You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to Mama Mia. Out loud. What women are actually talking about on Monday, the fourth of August.
I'm Holly Waynwright, I am Jesse Stevens, and I'm Amelia Lester.
In case you missed it, our MEA's on long service leave, and so Amelia Lester is here.
So Maya has been on the show for ten years. Apparently that entitles her to long service sleep. I will say, how long you've been at the company, Holly.
Don't try and get rid of me that easily.
I've been at the company for ten years and I'm starting to bang my I think we should go to produce a roof and say there's a few more of us who are entitled to some late I will say, well at.
The door, exactly after her, No, I'm staying here. You'll have to one gloom me from my seat. On today's show, are.
We in a toxic relationship with Carrie Bradshaw? I asked this important question as ands like that comes to end.
Prince Harry Fretn's legal action over a story that he should definitely just have led us all believe because it made him look really good.
And the latest shapewear for your face. Sometimes when I'm prepping, I come across a theory that is so brilliant and explosive that I think I can't wait to tell you both and I have cracked why this has gone viral and what the aim here is, what the marketing ployer is. I can't wait to tell you, But first images of tens of thousands of Sydney Siders marching across the Harbor Bridge have gone global after a historic pro Palestine demonstration
over the weekend. High profile figures like Julian Assang, Craig Foster, Bob Carr and Antoinette Latoufe all attended, along with politicians Labor, Federal MP Ed Husick and Green Senator Maureen Ferruki. In terms of how many people attended the protest, estimates range from ninety thousand to three hundred thousand, and The Guardian has called it one of the biggest protests in Sydney's history.
What were the stated of the protest?
So it was organized by a group called the Palestine Action Group and The march was called March for Humanity. It was specifically addressing the deliberate starvation of Gazans. They said on their website. There's obviously enormous symbolism with the Hubberbridge, and Melbourne actually had its own protest as well. But I think the reason that these images went so global was because of the iconography of the Harbour Bridge, the
power and Holly. What is the sort of state of things in Australia Because Albanezi obviously saw this protest and there's been news out today about AID and Australia's commitment.
Yeah, so Alba wasn't there and nor was Chrismins the New South Wales premiere, and there was a bit of argument and descent there because I think Chrismins asked his ministers not to go and some of them did, but broadly speaking it was recognized as being a big people push. So after the march, Albanezi announced an extra twenty million in AID to humanitarian agencies in Gaza. Since the October seventh tax, the Australian government has committed over one hundred
and thirty million to humanitarian assistance of civilians there. Now that money goes to different organizations, but their agencies like the UN World Food Program, UNICEF, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and to bodies who are operating with other countries through established trade routes to try and get the aid through. Albanese has also dialed up his rhetoric
a little bit. Today he's announced that he's trying to get a call well it hasn't announced it, but it's been widely reported that he's trying to get a call with Netanya Who this week. Last week he said, we have a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding there and Australia is willing to play our part. That is indeed something that is bringing I think legitimate criticism of the actions of the netinnja Who government. Too many innocent lives have been lost.
This is all building speculation that maybe Albanzi will be following the lead of some other countries like the UK, Canada and France in moving to recognize Palestine as a state. It's actually been Labor Party policy since twenty eighteen to recognize Palestine as a state, and now it's being reported it's much more of a question of not if, but when.
But the coalition meanwhile say that any recognition could only come after a sustained period of peace, the return of the remaining hostages, And it has to be said, there was harrowing footage released this weekend of two of those hostages looking emaciated. It was very distressing and the demilitization of Hamas Amelia. What difference will it make for Palestine to be recognized in this way.
Yeah, so while it won't make much of a practical difference, certainly not in the short term. I think it is aimed at getting Ntnyahu back to the negotiating table and getting the US back to the negotiating table too. And there are still lots of open questions like what territory these countries such as France and Britain and Canada, as you mentioned, what territory are they recognizing as Palestinian and also who's going to govern Gaza. These are open questions.
