Ugly Female Friendships & A New Red Carpet Theory

Episode Transcript
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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 (00:22):
Guys, have you seen that there's some new Baldwin's show coming?

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Oh, I'm so excited for that.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
The reality show.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yes, yes, did you see that? Bolsher described it as
spectacularly upsetting.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
Oh my goodness, me start everywhere.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
I am dying to watch because I'm watching a lot
of prestige TV and I think I need some Baldwin's reality.
But my issue is that I have only just started
watching thirty Rock and I met Alec Baldwin in thirty Rocks?

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Have you been?

Speaker 5 (00:49):
My friends are horrified because in terms of like.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
Is what fifteen years old?

Speaker 1 (00:54):
I have a fun fact. I was on thirty Rock. Stop.
This is the fun fact I share whenever I'm asked
to show a fun fact. So the one hundredth episode,
which you're probably not up to yet.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
No, you got a long way to go.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, the one hundredth episode is all about a live
taping of the show and the audience gets gassed because
there's a gas leak. Yeah. So I was in the
audience for it, and we were in the studio for
twelve hours. It was freezing cold. I had to fake
a off for like about ten of those twelve hours
to film like thirty minutes of TV. I could never

(01:25):
be on TV.

Speaker 5 (01:26):
Was it fun?

Speaker 1 (01:26):
No? But the show is amazing and it has this
amazing line from Liz Lemon, which is that better be
important Jack. I was in the middle of bidding on
a bag of bras on eBay.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
The problem for you is, once you've watched thirty Rock,
you feel differently about Alec Bordman because he's so good
on that show, and he's so kind of self deprecating
on that show in a way, and I think he's.

Speaker 5 (01:48):
Also a brilliant actor. He's very good.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Apparently he has.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Been eight Children and five.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Pets, Yes, and he's been rated as that character in
particular is one of the best, I say, one of
the best ever made. Just nails it.

Speaker 5 (02:00):
So I'm living in that world.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Hello, and welcome to MoMA Mia out Loud. It's all
women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the twenty sixth
of February, and I'm Holly Wainwright.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
I'm Jesse Stevens, and today we have Amelia Leicester filling
in for.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Me Hello on the show? Does it matter who a
politician is married to? From Duttna and Albow to de
facto US President Elon Musk, what your private life says
about you? Also, The White Lotus has given us a
new iconic female friendship group. Why Laurie, Jacqueline and Kate's
glossy toxic dynamic is cringingly familiar? And with the end

(02:37):
of Award season in sight, what do we really mean
when we say we're worried about the size of the
women on the Hollywood Red Carpet? But first, I'm hijacking me.
It's not here, so I'm breaking the rules.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
I need to talk about my favorite Timothy Salam Yes,
I saw snippets of the speech.

Speaker 5 (02:57):
So I love loved.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
He just won a SAG screen out to his Guild
Award for a Complete Unknown, which I recommended the other
week because it's a brilliant movie. Go sit that's by
the bye On Monday, it's the Oscars and Timmy And
that's what his friends call him, Timmy, Yeah, May and
Kylie Jenna, we call him that.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
He really really really really really.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Wants an Oscar and he has been campaigning so hot
he has been doing every YouTube interview, He's been dancing
on the internet like he is so campaigning. And we
especially know this because he told us in a refreshingly
bald faced display of ambition. This is what he said
in his sax ACCEPTIONCE speech.

Speaker 6 (03:34):
I'm deeply grateful to them. And lastly, I can't downplay
the significance of this award because it means the most
to me. And I know we're in a subjective business,
but the truth is, I'm really in pursuit of greatness.
I know people don't usually talk like that, but I
want to be one of the greats. I'm inspired by
the greats. I'm inspired by the greats here tonight. I'm

(03:56):
as inspired by Daniel day Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Viola
Davis as I am by Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, and
I want to be up there. So I'm deeply grateful
to that. This doesn't signify that, but it's a little
more fuel, it's a little more animal to keep going.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
Timothy is ambitious.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Do we love it. I'm so glad you raised this,
hollidod I do everything you recommend, and I went to
see a complete unknown last night loved it. I am
now a card carrying member of Club Charllomade as the
Timmy fans and Noan, he's likely to become the youngest
ever Best Actor winner. He's twenty nine. Adrian Brody won
previously at twenty nine, but he was a slightly older

(04:32):
twenty nine. And when you compare his speech at the
SAgs to Kieran Colkin, did you catch Kieran Colkin? No?

Speaker 5 (04:39):
What did he say?

Speaker 1 (04:40):
He was way too cool for school. He complained about
how heavy the award was and sort of made jokes
about it being like too much for him to carry.
I'm here for the enthusiasm and for the aspirations to greatness.
I mean, he plays a genius. He plays Bob Dylan,
a genius and a complete unknown, and now he's putting
forward that he wants to be a kind of genius
in acting.

Speaker 5 (05:00):
I think there's something endearing too.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
He's a young guy, and we see him as young
because he feels like he's been famous for a while.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Baby face, Yes he does, he does.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
But there's something endearing about having a young person say
these are my goals and this is what I want.
I wonder if it would feel different if it was
a forty or a fifty year old going I desperately
want my award. But Timothy, I just kind of went,
I do think you're a brilliant actor. I think you've
done some amazing roles. And I think he'll juster.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Do we think he'll get I'm a little worried about
the Jena factor. Is he going to take Carly Jenner
to the awards?

