September 1, 2025 • 40 mins
Oh, labubus. The nightmare-fuel plushies the internet can’t get enough of are... cute? Cursed? Or, literally possessed by Pazuzus requiring religious intervention? There's a sentence we never thought we'd be typing on a Monday afternoon. Whatever. We investigate WTF is going on.
Plus, a millionaire CEO caught swiping from a child. Is this the Coldplay CEO 2.0? And can someone please stage a CEO PR intervention? They might be good at running companies but personal publicity? Yeah, not so much.
And the fertility test women have been paying for. Doctors now say it doesn’t actually work. Jessie, Holly and Amelia unpack what that means for women everywhere.
Support independent women's media
What To Listen To Next:
- Listen to our latest episode: The Snow Globe Effect & Brad Pitt’s Victory Lap
- Listen: An Emergency Meeting About Taylor Swift's Engagement
- Listen: Did Someone Get Engaged? Oh Look, Mia Just Barged In
- Listen: Taylor Swift & Why Her Boyfriend's Podcast
- Listen: Taylor, Travis & The Breakup Document
- Listen: Remember The Singles Conversation? Jessie Has An Apology
- Listen to Parenting Out Loud: The Third Kid Dessert Analogy & FFS, Stop With The Texts
- Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts
Discover more Mamamia Podcasts here
Watch Mamamia Out Loud:
What to read:
- The rise of the teddy bear adult.
- Why grown adults are obsessed with toothy little monsters called Labubus.
- 'Celebrities keep pulling PR stunts and I'm officially exhausted.'
- Everything you need to know about 'fertility windows'.
THE END BITS:
Check out our merch at MamamiaOutLoud.com
Mamamia studios are styled with furniture from Fenton and Fenton
GET IN TOUCH:
Feedback? We’re listening. Send us an email at outloud@mamamia.com.au
Share your story, feedback, or dilemma! Send us a voice message.
Join our Facebook group Mamamia Outlouders to talk about the show.
Follow us on Instagram @mamamiaoutloud and on Tiktok @mamamiaoutloud
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia out loud. That's what
women are actually talking about on Monday, the first of September.
My name is Holly Wainwright.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
I'm Jesse Stevens, I'm Amelia Lost and here is what
is on our agenda for to day.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Thousands of Australians marched under flags yesterday and if you
ask them why, the answers ranged from just asking questions
concerned citizen to Nazism.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Plus the popular fertility test that doctors want you to ignore.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
And Pam Anderson and Liam Neeson lied to us about
their love why do I feel duped?
Speaker 4 (00:57):
But first, in case you missed it, viral footage that
circulated over the weekend captured a millionaire CEO behaving very
very poorly. So to set the scene, we've got Polish
tennis player emil Marjacques who won his match on Saturday,
the US Open, and as often happens, he then made
his way to the crowd to go and sign some autographs.
(01:20):
And there's this gorgeous young boy who is then seen
excitedly handing him a giant ball to sign. Marjack is
quite heartened by his enthusiasm, and we watch him in
this video take off his match worn hat and he
goes to hand it to the boy, but he's kind
of shuffling over as he does it.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
You know how, you're a tennis correspondent. A sweaty hat's
a thing that you want.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Oh, that's a big deal to get a piece of
clothing that's got the Actually it's the sweat of a winner. Hollywayen, right,
I think that's.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
A boil it down to drink in his teeth.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Oh my goodness, you could sell that on eBay for
a bit of money. And maybe that's what the adult
beside him was thinking, because this man appears to snatch
the hat kind of out of the boys just as
it's going towards the boy. He snatches it, snatches the
right word, and puts it in his bag, and the
boy books devastated and yells what are you doing? And
(02:12):
the tennis player at this point, so he's moved on
and he's missed the whole interaction. My first response to
this was, there's got to be something we're missing right,
and maybe this is the boy's father. There was some confusion.
We shouldn't jump to conclusions.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
We've been burned before.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Unsurprisingly, the Internet was very quick to identify this man.
They needed to hunt him down. Yes, he is a
millionaire ceo. Amelia, what do you think people saw when
they watched this video? Because it did feel a little
bit Coldplay ceo coded all over again. Do you think
it was the millionaire element that made people particularly invested.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Look, I think this is even worse than the Coldplay CEO.
Sheesharek who was? I apologize for my Polish pronunciation, but
I am, in fact Polish soufense I am allowed to
mispronounce these names. Sheeshareck who was? That's the name of
the millionaire ceo. I just want to say, in his defense,
he made his fortune in paving, which I don't think
(03:13):
you mentioned. No, No, he does sponsor with his paving
fortune his local tennis federation in Poland. So there's that.
And he has also tried to reach out to make
amends with the boy, that's according to Mishak, So we
should say that in his defense now, having been fair
to him, bring.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
It because the bit that got me in the video particular,
was the shoving it in the bag. There was the
grabbing it was one thing, but the shoving it in
the bag was the verus.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
And ignoring the protests of the boys.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
So there was a purported statement that came out from
this man, the Paving Millionaire as I will refer to
him from now on. It's circulated on social media over
the weekend and it said, yes, I took it, but
as always, first come, first served is life now. Unfortunately
this has not been verified as coming from the paving Millionaire.
But the reason why I think everyone latched onto it
(04:02):
and wanted to believe it came from him is because
it spoke to how we feel about CEOs right now.
And watching this, all I could think was is not
the most perfect visual representation of what the rapacious millionaire
and billionaire class are doing to our younger people, stealing
from them. But they are all personal enrichment and rapaciousness.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
Don't you reckon that?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Millionaire CEOs need some good per they need.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
It's not been a good summer for them.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
But you know what last summer was the summer where
we had the billionaires being taken by the Orcas, so
I think they'd rather take some humiliating on camera footage.
I like that.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
I like that summer better.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
We should say as well, that this did end up
as a good news story because the tennis player Marjacques.
He then jumped onto Instagram and was like, I didn't
realize that that little boy didn't get the hat. Can
you please help.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Me identify him?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
And a bunch of people flootered to his Instagram and
gave him the boys details, and then there's a beautiful
photo series of them meeting. He gives him a autographed hat,
he gives him a bunch of gifts, and they got
a photo together.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So it's good news, bad news for my Polish birdsroom this.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I feel like Donald Trump would have taken that. That's
what we're seeing here, if he would have.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Been like Los shoved on into the head.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
This is the effect we're seeing come to a march.
The flyers and Facebook posts said to send a message
to politicians and big business that their vision for a
big Australia is flawed, that ordinary Aussies do not want
mass migration come to the march. The leaflets said, and
I quote, because each migrant means they and by they,
(05:37):
according to these leaflets, they mean the big supermarkets, the
big banks. Each migrant means they can sell another three
hundred and sixty five days worth of food or another mortgage.
The only cost our nation. Whether you're concerned for our culture, wages, traffic,
housing supply, water supply, environmental destruction, infrastructure, hospitals, crime or
(05:58):
loss of community. We are stronger together exclamation mark. Don't
leave this work to be done by your children. The
marches that they are encouraging people to come to we
called the March for Australia and they were held in
capital cities around the country on Sunday yesterday and according
to reports, more than twenty thousand people around the nation.
(06:20):
He did the call and went to the marches right now.
It wasn't clear exactly who was behind the march, so
the words I just read to you were from flyers
that were available to be downloaded and printed out and
shared on Facebook from a website called March for Australia,
but no one organization was claiming.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
To be it.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
But there were a few clues. In Melbourne, for example,
a man called Thomas Saul took to the stage at
Flinders Street. He is the leader of the National Socialist Network,
a white supremacist group that is believed to be behind,
among other things, the disruption of the ANZAC Day Welcome
to Country in Melbourne this year. Right, that guy is
(06:58):
known to police as an organization. They are widely reported
to be trying to establish a new political party and
they need to convince so called ordinary Aussies to their
cause in Melbourn. Then he got up and he kind
of made his case for why it was okay for
some of the people at the marches to feel unsettled
by the guys in black suits. Because there were quite
a wide range of people at these marches, but there
(07:20):
were noticeably some guys dressed in black. There was some
Nazi symbolism, and there were also some people waving signs
of Desi Freeman, who's the man that police are still
hunting in the Victorian High Country for killing two officers
last week. What Saul said was, you might not like
the guy's favorite color or his particular opinions of history,
but when you're in a fight with people that hate
(07:41):
this country, sometimes you have to learn to make friends.
I'm asking you to respect that we need to put
fighters at the front. We are here today to set
aside our minute differences on historical events or versions of ideology.
We are here as Australians, proud and true. Meanwhile, in Sydney,
some of the Nazism was a bit more blatant. It
(08:01):
was a rising right wing influencer called Beck Freedom obviously
not her real name, who was the person who lodged
the application for the march. But what's interesting about this
is that Beck Freedom was also the subject of some
leaked audio recently. She was apparently addressing a live stream
on August the eleventh, and she was explaining to people
(08:22):
how to talk to people in their lives who were
worried that this march might be perceived as racist. She said,
this is how I tried to explain it to someone.