But nonetheless, the fact that these world leaders are doing this and are recognizing Palestine, I think indicates that there's been an international tipping point on this issue in the last couple of weeks, and I think it's clear that that's been occasioned by the images of famine coming out of Gaza. In fact, both French President Macron and British Prime Minister Stama both mentioned those images when they announced
that they would be recognizing a state of Palestine. And it's interesting that the very day that President Macran made this announcement, the United States and Israel, who were still very much in tandem, walked away from peace talks, from ceesfire talks and Katar Netanna who accused her mass of not acting in good faith. But nonetheless, the ceasefire talks
have been stalled for a long time. And now the fact that world leaders are pressuring net Nonya, who might mean that the parties are more willing to come to the table and find some common ground and end this war.
As always, for more on this story, please listen to our twice daily news podcast, The Quickie Changing Pace. The Logis happened last night. I know this is a characteristically holly thing to bring. I would like to talk about the love. You know what we don't usually see at
the logis. We usually don't see an A list star actively campaigning to not win the Gold Logi, which remains even in this and we could talk for ages about the fragmented era of television and how freedom are is dead and blah blah blah, but people still like the logis. People click on the logis on Mamma Mia and other news sites. They want to see whether or not indeed
Hamish Blake was going to win. And that was this year's conundrum because he was the sole man nominated for a gold among there were five women, and Hamish, has that ever happened before. It has never happened before, and it's usually a real sausage fest, the whole Gold Logi situation. The other nominees were Ali Langdon, Julia Morris, Lisa Miller,
Poling yow Sonya Krueger, and Lynn McGranger. This is what Hamish had to say when he got up earlier in the show before the Gold Logi was announced to present some award with Sophie Monk. He had to say this, we have to address the elephant in the room.
Yep, yes, no, yeah, You're.
Up for the Gold Loggi along with six other women, and it just would have been like this beautiful moment to have all.
Women I know, I know, and then you're just like kind of.
There, yeah, yeah, I'm sort of like the drunk uncle in the bridesmaid's photo, just thinking he's a legend. Yeah, do you reckon?
It's a good look if you win.
No. No, I don't what a unique position to be in to fear the win, because I mean, unless I'm reading the room wrong, I just don't know if anyone's like, let's hear it from middle aged white guys, be awesome to see you crash through the pack. Yep, well there's what she's thank you, seat filler.
He just can't help himself but be adorable. Never wait, anyway, I buried the lead because he didn't need to worry.
He did not win. Lynn McGranger one, she has been on Home and Away for thirty three years and she's retiring this year, and Sampang made a whole joke about how no one knows how she's gonna let's just say die, because she might not die, she might exit, but he said maybe it will be in a or do you mean die on the show is and everyone's assuming the way she's going to get written out will be some like cataclysmic event.
Better.
Pang made a gag about how it should be during an orgie with the under twenty one of a PI League team, but it probably won't be anyway, she won the Gold.
I love what Lynn said in her speech about how that show has employed writers and actors for that many years, especially at a time when it's you know, really fickle. It's really difficult for people to get work, and the best TV writers that I've met work on that show and write brilliant scripts and it pays the bills, and like that's you know, whether you want to kind of make fun of the show for being a soap, like
it's been such a staple of Australian television. But on Hamish, I just from the moment he got nominated, he said, made the best woman win. He did not want that award to be someone who has won enough awards, because he's won the Gold Logi twice, all right, so he just always gets nominated. Yeah, and he won another one for all the time.
Although very exciting for me because I know that maybe this says something really tragic about the demographic that I'm in. But a lot of my favorites got up at the Logis last night. Muster Dogs, Hello, can you love that show? Beat, Lego Master's Beat, all the things. Lisa Miller was up there. She was nearly crying. It was a glorious moment for
little doggies all over the nation. Their little paws were clapping together, and they were going out and rounding up extra sheep to show them their LOGI it was a big deal.
I hope they got a bonus.
A bonus.
Oh my god, I didn't even think of that. That was my hate PNS.
I'm so sorry.
Please cuttings day.
Excited about Fisk Awards and Kitty Flannagan was fabulous every time she got up. And my mate Guy Montgomery from guymont Spelling be got Best New Talent, which is kind of funny because I think he's at least thirty five.
