he nearly worked himself into the ground,
and he decided that jail sounded more RESTful than his job.
For about one hundred and thirty five dollars, you get
a twenty four hour stay in a little room with
a window, guests that are encouraged to open their window
and look out into the countryside and gaze at nature.
(38:39):
But there's no phone, there's no mirror, there's no clocks.
There is room service in a way, but your meals
are slipped through a slot in the door, so you
presumably don't have to choose what you eat, and you
don't interact with anyone, and you're encouraged to meditate, journal
and I don't know, not totally lose your mind. More
than two thousand people have done it mostly locals, and
(39:00):
a lot of them come back. It's like this ultimate detail,
how long for me? They originally would offer these packages
for like a week, but that was too long. So
now it's like you can either get a twenty four
hour stay for one hundred and thirty five dollars or
a forty eight hours stay for a bit more so
that they're the most popular amounts of time. And as
soon as they've changed that, which they've done in the
(39:21):
last few years, lots more people came because that idea
of detoxing from your phone, from technology, from stress, being
where nobody can reach you is very intoxicated.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Also think that we can't do it to ourselves, so
we need it to be forced upon us.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
See, I like, I think I prefer a really expensive
bougie health retreat. That's what I look at when I'm
in the throes of feeling like particularly burnt out. I
look at the really fancy ones I could never afford
to just like go and stay for a week and meditate.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Do you know what, though, in all seriousness, the times
that I've felt most in need of that like nervous
breakdown edge, it's just felt like so many steps that
I just have not been able to imagine finding a place,
looking for a room, booking a room, apart from the
costs of it getting myself there. It's like, and that's
why it can feel like such a trap, because what
(40:14):
a lot of us need to rest from is our phone.
So of course what I did. You talked about the
brick device. I bought a brick for me. I bought
a brick free, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
How's it going?
Speaker 4 (40:23):
I haven't, I haven't eaten.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
It costs like one hundred dollars. Basically turns your phone
into a brick, you know, when you swipe it and
then you have to swipe it again to unbrick it.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
This is way better actually than my health retreat. Is
that if I went on my expensive health retreat, I
think I would feel pressure to enjoy it, whereas being
locked up in a relaxation for yeah, I don't feel
like I'd have this pressure to enjoy it and soak
it all in.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Like it's also cheaper.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (40:50):
Everyone is talking or telling me that people are really
enjoying that a sister, which is amazing, and also talking
about the weight Joss, and how do we stay strong
as we get older, specifically as women, how do we
keep our backstrong? I just felt like I wanted to
share that that cute sheep in that shell is not
maintainable unless you are the strictest, most rigid lifestyle with
(41:11):
your nutrition and with your goodness, which I cannot do.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
So I'm currently back on my plan to.
Speaker 7 (41:18):
Sort of get a little bit back towards that sheep.
My body is not twenty years old anymore, you know,
so I am adjusting my.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Workout what I need to do.
Speaker 7 (41:28):
You out a good muscle, So that's a key part
of my particular routine and.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
A ton of ptiblity.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
That was forty three year old actor Jessica Biel, who
has recently start in the series The Better Sister, talking
about how her back broke the internet. So in one scene,
there's this iconic image going around. She's walking in a
white sort of backless dress and she has this incredibly strong,
defined back, which as a beauty standard, I find really
(41:56):
interesting the evolution of how that's become a marker of
sort of fitness. But someone said to her, drop the routine,
tell us how you're getting that back, and so shumped
on TikTok posted this video and it has now been viewed.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Three and a half month million times.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
I'm so tired, She.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Breaks down this workout. This is what I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
We've spoken about the era of radical transparency when it
comes to cosmetic procedures, and it feels like increasingly we're
entering the era of radical workout transparency. So Bill says
that she's not twenty anymore, and this is what I
do to look like that apart from being brilliant promo
(42:35):
for the show, because now everyone's seen that dress and
everyone's going I want to see her in that dress.
She's just got this ad in front of a lot
of people. Holly, what did you make of this video?
Speaker 2 (42:45):
It's so funny because when we were talking about this,
I was all like, yay. I love it when celebrities
admit that, you know, it takes an enormous amount of
work and discipline and rigidity, as she says, like to
be that person that woman in that dress required her
to basically make that her full time job. I love
it when celebrities are honest about that because I think
(43:07):
that kind of pulls back this idea that we're all
used to just walk around with the idea that this tiny.
One percent of beautiful people just look like that entirely, effortlessly,
and the rest of us are unfortunate. So I like
it when they're like, no, this ruins my life to
look like that, And then I get to go, well,
I don't want my life ruined. So I was like, yeay, Jessica,
and then I've watched the video and now I'm like,
(43:27):
fuck you, Jessica Biel. Why because so Jessica Bill is
ten years younger than me, ten years older than you, right, yeah,
so she is like, not young, not old. She is
forty three when you watch the video, and she's there
going I'm not twenty anymore and I'm not in that
kind of shape anymore, and I'm just trying to work
(43:49):
my web. She looks no one in the universe has
ever looked better in a pair of leggings, and she
is tiny, and she is incredibly toned and her bottom
is put like. She looks unbelievable. So the relatable queenness
of it is gone. And now I'm just like, that
is impossible.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
I don't think there's a relatable queenness element of this.
I watched this video and then I was among the
something like one hundred and thirteen thousand people who didn't
click like they clicked save. I clicked save, and the
next time I was in the gym, I got this
up and I did it.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
I did.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
I did not look like her.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
And she's just casually while she's talking to you, a
little bit out of breath in that video, by the way,
she's in the splits.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
Oh that bit, that bit.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
I will oh.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
I was so impressed what I seen me do this?
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Please? Why you're talking?
Speaker 3 (44:46):
See, now that's genetic, that's genetic. I stretch and I
can never do it. She's pretty good.
Speaker 4 (44:52):
You're just like Jessica Bill.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
You Jessica Bill? Are you Jim Bunny? Bitches?
Speaker 4 (44:56):
Do you stretch every day?
Speaker 7 (44:58):
No?
Speaker 1 (44:58):
I know it was stretch.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
See, that's just genetic.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
That was just I did ballet when I was younger.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Look, the reason I liked this is because I go
to the gym. I'm getting all this information about strength
and how we should be doing our strength things.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
But I already muscle building too.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
But I'm a normal person, and I find it almost
impossible to get there.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Yes, yes, But when I do get there and I'm
doing a thing, often I feel like maybe I'm doing
the wrong thing, and I look around other people and
I'm like, should I be doing that? You're lifting it
like this, but I'm doing this. A personal trainer is
prohibitively expensive. I've got my membership, but.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
You've got time.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
I find Jim's so intimidated.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
But what I like about this is that she has
access and she cites her very fancy trainer who has
told her to do very fancy and important exercises, and
a lot of personal trainers have jumped in and gone,
Jessica Bill, great form, this is great. This is something
that women should be doing. And with any workout, it's
like I probably didn't do it with as heavy weight
(45:56):
so as she did, but I actually thought it was
relatively accessible and I liked the transparency of I have
to do this, probably, you know, several times a week
in order to look like this, which is Chris Hemsworth
has come out and said that zac Efron said for
his Baywatch role that he developed crippling depression and insomnia
(46:18):
as a result of what they had to do. Like
Chris Hemsworth doesn't look like Chris Hemsworth. I think that
that's always a bit of an empowering man.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah, absolutely, I agree. But then you see what Jessica
Beel's version of I'm out of shape at the moment is,
and you're right back to the same place that you
always were, which is like, that's an impossible beauty standard.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
And I just commented, give me the upper body workout.