I say, okay, so protect Australian heritage, culture, way of life.
Next step, protect European culture, heritage, way of life. And
then she went on to talk a little bit more
(08:42):
about that, how to appease people who are saying, oh,
it's a Nazi rally. But to be honest, the words
are just a bit too offensive for us to read out. Jesse,
were you surprised to see the size of some of
these protests on Friday, only hundreds of people were registered
to attend, and yet the Sydney one in particular was
really quite big.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
On Friday, I thought this was going to be a
total beat up and part of me was like, should
we just ignore this, which is coming from my own
total position of white priv But looking at it, I
just went no, one thinks that, like, who's going to
show up. It's going to be a few hundred people
total all around the country. What was really shocking was
(09:21):
to me the amount of people who showed up, some
of the images, videos, chants, all that kind of stuff.
I found the appearance of the Australian flag really sinister.
I find that about flags sometimes in general, but the
way it was just draped around people and what they
were taking it to mean, it just felt so deeply offensive.
(09:42):
And also some people in covering their faces. I think,
if you ever find yourself at a protest and you
have to cover your face and that says something about
the cause. And the way that it was validated by
elected politicians was also horrific. So there was that press
conference last week where Bob Catter, who is an MP
(10:03):
in Queensland, he is hus been for a really long time. Yeah,
he was asked about his Lebanese heritage, which he does have.
In the sort of late nineteenth century, his family moved
from a town in Lebanon, and he absolutely lost his shit.
And you might have seen this, and I think it
was kind of positioned as something a bit funny to
see someone in such a respected position lose their temper.
(10:27):
But to me, apart from the absolute racism of what
he was spewing, which was basically like, how dare you
accuse me of being anything other than white, was like
he was physically threatening a journalist, And I think that
also says something about the sort of anarchism of this
entire movement was represented by that.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
The journalist was asking him that question about his Lebanese
heritage in relation to this march. Right, So Kada had
said he was going to attend the Townsville march, and
so the journalist was saying to him in that context,
what about your Lebanese heritage, Bob, do you feel conflict
about that? And he threatened to punch him.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
In the face, yeah, and said it was really racist
for someone to even ask that question. I have a
question though, because I have been reading a lot about
these protests, and what I still can't work out is
the catalyst. I kept going, Oh, is there a policy,
Is there a policy that's come up? Is there something
that's happening in politics that has inspired this ground swell
(11:27):
of anger? And I couldn't find it. I wondered if
it was some sort of echo of trumpy and anti
immigration policies that we're seeing in the US Amelia why
this weekend? Like where have these come from?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think there
are two reasons, and one has to do with global
trends and the other has to do with Australia. So
on the global trends, we're seeing multi ethnic democracy under
attack all over the world. So right now there are
about twenty five actual functioning democracies left in the world,
which is not very many, and we're seeing one of
(12:00):
the biggest ones of those already under attack right now.
In terms of this idea of diversity of strength, and
referring to the US diversity of strength that inration actually
can strengthen a nation's economy and its culture and its
resilience over time, that whole idea is under attack all
over the world, not just in Australia. And then I
think the second reason, and there's no point sort of
(12:22):
shying away from this fact. Immigration to Australia has really
increased over the last twenty years or so. So for instance,
in nineteen ninety two they're about thirty thousand arrivals as migrants,
and by twenty twenty two that number was five hundred thousand,
and we saw a big leap, particularly after border reopenings
in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two. Now part
(12:42):
of that was a backlog, but we've also seen governments
over the last couple of decades really make a concerted
effort to open up Australia to more migration. That's because
we need more migrants. We need them to do jobs
and to contribute to our economy and also to build
this idea of a diverse and multi ethnic democracy. But nonetheless,
those are the facts, and I think that it's interesting
(13:03):
that Anne Ali, who was the Minister for Multicultural Affairs,
made a really good point along these lines. She said
that she actually had some stituents of hers contact her
and say, I'm going to the rally because I have
concerns around housing and jobs and around the idea that
migrants are taking those from me. Now that's not actually
factually true, but we should acknowledge that that's a reason
that some people gave her. They said, we're not Nazis,
(13:24):
We're worried about housing and jobs. But as Annali put it,
these people are really getting conned by neo Nazis. They're
being conned into believing that increased migration is a risk
or of vulnerability instead of an actual opportunity and a
point of strength for Australians. And Anne Ali said, we
need to have a more nuanced debate about immigration, but
these neo Nazis, they're not it. They're not giving us
(13:46):
that debate.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
It's very much echoing what's happening in Britain as well
as across lots of parts of Europe where and obviously
it's complicated. But as you can see in the language
in that flyer that I was talking about in their intro,
if you're concerned about culture, wages, traffic, you know what
I mean This kind of stuff is. It's all playing
into fears that life's becoming because it is really expensive.
(14:09):
You know, it's getting harder and harder to as we know,
you know, have somewhere safe to live, have a stable job,
all of those things. The escapegoarding here is so obvious though,
right because also when they talk about immigrants, as beck
Freedom said in that leaked conversation, they're not really talking
about immigrants. Still the largest proportion of Australians who were
(14:30):
not born in Australia from England. They're from England, then
followed by India, then followed by China, then followed by
New Zealand. They are not talking about white European immigrants.
They're not talking about immigrants like me, free past to
immigrants like me. They're talking about culture. It's a complete
fur fee.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And the irony I suppose a difference too to even
you know, some of the protests in England is that
we're an entire country, like it's almost too obvious to
even warrant mentioning, like we're a whole country of immigrants.
Every single person there, from what I saw with my
two eyes, was an immigrant because First Nations people didn't
show up, and so Indigenous Australians they're the ones who
(15:09):
didn't a great year and they're horrified by this.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
And in fact, in Melbourne, some Indigenous Australians were attacked
by the protesters, the ones who are at camp sovereignty.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Let's separate what's new and what's old about this. I
think that what's not new, what's in fact very old
about this, is the scapegoating of a particular ethnic or
racial group for the benefit of villifying them. And in
this case that group was Indian immigrants to Australia. Of course,
that scapegoating goes back all the way to the original
invasion of this country and the displacing of First Nations people.
(15:39):
And we've seen that all through Australian history and that's
not new. Now what's new about this? And Holly, I
think you were getting at this before about beck freedom
is this idea of the insidious nature of the messaging
trying to make themselves out as concerned about traffic. Who
isn't concerned about traffic and China whitewash their Nazi language
in this kind of influencer guys.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Also the term remigration. I had never heard that term before,
and that was on a lot of the materials that
were distributed. And remigration is an notion linked to far
right ideology that calls for the mass deportation of non
European peoples from Western nations. I'd never even heard of
that before, and again that echoes what's sort of happening
(16:22):
in the US with ice raids. It's just terrifying, terrifying stuff.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I want to throw at this point to a voice
memo from our own Emily Vernon, often time host on
this podcast with us, because despite all the arguments and
the nuances about whether this rally was racist or not racist,
Nazi or not Nazi, there is little doubt on the
effect it had on non wide Australians who were watching this,
and perhaps that was its intention. Em who lives in
(16:48):
the middle of Sydney and said that this demonstration was
literally on her doorstep, sent us this memo.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
For the first time in my life. I was scared
to leave my apartment on Sunday. I've been scared for
a while now living in the city. I knew it
was likely the protests would take place near my home.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
I was right.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
On Sunday morning, I canceled dinner with a friend, wasn't
able to buy my weekly groceries, didn't go for my
daily city girl walk. I couldn't even work up the
courage to empty my bins. I thought, with the marathon
taking place in Sydney, no one would show up to
the protest. It's been reported that at least eight thousand
people were there. It might not sound like a lot,
(17:28):
but seeing eight thousand people filled with hatred outside my
living room window made me freeze on the spot, and
all I could hope for is that they didn't see
me as well. I thought the TikTok comments would be right,
that it was a peaceful protest to slow down immigration.
My feed is now filled with videos of racist chants
and deep anger coming from people I've probably walked past,
(17:50):
smiled at, sat next to it. The movies stood in
the same train carriage with eight at the same restaurants
popped up on my dating apps. The lead up to
these protests had been so mentally draining. I told four
friends of mine, matter of factly, can you guys believe
this is actually happening. No one knew what I was
talking about. No one knew how scared I was. No
(18:11):
one checked in. I had lunch with a friend who
had just moved here from the US to day before.
We were seated outside. The weather was so nice, the
city was crowded with people traveling here for the marathon.
As I was watching them all walk past our table,
my mind went to a dark place. If our lunch
took place the day after, if I hadn't heard about
(18:32):
the protest like so many others, what would happen? The
I only is is that one of us in that
table actually is an immigrant, but the other one is brown.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
In a moment, the popular fertility test that doctors want
you to ignore. An article in the Sydney Morning Herald
over the weekend has blown the whistle on a popular
fertility test many women are taking to basically plan their lives.