Speaker 2 (05:32):
This is the problem. This is the problem with Timothy.
We've discussed it about that. It is my Roman empire.
Is that we were joking the other day about who's
cool and who's not. Timothy Chalamay should be really really cool, right,
height of cool. But two things that stop him from
being cool. Not that that matters obviously, whether or not
you're cool is a cool people don't say they really
want things. Cool people are like, oh, I don't know

(05:54):
how this happened, you know. And also, cool people don't
date Kardashians. That's just a very strict rule that you
can't go pass. Some people think that the Kylie Jenna
factor might actually hurt his chances, which I don't know.
Is that why he took his mum to the SAgs.
Do we think possibly? Leonardo DiCaprio always takes his mum
to things. I think he has only broken that rule
once or twice because I think he's like, I don't

(06:16):
want the fact that I only date twenty two year.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
Old models to interfere with Mike.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
He will date image twenty six year old Marie Amelia. Sorry,
he doesn't want that to affect his image as a
serious actor. And Shalama clearly is in love and he
doesn't care if it. Dent's his thing with it as
a serious act all but just word to the wise, timy,
it does. I'm sorry it does. We're about to talk
about whether it matters who you're married to. I just think,
if you really want the oscar on Monday, maybe get

(06:43):
quick with that dumb by text.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
Just love my schalam maze so much.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Anthony Albanizi is talking about his wedding plans, and Peter
Dutton has confessed he met his wife after drinking twenty
vodka Red Bull.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
Twenty Has he alive? Holy schmokes, that's a lot.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
These confessions can mean only one thing. There is an
election brewing. We don't have a date yet, but as
Jacquelin Mailey wrote in the Herald and Age newspapers over
the weekend, there is no sure a sign of a
looming pole than the rash of personal soft touch interviews.
So a soft touch interview basically refers to the kind
of interview that involves a politician's partner, often their children,

(07:23):
and the conventional wisdom is that these figures being around
the politician helped to soften his image, and yes, it
is normally a hymn. Maley wrote that she found this
factor pressing this idea that men still need women to
humanize them as politicians, and she also argues that these
interviews are a bit of a distraction. And Albanizi did
come into some criticism from his own party for this

(07:43):
Women's Weekly interview he gave with his fiancee, Jody Hayden.
One labor backbencher told the Financial Review that the timing
of the interview just as the Reserve Bank announced it
was dropping interest rates was really bad and it made
the Prime Minister look out of touch. But here I
am with a hot take for you, which is that
I happen to disagree with these criticisms. I love hearing
about politicians partners, And the reason is that I think

(08:06):
it's a valid way of assessing them and of figuring
out how they make this sci decisions. Because who's someone
is married to, or who someone spends their time with,
it shows us a lot about what they value and
what they think is important and what they care about
in others. So I will always defend my interest in politicians' partners.
But what do you think, Jesse.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
Don't you think that might be the case if it
was an entirely manufactured like do you reckon that we're
really getting an insight into their relationship Tony red Bull Vodkas.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
I don't think people would.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Make that up.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
But that's a selective detail. And this is I totally
agreed with the criticism about Anthony Albanesi and the interest
rate cuts because that came out cost of living crisis
for the election campaign. That's going to be a really
important point. That just seemed like such a missed opportunity
if you have one message that needed to be the
message that day. And I actually don't think it was

(08:56):
totally Albaneze's fault because he did that interview before.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
And it was actually for International Women's Day, yes.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
And then it came out at the same time, and
I think that there was a headline that was telling
me what role to Toe the dog would be playing
in the wedding, and I thought, m, yeah, that's not
really What does that actually tell me as a voter?
Isn't a distraction? And then when I was looking at
the Women's Weekly feature, you know, you're looking at the
photo shoot and they've sat down and done this interview,

(09:24):
and there's the cynical side of me that goes.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
What a waste time?

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Like, how about policy? And tell us what we're voting for?
And the performing of personality? Talking about the performing of
personality takes a lot of work.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
Jesse, what role is Toto the dog playing wedding? Can
you tell her?

Speaker 5 (09:51):
I didn't click.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
I think it's like we're going to hear a lot
about policy when this election is actually announced, because although
it feels like we're living in an election campaign, it
hasn't actually been announced yet. If politicians only stand there
and talk to you about policy and about what people
generally think of as boring facts and this is what
I'm going to do and this they get accused of
being in personal robots, right if they go too far,

(10:14):
the other way. Remember Scott Morrison and the ukulele round
the barbecue table on sixty minutes. That really didn't go
well for him because people were like, I'm not sure
if we can't trust him with the melody of April
Son and Cuba, if we can trust him with the economy.
I think that what's interesting, particularly about these two is
that revealing a bit about their personal lives makes them

(10:34):
more relatable and interesting in a genuine way, because actually
they've both got, in the terms of political history of Australia,
quite interesting personal lives. Backstory wise, Albo was only our
third unmarried prime minister ever after I think McEwan in
the sixties, and he was a widower and of course
Julia Gillard right, So the fact that Albo is not

(10:55):
married when he was first campaigning was seen as a
bit like, oh, you know, because traditionally we like to go,
we like our politicians to be in steady, traditional relationships.
It makes me think he's a steady traditional guy. The
fact that he's got engaged while he's in office kind
of interesting. Like just cinder Ar Dun when she had
a baby in office. It's kind of interesting. Now people

(11:15):
are like Okay, So if Albo wins again and he
and Jody are getting married, I want to know more
about her and more about this, and I actually think
that's kind of valid. And Dutton has been married before,
He's got a child from a previous relationship, so again,
his story isn't that linear and straightforward, And I actually
think that's interesting, gives some depth and people can go, oh,
I can kind of relate to that. You know, my
relationship isn't that straightforward. I'm divorced or I'm building step

(11:38):
family or whatever. So I think it's interesting. I agree
with you that it's fluffy and inauthentic. That's also a
trap though, right, because remember if we look over to America,
how Kamala Harris, who had to establish who she was
in inverted commas In this short period of time, people
just kept saying over and over again, I.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
Don't know who she is.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
I don't know who she is, and they want to
be able to scratch the surface, and how do you
do that in an authentic way?