That's what I was pissed off about, is that I
got the lower body. And I was like, bitch, I
want your back? Am I doing rose?
Speaker 2 (46:44):
I want to know.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
I'm feelty tired for the back to become important, like
I'm still dealing with my front. I was driving to
work this morning and I saw an ad at a
bus stop. It just said back and it had this
girl with some spray and I didn't know what the
spray was for. And then it said something about all
(47:07):
over mist or something. Oh, we're having a cultural moment
of the focus on the female back, which I just can't.
I just can't.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
We used to have that. We used to have There
was a whole thing about like how do you look
when you walk out of the room in your backless dress?
And now that is back.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Who is a backless dress?
Speaker 2 (47:25):
My boots are too beep? The problem is and I
know this is all individual, and I'm always the one
who's here saying like, you know, just because one woman's
doing this, it doesn't mean you should feel bad about that.
But we are being bombarded by a message at the
moment women and not just older women but all women,
about strength, and it is true and it is right,
and new research is coming out all the time at
(47:46):
the moment say it's unbelievably important for us to live long,
healthy lives, that we work in our strength. But the
problem to me is that so I'm at the moment
on in that place you know, where you get to
it at certain times where you're like teetering on the
edge of I know I need to get back into
serious exercise. You two bitches talk about your weight regimes
all the time. It's all around me, and I think
I'm just about to do it. And for me, when
(48:07):
I see something like this, it's a barrier to entry.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
It's not atage gape, not inspired.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
What I feel like is like that looks impossible. She
is holding herself up as like I'm just doing this
because I know that strength is important for my health,
when really she's doing it because in order to be
allowed on a television screen. She has to be so
believably hot, she has to ruin her life to do it.
I functionally, I feel like I can't walk into a
(48:35):
gym tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
I don't know if she's ruining her life, but she's she.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
Said herself, she said, I can't live like that all
the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Right, Well, she's certainly dedicating her life to it. I
think it's this dichotomy that we're caught in as women,
where we're not allowed to say we want to exercise
or eat more protein or do weights to look a
certain way. We've got to say it's for our health.
She said the quiet part out loud, which is I
couldn't look like this in the dress. I only do
(49:03):
this to be in a movie. Now, that's not about health.
That's about anesthetics, which is interesting, which is fine.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
But because I watch that, and maybe the reason that
I didn't feel particularly triggered or upset by it is
that when I went to do that routine, it actually
wasn't to look like Jessica Biel. I can genuinely say that,
and the reason I go to the gym is not
to look like Jessica Bill. It is because I've had
hip and knee and all these issues, and I know
that everyone's told me you've got to get stronger glues
and blah blah blah, So that is why I'm doing it.
But Holly, that's a really good point because my sister
(49:30):
Claire wrote a brilliant substack about exercise and the messaging
that we're getting. And I see this all the time
when I jump online and it is someone going your
pilate's workout isn't doing what you think it is, which
is probably why I go when I feel like I'm
constantly doing the wrong thing, which is so it makes
me want to stop going, because in reality, going and
(49:54):
moving your body in any form is a great thing.
But when we keep moving the benchmark and the expertise
of like I was watching something last night that was
telling me you've got a lift to fatigue, you've got
to do this, or it's not going to do anything exactly,
it makes it totally inaccessible to ninety five of people
who are not working out to be an athlete and
are not working out to be in a film.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
And I think most people, certainly women around my age,
are these days working out for health, like of course
they want to keep a certain level of what you
look like. But it's the message that we're getting is
going in, which is like, if you want to be
living the way you want to live when you're older,
you need to sort this out. And so I'm so
I'm right on the edge of wanting to sort it out.
(50:34):
But then you feel like, well, I couldn't possibly walk
into a gym and lift some dumbbells because oh my god,
look at this, that's how and so it closes the
door again. You knowlutely, it's not Jessica Biel's fault. Go Jessica,
but honestly, tell me, most people in the gym don't
look like that.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
Oh they don't, don't Holly.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
I'm there and I might have tried that workout, but
I didn't look at anything like Jessica Bielle.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
I'll tell you that. A big thank you to all
of you. That's all we've got time for today. Wherever
you're listening to us, maybe you're listening to us while
you're lifting your dumbbells or doing the splits like Mia,
we love you out loud as for being part of
our show, and of course we love our fabulous team
for helping us put it together.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
If you're looking for something else to listen to, We
had lots of questions about Hole's summer euro Vaka.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
I'm one of those awful people.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Many nosy questions. We will put a link in the
show notes if you want a debrief with Whole.
Speaker 4 (51:22):
Bye bye by by shout out.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
To any Mum and Maya subscribers listening.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
If you love the show and want to support us
as well.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Subscribing to MoMA Miya is the very best way to
do so. There is a link in the episode description.
You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on. Welcome to Mamma Mia
out loud what women are actually talking about on Wednesday,
the twenty third of July. And as you may be
able to tell from my voice, we were mid conversation
when I suddenly remembered we had to start the show.
Our conversation just rolls at all times, so we're bringing
(00:35):
you some of that energy.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I am Holly Wayne right, I'm mea Friedman. I'm still croaky.
I'm sorry. I'm not feeling bad. I'm not contagious, but
it's annoying to listen to someone croaking your ears.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
And I'm Jesse Stevens and you're always annoying in new
and surprising ways.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
That's so true.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I'd like to keep it fresh.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
That's what we love about you. And here's what's on
our agenda for today. Australia is learning all over again
how to deal with a political leader who is a woman.
And this week's conondrum is are we entitled to know
all the ins and outs of her past relationships?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Megan Markle is back in the news this week because
we finally know how many people watched her arrange cut
up fruit into a rainbow on her Netflix show All
of the People of Me.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
And Jessica Bill's workout that went absolutely viral. I did it,
Holly felt personally victimized. We break it down, but first,
in case you missed it, this is breaking, breaking news.
Apparently farts aren't funny anymore. This TikTok by a woman
with the username Tilton has been viewed more than one
(01:36):
point five million times. And here's what she says. Why
are these kids not laughing at farts because I didn't
teach them to not laugh at far I'll laugh at
a good fart, but not a bad farat.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
I'll laugh at a bad fart too.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
What's the difference between a good fight and a bad fart?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Timing?
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Timing?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
And also, people say there's a funny fight and then
there's like a fart that's like genuinely like makes people
really uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Because it's not I think hearts are disgusting.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Okay, Well, her caption says that she saw this on
a teacher's TikTok. A teacher said, guys, I'm serious, these
Jennas so primary school age not finding farts funny.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
This is a crisis. I don't know he's going on.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And then this mother went home and said to her
own kids, who are Jen Alpha, said guys, come on,
farts are funny. And they were like, no, they're not funny.
And she said, what do you mean they're not funny
and they said it would be like laughing at the hiccups.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Like it's not. Oh, it's just it's just a bodily function.