The AMH test, also known as the egg count or
(19:07):
a varian reserve test, measures the anti malarian hormone in
the blood to estimate the number of eggs in a
woman's ovaries. Have you guys heard of this test?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Oh? I have so many friends you've taken. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
I went and asked. Actually, I think I was in
my early thirties and I went and asked a doctor
and just wanted to do it.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
And the doctor just looked at me.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
And said, nah, really, I'm not letting you go and
take really. Yeah, he said, come back to me in
you know, a few years if you're still anxious, but
you're fine until I read this story. The way I
understood it was, if you've got a high number, you've
got all the time in the world. Right, you've got
too many eggs, you can just wait forever. Low number,
you've got to freeze your eggs, or you should have
(19:46):
started trying years ago, and it's time to panic. But
according to the world leading medical journal Fertility and Sterility,
the test provides false information quote, it is likely driven
by financial incentives, and they strongly discourage using this test
to predict a woman's fertility. Australian experts came out in
(20:06):
this piece and said that women should not be basing
life long decisions on these tests, and the University of
Sydney's doctor Tessa Kopp says clinics and online companies co
opt feminist language using phrases like empower your Fertility to
market these tests to a lot of women who don't
need them. In truth, there is no reliable test for
(20:28):
women's fertility, and there are a number of factors that
determine someone's ability to conceive, including, of course, her partner
or her donor. I find the role of feminism or empowerment.
Interesting here because it feels like women's fertility is becoming
increasingly politicized. Amelia, have you noticed this?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yes, In a word, I was shocked that this test
that basically has no grounding in anything is being dispensed
all around the country.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
I know, yeah, I know women. I have a friend
who is I think just turned forty, and she said
to me recently, I.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Got that test. I'm fine, I've got all the time.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
I don't know the details of her fertility, but I
know now that that doesn't paint a full picture for
a lot of people, and a lot of people use it.
I think that if you're looking at egg freezing or IVF,
it can be a little bit helpful, But if you're
just looking for some reassurance, nah, not it.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I found this so interesting because obviously people have been
trying to profit off women's anxiety and insecurities for a long time,
but right now fertility is really in the spotlight, and
it's being wielded as an issue in sort of political terms.
I don't know if you've heard of this term restorative
reproductive medicine.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
I've heard of it, but I don't know what it means.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
So this is coming out of the US. There's a
twenty five year old American woman named Emma Waters who
is leading the charge. Basically, IVF is under attack in
the US right now in various courts. There are lots
of religious conservatives who don't agree with it and who
want to outlaw it.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
So they really liked babies.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Isn't that funny, Holly? They like babies, but only on
their terms. And so what there's a big push for
right now within the Trump White House, led by this
twenty five year old woman, Emma Waters, is basically to
reframe the conversation away from IVF. And she said this
explicitly that this is what she wants to do. Reframe
it away from IVF towards restorative reproductive medicine, which is
(22:22):
a so called natural way of addressing what its practitioners
say are the root causes of infertility.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Is this a bit of maha? So the make America
healthy because it's.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Basically saying like, infertility can be cured by you eating healthier,
exercising more, charting your menstrual cycles. As if women who
want to be pregnant and who are trying to be
pregnant haven't thought about charting their menstrual cycle before, It
is absurd. So the American College of Gynecologists says that
this is not a medical term, this idea of restorative
(22:55):
reproductive medicine, but basically this is what's being sold as
a replacement for IVF. At the same time, conservatives across
the world, not just in the US, are also saying
that young women should give up on the idea of
a career and just have babies. Just have babies. It's easier,
You don't have to worry about going to work.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
This is what worries me about. It's interesting, Jesse, that
you are saying that women around your age will go
to the doctor and say, I want to find out
how much time I've got. And what you're saying is
that you think it shouldn't be used as a false
sense of security, but it should maybe be used to
spark you into action.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
More so than that, I'm saying as well that a
lot of experts are saying this is causing an enormous
amount of anxiety when a woman is told you don't
have a lot of eggs, and that doesn't mean you
can't conceive exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
So it feels to me sometimes like we've pulled the
lever back a little too. You know how we've said
for Generation X, we were saying a lot, oh women
think they've got all the time in the world. You know,
we need to educate women about their fertility window. And
I feel that women have been well and truly educated
about their fertility window, possibly now to a point of
panic where we know that lots of women in their
(24:05):
late twenties and early thirties very worried about their fertility,
maybe for good reason, and also maybe not for good reason.
And as you've already pointed out, Amelia, the thing that
worries me is that then there's a whole cohort of
people who are very happy to capitalize on that, and
there's an entire industry built around it, much of which
brings great joy when they fertility treatments are successful and
(24:25):
babies are born. But also we have no idea really
how much of that is unnecessary. So whenever there's a
financial incentive, I'm a little that's a good point I read,
But also it feels like a culture to where we are.
And I don't mean I'm not aiming this at women
who I think. I think we're entirely just responding to
the messaging that's around us. But there must be a
(24:47):
test for that, there must be an app for that,
there must be a fix for that. I must be
able to get what I want when I want to
get it. And I know that sounds brutal the way
I just phrase that, I don't mean it too.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
But what I mean more.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Is that the idea that all these things are just
going to be absolutely accurate. We were talking recently about
how a lot of the period tracking apps that people
absolutely swear by telling them exactly what phase they're in,
and all those things just general information.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
It's all under the.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Umbrella of putting it back onto women that we can
control everything. Even this idea of don't have a career
have babies, as though women are ever making that choice.
In the abstract, life happens to you. Sometimes you have
a job, sometimes you have a baby. Sometimes you don't
have a job or a baby, and it's not all
to do with what you're doing. And it puts so
(25:31):
much pressure on women to say, well, have you taken
the test, have you fixed your diet, have you charged
your menstruals side.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Have you throwzen your eggs, And isn't it interesting that
it's all on women, one hundred percent on women. And
I think that the AMH test, which by the way,
is not covered by Medicare, so women are out of
pocket paying for this, and often it's used kind of
as a test that you would do to then go
should I freeze my eggs? And I think it's worth
mentioning that egg freezing. While it offers freedom to a
(25:59):
lot of women, it's also especially in the US. I mean,
it's a multi billion dollar business that is set to
triple by twenty thirty. People are making a lot of
money off it, and all of this research has now
come out that said freezing your eggs does not guarantee
you a baby. So on the one hand, you have that,
you have what feels like the exploitation of certain industries
(26:21):
on women's anxieties and the pressure that they feel, and
on pseudoscience, and yes, well then you have this kind
of backlash that I'm seeing. I'm seeing this all over
my feeds, a real backlash towards even things like IVF,
which I think is so distressing and hurtful to the
many women I know who have had babies via IVF
(26:43):
as though that is a lesser choice, as though it
wasn't necessary if they had just eaten more vegetables.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Like yeah, as though it is a choice between eating
vegetables or doing IVF.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
As if they don't like I have never known anyone
to try harder to make every lifestyle change for twelve months,
all of the things that you do before you get
to that decision. I just find like I'm actually overused word,
but triggered by a lot of these things that pop up.
I go, well, I'm glad you had the privilege of
(27:11):
getting pregnant in two months, but it probably had less
to do with your diet and more to do with a.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Bit of luck.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Friends, people are getting their la boo boos baptized, and
I really need to go back to bed.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
We're all across what a laboo boo is, right, Yeah?
I saw one this morning.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
I mean I see them often, but I saw one
this morning on a grown man's backpack on the train,
and I had to work really hard not to judge him.
And if he's listening, I'm really sorry you go hard
with your.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
La boo boo. I provide a lot of comfort to
a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Holly Rackon. That's the premisphere nex novel. It starts with
a man with a labubu on his bag. How did
we get here?
Speaker 5 (27:47):
I was like, what's your story? Sit down and tell
me about that.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I generally think of la booboos as either hanging off
school bags or very fancy handbags. It's like those two things, right,
if you're not across what a lab boo boo is.
They are these ugly little fluffy dolly things and you
buy them in a blind box. Part of the whole
fun and gamification of it is that you never know
which one you're gonna get, and there's a limited edition
and they really new ones all the time.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
And it's really exciting anyway.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
As well as being a blight of late stage capitalism
and a mountain of landfill waiting to happen, that cute
little fluffy doll on that man's backpack is also demonic.
I just tell you what you seen that it might
be cursed. Yes, there's a viral theory going around that
they might actually be demons inspired by a demon called
(28:35):
I just need to make sure I get my facts
straight here. This is a very fact heavy segment. Pazuzu
a demon from Mesopotanium.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Everybody Mesopotamian mythology.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Right, So people are getting priests, presumably really bored priests,
to baptize their laboo boos, or they're hosting their own
DIY ceremonies, tying them up and squirting them with holy water.