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Well, and I also think there's a way in which
the olden days, when we refuse to look at politicians'
private lives, encouraged this kind of default nuclear heterosexual family
feedback loop because we sort of knew that all these
male politicians had wives and children, and therefore, because they
all had the same story, essentially we didn't need to

(12:24):
hear it. But now now that we accept that politicians
are real people who hopefully come from diverse backgrounds and
have done all sorts of things before coming to politics,
we accept that they might have a more complicated story
and we naturally want to hear about it.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
But isn't this how we get to a point where,
for example, I remember when there was a big discussion
about sexism in politics, Scott Morrison stands there and says,
I have daughters, Like I think that we can go
too far into I'm going to all my sell.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Or use my yeah, and now we don't have daughters.
For instance, to bring back Kamala Harris, she doesn't have children.
And that was also someone the rights said, well, how
can she really care about the future of this country?
She doesn't have children.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
And I think that's an important point because it gets
used differently against women. So while where in the presspers
of an election campaign, where as you say, two men
have had maybe not the most traditional trajectories in terms
of marriage and children. I don't think we would be
nearly as forgiving if either of them were women.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Well no, and on that point, and we've got Amelia here,
so I'm exploiting that fact. Riddle me this, Amelia. If
we look over to America in this regard right, broadly speaking,
the right, the MAGA right, well not necessarily the Maga right,
but the traditional Republican right, very big on family values, right,
very big on it. They think that one of the
things that's really gone wrong is we're way too accepting

(13:42):
of different kinds of families, and these pesky single women
without children, the cat ladies and all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
That's what's gone wrong.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
That's what they're saying has gone wrong. And yet some
of their most prominent poster boys, including Elon Musku appears
to be running things with his chainsaw, have very when
I just said before like that, dund and Elbow have
slightly different stories about their family dynamics. This week, he's
embroiled in some kind of paternity situation with a woman

(14:11):
who claims that she's the mother of his thirteenth child
to four different women. Now, no judgment about that, but
it's clear that he is not involved in a lot
of these children's lives, except for the one that he
likes to roll out as age.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Judge him a little bit.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
I think that's okay, Yes, except for the one he
likes to roll out as a prop. And then we
know famously he has a daughter he doesn't speak to
because she is trans. And she said, this week, I
keep finding out I've got new siblings on the internet.
There's been six now, six different siblings that she's found
out about on the internet. Riddle me this then, So
how the conservative right family values people like this is

(14:47):
very cha on it.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
It's such a good question, Holly, and I was musing
on it as you were speaking. And it's almost as
though the left and the right have changed sides, because
you think back to the nineties and Bill Clinton's affair
with Monica Lewinsky, and it was the right, it was
the Republicans who said, this betrays a lack of family values.
We can't trust him in the White House when he's
doing this in his private life. And it was the

(15:10):
left who said, oh, forget about it, it was consensual.
There's nothing to see him. Move along. Now. What's interesting
is that the American left has now revised that opinion
on the Lewinsky situation. They point to the power and
balance between the president and an intern as saying that
it could never be a fully consensual dynamic between the
two of them. And it's the right now who have

(15:32):
decided that everyone's private lives don't matter in politics. And
I was trying to think, why did that happen and
when did it happen? And I think you can trace
it to the election of America's first black president. And
that was when the right really lost their minds and
decided that in order to gain back power, they had
to prioritize political power above everything else in a way

(15:54):
they never had before. Josh W. Bush lots of criticisms
of him, lots of unnecessary wars, but largely played within
the rules and the norms that had been set through
many decades of American political life. But come Obama, that's
when the Republicans decided they weren't going to play by
the rules anymore. They weren't going to play by the
rules in politics, and they were going to discard the
moralistic rules that they had in private. You just have

(16:17):
to look at the fact that the Christian right in
the US has thrown their lot behind Donald Trump, a
man who has we've talked about many times, is not
exactly opposed to boy for Family values, because all they
want is a nationwide abortion man, and they've decided that
it doesn't matter who gets them there or what they
do in their private life. The goal is the important thing,
the endpoint.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
So I wonder if we've over emphasized if there's a
bit of a myth about how much people actually care
about who you are and what your story is. For
Albo and Dutton, I do think that there are features
of their story that deeply matter. I think that Alberizi,
when he talks about his narrative and growing up in
council housing, that is part of who he is and
how he projects his values. For Peter Dutton, I think

(16:57):
being a police officer for a decade that matters and
it's relevant. But do I need to know that Albernesi
likes to watch Netflix with Jodie.

Speaker 4 (17:05):
I'd love it, to be honest, Those kind of details
tell me a lot about you.

Speaker 5 (17:10):
What does it tell you?

Speaker 4 (17:11):
It tells me what kind of person you.

Speaker 5 (17:13):
Are, which you want?

Speaker 3 (17:15):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
I think you're being disingenuous. How can you really say
that it doesn't matter how you don't care at all
how anyone lives their life, what they like, what they watch,
what they don't want to, who they live with, who
their friends are, what they like to eat for dinner.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
It doesn't matter at all.