We move on. Why are we shaming people? It's not funny.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
This news is depressing.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
I've just decided it is depressing because I.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Don't find farts funny personally. Unfortunately, my children do because
their father.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Okay, because they're Jen Alpha, so this gives me.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Home they are. But then Brent, when I first met
him and we started dating, I had to just tell
him like, no, not funny, like burps, farts, all those things.
Like he has that humor where he just thinks that's
hilarious and I'm like, no, like not funny. But because
my children are part him and they think it's hilarious.
But what this tells me that they're very young primary
(03:05):
school kids aren't laughing. It was a clue there where
you said it's like shaming some one is they've been
made to feel so anxious about embarrassing their parents in public,
about shaming other people, that they can no longer see
the humor in the fact that sometimes you're not in
control of the noises that come out of you.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Well, that's the thing, right, is that There were hundreds
of comments agreeing kids don't find this funny anymore. And
I go back twenty years to being in a meditation
class at school and a girl farted and it was
the funniest.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
She's probably not lived it down, but was she in
on the joke or not?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
No, maybe it is okay.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
That's interesting. It's like, do you find your own farts funny?
It's kind of like you find your own the smell
of your own farts is fine, but the smell of
other people's farts is disgusting. What I didn't realize is
that as you get older, sometimes you start farting by axe.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Oh yeah, don't mean that about me, But being around
older people.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
When it happens, it's really awkward because you don't know,
like you try to cover it up trying to make
another noise that's like similar, well similar, you know what
I mean to me, like, oh, that was just though
I didn't fart, that was just well not moving my foot.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
I can't believe you guys don't find it funny, because
I obviously have a two year old who this is
her first joke, and in fact, it is the first
recorded joke in history.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Was a fart shoke.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
It has always been, And I was like, what is
the psychology behind why farts are funny? And it's because
if you're sitting there, especially in a formal setting. A
classroom is an ideal setting because you're sitting there, it's formal,
someone farts, there's tension because it's just like, oh my goodness,
you just did something that broke the social contract, which
was that we're all behaving in this way. And then
(04:48):
what laughter does is it relieves that tension, and so
everyone kind of laughs and it's just real equalize we're
all human. And it also crosses cultural linguistic bounds.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
About funny farts because they often happen in yoga.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
They do.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I actually think they're even funny.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, funny farts are quite funny.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
You've got to own it though, like the little kids
who are like that would be shaming. That's sad, right.
I mean it's good that they consider it, but it's
a bit sad. But the thing is is that that's
why people own their own fart and laugh at it. Yes,
to take the shame back right.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yes, there was someone who was saying in the comments
that twenty five years ago she was at school and
someone farted and then cried, and then they got the
nickname farted and cried.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
I was like, oh, that's a little bit sad.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
That's do you know who thinks fart so funny? Is
elon musk. If you've ever been in Tesla, there is
a mode on Tesla called fart Mode. You can set
it in different ways so that like, you can make
a fart when the driver indicates, you can even make
farts come from different parts of the car. When I
was in a car at Tesla and someone did this,
(05:51):
it actually was quite hilarious. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, you know why I know that because my dad
drove a Tesla for a little bit and he would
arrive at my house.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
He'd say get out here and he'd do it.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And it's perfect for Pete Stevens.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
It was easily. It is the universal language.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Just like that's true.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
It doesn't matter if you two or your eighty.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Like woope, cushions.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
It's just all a bit silly.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
This week Netflix did something it's never done before, and
that is released viewing figures for thousands of its shows.
They don't release subscriber numbers anymore, but what they've started
to do, I think to cover up the fact that
they've probably reached critical mass and they can't grow the
number of subscribers.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
What they are.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Doing is being transparent about how many hours people spent
watching every new show and movie between January and June
this year. So ninety five billion hours of viewing was
spent globally for just the first half of this year.
And the top performer was your favorite show, Hole Adolescence.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Which is very interesting because that is not a laugh
a minute. There are no jokes in that, no fart jokes.
It's very serious, very bleak. But it caught the public's
imagination in a way that I think surprised everybody. So
British more or less independent product.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I am stoked that that oh yeah, that spot because
creatively and experimentally it was so different, it was so slow.
It was something that if you were Netflix, you wouldn't
have necessarily thought taking a gamble on that would pay
off to this extent.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
And I just think it's very exciting to see that.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
At the top. The usual suspects came after that, like
Squid Game. But what people are talking about the big
takeaway from this news is that Megan Markle's lifestyle show
with Love Megan ranked number three hundred and eighty three.
It had five point three million views. Now I feel
like this is a little bit unfair. I don't know
when Adolescence came out, But again, you can't compare these
(07:49):
two things because one is a drama and one is
a very niche cook.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, it's not about that. It's not about comparing Adolescence
and Megan. It's about like five point three million views
for a show of that scale is nothing A million
people watch Married at First Sight, Like, think about it
that way. This is a global audience zo point three
million views.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
You know what else month you can compare it to.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
And I think that this is the important kind of
data point is comparing it with other Netflix originals. So
the big Netflix originals have been ones like zero day
running point. Again, a bunch of those are dramas, but
they were in the top ten. And what some precedented,
according to Deadline, is to have a second season renewed,
(08:37):
and that's because they filmed the second season.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Before the first case. So I want to talk about
that for a second, because you're right, they still haven't
announced when that second season is going to be out,
but very soon after the first season finished airing, they
announced a second season. Now, as you said, it was
all filmed at the same time, which is a much
more cost effective way to do something, and then split
into two very smart strategically. With my sort of spin
(08:59):
hat on, if I was Megan probably and Netflix, I
would have done it this way because now people can't
say it was canned after one's So if they'd have
dropped all sixteen episodes at once and then not renewed it,
that would have been a big story. So if I
was Meghan, I don't know if her advisors it very
(09:20):
possibly was a strategic thing.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
It's interesting that all the seasons of Suits were above it.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I know. Well, it's just one of the things that
makes Netflix rankings really interesting because when you're on a
platform like that, you are literally competing with pretty much
every TV show that's ever been made. The first season
of Bridgeton is on there, Breaking Bad is on there,
shows that haven't been made. Let's get through a show
without mentioning that.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Again, I'd like to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
But you know, like you are competing with pretty much
all the television in the whole world. Ever, so probably
a fairer thing to see where Megan's show would be
would be to compare it with lifestyle shows, right, and
the same way that you put daytime shows up against
each other, breakfast TV shows up against each other. All that,
but by any measure, if the five point three million
(10:07):
views is correct, that would have to be deemed not
successful and the other thing, and I'd love to know why,
because I know that nobody liked it. I was the
only one who was, like, I'm watching it. I watched
the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Do you think how many of those five point three
million views will hate watchers? Do you think?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Well, there's that. But also the thing is is that
if we say that awareness is you know, we're in
an attention economy. You can't argue that that show didn't
get any attention? Can Yes, you cannot argue that no
one knows who Megan May is. You can't argue that
it didn't get any coverage, you can't argue that it
wasn't globally all over everywhere, and yet people still did
(10:42):
not watch. So what does that tell us?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
So what's important about that whole? And this is what's
interesting about them not releasing subscriber numbers. Netflix's business model,
they don't really care how many hours you watch. That
shows them what people are interested in and more likely
to watch again. But what they want is new subscribers.