For example, I'm filming it for TikTok. But don't worry,
because I know you were worried. The people who created
(29:08):
labooboos say they have nothing to do with pazuzu.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
I know this is confusing.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
By the stage, friends, have nothing to do withs, have
nothing to do with bazuzu.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
They were actually invented by a guy called Kazing Long
created a Labooboos as part of his Monster's book series,
and they're actually inspired by Nordic folklore. Oh, feeling better
about our demonic little friends, Jesse.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
I have a question for the table. Am I the
only one here who's been baptized?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Yes, Oh?
Speaker 4 (29:40):
I feel appropriate as someone who has had my original sin.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
I thought you were going to tie me down and
squirt me. I brought some holy water with me.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
No, I was born with my original sin, and then
I was clear of it. And things have been absolutely
great ever since. Baptism is not to be used to
expel the demon from your teddy bear. That is not
what they teach in the Catholic Church. Although I do
remember being a kid and baptizing teddy bears like it
was a real yeah yeah, because it was just a
bit of a ritual and you had your little plate
(30:13):
and you'd put the head in it.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
So Catholic, I guess it's like an extension of playing
with baby doll.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
Right next this baby doll gets head.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
But what I will say is that all respect priests
went to church a lot as a kid. Their workload
has declined in some parishes because you know, my nan
used to go all the time. My nan isn't around anymore.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
So I just wonder if that's extra busy and conclave
have you seen true?
Speaker 4 (30:41):
But they're the kind of they're the big bosses. I
feel like, there's your local parish priest.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Who's sort of doing community outreach.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Yeah, and he's like make him cool, Oh, baptize your labooba.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
You think that's some really fancy, top level, very rich
influencer types of trying to get the pope to soxicize
the las with holy water.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
Oh my god, could you imagine the requests? It just
be like, no, no, busy after the break?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Why are celebrities lying to us about being in love?
I have feelings about this one.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
Unlimited out Loud access.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mamma
Mia subscribers.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Follow the link in the show notes.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
To get us in your ears five days a week.
And a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
I just had this natural chemistry and we had a
great script and a great director.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
Number booth silly, Yeah, we discovered a silly bonne on
each other.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Mary. It's well, it's obvious, it comes through on the screen.
Are you too an idol? Craig and the question.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
We met I had never met Palma before I heard
we met, on said, and we discovered we had a
lovely budding chemistry, a connection as two actors. I'm just like, oh,
this is nice. What's the silliest thing you've seen me?
Speaker 4 (32:08):
Do?
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I don't enough that's legal to talk about.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
That was making bread for him all the time, and
muffins and cookies.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And we really bonded, We really fell madly in love
on the set.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
I'm remarkably annoyed it was all a lie.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Two things happened on the weekend. The first was that
we thought Donald Trump had died briefly he had not.
The second thing that happened is that TMZ broke the
news that Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson are not in
fact in love as then Acred Gun movie they start
in starts to leave cinemas. Sources told TMZ that Liam
and pam have never even had dinner together, at least
(32:48):
not without their assistance. Apparently they didn't see each other
for a year after filming of the movie was over,
and they only reunited for the Red carpet. Now, I
know what Jase's going to say here. They're actors. I
should never have been sucked in by the whole thing.
This has happened lots of times before. Think of Sydney
Swingy and Glen Powell. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
I still feel really duped by this.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
I feel conned, and I want to talk to you
about why this felt different and why it's not okay
for them to do this.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
To lay it out, Amelia, this is a safe space.
You tell us how you feel.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
There was something about the two older people finding each other,
especially after adversity and heartbreak. Think about the fact that
Jolie Richardson, who was the sister of Liam Neeson's deceased
wife Natasha. She even posted heart emojis on Instagram photo
that Pam posted of the.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
Two of them.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
The two also had ample opportunities to tell us that
they were not, in facted. I am starting to doubt
whether Liam has even tried Pam's sour doughs at this
point concern. So the real question I want to ask
you too, though, is isn't there a difference between leaning
into something and directly misleading the public?
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Yeah, and that is exactly what they did. I at
the time refuse to care about this story because I
just went, Nana, Na, you're pulling my leg. I reckon
that this is going to become.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
That's because you have a master's degree.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
Exactly right, and I know how to analyze things. I'm like,
Holly over here fell for it.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
I was going to say, I never fell for it. Anyway,
We'll get to that.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
I feel as though it's like the boy who Cried Romance,
and that this happens so many times that we as
a culture are going to go unless you are having
sexual intercourse on the red carpet in front of me,
unless you have four children and a holiday.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
House, then I'm not buying.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
They're real.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
I'm just not buying it anymore because it is now
part and parcel of any campaign to get you to
watch the movie. I saw this recently with it didn't
even make headlines because it's just like another day in
tabloid media. But Jessica Alba and Orlando Bloom are making
some movie called The Mark that no one's going to terrible.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
Doesn't it sound terrible already?
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Why do I know? Why do I know what it's called? Well,
because there are rumors from an insider that they've started
seeing each other on the set, confirmed by no one.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
I want to be an inside a sword.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
I just want to be calling TMZ saying commune inside.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
They need to come to Liam and Pammy's defense. I'm
coming in hard for Liam and Pame's defense. They did not,
absolutely did not. So if you all of those grabs
that you heard at the beginning of this, never did they.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Say they were and I they were every single time.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
They were asked.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
It was like we fell madly in love on thee
with each other's acting like he's so silly and amazing
when we're.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
On the set together.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
And here's the clue, right, when people are really in
a relationship, famous people, they do everything to not be sprung.
They are not filmed making out on the set of
the Today Show, which is exactly what happened with Pammy
and tom They said, Pamy and Tommy, then Pammy and Liam.
They literally had one of those moments where they looked
like they were making out and the camera sprung them,
(36:04):
clearly a gag. You also take into consideration the movie
they're promoting, which was a farce, a silly fast right,
full of like nineteen eighties inappropriate kind of jokes. This
was always clearly a showmance. The fact that we all
fell for it says a lot about us, which is
that we are just desperate, as you said, Amelia, we
want happy endings for both these people, and we are
also desperate for good news and distraction.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Isn't there something kind of new and crossing the line
about what happened here?
Speaker 5 (36:30):
I mean, I think it feels great.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
I don't think so, because I entirely understand it. Right,
they're promoting a movie Naked Guns sequel, blah blah reboot,
which it's famously the case at the moment that the
only movies that make it in theater is either made
from existing ip like this one, or they're a superhero franchise.
Theatrical market is shrinking, shrinking, shrinking.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
They are in.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
A tooth and nail fight for attention and eyeballs. We
would never have even heard about this movie, really if
they hadn't been so charming together on the press tour.
So it makes absolute sense.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
It is not.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
New, as you've already said, Amelia, but remember Lady Gargo
and Bradley Cooper. Gargar admitted that was entirely deliberately orchestrated.
Let's keep them guessing. Let's gaze at each other lovingly.
Let's sometimes be seen to be giggling off camera. It's
really interesting.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
Because the way is far too old for him.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Well, it's true he only dates supermodels in their twenties,
but we all felt for that because we wanted it
to be true, because the chemistry was so good. They're
trying to sell a movie, and it's getting harder and
harder to sell a movie. Nobody's going to show clips
on TikTok of you just sitting there going well, the
material was really interesting and I thought it was great
when the director told me to move my hand over it. No,
they don't give a shit about that. They want to
(37:43):
know if he's eating pammy sourdough literally and figuratively.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Holly talk about going over the line.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
But this didn't happen in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Is the point? Like, for instance, you know Brad Pitt
and Juliet Lewis fell in love on a movie like People,
Tom Phaps.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
People used to.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Actually fall in love during movie.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
This is the thing.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Actors actually do fall in love during movies, right, And
us civilians we don't really understand how you could pash
someone for three months solid and then go home to
your husband, do we Like, we find that a bit weird,
but they know how to do it. But also sometimes
it spreads into real life chemistry.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
For sure, it's being dialed up. Something is changing, and
it's that you need to make more content post film
than for film.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
And because they're really hard to sell.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
They're really hard to sell. And so if we watch
Liam and Pamela, then what we look at is we
go I could watch two hours of that chemistry. I'm
being sold this chemistry and I'm gonna watch it and
try and decipher whether it's real or not. But another
example of this was the Wicked Press Tour that, to me,
every time I saw a new interview or statement or
(38:47):
red carpet, they were acting. There was an element of acting,
there was an earnestness and the fingernail hold. It was perfect.
It was absolutely perfect because they couldn't orchestrate a romance
because actually that was quite controversial because of Ariana and
ending her marriage. But those two knew they had a
job to do that was just as hard as the movie,
(39:08):
and they went, we are going to make make viral
content out of this, and we all fell for it.
I'm interested to see what they're going to do for
the next Wicked Press tour because they need a news story.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
They do, and I think that this just shows you
how hungry we all are. The way the spot if
a romance is real is are they trying to hide it?