I have a brief fashion note. Hamish didn't win, but I love to his wife's dress. Soory Foster Blake's dress. I thought it was exceptional, conceptual.
Yeah, and I also loved that she was like, just to be clear, I also don't want Hamish to win, like, I don't want him anywhere near that award. And also a shout out to Bluey most watch show in the entire world.
Sometime was very funny. He made some great gags and we'll be unpacking the logis in a bit more detail on an episode for subscribers tomorrow. But he made the edgiest joke of the night about Blue that I think made the room go because he said it's the most streamed children's show in America after an instructional video about school shootings.
He's probably not wrong.
I think that's actually quite a good joke.
Just like that couple you know who are forever breaking up and getting back together again, the Carrie Bradshaw story we're told is ending, but for real, this time for real. In a statement released on Friday, the showrunner of the show, Michael Patrick King, shared that the Sex and the City universe would be ending with the third season of unjust like that, which means we just have two episodes left
to so all of our Carrie needs. In what may or may not have been a coded message, Kim Katrell, who played Samantha in the original series and famously sat out and just like that, posted a picture of a sunset on Friday night with the caption it's been a very long week.
You know what I noticed. I'm sure we're going to talk about what SJP posted this long tribute. But Kim Cattrell featured in a lot of the imagery in that that she posted was nice.
Okay, Okay, I feel like you want to believe that Sarah Jessica Parker is reaching out to came in that. I also noticed I was interested in whether she was depicting Chris Noth at all big in the montage, and he made it in twice.
Yeah.
Over the weekend, though, my group chats really lit up, not with Michael Patrick King's announcement, but with Sarah Jessica Parker's follow up to it. It was a somewhat self indulgent spoken word poem. I'm just going to call it set to a montage of highly flattering picks of Carrie. Let's just hear a little bit of it now.
She crossed streets, avenues, rubercuns, so it seemed she broke hearts, heels, habits, she loved, lost one, tripped.
Tripped, tripped.
See that wasn't That wasn't Sarah Jessica Parker who wrote that or said that that was Carrie? Like that was so encaraged.
Okay, that's exactly the problem that I want to talk about, Jesse. But before we get to that, I would be remiss if I did not mention the online chatter, you know the stuff I'm talking about, Holly, about whether the show was jumped or whether it pushed. Basically, did HBO Max cancel the show or did in fact Michael Patrick King and Sarah Jessica Parker just come to this conclusion as they were working on the final episodes of this season. We'll never know the answer to that, but let's face it,
the show was horrible. Spoiler, This show was horrible and I loved it. But Holly, I think we're in a toxic relationship with Carrie. I couldn't help but wonder why we are engaged in the humiliation rich of watching these women.
Look, I was very upset about this. I was very upset about it. I woke up very early on Saturday morning for reasons we don't need to go into. I looked at my phone and I saw this, and then I saw sgp's announcement. That's where i'mkay. I was like, surely not, surely not, not that high quality, low budget show. I can't be getting rid of that now. I genuinely was upset, because you're right, it's a very typically smart and meliately less a point to make that we were
in a toxic relationship with Carrie. I definitely am because the thing that made me really sad about it. I'm not going to argue that, and just like that is brilliant prestige TV. It isn't, but it is certainly no worse than a lot of stuff that I feel Netflix every day. But I on the ending of this universe is worth noting to me because I think that for a generation of women, she is the fictional character I've spent more time with than any other fiction character in
the world. If you think about all six seasons of the TV show, which let's face it, I've watched more than once.
The movie recommended season six to me, and it was a brilliant He's of television perfection.
That show was perfection the movies. That's where the rot said in let's be honest, because when the movie's kicked in, that's where Michael Patrick King, who look us inside as we call him MPK, that's where MBK decided that we needed slapstick in our lives. Remember who could forget like Charlotte shitting herself on Holiday Mexico. Like he suddenly decided
and I've heard him talk on the podcast that. Of course, I also listened to every episode of his favorite thing about the actors is that they can clown, and I say, no clown clowning. The original show was not like that. It was not very slapsticky. It had its moments, but anyway,
I love being with these women. So even though the show is not amazing, I'm speaking for the people like me who sit and refresh on a Friday for the show pop up, and then I indulge in it in a nostalgic escapism that probably isn't this similar to all the middle aged dudes who are buying their Oasis tickets right They know these guys are past their prime. They know the songs aren't gonna sound the same as they did in nineteen ninety four, but this was their youth.