Speaker 5 (17:30):
Of course, this is so far.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
I think about when you're creating a character and all
the little things that you pull in to tell a
story about that person. This is what they're doing, is
they're telling you a story about them, and some of
it's authentic, like the fact that he is the uncoolest
DJ you've ever seen. I don't think he'd make that
shit up, right. And the thing about Dutton is his
job is different. He has to convince people, because there

(17:54):
is a narrative out there about him that he is
some kind of robot. He has to convince people that
he is a human being. Whereas the elbows maybe a
little bit too.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
As it's going to dictate how they run a country.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
I'm a citizen, but we're also going to know that right,
Like the policy is out there, but people glaze over
when you talk about policy. You want to find it
go to that they will be talking about that endlessly.
They also have to color in some of the gaps.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
I worry that this is like the celebrification of politics
and it's.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
Been there forever.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Like I think that every Australian Prime minister has been
in the weekly if they were invited with their wife,
with their kids, and personally I find it more refreshing
that now instead of on the stage, it's just cookie cutter, like,
you know, this is my wife, we've been married since
we were twenty. Here are my beautiful children. Now we're
seeing some different versions.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Of that, and it is a trap Jersey I agree
that way, but there's a trap the other way. You
see what's happening in the US now where you do
have one side that has decided it doesn't matter what
politicians are like as people. And just to bring up
one example, Pete Hegseth, who was in charge of the
Department of Defense. He had his confirmation hearings. Recently his
own mother sent him an email that leaked saying that
he was an abuser of women. He has acknowledged a

(19:04):
drinking problem and has been seen in Washington, DC drinking
region and tonics for breakfast, which is two more and
i'd have a breakfast, and he has what some have
called the white supremacist tattoo, but apparently relevant now.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
This is all about character.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
Right in a moment? Is it okay to bitch about
your friends? We've got some thoughts about the trio friendship
in the latest season of The White Lotus.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Whether or not you're watching The White Loatus, you can't
look at a screen this week without seeing the faces
of three female friends. They are Laurie, Jacqueline, and Kate,
and they all swan into reception on episode one of
the very popular, very successful Prestige TV show in their
designer caftans in a cloud of you look fabulous and

(19:48):
with big cocktail energy. Jacqueline is a Hollywood actress. She's
married to a hot, younger man. Kate's career is unclear,
but she is married to a high profile rich man
in Austin, Texas. And Laurie is a lawyer and a
single mum who lives in New York. They're all wealthy
and conventionally beautiful, although Jacqueline is clearly paying for everything,
and there's a possibility that Laurie hasn't had botox.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
Don't tell anyone.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
If you're super keen to dive into white lotus. We
did do a whole episode about that for subscribers yesterday,
but even if you've never seen it, what these three
characters have sparked is a conversation about female friendships. Because
what's quickly revealed, particularly in the first few minutes of
episode two, is that these old old friends, who apparently
have all known each other since they were nine and
they went to school together, are on a girl's trip,

(20:35):
and who hasn't been on one of those? And they
are not quite the mutual cheerleaders they appear. Here's a
little bit of their girl talk.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
I know you said, she agreed, Wow, she does, but
she also looks tired. Don't you think a little down?
He's a drinking She did drink like a whole bottle tonight.

(21:05):
I just love her so much.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Welcome to the birth of a one thousand memes hot
takes about toxic female friendships and ponderings about whether female friendship,
which is so exalted in our culture, is really just
a passive, aggressive smoke screen hiding all our insecurities. Jesse,
have you been Kate Jacqueline Laurie?

Speaker 3 (21:25):
I absolutely have, and I was watching this the other
night with Luca, who paused it and said, this is
what I struggle with when it comes to female friendship
and interesting, just to be like clear, Lucas spends a
lot of time with women, like he works in a
female office, and you know, a lot of our friends
and everything of women, so he has definitely seen signs

(21:48):
of this behavior.

Speaker 5 (21:49):
But we were.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
Talking about it and I said, they are not my
friendships anymore, Like, I totally recognize it. That's why I
think that it's brilliant. I have been part of it.
I have had that feeling of you can nearly hear
what they're saying about you as you leave the room,
of someone attempting intimacy with you by bitching about outsider, Like,

(22:11):
totally recognize that. But I don't think that this is
some universal truth about female friendships. I think it's a
specific type. But it was funny because I was speaking
to my mum about it this morning. I said, you know,
I don't recognize it as much anymore, and Mum said, oh, no,
they're not my friendships either.

Speaker 5 (22:28):
Except for Suzanne.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
You know what Suzanne's like.

Speaker 5 (22:31):
And I was like, it's a little bit of.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
What I'm rolling my eyes at you so hard. All
female friendships are like this.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
Really absolutely I worry about and I was like, maybe
I'm just the lorry. It's just not like and I'm
just totally naive, not knowing.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Susan, I'm Japan exactly. We should mention that you changed
the name. Surely you've been in that group chat where
you've said something and then there's a little bit of
silence in the group chat and you can practically hear
everyone else going on to the other group chat to
talk about you and the insane thing you just said.

(23:13):
Maybe that's just me. No, no, no, absolutely, And I think
I'm here to kind of defend this instinct amongst women,
which seems like a tall order, but hear me out.
I think what we're essentially talking about is gossip. And
you're essentially saying that women don't gossip about their friends
if they're mature or nice, which I don't think is true.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
I think they gossip, but I think that what is
underlying this gossip is a very specific thing.