That is when it is real. Like Angelina Jolie and
Brad Pitt back in the day, until they were ready
to do their pap shot on the beach with the kid,
they were like, what noth interesting here.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
No wait.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Also, what we've seen recently and last week I watched
a lot of this on my feeds is Zoe Kravitz
and Austin Butler, two of the most attractive human beings.
The chemistry is off the charts. Everybody's going they're dating.
They're just really good actors. And now I want to
see the film. To your point, because I'm like watching
these two do this, I could do.
Speaker 5 (39:53):
That all day.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
She's actually dating her exactly.
Speaker 5 (39:56):
It was a classic misdirect out loud as a massive.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Thank you for being here with us on Monday, and
thank you to our fabulous team for putting our show together.
Speaker 5 (40:05):
We're going to be back in your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
Goodbye bye. Shout out to any Muma Mea subscribers listening.
If you love the show and you want to support us,
subscribing to Mumma Mia is the very best way to
do so. There's a link in the episode description.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia out loud. That's what
women are actually talking about on Monday, the first of September.
My name is Holly Wainwright.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
I'm Jesse Stevens, I'm Amelia Lost and here is what
is on our agenda for to day.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Thousands of Australians marched under flags yesterday and if you
ask them why, the answers ranged from just asking questions
concerned citizen to Nazism.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Plus the popular fertility test that doctors want you to ignore.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
And Pam Anderson and Liam Neeson lied to us about
their love why do I feel duped?
Speaker 4 (00:57):
But first, in case you missed it, viral footage that
circulated over the weekend captured a millionaire CEO behaving very
very poorly. So to set the scene, we've got Polish
tennis player emil Marjacques who won his match on Saturday,
the US Open, and as often happens, he then made
his way to the crowd to go and sign some autographs.
(01:20):
And there's this gorgeous young boy who is then seen
excitedly handing him a giant ball to sign. Marjack is
quite heartened by his enthusiasm, and we watch him in
this video take off his match worn hat and he
goes to hand it to the boy, but he's kind
of shuffling over as he does it.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
You know how, you're a tennis correspondent. A sweaty hat's
a thing that you want.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Oh, that's a big deal to get a piece of
clothing that's got the Actually it's the sweat of a winner. Hollywayen, right,
I think that's.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
A boil it down to drink in his teeth.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Oh my goodness, you could sell that on eBay for
a bit of money. And maybe that's what the adult
beside him was thinking, because this man appears to snatch
the hat kind of out of the boys just as
it's going towards the boy. He snatches it, snatches the
right word, and puts it in his bag, and the
boy books devastated and yells what are you doing? And
(02:12):
the tennis player at this point, so he's moved on
and he's missed the whole interaction. My first response to
this was, there's got to be something we're missing right,
and maybe this is the boy's father. There was some confusion.
We shouldn't jump to conclusions.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
We've been burned before.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Unsurprisingly, the Internet was very quick to identify this man.
They needed to hunt him down. Yes, he is a
millionaire ceo. Amelia, what do you think people saw when
they watched this video? Because it did feel a little
bit Coldplay ceo coded all over again. Do you think
it was the millionaire element that made people particularly invested.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Look, I think this is even worse than the Coldplay CEO.
Sheesharek who was? I apologize for my Polish pronunciation, but
I am, in fact Polish soufense I am allowed to
mispronounce these names. Sheeshareck who was? That's the name of
the millionaire ceo. I just want to say, in his defense,
he made his fortune in paving, which I don't think
(03:13):
you mentioned. No, No, he does sponsor with his paving
fortune his local tennis federation in Poland. So there's that.
And he has also tried to reach out to make
amends with the boy, that's according to Mishak, So we
should say that in his defense now, having been fair
to him, bring.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
It because the bit that got me in the video particular,
was the shoving it in the bag. There was the
grabbing it was one thing, but the shoving it in
the bag was the verus.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
And ignoring the protests of the boys.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
So there was a purported statement that came out from
this man, the Paving Millionaire as I will refer to
him from now on. It's circulated on social media over
the weekend and it said, yes, I took it, but
as always, first come, first served is life now. Unfortunately
this has not been verified as coming from the paving Millionaire.
But the reason why I think everyone latched onto it
(04:02):
and wanted to believe it came from him is because
it spoke to how we feel about CEOs right now.
And watching this, all I could think was is not
the most perfect visual representation of what the rapacious millionaire
and billionaire class are doing to our younger people, stealing
from them. But they are all personal enrichment and rapaciousness.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
Don't you reckon that?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Millionaire CEOs need some good per they need.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
It's not been a good summer for them.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
But you know what last summer was the summer where
we had the billionaires being taken by the Orcas, so
I think they'd rather take some humiliating on camera footage.
I like that.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
I like that summer better.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
We should say as well, that this did end up
as a good news story because the tennis player Marjacques.
He then jumped onto Instagram and was like, I didn't
realize that that little boy didn't get the hat. Can
you please help.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Me identify him?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
And a bunch of people flootered to his Instagram and
gave him the boys details, and then there's a beautiful
photo series of them meeting. He gives him a autographed hat,
he gives him a bunch of gifts, and they got
a photo together.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So it's good news, bad news for my Polish birdsroom this.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I feel like Donald Trump would have taken that. That's
what we're seeing here, if he would have.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Been like Los shoved on into the head.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
This is the effect we're seeing come to a march.
The flyers and Facebook posts said to send a message
to politicians and big business that their vision for a
big Australia is flawed, that ordinary Aussies do not want
mass migration come to the march. The leaflets said, and
I quote, because each migrant means they and by they,
(05:37):
according to these leaflets, they mean the big supermarkets, the
big banks. Each migrant means they can sell another three
hundred and sixty five days worth of food or another mortgage.
The only cost our nation. Whether you're concerned for our culture, wages, traffic,
housing supply, water supply, environmental destruction, infrastructure, hospitals, crime or
(05:58):
loss of community. We are stronger together exclamation mark. Don't
leave this work to be done by your children. The
marches that they are encouraging people to come to we
called the March for Australia and they were held in
capital cities around the country on Sunday yesterday and according
to reports, more than twenty thousand people around the nation.
(06:20):
He did the call and went to the marches right now.
It wasn't clear exactly who was behind the march, so
the words I just read to you were from flyers
that were available to be downloaded and printed out and
shared on Facebook from a website called March for Australia,
but no one organization was claiming.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
To be it.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
But there were a few clues. In Melbourne, for example,
a man called Thomas Saul took to the stage at
Flinders Street. He is the leader of the National Socialist Network,
a white supremacist group that is believed to be behind,
among other things, the disruption of the ANZAC Day Welcome
to Country in Melbourne this year. Right, that guy is
(06:58):
known to police as an organization. They are widely reported
to be trying to establish a new political party and
they need to convince so called ordinary Aussies to their
cause in Melbourn. Then he got up and he kind
of made his case for why it was okay for
some of the people at the marches to feel unsettled
by the guys in black suits. Because there were quite
a wide range of people at these marches, but there
(07:20):
were noticeably some guys dressed in black. There was some
Nazi symbolism, and there were also some people waving signs
of Desi Freeman, who's the man that police are still
hunting in the Victorian High Country for killing two officers
last week. What Saul said was, you might not like
the guy's favorite color or his particular opinions of history,
but when you're in a fight with people that hate
(07:41):
this country, sometimes you have to learn to make friends.
I'm asking you to respect that we need to put
fighters at the front. We are here today to set
aside our minute differences on historical events or versions of ideology.
We are here as Australians, proud and true. Meanwhile, in Sydney,
some of the Nazism was a bit more blatant. It
(08:01):
was a rising right wing influencer called Beck Freedom obviously
not her real name, who was the person who lodged
the application for the march. But what's interesting about this
is that Beck Freedom was also the subject of some
leaked audio recently. She was apparently addressing a live stream
on August the eleventh, and she was explaining to people
(08:22):
how to talk to people in their lives who were
worried that this march might be perceived as racist. She said,
this is how I tried to explain it to someone.
I say, okay, so protect Australian heritage, culture, way of life.
Next step, protect European culture, heritage, way of life. And
then she went on to talk a little bit more
(08:42):
about that, how to appease people who are saying, oh,
it's a Nazi rally. But to be honest, the words
are just a bit too offensive for us to read out. Jesse,
were you surprised to see the size of some of
these protests on Friday, only hundreds of people were registered
to attend, and yet the Sydney one in particular was
really quite big.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
On Friday, I thought this was going to be a
total beat up and part of me was like, should
we just ignore this, which is coming from my own
total position of white priv But looking at it, I
just went no, one thinks that, like, who's going to
show up. It's going to be a few hundred people
total all around the country. What was really shocking was
(09:21):
to me the amount of people who showed up, some
of the images, videos, chants, all that kind of stuff.
I found the appearance of the Australian flag really sinister.