So what they would want to know, and I don't know,
I assume they can track this is how many people
(11:08):
joined Netflix for the first time or renewed their subscription
because they wanted to watch the show. How many new
subscribers did the show attract? And exactly as you say,
it's not necessarily about how many hours, but it's the noise,
and this show made so much bloody noise.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It was interesting that it was very, very badly reviewed,
and that even on your Rotten Tomatoes critics or just
your average viewer didn't appear to like it very much.
And another data point that I think is important is
that adolescents. In its first four days was viewed twenty
four point three million times, right, So that's what five
(11:43):
times actually what Megan's got overall. But it also had
a very long tail, getting to one hundred and forty
four million, eight hundred thousand views. So that means that
not only did people watch it, but they liked it
and they recommended it, which people will know about television.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
People it were.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Again because Adelesta's had a big cultural footprint and people
heard about it and then watched it.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
But you couldn't argue that the biggest shows in the
world are usually all that good. That's not usually the
way things will know.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
But what I do think is interesting about Meghan is
in the first weekend it received two point six million views.
That's half of what then. And this is what they
say about any content creation really is it's all about
the tail. The tail tells you whether or not that
thing was good. My question is, or rather my theory
(12:29):
is that Megan's not disappointed. My theory is that this
was never about getting views. This was about brand creation
and selling products and tick she did that.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I'm so glad you say that, because that's been an
unimitigated disaster, so when I disagree. The show came out
she announced that Netflix was the backer for as ever
the Goddamn jam and the flower sprinkles and the crepe mix,
and people thought, well, that's really interesting. Because Netflix has
had a lot of success with doing merch around some
of its big shows. This is different. Selling consumables is
(13:04):
a very different thing to selling T shirts and baseball caps.
So everyone was interested to see how this was going
to go. Now, there is no question that it has
been the role out of this has been an unmitigated design.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Every single product sold out.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
No no, but but that's not good. That sounds good
the first time, right, but it means that they've got
massive supply issues. The first time you can say, oh wow,
I mean you don't want things to sell out in
an hour. It's a certain strategy, But then you want
to make sure, so you drop a small amount. You say,
sold out in an hour, so you get scarcity, so
everyone comes, But then you make sure you've got the
(13:39):
pipeline ready to then satisfy the demand. So months later
they did another drop disaster, still sold out quickly. People
bought it, and then they got messages saying, sorry, we
sold it, but we don't actually have enough stock. Their
supply issues have been hopeless. So how many more times,
how much more frustration and brand damage is it going
(14:01):
to do when people can't get And now she said,
We're going back to the drawing board and I'm rethinking
all my products.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
I'm looking at five point three and I'm going this
was a new thing for Netflix, this was a new model.
And if I go, that was five point three million
people watching an ad, which essentially they were, and they're
selling products, and we know, do I want to matter?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
If you can't supply the products that people want to buy.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
I reckon that they've made money.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
The thing I'm interested in the margins body.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
It's like an eight dollar bottle of whatever, jeah.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
The thing I'm interested in is what it says about
the Megan and Harry brand going forward. Because also this
isn't all about Megan Harry. They've got a content deal
with Netflix, much lauded content deal that cost them jillion.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Dollars actually one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
One hundred million dollars back in the day, and famously
they made their documentary about themselves that was a massive smash.
It remains the most watched nonfiction show that Netflix have
ever made. It was huge, just like Prince Harry's book
was huge, and then everything they've done since because as well.
Buried in these numbers are Prince Harry's show about the
Invictus Games and Prince Harry's show about Polo, which was
(15:06):
trying to be Drive to Survive. Drink That how that
do well?
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Okay? That came in at number three, four hundred and
thirty six. It only had half a million views.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So again what that tells us is despite all the
attention in the world, every headline, all the social media pylons,
all of the stuff, people are only interested in them
for them and their story, which is what you've always
said me. So where does that leave them in terms
of what they're trying to establish, Because not everything that
(15:36):
any creative makes is always going to be a success,
and there are lots of different measures of successes. You say, Jesse,
and you could slice it different ways and put it
up against another cooking show and then see how it did,
and that's all fair. But they are establishing themselves as
a brand who make content that they know things about that,
and yet everything they've made that hasn't been about their
royal story has not been successful at all. Where do
(15:57):
they go now?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I think obviously not renewed with Netflix, And there are
lots of lakes and sources saying that, you know, Netflix
still will be over by the end of the year
and they're not going to renew it, and they all
know that. But the success that Meghan has had, and
this has even been as recently as this year, is
she is photographed wearing a gold bracelet and everyone works
out where the gold bracelet is from and you get
(16:19):
one thousand percent increases.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And she does have a shopper ball fash.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
She has a shopper ball like I do think that
that's where her sweet spot is.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yes, of course, yeah, fashion and beauty, And she talked
about that with Emma Greed he's one of the co
founders of Skims when she did that Entrepreneur interview when
all the entrepreneurs were interviewing each other on their entrepreneur shows. Okay, so,
as someone who has been running a content business for
eighteen years now, let me tell you it's not easy.
And I came into this business. My husband, who's my
(16:49):
co founder, has business acumen. I had fifteen twenty years
of content, you know, experience doing that when you've got
people like Meghan and Harry who, look, I'm going to
give them the benefit of doubt and say that they
don't want to have to be telling their story all
the time. And we've spoken about that, about the cost
of just selling your life and your personal life all
(17:09):
the time. They were like, no, But what everybody made
the mistake of Netflix, Harry and Meghan Spotify, who also
gave them one hundred million dollars or close to is
that they are not content creators unless that content is
about themselves. And even when it's about themselves, it's very regarded.
If it's not about their personal life, people aren't interested.
(17:32):
They're not interested in watching Harry at the Invictus Games
or Megan cooking in the kitchen with her celebrity friends.
They're not interested. They're not interested in her talking to
entrepreneurs about being an entrepreneur, or talking to women about
feminism and stereotypes archetypes. They're not interested. And I think
the Obamas had a similar experience when they left Offers,
and you know, they had a lot of success early on,
(17:53):
particularly with Michelle Obama's book. Interestingly, Obama did the first
half of his book, never followed up with part two.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
But they have had successes, but how they scenes their
production company has had a lot of big successes, but
they're not in them.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
But it took a while, right because they also try
to few things it didn't really work. They then partnered
with people who really knew what they were doing. Now,
by all accounts, Harry and Meghan's greatest weakness, I suppose,
has been that they don't want to listen to people
that they're like, this is what I think we should do,
this is what I think we should do. So there's
been a lack of perhaps self awareness and recognition that
(18:28):
they're famous, but everything they touched doesn't turn to go.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I will say though, that most people get to fail
at their jobs privately, and everyone fails at parts of
their jobs or promotions or whatever every single day, and
we get to do that privately. And the glee with
which this reporting was published did make me sad to
kind of go, why are we all so excited that
there was a failure, Like she was just a woman
trying something.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I'm not excited. And I also think, as you said before,
if they can establish a rich niche and they're fine. Like,
I'm not worried about them. They've got their beautiful home
in Montecity. No, they've got bags of money coming at
them from all directions, Like they're gonna be fine. It's
just so interesting, you know, in that you can be
the most famous person in the world and you can
get all of the attention in the world, but it
(19:12):
won't necessarily translate in the way that you want it to.