These are their people. I want to know what happens to them.
Okay, I agree with all of that, but they have destroyed the legacy of the show. I love these women just as much as you love these women. I want to make that clear. But what Sarah, Jessica Parker and MPK did with this was let their vanity and let money get in the way of what that show meant to so many people. I had to unlearn these characters. Miranda is all of a sudden a wallflower who was incapable of confrontation. Miranda suddenly, Carrie is a sex colonist.
You can't say the word vagina, and I don't even know what to say about Charlotte and can't myriad facial expressions and her kind of like tad wife Upper east Side existence. That's not what she waste.
Was always that she chased this, I thought, okay as an art. When I saw the memes, I went, oh, Carrie died, like because I didn't see any of that. I don't follow m j K mp K. Honestly, I thought she died, and I was like, Oh, that's sad. I wonder how it happened. But then I went, this is the show that cried finale, right because it cried finale after what two thousand and four. I think when the original show season six, I thought, we said bye. I hate it when people want me to say by
multiple times. It annoys me emotionally. Yes, that happened. Then we watched two films. Bye the film, and then it came back. I guarantee that there is going to be some other iteration, they're going to try and give us a novel or a podcast or something. But when that Lisa Todd Wexley's dad died for the second time, I went come on.
With her stepdad. I have a theory, which is I think that what went wrong is that these three lead actors just wanted to play themselves, and that's what went wrong with I disagree.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Cynthia Nixon in particular is as horrified as anybody about particularly that karaoke scene in this most recent series, because that's not who Cynthia Nixon is. I think blaming the women is wrong.
I have receipts. Cynthia Nixon posted a montage on Instagram. You know how she didn't post in it. He's a math so clearly she's as caught up in all of the internal drama as Sarah Jessica Parker.
But I don't think that's got anything to do with the characterization. I think for those actors, you would be crazy to turn it down. When MPK comes knocking with the big bucks, right, you would be crazy to turn it down. And I agree with you that the show's bed come overblown One of the things I learned listening to that podcast is the amount of money that they spend. There is a puppet in the most recent episode that apparently they had to audition six different propertiers for, you know,
let's not even get into carry shoes. So I think it's overblown. I think it's out of time. We don't want to spend that much money on these kind of shows anymore. And I get all that, but I for one, will be very sad to not be hanging out with Carrie in that bloody beautiful house anymore.
Do you think that Sarah Jessica Parker is embarrassed by what Escha mazzl This has turned into.
Well, we all know because when she was on Howard Stern and she expressed surprise about the aid and licking his hands seat she doesn't watch it that she doesn't watch it, and like SJP, I think understands very much the importance of carrying the culture. But she's a Booker Prize judge like she's I think in her personal life she's an intellectual, right, she is probably not following every episode of it just like that. So maybe it just rather than your theory that they became who they are.
I think it's probably become too far from who they are.
I have another more pressing question about this segment, Holly, you said earlier that you work up really early on Saturday.
Why because my daughter has a job in a bakery. She has to be there at six on the weekends.
You have to drive her.
I have to drive her minutes.
Why don't you go back to bed when you got home?
Well, look I did, but then I was in SJP. He ruined my morning. In a minute. I've got a scorelous royal round up for you. It's been a while in some confusing and disturbing royal news. Prince Harry has publicly distanced himself from the one rumor that he probably should have let live. That he once punched Prince Andrew in the face.
Was the opposite of defamation, Yes.