Speaker 5 (23:36):
But continue.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
I think that the reason why women gossip is two reasons.
The first is that women have to put up with
maintaining relationships much more than men do. To put it
another way, maintaining friendships and relationships is more important to
a lot of women than it is to a lot
of men. And one way that you can maintain and
upkeep relationships is by sharing information, particularly information that is

(24:00):
prized because it is rare, or it is secret or
not a lot of people know it. That's what gossip is. Essentially,
it's a way of fast tracking intimacy. So that's the
first reason why I think women do it. The second
reason why I think women do it is because information
for women can be really valuable, and of course it
can be for men too. But let me give you
an example again from Pete. Hegseth because he isn't actually

(24:22):
except the opposite of Ye. Yeah, I know. His sister
in law came out and said that she knew a
safe word that his wife had told her. And she
came out with this because that's a fact, and it
shows that this woman is in an abusive relationship. Now,
the way you get to talk about things like this
is you have to open the floodgates. You have to
share intimate information with your friends. And in some lights, sure,

(24:45):
you could say talking about someone else's marriage is gossip,
but in some ways, it can often really be a
way of ensuring that your friends are safe.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
But and that's the thing, that's the intention, right, So absolutely,
if there was a situation where I thought that my
friend was marrying an awful person, if I thought that,
if I was worried about them, absolutely I might go
to someone else and say that, And that might genuinely
be coming from a place of concern in this instance,

(25:13):
it isn't. I keep looking at these three women and
going you don't like each other. You fundamentally don't like
each other. You don't have that much in common. And
the reason they have to keep going behind each other's
backs is because nothing they say to each other's faces
is true.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
So why are they hanging out if they don't like you?

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Because of a shared history. And I think there's something
specific here about maybe people you went to school with
and the dynamics of a group you went to school with,
because you're sort of the thing you're attracted to is
the history and the mythology and the story that you've
got that you've been friends from school. You've actually grown
up in totally different directions and you don't know each

(25:52):
other anymore. They don't know why the friend is divorced.
If they could sit there and just go, my marriage
fell apart because I cheated, or I have an alcohol problem,
or actually my career is not going that well, then
they wouldn't be craving that gossip behind the scenes. I
think that that's they're craving the intimacy because it's not
happening with the three of them.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Also, the picture we're being painted here is a three
very sort of aspirational women who look on the outside
like everything is perfect. Like that's why the main thing
they say to each other all the time is.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
You look amazing, you look amazing. You Like it's just
over and over.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
It's all about the outside, right, and they're not really
interested in the inside. I think you're both right because
I think that way more female friendships than we like
to acknowledge are exactly like this. I know I've been
those people. I know I've been those people who are
like going, oh, you know, it's so great to be
with you, and I love you so much, But then
you know there's someone will be like she looks a

(26:47):
bit and you're like like that, We've all been there, right.
I personally have rules about which I think whether or
not I'm prepared to gossip about you probably tells you
whether or not you're really a good friend, do you.

Speaker 4 (26:57):
Know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Like, because people always want to know. We've got to
remember in this dynamic, one of them is famous, right,
Jacqueline is famous and super successful, and so she's always
going to be at the top of the leaderboard to
use a meaning, right, And I recognize this because I
have some Jacquelines in my life.

Speaker 4 (27:14):
They're called Mea and Jesse and.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Have an argument.

Speaker 4 (27:19):
We're all Jacquelines to appointment anyway, I wish, I wish.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
But anyway, people will always if they meet me, get
to know me, like they're friends and friends, they're in
my circle somehow, they want information about you guys. Right,
They'll be like, is Mia, do they really like each other?
That must be so weird working with your mother. Well, obviously,
that must be so weird working with your mother in law.
And you know they're just chip chip chip, chip chipping,
and they're thinking maybe if she has another wine, like

(27:43):
you know what I mean? Like that they'll get some
gossip closed door policy on that for me, right, absolutely not.

Speaker 4 (27:50):
And so but you know, with Mia and Jesse, I
will gossip.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
About it about each other too. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
But also.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
And it's like a very good friend of mine who
went through a divorce. Everybody else in the circle, how
she doing, what's really the story about that divorce? Like
dig dig dig no closed book, absolutely, but within the
little finds a very close friendship group.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
Of course you will talk about that.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
That's where people ask why they're getting divorced, how she's doing, etc.
Divorce is one of those things where it is about
information sharing, and when people hear that someone has gotten divorced,
they want to make sure they avoid that fate themselves.
That's why they're digging for information.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
There's that I think the question of are these people
and I'm part of friendship groups that you know, might
be from my past or whatever, where if I'm honest
with myself, I've gone, these people aren't rooting for you.
They in fact, a lot of their behavior suggests they
don't actually like you, which is an awful realization, but
you go, they're just not. You can tell when someone's

(28:47):
rooting for you, and these women aren't. And you know, Holly,
you're talking about MEA and me and you, And I'm
sure that there's elements and dynamics that can be complicated.

Speaker 5 (28:59):
But are you rooting for each other? Yes? Yes, So
if there's a thing behind your back where.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
It's like, oh, do you think that me is a
bit stressed at the moment, You're not saying it to
under mine her or to create some little gang behind
her back. It's actually there's kind of faux concern, and
then there is genuine.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yes, because there are times when you do need to
say to somebody, do you think that this person who
I love needs some help? Like, there are times when
you need to do that, and you have to pick
very carefully who that person is. The thing that's interesting
about this is what Lucas said when he saw it,
and he said, this is one of the things I
have trouble with about women. I totally understand what he means,

(29:38):
because this dynamic, like Mike White, who writes White Loatus,
is very clever, and I'm sure it's going to go
in all kinds of interesting directions, but it is a
very familiar trope.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
You know.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
I was thinking about how when Harry met Sally is
like can men and women really be friends? I think
there's a question of like can women and women really
be friends, Like we are constantly pitted in competition with
each other, who's more beautiful, who's got fewer wrinkles, who's richer,
who's got a hot husband, who's got like and it's
like this constant and professional success. Of course, I mean
it's a well worn trope, but I think there's truth