Like you being able to harness that and point it
in the direction you want it won't work because people
are stubbornly interested in the things they're interested in, and
they won't just go where you point if it's not
what they.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Won't be Like the Kardashians and Chris Jenna is the
damn master of this. It would be as if they went, oh,
everyone's very interested in us, We're going to now go
behind the scenes and make you know documentaries or we're
going to make you know stories about fashion that we're
not in. Like, that's not what people want.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I want to do a quick call out to the
Australian shows that absolutely nailed it, and the big ones
were Apple Side Vininger, which came in at number fifty
and also the survivors to Australian shows that really succeeded
love to see.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It in a moment, the job interview test that you
had no idea.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
You were taking.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
If you go to a job interview and it's been
a while obviously, but I've been in plenty and someone
offers you a drink of water or a cup of coffee,
what do you do with your cup afterwards? Whatever it is,
it's a trap. A guy called Trent Innes, he's the
former MD of Zero Australia. Actually, an old podcast with
him has resurfaced and been given a new life on
(20:32):
TikTok where he said this. He said, when he was
interviewing candidates, if you come in and have an interview,
as soon as you come in and you meet me,
I will always take you for a walk down to
one of our kitchens and somehow you'll always end up
walking away with a drink. At the end of the interview,
he says, he observes what the candidate does with the
empty cup. Does this person, he says, want to take
(20:54):
the empty cup back to the kitchen. He says that
if they do, you can tell that they're a person
who's going to have attention to detail, consideration for others,
and see a project through.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
And they're also going to stack the dishwasher in the
communal kitchen, which is an incredibly important quality in a
big office.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
TikTok has seized on this old interview with oodles of
content about whether or not they failed this test themselves,
and whether or not this test is in fact fair
in any way. What do we think? I think I'd
fail it.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
You definitely fail. I would definitely I'd fail to.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah, I just don't think I'm aware enough of my surroundings.
And you know what, I think probably a potential employer
should know that. Like, I think it does reveal something
deeply flawed about my personality.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
But this you might just be nervous too, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Nervous, And also like I feel like maybe they just
want me to leave. I will just be annoying them
by going into the kitchen. I have a friend who
went for a really important job interview at a really
important company and was given a mug that was like
branded and he was, you know, just having a drink
(22:01):
of water out of it. At the end, they were
being ushered out and kind of ushered in back into
the car. Park and said thank you so much for
coming into this job interview, close the door, and this
I found himself in the car park holding the cup.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
What do I do do?
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I thought he was so strange walking out with the
cup of his hands, like he hadn't realized and he
was like do I leave it by the door or
take it home? And he didn't know what to do.
He felt so awkward. He was like, that's gonna look
weird if I put it by the thing. So he
walks towards his car, at which point the very important
boss opens the door and goes, mate, can I that cut?
Speaker 6 (22:36):
No?
Speaker 5 (22:37):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
And did he get the job?
Speaker 4 (22:39):
He never got to go.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Of course he did it.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And that was the test that it feels like some
sort of test. This friend has never slept.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Wow, I don't think taking the cup home with you
was one of the options. It's funny thinking about this
because I haven't been in an interview where I was
being interviewed for a while.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
But you interviewed people. Would you like this?
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I said, a different kind of trap. Although it's not
a trap, it's more just a test, a test of sorts.
So my version of passing this test, though, is al offer.
Always say no. Anything more complicated than a water yes,
say no.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Agreed, because some.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
People will go, oh, yeah, do you have green tea?
And I'll be like, dude, I offered because it was
a nice thing to do. Don't give me work.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Really, I totally agree with that. Again, it's like if
you're like, yeah, I'll have a latte with soil and
two and blah. Like sometimes you'll go into a meeting
or an interview, they'll be like, we've got a coffee
person outside. She'll take an order, and that's fine. But
if they're literally like, do you want anything? Water is
the absolute limit? I agree. The thing that's interesting that.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
This guy come along with no needs. But back to
the test that I do do I just chat. I
just like chat with someone and just throw random questions.
So why I'd never allowed to interview anyone by myself
because I don't ask the proper. The thing I hate
most in the world is doing job into years. Why
I don't do them anymore and haven't for a long time.
(24:04):
But what I used to do is just see how
people react. It does no matter what you talk about.
And at first, when I was with someone else, they'd
be like, oh, We've got to get onto the interview
and why were you talking about that? And I'm like,
I just want to see what they're like. You know,
you can learn about someone.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I know, but but what they're like isn't always going
to tell you whether or not they're going to be
good at their job.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Not all.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
It's just a data point. It's not enough. I don't
make a decision based on that, but it's just an
extra data point.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
The thing is, the guy says is that all you
have to do to pass this test you don't actually
have to take your cup back to the kitchen, because
there are a lot of people on TikTok who, like you, Jesse,
are feeling awkward about that, Like what, I'm just wandering
through an office that I'm not welcome in putting. You
have to offer. That's all you have to do. Is
you have to say, oh, what daught me to do
with the cup? Shall I take it about in the kitchen.
That's all you have to do. You have to offer.
You have to think about the cup. That's the test, Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
My tips also are don't talk too much about your
personal life. Keep it top line so when someone asks
you a question, don't be too honest. I know there's
all bringing your whole self to work. Don't bring your
whole self to a job interview.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Don't talk about your IBA no exactly. Do you know
when farts aren't funny? Probably in that interview.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Not bitch about your boss, oh.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, your former employee.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
All your current like and sometimes your interviewer will try
and lead you into that trap. Do not do it.
That's my number one tip. The new season of Australian
politics has started. I don't know if you've noticed. The
Parliament came back this week. They've had an even longer
break than I had on my holiday. They've been gone
a very long time, but it all came back this
(25:38):
week and with that attention, obviously there are some new
bit part players who've stepped into main character. One of
them is the new leader of the Opposition, Susan Lee.
So she was the subject of a shiny sixty minutes
profile on the weekend, because that's what you do when
you've got a new leader. We've all seen them before.
We've seen them with albos in Mascomo. We've talked about
them lots of times, like in themselves. Are they a
(26:00):
bit problematic? Like you always have to have all these
sides of yourself that you're showing.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
The two things that you used to do is an
interview with the Women's Weekly YEP and an interview with
sixty Minutes.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Ye, and so they will have been like Susan Lee's
team and the sixty Minutes people will be like, well,
what can you show us? And they'll have been like,
Susan flies planes, which is very impressive.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
That's quite interesting, greag astronaut lane.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
So they go up in a plane. Susan likes to
go to the pub and talk to the locals. Okay,
so we'll go and order a beer like that's that right,
That's what it is. But one of the things that
we want to talk about that came up in this
is that when Susan Lee first stepped in as the
opposition leader, she gave a press club address in which
she alluded to the fact that she unders because obviously
the Liberal Party are making a play to show that
(26:44):
they understand Australian women because they've lost female voters in
enormous numbers.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Except they refuse to do quotas and they won't seem
to pre select any women.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
But if you go he seemed to be the problem anyway.
In her press club address, she alluded to the fact
that she understood what Australian women going through, that she
had been herself in a relationship that maybe involved coers
of control, and that she understood the issues of coers
of control and domestic violence. So Tara Brown, the interviewer
from sixty Minutes, pushed Susan Lee a little bit on
(27:13):
this in the interview this is how it went.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
You described domestic violence as a great shame, a great
in Australian shame. Is it something you have personally experienced.