Exactly, this was burnishing his questionable character and yet too rich today from Harry to the Mail about this, let me explain. There's a new book out about Andrew and his family. Well, it's not actually out yet, it's about to be out, but excerts have started being published in the UK press. It's called entitled The Rise and Fall of the House of York, and as the title might suggest, it's not a puff piece. The journalist who wrote it's
a guy called Andrew Lownie. He's a historian and a journal and he approached three thousand people to talk to him about Andrew. Apparently about ten percent of them said yes, and quite a lot of them have gone on the record, and no one had anything nice to say. Here's a little assessment, just a few little snippets from it, entitled the book says that Jeffrey Epstein told friends about Andrew, we are both serial sex addicts. He's the only person I have met who is more obsessed with pussy than me.
Oh wow. And then there's a whole lot of stuff about how gross he was and inappropriate touching to everyone from my sus to awful jokes. And then apparently he's also very into himself and his overstated sense of importance about being a prince widely corroborated reports that say that whenever he'd go in a room and everyone wouldn't stand up to rise when he entered, because he's supposed to do that. People are really fancy and important in the
royal family. He would say, let's try that again and leave the room and re enter and make sure that everyone would stand and bow. So far, so vile. But then there's a story in here that Andrew was bitching to the other royals about Meghan Markele behind Harry's back back in the day, and that at a family do Harry called him out about it, telling him to say it to his face if he wasn't such a coward, and things got physical and a scuffle broke out and
Andrew apparently ended up with a bloody nose. They also say that Andrew told Harry that his marriage to Meghan Markle would not last more than a month and accused his nephew of going bonkers which is English for crazy, and not doing any due diligence into a past. He openly accused Meghan of being an opportunist and thought she was too old for Harry, adding that his nephew was
making the biggest mistake of his life. This is all supposed to be why Harry punched him in the face, and yet today a spokesperson for Prince Harry for the Duke of Sussex has told People Magazine and other places I can confirm neither of those things. A true, Prince Harry and Prince Andrew have never had a physical fight, nor did Prince Andrew ever make those comments about the
Duchess of Sussex to Prince Harry. My question is, among many questions, why wouldn't Harry just let everyone believe that he punched the worst person than the world in the nose one of.
The words, yeah, I don't think that was a problem. I wouldn't have gone on the record about that. I don't think this is horrific. What we have seen so far from what's in this book is so damning, and I don't think anyone had high opinions of Prince Andrew.
And you know what's so interesting to me about it is that this is a book getting published in the UK, which has the strictest defamation laws of basically anywhere in the world.
There was a like a sports therapist, like a massage therapist. I found what she said really damning. So she was saying that she was in her workplace, really working with Prince Andrew and the comments he would make to her about her body and what sex she enjoyed and when was the last time she had sex, Like it just sounds like that was constant, and it's inconceivable that everyone around Prince Andrew didn't know, like this was clearly an
open secret. And my question, I suppose, is how it took this long, Like did it take him falling so far being so cast out of the Royal family?
Hasn't been cast out of the Royal family. I think that's part of the problem here. He's still going to church services with the family on Christmas.
I think they would like him to go away. To your question of how is this allowed to happen? We know that powerful, wealthy people get away with a lot, right, and in Britain's society doesn't get any more powerful. It gets wealthy yet, but it doesn't get any more powerful and high status in the Royal family and their bad behavior and inverted commerce has been tolerated and enabled and brushed under the carpet forever, you know, since Henry the Eights was chopping off his wife's heads. So I think
that for a long time it was tolerated. I think that when the legal stuff started to happen that could not be pushed away or ignored or denied. Really about what Prince Andrew may or may not have been doing with Epstein and others. They've tried to make him go away quietly, but he is clearly outraged about it and doesn't want to. This book is going to blow up because one of the explanations for why Harry hasn't just gone sure, I punched him in the nose or whatever,
like he's aw awful person. It's because he's really good mates with Andrews. Yes, so those girls didn't ask for their dad to be this awful human, and he's very good friends with Eugenie. But all of that side of the family going to come under a very intense spotlight with this book. It will be very interesting to see what Chils is going to do.
I think you really landed on why Harry came out, because what's interesting about that statement is it says, Okay, he didn't punch him, but also Andrew didn't say these hateful things about Megan, and I think that plays into the idea that he doesn't want Andrew's daughters to face any more scrutiny for things that their father didn't do, because they're going to face enough for what he did do.