(30:08):
to it, is that we've alway been convinced there isn't
enough to go around for us, so we have to try.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Can competitiveness coexist with friendship? Do you think, like, if
you're feeling genuinely competitive, I'm thinking about my really really
close friends, and I'm a very competitive person. I don't
feel competitive with them. Is that like, do you think
that that's something that because here you can see that
they're all competing for various things, Like is this a

(30:32):
trope or is this a genuine reflection of female friendship.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
I think they're competing, but not necessarily in the way
that we're discussing here. I think they're competing with each
other for intimacy. And there's a dynamic with girls trips
where they tend to be with people who you maybe
don't see every day. That's why you're going on a trip.
With them, and you have to catch up on all
these months or years of daily chats in a very

(30:57):
intense three day period or what have you. And I
think that one way to get there is to sort
of immediately start with the existential questions. Is this person okay?
Does this person have a drinking problem? What's this person's
marriage like? And it's almost like that's the dynamic of
a girl's trip. You often get to the heart of
things a little too quickly.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
And when someone, even just one of them, let's the
perfect story go, because they're all trying to tell each
other perfect stories about how life is. If just one
of them were to let that go, then I think
the quality of the friendship would just skyrocket.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Okay, I've got a bit of news to share with
you both, but I do want to remind you that
this show is about disagreeing respectfully. I we agree on that, okay,
and let's not resort to name calling. So I know
you don't have some strong opinions. A viral video this
week has raised a burning question, Can you reserve a
parking spot with your physical body?

Speaker 4 (31:53):
Explain?

Speaker 5 (31:54):
Absolutely not? Absolutely do so.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
A short clip which was understood to have been filmed
at Melbourne's chad Stone shopping center last week. It was
a very very busy day in the car park and
a woman is standing in a car park spot reserving it.
A driver says, you can't blow coffee spot like that,
And then another car, this one with pea plates. It
always needs to be a pea plate driver in any
kind of story like this, cruises by declaring this is insane.

(32:18):
Before as news dot com dot you put it the
clip abruptly.

Speaker 4 (32:23):
I don't want to think about what happened next. It's
going to be a riding prompt and then.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
The clip may end abruptly. But the debate continues to rage.
What do you think, hol you spend a lot of
time in your car?

Speaker 2 (32:35):
I know, no, it's not fair because there is nothing
more stressful than shopping center car park. It is the
setting for every drama, right, every drama.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
It's like, did use the next white load?

Speaker 4 (32:48):
They need to just scrap the whole luxurious.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Resort go downstairs at Westfield, like the fumes are a lot,
but it's a really good idea.

Speaker 4 (32:58):
The people who work in the.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
Car wash like this.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
But you cannot do that. And I don't think I've
done it.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
But then I was suddenly thinking, I can picture a
world in which I am desperately in a hurry, as
you always are, and I throw my teenage daughter out
of the car and I say.

Speaker 4 (33:16):
Stand there, go find a spot, stand in it and
call me. I can picture that, you know what I mean?
Would it be my best day?

Speaker 1 (33:25):
No?

Speaker 3 (33:25):
I instinctively no, it's not right. But is it enshrined
in law? No, like I think it's frowned upon. But
I think that technically you can probably do it.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
I'm pretty sure Pete hegg Seth would stand.

Speaker 4 (33:40):
Shallum May wouldn't do it.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
I think the worst place is around the beach, right,
because you're driving around everyone's hot, everyone goes at the
same time. And I see people spot someone walking back
from the beach. We're talking two prams, we're talking a
cool cabana, bloody chant, all of these things. They spot
them and they just stop their car and it's like,
you don't knows can take thirty minutes, you don't even
know where they're parked, and you watch them walk towards

(34:03):
a car, unpack it all, and I go.

Speaker 5 (34:05):
No, no, no, we keep driving.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
I think that there's got to be a time limit
probably under two minutes of keeping your car still before like,
you've just got to keep going and give the park
to someone else. Because I even see, like, you know,
the grocery shopping one and someone is like, I'll just
wait for this person to finish their grocery shopping.

Speaker 5 (34:24):
And it's like, I do know. Oh no, no, no, no,
no no.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Not a whole trolley, a handbasket, yes, not a trolley, Amelia.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Look, I live near the beach, I know Crimea River,
and there's a lot of parking issues down there, a
lot of parking issues. I hear the horns honking all
day long, car accidents just waiting to happen, a lot
of pea plates cruising by declaring this is insane. I'm
just the world's worst parker. I couldn't park in most
of these spots, honestly, I'm just looking for the one

(34:53):
that's the easiest to park.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeahs, I often have the shameful oh reverse park, can't
do it?

Speaker 5 (34:58):
Keep going And I'm like, nah, you haven't.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
After the break is the Hollywood red carpet sending a
dangerous message about the latest trend.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
One unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday
and Thursday exclusively for Muma Mea. Subscribers follow the link
in the show notes to get us in your ears
five days a week. And a huge thank you to
all our current subscribers, from Ariana Grande to Demi Moore.
Skeletal celebrities ascending out a dangerous message. No, that is

(35:34):
not a headline from the nineties. It is pulled from
the Telegraph UK and it was published yesterday. This week,
the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which we've already talked about,
or the SAgs, took place in la and the language
to describe the women, in particular walking the Red Carpet
felt like it belonged to a totally different time. I
read articles about lollipop ladies who were scarily thin, likening

(35:58):
the bodies of most of the stars to the coffee
and cigarettes phyzekee of the nineteen sixties. The working theory,
and it's one we've talked about on this show before,
especially around award season, is that weight loss injections have
transformed Hollywood. A raft of celebrities have spoken on the
record about their use of the drugs, sharing both positive
and negative side effects.