Speaker 6 (27:24):
Like many women in Australia, my life has been touched
by domestic violence.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
At the time that you were experiencing it, that you
were touched by it, did you realize you weren't alone?
Speaker 6 (27:35):
I think as a young woman, I didn't really understand
what was happening. And I've talked about being in challenging
workplaces and the approaches that have been made in those workplaces.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
So just for clarity, the domestic violence that you experienced,
did that happen in your home or did that happen
at work or both?
Speaker 6 (27:54):
I've talked about it in general terms, and I'm not
going to go into further specifics.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
Why is that just not do you realize obviously people's
interest and concern.
Speaker 6 (28:05):
I'm not remarkable when it comes to the statistics that
Australians are staring down the barrel of and this is
not about me, this is about the women of Australia.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I think she handled that incredibly well. I recoiled a
bit from the persistence of the questioning because as she
said it, I was thinking it might have been her parents,
it might have been a friend. She said, my life
has been touched by it. That's not necessarily her story
to tell.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Exactly, but I want to tell you the criticism she's
got so that we know what we're talking about here, right.
So she said what she said, and then some journalists,
not everybody, but said she should know that people are
going to push on that, which I'm sure she did,
and that's the decision she's made. So in The Nightly
a writer called Aaron Patrick wrote, for example, saying this
is not about me and about Australian woman is a
(28:52):
questionable assertion for anyone to make in a television profile.
Miss Lee is entitled to keep a sensitive aspect of
her personal life private, but having presented herself as a
victim of domestic violence to win over voters, especially women,
she should expect journalists to ask for the details. Is
that true? Should she expect journalists to ask for the details?
(29:15):
And is it fair game to push?
Speaker 3 (29:17):
I thought that Tara Brown's line of questioning was fair
and was direct, but wasn't necessarily insensitive, And I thought
that Susan had every right to respond by saying that's
kind of a boundary. What I found incredibly inappropriate was
a commentary, the commentary in The Nightly that suggested that
(29:39):
she owed us the exposure of her wounds in order
to justify what claim she had over domestic violence. I
think to say this has touched me in some way
is fair. And I think that Brown's questioning about did
it happen at work like Britney Higgins context, you know
what's happened with the Liberal Party? It would be remiss
(30:01):
of her not to have asked question.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Slightly confused about that because domestic violence suggests that it's
not a workplace issue. That's a diff it's called a
different thing.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I think they're talking about two different things now. A
fresh club address, she kind of when she said about
the workplace. I think what she meant was issues that
affect women, from sexual harassment to coercive control.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
To being scared walking down the street at now.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I see you, I recognize that I've experienced that that I.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Feel a tiny bit clumsy. To me, it felt a
tiny bit and again, you know, it's so easy to
sit back. I think it's great that there's a female
opposition leader, if that's not just window dressing for an
endemic problem within that party, which there is one. The
newspaper came out this week showing that support for the
Coalition is the lowest it's been since nineteen eighty five.
(30:52):
My frustration is more if the party thinks that that's
going to be enough to show cultural change.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I think it's interesting because traditional political journalism is that
you do push very hard, right, we push male leaders
to very hard. It's that, you know, there's a cliche
at any time a journalist interviews a politician, they should
be thinking, why is this lying fucker lying to be
like that's the.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Bastion, not about their personal life. You wouldn't have Lee Sales.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
You wouldn't No, you wouldn't have Lee Sales doing that.
But there's no question that we are very interested in
their experience. Think about Bob Hawk and his daughter experiencing
drug addiction extramarital affairs, Like, I'm not saying that we
push them that hard word toward, but I think that
we do expect a level of transparency from politicians that
we wouldn't necessarily expect from other people. Right, because it's
(31:43):
your public person who's asking us to vote for you,
so show us your stuff, right, That's why they do
these profiles. The problem is, I don't think the traditional
media understands how to deal with that when it comes
to women, like because some of these female issues in
inverted commas overlap with policy issues, like what do you
think about women's health? What do you think about domestic
(32:03):
violence funding? What do you think about making women safer
on the streets? They're kind of flapping about, going, well,
is it okay to ask? Have you ever been hit?
Have you ever had an abortion? Like, no, it's not
okay to ask. Of course, it's not okay to ask.
But I think that there's like this mucky confusion there,
do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
And sometimes you don't have to explicitly ask. So Caroline o'donna,
who wrote a newsletter this week in Sentimental Garbage, which
is her substack about the expectation of female authors to
write personal essays. This sounds unrelated, but I actually think
it is exactly what we're talking about, which is that
when you are a female public figure, be that an author,
(32:43):
an actor, a politician, you are expected to share the
worst things that ever happen to you in order to
validate your existence in this sphere, to validate why you
might position yourself as an activist, to endear yourself to
people for connection. And she says that male authors, and
(33:05):
I would say male politicians too, they get to talk
about ideas, They get to talk about the the stuff,
the concepts, whereas women and I think that that is
where she has found herself. Lee has found herself is like,
what's your story that you owe us? And the irony
in it is that then we will use it against you,
(33:25):
And she knows that that. What will happen is then
when you google her, the first thing will be, oh,
she's a survivor of domestic violence. She'll be asked about
it in every single interview. Then the opposition will suggest
that she wasn't or that it wasn't bad enough for well,
your policy isn't good enough, like women then have it
weaponized against them, but they're forced to disclose, which is
really dangerous. You know.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Also, then someone goes and looks up the person maybe
and tries to do yea, and who was it and
where are they now and what happened and what's the narrative?
Because that's more interesting than policy, to be honest, and it.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Opens it up for debate. Then it's kind of like, well,
was it really this? And was it really that? We
all see women's stories being questioned all the time.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
I think the part that friend of the Pod Charlotte
Mortlock pulled out was really interesting.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
This is in the Nightly column, it said, which was
about the interview. Yes, it said, who if anyone provides
the personal advice and emotional support only an intimate partner
can to this public figure is a mystery. For context,
she's been married, divorced. The suggestion is.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
That she's currently unpartnered, right, and what.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
This statement suggests is that there is something wrong or
devoid or like, can you trust a leader who doesn't
have an intimate partner to throw around ideas with? Which
is ironic and this is the point that Charlotte made
with Scott Morrison when he conferred with his wife. It
(34:51):
was almost like used to undermine him, as though he
doesn't have enough of a mind of his own.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Well, because men don't need any support.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Now I pushed back on that. I think we were
very suspicious of single male politicians like Albo. Being engaged
has excused him from that, but he was the first
on Marria Prime minister by one. We have always been
interested in politicians' private lives, and politicians have always known
that and pulled out bits of their private lives to
(35:19):
help explain who they are to the public. Because remember,
these are not your normal public figures. They're asking us
to vote for them. So think about how many times
Albo talks about his origin story, his single mum, growing
up hard scrabble in public housing all the time. That's
his narrative, right, you know. Think about politicians who've talked
about their family breakdowns and being raised in as the
child of divorce or whatever it is. You need a narrative, right,
(35:42):
And I think we've always been interested an interesting thought
experiment about why it irks me that they're pushing on
Susan Lee's personal life is Was I bothered when they
were pushing on Peter Dunnan's You know how Peter Dutton
had a slightly complicated had a child when he was younger,
and then a marriage that didn't work out and whatever?