They are and they are loyal to Harry. So in the documentary, I remember they kept in a part where Eugenie or Husu, as Harry calls her, was flying into La to meet them. So they've managed to play both.
Sides quite well.
The York girls, as it were, women now both married with kids and everything. And I think that that probably tells us why Harry didn't want to throw more fuel on the fire. But the fire is burning, it's going to be very hard for anyone to get out of there. In other news, one member of the royal family appears at least to have done something normal. Princess Ann's son is getting married Peter Phillips, as he's known because Princess
Ann famously did not give her kids titles. Take note, Harry and Meggs, They're just called Peter Phillips and Zarah Phillips is engaged for the second time and he is marrying NHS Nurse Harriet's Spurling, which seems on the surface to be very normal.
I thought that, and then I read an article.
A little dig yeah, a little bit of digging. She is reportedly a distant relation of the Duke of Gloucester. It is interesting that she once wrote an article for a Christian magazine about being a single mother, and she talks about having struggled and that resources were scarce in that time and everything. So she certainly isn't blue blood royal. But he's got two daughters from his first marriage. They're getting married, and everybody's saying, isn't this lovely and normal?
Yeah? Because I saw the lovely and normal commentary, and then I went deep and I don't know what any of these words mean. But there was a Gloucester. Is that what it's called? Yes, there was that. There was something about a lord of the manner of edgecoat goodness, and there was a first cousin of Princess Alice.
And wasn't edge coat the pile as it were if Pemberley and in the BBC Pride and Prejudice.
Now there you go, there we go.
Yeah. So I don't think she's your averaginess. I think that she has some connection a little bit like, wait, does Kate Middleton have a connection? No, she actually does, Okay, all right, yeah, yeah, yeah, so she's she's not a total outsider normal.
Yeah, being a bit cynical because in one generation. Look, I think it is actually kind of amazing that they both had first marriages, they both have children, from other relationships. It's a blended family in a way that just one generation ago Charles was checking to see whether the Diana was a virgin. We've come a long way, It's true.
After the break, a forensic analysis of the viral skims shapewear that has everyone talking and a merely is demanding a rite of reply, and yeah, she's about to get.
It one unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers. Follow the link at the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week. And a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
This thing happens on the show sometimes when a host is an on that particular show, but they listen because they're loyal, but they find themselves yelling, raising their voice and saying I needed to be on that show because everyone is apparently wrong. And this happens to listeners as well. It's a very relatable experience. I'm sure me is doing it right now. Emily, you had one such experience last week. You were listening to a segment and you went and
hated it. You hated it, you hated it. I would like to give you because we believe in respectful disagreement, don't we, Holly, We do.
We work very hard at that.
We're very open to having our minds changed.
I like to burst in when I've been on holidays, I'll say, Jesse Maya, listen to me.
Listen to me. Well, I would like to give you a platform, Amelia Lester for a write of reply.
It feels good not to be screaming into the void as I take a neighborhood walk listening thank you for giving me a microphone. You were talking last week about Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle Gens campaign. Now loose as I am to give any more attention to what is, after all, a gen's commercial, I must because you were all wrong
on it. So basically, to bring you up to speed, the Hollywood actor Sydney Sweeney modeled some genes in a kind of riff on the Brookshields Calvin Kleine advertisements, talking about how sexy they were and how good they looked, and also how because she has blonde hair and blue
eyes she has good genes. And genes, of course can be spelled two ways, and on one at least one billboard for the campaign, the word genes are spelled ge nes and then crossed out, and then genes we was scrawled underneath it, with the implication that Sydney Sweeney is both wearing a very nice pair of straight leg jeans because they're back, but also she has good genetic material.
There's a lot of context that I think that you all missed in saying that everyone sort of needs to get over the outrage on this, and that is that there's a very big, live debate happening in the United States right now where the ads came out about who gets to be an American, who gets to have that citizenship, and the Trump administration is challenging birthright citizenship in the courts, Immigrations and Customs enforcement is rounding up migrants wearing bandanas
over their faces, and for the first time in recorded history, the US is going to have net zero migration this year, which is kind of extraordinary for a country that valued itself as a nation of people who come from other places. And it's because that speaks to how chilled the environment has become there. This administration is really setting a message that we don't want people to come from other places to America.