I find that about flags sometimes in general, but the
way it was just draped around people and what they
were taking it to mean, it just felt so deeply offensive.
(09:42):
And also some people in covering their faces. I think,
if you ever find yourself at a protest and you
have to cover your face and that says something about
the cause. And the way that it was validated by
elected politicians was also horrific. So there was that press
conference last week where Bob Catter, who is an MP
(10:03):
in Queensland, he is hus been for a really long time. Yeah,
he was asked about his Lebanese heritage, which he does have.
In the sort of late nineteenth century, his family moved
from a town in Lebanon, and he absolutely lost his shit.
And you might have seen this, and I think it
was kind of positioned as something a bit funny to
see someone in such a respected position lose their temper.
(10:27):
But to me, apart from the absolute racism of what
he was spewing, which was basically like, how dare you
accuse me of being anything other than white, was like
he was physically threatening a journalist, And I think that
also says something about the sort of anarchism of this
entire movement was represented by that.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
The journalist was asking him that question about his Lebanese
heritage in relation to this march. Right, So Kada had
said he was going to attend the Townsville march, and
so the journalist was saying to him in that context,
what about your Lebanese heritage, Bob, do you feel conflict
about that? And he threatened to punch him.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
In the face, yeah, and said it was really racist
for someone to even ask that question. I have a
question though, because I have been reading a lot about
these protests, and what I still can't work out is
the catalyst. I kept going, Oh, is there a policy,
Is there a policy that's come up? Is there something
that's happening in politics that has inspired this ground swell
(11:27):
of anger? And I couldn't find it. I wondered if
it was some sort of echo of trumpy and anti
immigration policies that we're seeing in the US Amelia why
this weekend? Like where have these come from?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think there
are two reasons, and one has to do with global
trends and the other has to do with Australia. So
on the global trends, we're seeing multi ethnic democracy under
attack all over the world. So right now there are
about twenty five actual functioning democracies left in the world,
which is not very many, and we're seeing one of
(12:00):
the biggest ones of those already under attack right now.
In terms of this idea of diversity of strength, and
referring to the US diversity of strength that inration actually
can strengthen a nation's economy and its culture and its
resilience over time, that whole idea is under attack all
over the world, not just in Australia. And then I
think the second reason, and there's no point sort of
(12:22):
shying away from this fact. Immigration to Australia has really
increased over the last twenty years or so. So for instance,
in nineteen ninety two they're about thirty thousand arrivals as migrants,
and by twenty twenty two that number was five hundred thousand,
and we saw a big leap, particularly after border reopenings
in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two. Now part
(12:42):
of that was a backlog, but we've also seen governments
over the last couple of decades really make a concerted
effort to open up Australia to more migration. That's because
we need more migrants. We need them to do jobs
and to contribute to our economy and also to build
this idea of a diverse and multi ethnic democracy. But nonetheless,
those are the facts, and I think that it's interesting
(13:03):
that Anne Ali, who was the Minister for Multicultural Affairs,
made a really good point along these lines. She said
that she actually had some stituents of hers contact her
and say, I'm going to the rally because I have
concerns around housing and jobs and around the idea that
migrants are taking those from me. Now that's not actually
factually true, but we should acknowledge that that's a reason
that some people gave her. They said, we're not Nazis,
(13:24):
We're worried about housing and jobs. But as Annali put it,
these people are really getting conned by neo Nazis. They're
being conned into believing that increased migration is a risk
or of vulnerability instead of an actual opportunity and a
point of strength for Australians. And Anne Ali said, we
need to have a more nuanced debate about immigration, but
these neo Nazis, they're not it. They're not giving us
(13:46):
that debate.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
It's very much echoing what's happening in Britain as well
as across lots of parts of Europe where and obviously
it's complicated. But as you can see in the language
in that flyer that I was talking about in their intro,
if you're concerned about culture, wages, traffic, you know what
I mean This kind of stuff is. It's all playing
into fears that life's becoming because it is really expensive.
(14:09):
You know, it's getting harder and harder to as we know,
you know, have somewhere safe to live, have a stable job,
all of those things. The escapegoarding here is so obvious though,
right because also when they talk about immigrants, as beck
Freedom said in that leaked conversation, they're not really talking
about immigrants. Still the largest proportion of Australians who were
(14:30):
not born in Australia from England. They're from England, then
followed by India, then followed by China, then followed by
New Zealand. They are not talking about white European immigrants.
They're not talking about immigrants like me, free past to
immigrants like me. They're talking about culture. It's a complete
fur fee.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And the irony I suppose a difference too to even
you know, some of the protests in England is that
we're an entire country, like it's almost too obvious to
even warrant mentioning, like we're a whole country of immigrants.
Every single person there, from what I saw with my
two eyes, was an immigrant because First Nations people didn't
show up, and so Indigenous Australians they're the ones who
(15:09):
didn't a great year and they're horrified by this.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
And in fact, in Melbourne, some Indigenous Australians were attacked
by the protesters, the ones who are at camp sovereignty.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Let's separate what's new and what's old about this. I
think that what's not new, what's in fact very old
about this, is the scapegoating of a particular ethnic or
racial group for the benefit of villifying them. And in
this case that group was Indian immigrants to Australia. Of course,
that scapegoating goes back all the way to the original
invasion of this country and the displacing of First Nations people.
(15:39):
And we've seen that all through Australian history and that's
not new. Now what's new about this? And Holly, I
think you were getting at this before about beck freedom
is this idea of the insidious nature of the messaging
trying to make themselves out as concerned about traffic. Who
isn't concerned about traffic and China whitewash their Nazi language
in this kind of influencer guys.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Also the term remigration. I had never heard that term before,
and that was on a lot of the materials that
were distributed. And remigration is an notion linked to far
right ideology that calls for the mass deportation of non
European peoples from Western nations. I'd never even heard of
that before, and again that echoes what's sort of happening
(16:22):
in the US with ice raids. It's just terrifying, terrifying stuff.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I want to throw at this point to a voice
memo from our own Emily Vernon, often time host on
this podcast with us, because despite all the arguments and
the nuances about whether this rally was racist or not racist,
Nazi or not Nazi, there is little doubt on the
effect it had on non wide Australians who were watching this,
and perhaps that was its intention. Em who lives in
(16:48):
the middle of Sydney and said that this demonstration was
literally on her doorstep, sent us this memo.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
For the first time in my life. I was scared
to leave my apartment on Sunday. I've been scared for
a while now living in the city. I knew it
was likely the protests would take place near my home.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
I was right.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
On Sunday morning, I canceled dinner with a friend, wasn't
able to buy my weekly groceries, didn't go for my
daily city girl walk. I couldn't even work up the
courage to empty my bins. I thought, with the marathon
taking place in Sydney, no one would show up to
the protest. It's been reported that at least eight thousand
people were there. It might not sound like a lot,
(17:28):
but seeing eight thousand people filled with hatred outside my
living room window made me freeze on the spot, and
all I could hope for is that they didn't see
me as well. I thought the TikTok comments would be right,
that it was a peaceful protest to slow down immigration.
My feed is now filled with videos of racist chants
and deep anger coming from people I've probably walked past,
(17:50):
smiled at, sat next to it. The movies stood in
the same train carriage with eight at the same restaurants
popped up on my dating apps. The lead up to
these protests had been so mentally draining. I told four
friends of mine, matter of factly, can you guys believe
this is actually happening. No one knew what I was
talking about. No one knew how scared I was. No
(18:11):
one checked in. I had lunch with a friend who
had just moved here from the US to day before.
We were seated outside. The weather was so nice, the
city was crowded with people traveling here for the marathon.
As I was watching them all walk past our table,
my mind went to a dark place. If our lunch
took place the day after, if I hadn't heard about
(18:32):
the protest like so many others, what would happen? The
I only is is that one of us in that
table actually is an immigrant, but the other one is brown.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
In a moment, the popular fertility test that doctors want
you to ignore. An article in the Sydney Morning Herald
over the weekend has blown the whistle on a popular
fertility test many women are taking to basically plan their lives.
The AMH test, also known as the egg count or
(19:07):
a varian reserve test, measures the anti malarian hormone in
the blood to estimate the number of eggs in a
woman's ovaries. Have you guys heard of this test?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Oh? I have so many friends you've taken. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
I went and asked. Actually, I think I was in
my early thirties and I went and asked a doctor
and just wanted to do it.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
And the doctor just looked at me.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
And said, nah, really, I'm not letting you go and
take really. Yeah, he said, come back to me in
you know, a few years if you're still anxious, but
you're fine until I read this story. The way I
understood it was, if you've got a high number, you've
got all the time in the world. Right, you've got
too many eggs, you can just wait forever. Low number,
you've got to freeze your eggs, or you should have
(19:46):
started trying years ago, and it's time to panic. But
according to the world leading medical journal Fertility and Sterility,
the test provides false information quote, it is likely driven
by financial incentives, and they strongly discourage using this test
to predict a woman's fertility. Australian experts came out in
(20:06):
this piece and said that women should not be basing
life long decisions on these tests, and the University of
Sydney's doctor Tessa Kopp says clinics and online companies co
opt feminist language using phrases like empower your Fertility to
market these tests to a lot of women who don't
need them. In truth, there is no reliable test for
(20:28):
women's fertility, and there are a number of factors that
determine someone's ability to conceive, including, of course, her partner
or her donor. I find the role of feminism or empowerment.