Was I upset when journalists were pushing him on that.
I don't think I was upset about it.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
I think that as human beings we can accept that
there are some subjects that are more sensitive than us.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Sure, yeah, no, no, oh no, sorry. When I say that,
I'm comparing it to the commentary about whether or not
she's single, not about the not about the commentary ABOUTDV.
My god, No, I think that's so different. I think
Susan Lee has every right to do exactly what she did.
I think that's actually really smart. As you do me,
I say yes, but I'm not going to talk about it,
and you just close the door. The criticism about her
(36:31):
refusing to talk about a personal life, and the writer
who wrote about that said her office refuses to discuss
it like very blatantly, is again. I think she has
every right to keep that door shut. But I don't
think it's true that we don't press men on their
personal lives. We absolutely do.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
My theory is that we punish women for not disclosing
more than we punish men.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, I'm sure that's true.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
After the break, why Jessica Bill's back has sparked an
online frenzy What unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes
every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mum and MEA subscribers.
Follow the link in the show notes to get us
in your ears five days a week, and a huge
thank you to all our current subscribers.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
In case you missed it. South Koreans are checking themselves
into relaxation prison to escape stress and also life.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
This feels like that thing that women have spoken about doing,
where they fantasize about something mildly inconvenient happening that lands
them in hospital for a week or two with no
visiting hours, and you can just lay in a bed
and just relax.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
The relaxation prison is a hotel. It's called Prison inside Me,
and it's located outside Seoul, and people voluntarily pay to
lock themselves up. Now, the most popular types of guests
like office workers, interestingly, university students, entrepreneurs, hard relate, people
experiencing burnout or anxiety, and mothers of small children. Yeah,
(38:02):
I made that up.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I like their uniforms.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Did you say you get like a onesie?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yes, because you don't want to have to make decisions
about what you're wearing.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
It wouldn't be mother of small children mare, because they
wouldn't be allowed.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
True, they just think on the website inquiring, but they
never actually.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Make a book keep.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
It was actually founded almost ten years ago by a
former prosecutor who he nearly worked himself into the ground,
and he decided that jail sounded more RESTful than his job.
For about one hundred and thirty five dollars, you get
a twenty four hour stay in a little room with
a window, guests that are encouraged to open their window
and look out into the countryside and gaze at nature.
(38:39):
But there's no phone, there's no mirror, there's no clocks.
There is room service in a way, but your meals
are slipped through a slot in the door, so you
presumably don't have to choose what you eat, and you
don't interact with anyone, and you're encouraged to meditate, journal
and I don't know, not totally lose your mind. More
than two thousand people have done it mostly locals, and
(39:00):
a lot of them come back. It's like this ultimate detail,
how long for me? They originally would offer these packages
for like a week, but that was too long. So
now it's like you can either get a twenty four
hour stay for one hundred and thirty five dollars or
a forty eight hours stay for a bit more so
that they're the most popular amounts of time. And as
soon as they've changed that, which they've done in the
(39:21):
last few years, lots more people came because that idea
of detoxing from your phone, from technology, from stress, being
where nobody can reach you is very intoxicated.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Also think that we can't do it to ourselves, so
we need it to be forced upon us.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
See, I like, I think I prefer a really expensive
bougie health retreat. That's what I look at when I'm
in the throes of feeling like particularly burnt out. I
look at the really fancy ones I could never afford
to just like go and stay for a week and meditate.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Do you know what, though, in all seriousness, the times
that I've felt most in need of that like nervous
breakdown edge, it's just felt like so many steps that
I just have not been able to imagine finding a place,
looking for a room, booking a room, apart from the
costs of it getting myself there. It's like, and that's
why it can feel like such a trap, because what
(40:14):
a lot of us need to rest from is our phone.
So of course what I did. You talked about the
brick device. I bought a brick for me. I bought
a brick free, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
How's it going?
Speaker 4 (40:23):
I haven't, I haven't eaten.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
It costs like one hundred dollars. Basically turns your phone
into a brick, you know, when you swipe it and
then you have to swipe it again to unbrick it.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
This is way better actually than my health retreat. Is
that if I went on my expensive health retreat, I
think I would feel pressure to enjoy it, whereas being
locked up in a relaxation for yeah, I don't feel
like I'd have this pressure to enjoy it and soak
it all in.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Like it's also cheaper.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (40:50):
Everyone is talking or telling me that people are really
enjoying that a sister, which is amazing, and also talking
about the weight Joss, and how do we stay strong
as we get older, specifically as women, how do we
keep our backstrong? I just felt like I wanted to
share that that cute sheep in that shell is not
maintainable unless you are the strictest, most rigid lifestyle with
(41:11):
your nutrition and with your goodness, which I cannot do.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
So I'm currently back on my plan to.
Speaker 7 (41:18):
Sort of get a little bit back towards that sheep.
My body is not twenty years old anymore, you know,
so I am adjusting my.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Workout what I need to do.
Speaker 7 (41:28):
You out a good muscle, So that's a key part
of my particular routine and.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
A ton of ptiblity.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
That was forty three year old actor Jessica Biel, who
has recently start in the series The Better Sister, talking
about how her back broke the internet. So in one scene,
there's this iconic image going around. She's walking in a
white sort of backless dress and she has this incredibly strong,
defined back, which as a beauty standard, I find really
(41:56):
interesting the evolution of how that's become a marker of
sort of fitness. But someone said to her, drop the routine,
tell us how you're getting that back, and so shumped
on TikTok posted this video and it has now been viewed.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Three and a half month million times.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
I'm so tired, She.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Breaks down this workout. This is what I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
We've spoken about the era of radical transparency when it
comes to cosmetic procedures, and it feels like increasingly we're
entering the era of radical workout transparency. So Bill says
that she's not twenty anymore, and this is what I
do to look like that apart from being brilliant promo
(42:35):
for the show, because now everyone's seen that dress and
everyone's going I want to see her in that dress.
She's just got this ad in front of a lot
of people. Holly, what did you make of this video?
Speaker 2 (42:45):
It's so funny because when we were talking about this,
I was all like, yay. I love it when celebrities
admit that, you know, it takes an enormous amount of
work and discipline and rigidity, as she says, like to
be that person that woman in that dress required her
to basically make that her full time job. I love
it when celebrities are honest about that because I think
(43:07):
that kind of pulls back this idea that we're all
used to just walk around with the idea that this tiny.
One percent of beautiful people just look like that entirely, effortlessly,
and the rest of us are unfortunate. So I like
it when they're like, no, this ruins my life to
look like that, And then I get to go, well,
I don't want my life ruined. So I was like, yeay, Jessica,
and then I've watched the video and now I'm like,
(43:27):
fuck you, Jessica Biel. Why because so Jessica Bill is
ten years younger than me, ten years older than you, right, yeah,
so she is like, not young, not old. She is
forty three when you watch the video, and she's there
going I'm not twenty anymore and I'm not in that
kind of shape anymore, and I'm just trying to work
(43:49):
my web. She looks no one in the universe has
ever looked better in a pair of leggings, and she
is tiny, and she is incredibly toned and her bottom
is put like. She looks unbelievable. So the relatable queenness
of it is gone. And now I'm just like, that
is impossible.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
I don't think there's a relatable queenness element of this.