So Here's what I'm interested in because I take everything you say and I think on the show, we talked about ice, and we talked about a whole lot of policies that definitely made this ad particularly fraud. My question is whether it was an accident that they touched on this hot button issue or whether it was on purpose. What do you think? Do you think American Eagle knew that this was all bubbling and they went, let's just throw something out that will make this into a viral moment.
It's impossible to overstate how chilled it feels in the US right now. I was just there recently, and whether people are talking about it or not, there's a feeling that the country is changing before everyone's eyes. Now, keep in mind there's at least one hundred and twenty five million Americans who hate what this administration is doing and
feel completely powerless to stop it. So when a company tries to sell genes by tapping into these very sinister, nefarious undertones that are out there, it makes you angry because it makes you think you're trying to sell me genes by also reminding me of these pernicious ideas that are very much circulating around the culture at the moment, and I hate that feeling of being manipulated and of having these very real emotions fear and anxiety and real
sadness about what's happening to the country sort of be sold back to me in the form of genes.
I will say I did think over the weekend. I never call on celebrities to comment like I understand why they don't, but I just thought I would really like Sydney Sweeney to say something.
Well, she did the opposite in a sense, because what actually came out on the weekend is that she registered as a Republican in the US. Basically, when you register to vote, you can pick a party. It's very different from Australia's secret ballot sort of method, and she had picked a Republican after Trump was nominated to run as the Republican nominee a third time, which means she's very much on board with what is happening here.
Skims is making shapeway for your face now and have we all seen the photos? Oh yes, what was your reaction when you first held the photos?
Stylish your surgery bondage.
Got it made me immediately self conscious about my under gen area.
Interesting I didn't need that to make me sound conscious about I see these videos every week. Actually, can I wear I should ask Ruth can I wear one while we're recording, because that would really help things for me.
And it's a little bit Handmad's tail. It also reminded me because this is the only content I consume of the Formula one drivers. The thing they were under their helmet. I'm not letting you guys talk about no more, but it's reminiscent. So what it looks like is sort of a strap that goes under your chin. And if you've ever seen someone after a facelift on you know, one of those shows, I'm sure reality shows have it all the time, where it's kind of the chin strap and
it goes all the way up to their head. Luckily there's space feur ears so you can still.
Hear post surgical bandage.
Exactly right. It looks like a bed.
It's kind of like one floor over the Corcoo's nest meets your son's rugby garb.
Exactly yeah, Hannibal Lecter. So the product is marketed as and this is from the website, our first ever face innovation is here. This must have face wrap boasts our signature sculpting fabric and features collagen yarns for ultrasoft jaw support, velcro closures at the top and nape of the neck allow for easy every day where, so you can take it off and put it back on when you're out about questions.
Questions easy every day where?
Yeah, so if you're at the cafe, so you don't Yeah, so you don't get your.
Things, you meant to be a wearing it while you're asleep.
Well, Holly, it comes into colors because it looks very silly if you have the wrong color skims on your face, wouldn't you? And that's something that Skims has done that's really very cool, is there is diversity and they're kind of acknowledging. So they have one white model and one black model and they have kind of the skims to go. Now. The product retails for eighty eight dollars Australian. It's actually not available here yet, sorry, Amelia. But it did sell
out in the US in hours, is it? Yes?
And as also sell out like Megan's Jam or do we think that means it was really popular?
Question? I mean, look, it absolutely was a viral sensation. A lot of it was mocking, and then a lot of it was saying, as someone who is very on TikTok this, I don't know what they call it. It's kind of like an unmasking, but I keep being served these videos of women getting up in the morning, taking off their mouth tape, taking off their heatless curls, taking off there is like a bandage. I saw a sixteen year old girl doing it. Recently, people are bandaging.
Yep.
It started with face tape and now it's like bandaging. And it's very much marketed at young women like jen Z millenniums.