Interesting here because it feels like women's fertility is becoming
increasingly politicized. Amelia, have you noticed this?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yes, In a word, I was shocked that this test
that basically has no grounding in anything is being dispensed
all around the country.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
I know, yeah, I know women. I have a friend
who is I think just turned forty, and she said
to me recently, I.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Got that test. I'm fine, I've got all the time.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
I don't know the details of her fertility, but I
know now that that doesn't paint a full picture for
a lot of people, and a lot of people use it.
I think that if you're looking at egg freezing or IVF,
it can be a little bit helpful, But if you're
just looking for some reassurance, nah, not it.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I found this so interesting because obviously people have been
trying to profit off women's anxiety and insecurities for a long time,
but right now fertility is really in the spotlight, and
it's being wielded as an issue in sort of political terms.
I don't know if you've heard of this term restorative
reproductive medicine.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
I've heard of it, but I don't know what it means.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
So this is coming out of the US. There's a
twenty five year old American woman named Emma Waters who
is leading the charge. Basically, IVF is under attack in
the US right now in various courts. There are lots
of religious conservatives who don't agree with it and who
want to outlaw it.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
So they really liked babies.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Isn't that funny, Holly? They like babies, but only on
their terms. And so what there's a big push for
right now within the Trump White House, led by this
twenty five year old woman, Emma Waters, is basically to
reframe the conversation away from IVF. And she said this
explicitly that this is what she wants to do. Reframe
it away from IVF towards restorative reproductive medicine, which is
(22:22):
a so called natural way of addressing what its practitioners
say are the root causes of infertility.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Is this a bit of maha? So the make America
healthy because it's.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Basically saying like, infertility can be cured by you eating healthier,
exercising more, charting your menstrual cycles. As if women who
want to be pregnant and who are trying to be
pregnant haven't thought about charting their menstrual cycle before, It
is absurd. So the American College of Gynecologists says that
this is not a medical term, this idea of restorative
(22:55):
reproductive medicine, but basically this is what's being sold as
a replacement for IVF. At the same time, conservatives across
the world, not just in the US, are also saying
that young women should give up on the idea of
a career and just have babies. Just have babies. It's easier,
You don't have to worry about going to work.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
This is what worries me about. It's interesting, Jesse, that
you are saying that women around your age will go
to the doctor and say, I want to find out
how much time I've got. And what you're saying is
that you think it shouldn't be used as a false
sense of security, but it should maybe be used to
spark you into action.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
More so than that, I'm saying as well that a
lot of experts are saying this is causing an enormous
amount of anxiety when a woman is told you don't
have a lot of eggs, and that doesn't mean you
can't conceive exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
So it feels to me sometimes like we've pulled the
lever back a little too. You know how we've said
for Generation X, we were saying a lot, oh women
think they've got all the time in the world. You know,
we need to educate women about their fertility window. And
I feel that women have been well and truly educated
about their fertility window, possibly now to a point of
panic where we know that lots of women in their
(24:05):
late twenties and early thirties very worried about their fertility,
maybe for good reason, and also maybe not for good reason.
And as you've already pointed out, Amelia, the thing that
worries me is that then there's a whole cohort of
people who are very happy to capitalize on that, and
there's an entire industry built around it, much of which
brings great joy when they fertility treatments are successful and
(24:25):
babies are born. But also we have no idea really
how much of that is unnecessary. So whenever there's a
financial incentive, I'm a little that's a good point I read,
But also it feels like a culture to where we are.
And I don't mean I'm not aiming this at women
who I think. I think we're entirely just responding to
the messaging that's around us. But there must be a
(24:47):
test for that, there must be an app for that,
there must be a fix for that. I must be
able to get what I want when I want to
get it. And I know that sounds brutal the way
I just phrase that, I don't mean it too.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
But what I mean more.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Is that the idea that all these things are just
going to be absolutely accurate. We were talking recently about
how a lot of the period tracking apps that people
absolutely swear by telling them exactly what phase they're in,
and all those things just general information.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
It's all under the.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Umbrella of putting it back onto women that we can
control everything. Even this idea of don't have a career
have babies, as though women are ever making that choice.
In the abstract, life happens to you. Sometimes you have
a job, sometimes you have a baby. Sometimes you don't
have a job or a baby, and it's not all
to do with what you're doing. And it puts so
(25:31):
much pressure on women to say, well, have you taken
the test, have you fixed your diet, have you charged
your menstruals side.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Have you throwzen your eggs, And isn't it interesting that
it's all on women, one hundred percent on women. And
I think that the AMH test, which by the way,
is not covered by Medicare, so women are out of
pocket paying for this, and often it's used kind of
as a test that you would do to then go
should I freeze my eggs? And I think it's worth
mentioning that egg freezing. While it offers freedom to a
(25:59):
lot of women, it's also especially in the US. I mean,
it's a multi billion dollar business that is set to
triple by twenty thirty. People are making a lot of
money off it, and all of this research has now
come out that said freezing your eggs does not guarantee
you a baby. So on the one hand, you have that,
you have what feels like the exploitation of certain industries
(26:21):
on women's anxieties and the pressure that they feel, and
on pseudoscience, and yes, well then you have this kind
of backlash that I'm seeing. I'm seeing this all over
my feeds, a real backlash towards even things like IVF,
which I think is so distressing and hurtful to the
many women I know who have had babies via IVF
(26:43):
as though that is a lesser choice, as though it
wasn't necessary if they had just eaten more vegetables.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Like yeah, as though it is a choice between eating
vegetables or doing IVF.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
As if they don't like I have never known anyone
to try harder to make every lifestyle change for twelve months,
all of the things that you do before you get
to that decision. I just find like I'm actually overused word,
but triggered by a lot of these things that pop up.
I go, well, I'm glad you had the privilege of
(27:11):
getting pregnant in two months, but it probably had less
to do with your diet and more to do with a.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Bit of luck.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Friends, people are getting their la boo boos baptized, and
I really need to go back to bed.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
We're all across what a laboo boo is, right, Yeah?
I saw one this morning.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
I mean I see them often, but I saw one
this morning on a grown man's backpack on the train,
and I had to work really hard not to judge him.
And if he's listening, I'm really sorry you go hard
with your.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
La boo boo. I provide a lot of comfort to
a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Holly Rackon. That's the premisphere nex novel. It starts with
a man with a labubu on his bag. How did
we get here?
Speaker 5 (27:47):
I was like, what's your story? Sit down and tell
me about that.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I generally think of la booboos as either hanging off
school bags or very fancy handbags. It's like those two things, right,
if you're not across what a lab boo boo is.
They are these ugly little fluffy dolly things and you
buy them in a blind box. Part of the whole
fun and gamification of it is that you never know
which one you're gonna get, and there's a limited edition
and they really new ones all the time.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
And it's really exciting anyway.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
As well as being a blight of late stage capitalism
and a mountain of landfill waiting to happen, that cute
little fluffy doll on that man's backpack is also demonic.
I just tell you what you seen that it might
be cursed. Yes, there's a viral theory going around that
they might actually be demons inspired by a demon called
(28:35):
I just need to make sure I get my facts
straight here. This is a very fact heavy segment. Pazuzu
a demon from Mesopotanium.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Everybody Mesopotamian mythology.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Right, So people are getting priests, presumably really bored priests,
to baptize their laboo boos, or they're hosting their own
DIY ceremonies, tying them up and squirting them with holy water.
For example, I'm filming it for TikTok. But don't worry,
because I know you were worried. The people who created
(29:08):
labooboos say they have nothing to do with pazuzu.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
I know this is confusing.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
By the stage, friends, have nothing to do withs, have
nothing to do with bazuzu.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
They were actually invented by a guy called Kazing Long
created a Labooboos as part of his Monster's book series,
and they're actually inspired by Nordic folklore. Oh, feeling better
about our demonic little friends, Jesse.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
I have a question for the table. Am I the
only one here who's been baptized?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Yes, Oh?
Speaker 4 (29:40):
I feel appropriate as someone who has had my original sin.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
I thought you were going to tie me down and
squirt me. I brought some holy water with me.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
No, I was born with my original sin, and then
I was clear of it. And things have been absolutely
great ever since. Baptism is not to be used to
expel the demon from your teddy bear. That is not
what they teach in the Catholic Church. Although I do
remember being a kid and baptizing teddy bears like it
was a real yeah yeah, because it was just a
bit of a ritual and you had your little plate
(30:13):
and you'd put the head in it.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
So Catholic, I guess it's like an extension of playing
with baby doll.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
Right next this baby doll gets head.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
But what I will say is that all respect priests
went to church a lot as a kid. Their workload
has declined in some parishes because you know, my nan
used to go all the time. My nan isn't around anymore.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
So I just wonder if that's extra busy and conclave
have you seen true?