I watched this video and then I was among the
something like one hundred and thirteen thousand people who didn't
click like they clicked save. I clicked save, and the
next time I was in the gym, I got this
up and I did it.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
I did.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
I did not look like her.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
And she's just casually while she's talking to you, a
little bit out of breath in that video, by the way,
she's in the splits.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
Oh that bit, that bit.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
I will oh.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
I was so impressed what I seen me do this?
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Please? Why you're talking?
Speaker 3 (44:46):
See, now that's genetic, that's genetic. I stretch and I
can never do it. She's pretty good.
Speaker 4 (44:52):
You're just like Jessica Bill.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
You Jessica Bill? Are you Jim Bunny? Bitches?
Speaker 4 (44:56):
Do you stretch every day?
Speaker 7 (44:58):
No?
Speaker 1 (44:58):
I know it was stretch.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
See, that's just genetic.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
That was just I did ballet when I was younger.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Look, the reason I liked this is because I go
to the gym. I'm getting all this information about strength
and how we should be doing our strength things.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
But I already muscle building too.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
But I'm a normal person, and I find it almost
impossible to get there.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Yes, yes, But when I do get there and I'm
doing a thing, often I feel like maybe I'm doing
the wrong thing, and I look around other people and
I'm like, should I be doing that? You're lifting it
like this, but I'm doing this. A personal trainer is
prohibitively expensive. I've got my membership, but.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
You've got time.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
I find Jim's so intimidated.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
But what I like about this is that she has
access and she cites her very fancy trainer who has
told her to do very fancy and important exercises, and
a lot of personal trainers have jumped in and gone,
Jessica Bill, great form, this is great. This is something
that women should be doing. And with any workout, it's
like I probably didn't do it with as heavy weight
(45:56):
so as she did, but I actually thought it was
relatively accessible and I liked the transparency of I have
to do this, probably, you know, several times a week
in order to look like this, which is Chris Hemsworth
has come out and said that zac Efron said for
his Baywatch role that he developed crippling depression and insomnia
(46:18):
as a result of what they had to do. Like
Chris Hemsworth doesn't look like Chris Hemsworth. I think that
that's always a bit of an empowering man.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah, absolutely, I agree. But then you see what Jessica
Beel's version of I'm out of shape at the moment is,
and you're right back to the same place that you
always were, which is like, that's an impossible beauty standard.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
And I just commented, give me the upper body workout.
That's what I was pissed off about, is that I
got the lower body. And I was like, bitch, I
want your back? Am I doing rose?
Speaker 2 (46:44):
I want to know.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
I'm feelty tired for the back to become important, like
I'm still dealing with my front. I was driving to
work this morning and I saw an ad at a
bus stop. It just said back and it had this
girl with some spray and I didn't know what the
spray was for. And then it said something about all
(47:07):
over mist or something. Oh, we're having a cultural moment
of the focus on the female back, which I just can't.
I just can't.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
We used to have that. We used to have There
was a whole thing about like how do you look
when you walk out of the room in your backless dress?
And now that is back.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Who is a backless dress?
Speaker 2 (47:25):
My boots are too beep? The problem is and I
know this is all individual, and I'm always the one
who's here saying like, you know, just because one woman's
doing this, it doesn't mean you should feel bad about that.
But we are being bombarded by a message at the
moment women and not just older women but all women,
about strength, and it is true and it is right,
and new research is coming out all the time at
(47:46):
the moment say it's unbelievably important for us to live long,
healthy lives, that we work in our strength. But the
problem to me is that so I'm at the moment
on in that place you know, where you get to
it at certain times where you're like teetering on the
edge of I know I need to get back into
serious exercise. You two bitches talk about your weight regimes
all the time. It's all around me, and I think
I'm just about to do it. And for me, when
(48:07):
I see something like this, it's a barrier to entry.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
It's not atage gape, not inspired.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
What I feel like is like that looks impossible. She
is holding herself up as like I'm just doing this
because I know that strength is important for my health,
when really she's doing it because in order to be
allowed on a television screen. She has to be so
believably hot, she has to ruin her life to do it.
I functionally, I feel like I can't walk into a
(48:35):
gym tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
I don't know if she's ruining her life, but she's she.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
Said herself, she said, I can't live like that all
the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Right, Well, she's certainly dedicating her life to it. I
think it's this dichotomy that we're caught in as women,
where we're not allowed to say we want to exercise
or eat more protein or do weights to look a
certain way. We've got to say it's for our health.
She said the quiet part out loud, which is I
couldn't look like this in the dress. I only do
(49:03):
this to be in a movie. Now, that's not about health.
That's about anesthetics, which is interesting, which is fine.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
But because I watch that, and maybe the reason that
I didn't feel particularly triggered or upset by it is
that when I went to do that routine, it actually
wasn't to look like Jessica Biel. I can genuinely say that,
and the reason I go to the gym is not
to look like Jessica Bill. It is because I've had
hip and knee and all these issues, and I know
that everyone's told me you've got to get stronger glues
and blah blah blah, So that is why I'm doing it.
But Holly, that's a really good point because my sister
(49:30):
Claire wrote a brilliant substack about exercise and the messaging
that we're getting. And I see this all the time
when I jump online and it is someone going your
pilate's workout isn't doing what you think it is, which
is probably why I go when I feel like I'm
constantly doing the wrong thing, which is so it makes
me want to stop going, because in reality, going and
(49:54):
moving your body in any form is a great thing.
But when we keep moving the benchmark and the expertise
of like I was watching something last night that was
telling me you've got a lift to fatigue, you've got
to do this, or it's not going to do anything exactly,
it makes it totally inaccessible to ninety five of people
who are not working out to be an athlete and
are not working out to be in a film.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
And I think most people, certainly women around my age,
are these days working out for health, like of course
they want to keep a certain level of what you
look like. But it's the message that we're getting is
going in, which is like, if you want to be
living the way you want to live when you're older,
you need to sort this out. And so I'm so
I'm right on the edge of wanting to sort it out.
(50:34):
But then you feel like, well, I couldn't possibly walk
into a gym and lift some dumbbells because oh my god,
look at this, that's how and so it closes the
door again. You knowlutely, it's not Jessica Biel's fault. Go Jessica,
but honestly, tell me, most people in the gym don't
look like that.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
Oh they don't, don't Holly.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
I'm there and I might have tried that workout, but
I didn't look at anything like Jessica Bielle.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
I'll tell you that. A big thank you to all
of you. That's all we've got time for today. Wherever
you're listening to us, maybe you're listening to us while
you're lifting your dumbbells or doing the splits like Mia,
we love you out loud as for being part of
our show, and of course we love our fabulous team
for helping us put it together.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
If you're looking for something else to listen to, We
had lots of questions about Hole's summer euro Vaka.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
I'm one of those awful people.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Many nosy questions. We will put a link in the
show notes if you want a debrief with Whole.
Speaker 4 (51:22):
Bye bye by by shout out.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
To any Mum and Maya subscribers listening.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
If you love the show and want to support us
as well.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Subscribing to MoMA Miya is the very best way to
do so. There is a link in the episode description.
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