Speaker 5 (36:20):
But anyone with.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Eyes can see that the bodies on red carpets have
changed as well as Grande and more. The bodies of
Selena Gomez, Brookshields, and Georgina Chapman were all described as
having dramatic transformations. I have a theory about what our
actual issue is with these women, and I don't think
it's that they're on weight loss drugs. But first, Emilia,

(36:44):
should we even be having this conversation in the first place,
so were allowed to talk about women's bodies.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
Of course we have to be able to have this conversation.
There has been a drastic recalibration of bodies on the
Red carpet, and to not talk about it would be
a kin to gas lighting. It really takes me back
in time to the two thousands when the Lollipop Ladies
made an appearance previously, and at that time we weren't
allowed to talk about it, and so women just had
to look at these images and process them themselves in silence.

(37:12):
I really hope we don't have to do the same
thing this time, Holly. I know this probably raises memories
for you at that time.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
I did a lot of talking about it because this
makes me feel like I am back at work fifteen
years ago, because I was working gossip mags through that.
You can drink about that, because I did bring up
a bit. I worked in gossip mags, then drink and
it was peak size zero mania. And the thing that
I am telling myself all the time at the moment,

(37:38):
because in those days, we chose the skinniest looking images
of actresses like Calista Flockhart, Deborah Messing, Porscha de Rossi,
Nicole Ritchie like. We would choose the absolute skinniest frames
of them, the ones where it looked most like the
bones were protruding. It was great if there were shadows
underneath their you know, their shoulder blade or on their

(37:59):
collar bone, and we would crop them in a certain
way to put them in lots of space so that
we could say scary skinny fears for right. The thing
that's complicated about this, because that is true that was
abhorrent behavior. I'm not proud of it, right, is that
we were OBJECTI finding these women, we were concerned trolling,
not that we had that word.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
Then about the.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Delightfully passive fears four Yeah, fears four all the time?

Speaker 3 (38:21):
Right, that's so worried.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Yeah, we are so worried, and we are back there
right now. We thought that that kind of culture had gone.
But one of the things that's really important to bear
in mind while we talk about how awful it is
that we're seeing headlines like this again, is that ten
to fifteen years after the height of a lot of
that stuff. And if you go back and look at
late nineties TV, think Desperate Housewives Friends Ali mcbeale as

(38:43):
I said, the women are so thin that it is distracting.
It is so distracting, right, And most of those women
since then have given interviews and spoken about it and said, yes,
they was a culture that encouraged eating disorders. They were
so unhealthy it affected their weight. Portia Rossi talked about
how it was an unusual at all to have a
treadmill in your changing room at work, and that you

(39:04):
were encouraged to run on that all the time.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
A lot of those women are on the.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Record talking about the pressure to be that in and
how damaging it.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
Was for their bodies.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
So here we are again, after a brief decade of
what we liked to call body positivity, where we were
supposedly more accepting of different shapes, and of course the
popular narrative that the Kardashians changed the trend. Now the
trend is swung back. Whether it's weight loss injections, whether
it's not, doesn't really matter. We're back to skinny, skinny, skinny.
The conversation is exactly the same. And yet we're not

(39:34):
supposed to say that some of these women might be
doing dangerous things.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yes, so I think we know now that the fears
four We're so worried was not true. But it was true,
but it was a smoke screen for basically pointing a
finger at a woman and say, look, one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
But then ten years on that woman was saying, yeah,
I was really sick.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
So look, this is my theory because I was reading
a few articles about this yesterday, and I was reading
a piece in the Telegraph by Susanne Moore, and I
thought that this paragraph was particularly revealing. It said, now,
so remove the excess skin from sudden weight loss and
fill in the haunted hollows of ozebic face. Sure, everyone
wants to look their best, but these women do not

(40:18):
look their best. They look breakable. And this is the
undercurrent of so much of the commentary, and I think
it sort of betrays our real issue with thin women
on the red carpet, which is you don't even look
pretty like that's and it feels like we're in high
school again. And it's the same with surgery. We love
the story of a woman who tried to look better

(40:39):
but only looked worse.

Speaker 5 (40:40):
It's like the whole it's the plot of the substance, right.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Well, we also like it when really rich people tell
us they're miserable. It's like whatever we've been told that
we should want. And every woman, particularly of a certain generation,
has been told that she should be thin, maybe not
scary thin, yeh, in verticommas because you can definitely be
too thin and verticommas. But generally speaking, we've been told
we should be smaller. Yeah, we should be perfect, we

(41:03):
should be thin, nobody fat but healthy.

Speaker 5 (41:06):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
But we've all been told that we should want it.
We should want It's where the status is. It's the
differentiation between the ordinary people and the beautiful people is
whether you're thin or not. So there's almost like a
delight to be able to go.