Speaker 4 (30:41):
But they're the kind of they're the big bosses. I
feel like, there's your local parish priest.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Who's sort of doing community outreach.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Yeah, and he's like make him cool, Oh, baptize your labooba.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
You think that's some really fancy, top level, very rich
influencer types of trying to get the pope to soxicize
the las with holy water.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
Oh my god, could you imagine the requests? It just
be like, no, no, busy after the break?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Why are celebrities lying to us about being in love?
I have feelings about this one.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
Unlimited out Loud access.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mamma
Mia subscribers.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Follow the link in the show notes.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
To get us in your ears five days a week.
And a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
I just had this natural chemistry and we had a
great script and a great director.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
Number booth silly, Yeah, we discovered a silly bonne on
each other.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Mary. It's well, it's obvious, it comes through on the screen.
Are you too an idol? Craig and the question.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
We met I had never met Palma before I heard
we met, on said, and we discovered we had a
lovely budding chemistry, a connection as two actors. I'm just like, oh,
this is nice. What's the silliest thing you've seen me?
Speaker 4 (32:08):
Do?
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I don't enough that's legal to talk about.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
That was making bread for him all the time, and
muffins and cookies.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And we really bonded, We really fell madly in love
on the set.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
I'm remarkably annoyed it was all a lie.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Two things happened on the weekend. The first was that
we thought Donald Trump had died briefly he had not.
The second thing that happened is that TMZ broke the
news that Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson are not in
fact in love as then Acred Gun movie they start
in starts to leave cinemas. Sources told TMZ that Liam
and pam have never even had dinner together, at least
(32:48):
not without their assistance. Apparently they didn't see each other
for a year after filming of the movie was over,
and they only reunited for the Red carpet. Now, I
know what Jase's going to say here. They're actors. I
should never have been sucked in by the whole thing.
This has happened lots of times before. Think of Sydney
Swingy and Glen Powell. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
I still feel really duped by this.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
I feel conned, and I want to talk to you
about why this felt different and why it's not okay
for them to do this.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
To lay it out, Amelia, this is a safe space.
You tell us how you feel.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
There was something about the two older people finding each other,
especially after adversity and heartbreak. Think about the fact that
Jolie Richardson, who was the sister of Liam Neeson's deceased
wife Natasha. She even posted heart emojis on Instagram photo
that Pam posted of the.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
Two of them.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
The two also had ample opportunities to tell us that
they were not, in facted. I am starting to doubt
whether Liam has even tried Pam's sour doughs at this
point concern. So the real question I want to ask
you too, though, is isn't there a difference between leaning
into something and directly misleading the public?
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Yeah, and that is exactly what they did. I at
the time refuse to care about this story because I
just went, Nana, Na, you're pulling my leg. I reckon
that this is going to become.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
That's because you have a master's degree.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
Exactly right, and I know how to analyze things. I'm like,
Holly over here fell for it.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
I was going to say, I never fell for it. Anyway,
We'll get to that.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
I feel as though it's like the boy who Cried Romance,
and that this happens so many times that we as
a culture are going to go unless you are having
sexual intercourse on the red carpet in front of me,
unless you have four children and a holiday.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
House, then I'm not buying.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
They're real.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
I'm just not buying it anymore because it is now
part and parcel of any campaign to get you to
watch the movie. I saw this recently with it didn't
even make headlines because it's just like another day in
tabloid media. But Jessica Alba and Orlando Bloom are making
some movie called The Mark that no one's going to terrible.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
Doesn't it sound terrible already?
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Why do I know? Why do I know what it's called? Well,
because there are rumors from an insider that they've started
seeing each other on the set, confirmed by no one.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
I want to be an inside a sword.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
I just want to be calling TMZ saying commune inside.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
They need to come to Liam and Pammy's defense. I'm
coming in hard for Liam and Pame's defense. They did not,
absolutely did not. So if you all of those grabs
that you heard at the beginning of this, never did they.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Say they were and I they were every single time.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
They were asked.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
It was like we fell madly in love on thee
with each other's acting like he's so silly and amazing
when we're.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
On the set together.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
And here's the clue, right, when people are really in
a relationship, famous people, they do everything to not be sprung.
They are not filmed making out on the set of
the Today Show, which is exactly what happened with Pammy
and tom They said, Pamy and Tommy, then Pammy and Liam.
They literally had one of those moments where they looked
like they were making out and the camera sprung them,
(36:04):
clearly a gag. You also take into consideration the movie
they're promoting, which was a farce, a silly fast right,
full of like nineteen eighties inappropriate kind of jokes. This
was always clearly a showmance. The fact that we all
fell for it says a lot about us, which is
that we are just desperate, as you said, Amelia, we
want happy endings for both these people, and we are
also desperate for good news and distraction.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Isn't there something kind of new and crossing the line
about what happened here?
Speaker 5 (36:30):
I mean, I think it feels great.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
I don't think so, because I entirely understand it. Right,
they're promoting a movie Naked Guns sequel, blah blah reboot,
which it's famously the case at the moment that the
only movies that make it in theater is either made
from existing ip like this one, or they're a superhero franchise.
Theatrical market is shrinking, shrinking, shrinking.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
They are in.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
A tooth and nail fight for attention and eyeballs. We
would never have even heard about this movie, really if
they hadn't been so charming together on the press tour.
So it makes absolute sense.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
It is not.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
New, as you've already said, Amelia, but remember Lady Gargo
and Bradley Cooper. Gargar admitted that was entirely deliberately orchestrated.
Let's keep them guessing. Let's gaze at each other lovingly.
Let's sometimes be seen to be giggling off camera. It's
really interesting.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
Because the way is far too old for him.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Well, it's true he only dates supermodels in their twenties,
but we all felt for that because we wanted it
to be true, because the chemistry was so good. They're
trying to sell a movie, and it's getting harder and
harder to sell a movie. Nobody's going to show clips
on TikTok of you just sitting there going well, the
material was really interesting and I thought it was great
when the director told me to move my hand over it. No,
they don't give a shit about that. They want to
(37:43):
know if he's eating pammy sourdough literally and figuratively.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Holly talk about going over the line.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
But this didn't happen in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Is the point? Like, for instance, you know Brad Pitt
and Juliet Lewis fell in love on a movie like People,
Tom Phaps.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
People used to.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Actually fall in love during movie.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
This is the thing.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Actors actually do fall in love during movies, right, And
us civilians we don't really understand how you could pash
someone for three months solid and then go home to
your husband, do we Like, we find that a bit weird,
but they know how to do it. But also sometimes
it spreads into real life chemistry.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
For sure, it's being dialed up. Something is changing, and
it's that you need to make more content post film
than for film.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
And because they're really hard to sell.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
They're really hard to sell. And so if we watch
Liam and Pamela, then what we look at is we
go I could watch two hours of that chemistry. I'm
being sold this chemistry and I'm gonna watch it and
try and decipher whether it's real or not. But another
example of this was the Wicked Press Tour that, to me,
every time I saw a new interview or statement or
(38:47):
red carpet, they were acting. There was an element of acting,
there was an earnestness and the fingernail hold. It was perfect.
It was absolutely perfect because they couldn't orchestrate a romance
because actually that was quite controversial because of Ariana and
ending her marriage. But those two knew they had a
job to do that was just as hard as the movie,
(39:08):
and they went, we are going to make make viral
content out of this, and we all fell for it.
I'm interested to see what they're going to do for
the next Wicked Press tour because they need a news story.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
They do, and I think that this just shows you
how hungry we all are. The way the spot if
a romance is real is are they trying to hide it?
That is when it is real. Like Angelina Jolie and
Brad Pitt back in the day, until they were ready
to do their pap shot on the beach with the kid,
they were like, what noth interesting here.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
No wait.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Also, what we've seen recently and last week I watched
a lot of this on my feeds is Zoe Kravitz
and Austin Butler, two of the most attractive human beings.
The chemistry is off the charts. Everybody's going they're dating.
They're just really good actors. And now I want to
see the film. To your point, because I'm like watching
these two do this, I could do.
Speaker 5 (39:53):
That all day.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
She's actually dating her exactly.
Speaker 5 (39:56):
It was a classic misdirect out loud as a massive.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Thank you for being here with us on Monday, and
thank you to our fabulous team for putting our show together.
Speaker 5 (40:05):
We're going to be back in your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
Goodbye bye. Shout out to any Muma Mea subscribers listening.
If you love the show and you want to support us,
subscribing to Mumma Mia is the very best way to
do so. There's a link in the episode description.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.