Speaker 4 (41:18):
Well, look it doesn't.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
You took it too far and you don't even have
control because we're pretending that this is a moral panic
about weight loss injections. But Kathy Bates, for example, has
recently lost a lot of weight. She's on the record
talking about it. Weight loss injections were part of it.
The headlines about her, well, we love that because she's
not overweight anymore, and so everyone starts going we love

(41:39):
them in that context, but then when we see people
using them in a way, it's like, all we ultimately
want is for women to be pretty, and it's when
they're not that we start stomping our feet.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
That's true, But interestingly, that narrative directly reflects the general
narrative about weight loss injections, which is that we approve
of it being used when it's for health and for
people who may have struggled with obesity and have been
prescribed it by a doctor. We don't generally approve of it.
When I say we, I don't mean me, you, Amelia.
I mean culturally and also the medical institution. To be honest,

(42:10):
we don't really approve of it if it's just to
get in address for your wedding.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
There's also another thing going on here. I agree that
we see these cycles again and again, but this time
there's been a democratization of weight loss. Now, that could
have gone in any number of directions. In fact, when
these weight loss drugs, this new generation of them, first
came out, I had this somewhat idealistic view that it
would take away the fetishization of thinness, because if it
was so easy to become thin, maybe we'd get over

(42:35):
it as a society and decide it wasn't actually the
most important thing in the world. But instead, what we've
seen is almost the reverse of that. It's almost like
now that anyone can be thin, the stakes for how
thin you should be have been upped.

Speaker 5 (42:49):
And also if you're not, then why not?

Speaker 3 (42:51):
And I worry that there's just this new wave of
total fat phobia, which I mean has always existed that
never went away. To suggest it has would be so naive.

Speaker 4 (43:01):
It's true.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
You used to be able to tell the difference. If
you watch an Oscars red carpet, for example, you know
how anytime a star turns up, she's got her publicist,
she's got her stylists, she's got her manager, she comes
with an entourage, right, and you could always tell who's
the celebrity, the icon, and who are the civilians by
the fact that the celebrity was a lot thinner, right,
But now that all the well paid hangers on of

(43:22):
Hollywood can also access Thinness. To Amelia's point, and again,
I know we're talking about this in a slightly simplistic way,
as if weight loss injections are no big deal or whatever.
I don't mean that, But now that Thinness is more
accessible to those people, then you're right, Amelia. It's like
then the person who's special in inverted commas has to
still look majorly differentiated from the civilians, from the ordinary people.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
There was also a story that came out this week
of a singer named Avery in the US, and she
was not overweight, didn't get prescribed by her doctor, but
has said I have an eating disorder and took her
ZMPIC for about a year, and she's spoken about how
I think just in the last few weeks she's been
diagnosed with osteoporosis. So we're also going to have a

(44:08):
wave of people who are using it not for the
medical purposes, who weren't prescribed it. Who I think, you
know there are going to be side effects.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
I think we'll have a replay of exactly what I
was describing before about at the time when Deborah Messing
was on Will and Grace and she was shrinking before
our eyes, she was telling everybody she was fine, nothing
to see here. Ten years later she was giving interviews saying,
I was absolutely pressured. I couldn't fit into the samples
sizes in the dressing room, so I had to keep
getting smaller, smaller, smaller, and it damaged her health and

(44:39):
her self image. In ten years we'll be reading the
same interviews, but maybe we will again. I know there's
a lot of assumption here with people who will be saying,
remember when we first discovered weight loss injection drugs and
everybody just stopped eating well.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
Sharon Osborne has also come out and said that she
didn't like the way her face looked after she went
on weight loss drugs, and that's also behind this huge
uptick in facial filler that people are getting as a
result of weight loss drugs. The Ft reported on that recently.
I want to inject, sorry about that pun. One more
theory into the conversation here, which is is it possible

(45:12):
that with this whipplash we're seeing with bodies, we're seeing
something a little bit like fast fashion, except now it's
fast bodies. So five years ago, a relatively covacious look
was in BBL. Surgery was all the rage, and that
was the aesthetic. And now just within five years we've
had this huge pendulum swaying back to what Holly might

(45:33):
have called scary skinny. And I wonder if it's because
we can all wear dupes of high fashion now we've
got all the fast fashion retailers. So clothing can't differentiate
the special from the ordinary. But what can differentiate celebrities
and special people and rich people is the ability to
hew their body to whatever body shape is in fashion.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Absolutely, I think it remains, and I know there'll be
people listening to this who are annoyed with us for
talking about it. They don't like us talk about women's bodies,
and they don't like us generalizing about weight, and I
totally understand that, but I think to where we started
this conversation, you can't ignore it anymore that the fashion
has changed. And we've talked a lot on this show

(46:13):
about how infuriating it is that women's bodies are subject
to fashion like boobs are in, boobs are out, bombs
are in, bums out, and you're like, well, damn it.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
I've still got boobs.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
You know, whatever it is, you cannot argue that skinny
is not back.

Speaker 4 (46:25):
And we've been through it before. What did we learn?
You know?

Speaker 3 (46:28):
I think I would argue though that lollipop heads, scaletal, scary.
None of those words are helpful or do any good
in changing the conversation about women's relationships with their body.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
And they just turned down munition to people who want
to mock and denigrate. I agree. A massive thank you
out Louders for being here with us. Of course, it's
going to be a massive week next week. We've still
got our Friday episode to come, of course, but it
is the Oscars on Monday, yes, and Megan's show drops.
I'm not going to be able to sleep between here

(46:59):
and next week.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
When you hear me on Friday, I'll be like Holly
has cleaned her diary.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
It's a big way. It's excited.

Speaker 5 (47:05):
It's a Holly Olympics.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Thank you Amelia Lester for filling in for our me
to thanks for having me always a pleasure, and of
course for filling in for me last week. Thank you
to the out Louders, and thank you to our fabulous
team for putting the show together, we will be back
in your ears tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
Bye bye,

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The Joe Rogan Experience

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Ugly Female Friendships & A New Red Carpet Theory

Stuff You Should Know