I don't actually have to worry about their jails.
Yet to get a snatch sort of face.
Two things. Yeah, So the woman behind Skims, as we know, Skims is Kim Kardashian's business, but the woman behind it really is Emigreed. While actually her and her husband Yans so we've talked about them on the show before, Emigreed has this. It's really pushing her entrepreneurial credentials at the moment.
She's got a podcast that drives me a crazy, etc. And she has spoken a lot on her publicity tours recently about what makes Skims so great And what makes the Kardashian so great to work with is that they A they don't get in the way of the experts who actually know what they're doing. B. They have an amazing instinct for viral content. So who could forget the nipple bra. Right when Kim Kardashian came out and she was wearing the bra that had like built in nipples,
at least two news cycles about nipples. Nipples are back, Remember some when Samantha had nipples and sex and the city way we.
Would have talked about it.
Why would you want one of those? Why wouldn't you want one of those? Oh blah blahlah leah, and that went on and on and on, and Emmagreed said, we sold out of those really quickly. But it was never about the nipple bra. The nipple bro was to get you the Skim's website and then buy something else we were selling, and in that case it was the baby teas that you would want your nipples to show through.
I'm grabbing my boobs as I speak because I hope my nipples are not shown because who knows where they are anyway. So there's that. So one of the things of this we are being manipulated just as we are by Sidney Sweeney and everyone else to talk about it to get it moving, because everyone's like Skims Skim Skims,
look at what they do. And the other piece to that that's very clever from Kim's pive is she doesn't always have to be in this narrative anymore, so unlike say a Goop, where Gwyneth still is very much if you go to Goop's website, she still is their lead model. She still is their best bet at getting you to buy a really expensive cashmere jumpers if she's wearing it.
Skims have been very good strategically at jumping on other people and getting them into the campaigns, whether they're white, load of stars, whether it's a pop star, whether it's someone else, and building it beyond Kim. So every time they release something that seems strange and viral and out of this world, my immediate mintenna I go up and go what are they really trying to sell us? So there's that.
I think the aesthetics of it are interesting as well, because it looks like work. I think you do sort of goes through cycles of you want to look effortless or you want to look like you're working, so to illustrate, for instance, I think in the nineties it was about you wanted to look like effortless, like Cape Moss, Like she didn't brush her hair, she didn't wear may cuts, she.
Didn't go to bed. Yeah, she couldn't have worn one of these if she wanted to. And then straight from the club.
Very much in tandem with the rise the Kardashians. I think now beauty we actually want to or the fashion is to telegraph how much work you've put into the way you look. So that's why contouring has been around for a few years now. Contrary is not about a natural look. It's about I spent time on this, and when I look at that face bandage, I think it's
all about celebrating work, putting work into beauty. Now, whether that's a good thing or not, it's probably a bad thing, but it's designed to look a little bit utilitarian, a little bit ugly. So this is my theory.
I was going deep on this and I was thinking about what you said wholly about there always trying to sell something else, and I was going, what is this about? Because what they've managed to do is, I must say, the first time I saw this image, I was horrified, confused, interested, and by the time it popped up on my feed today started to look relatively normal because of how many times I'd see the image. So we are normalizing these sort of face sculpting things.
And I thought.
About a few weeks ago, we were talking about the Kardashians and the transparency around cosmetic surgery, and how all of a sudden, your Chloe's, your Kylie's, your crises are saying here's what I've got done. And we were speculating, and we went, I wonder if they are getting into clinics, like I wonder if they're actually getting into procedures, because we've seen this cultural shift towards going I got a facelift, I'll tell you how much it was and who did it.
If so, people are going to need one of these, Like I wonder if this is legitimately a facelift, a surgical device that is going to be I wonder if in ten years, walking around LA people are just going to be wearing these, Like if we are going to normalize the kind of postop facelift.
That's interesting because I reckon, yes, you go to some fancy suburbs of Sydney, and it is normalized now that people might be wearing a bandage on a certain place, or that their skin might be looking a certain way from appeal or whatever. So I don't think that's beyond
the realms of possibility. Sidebar. I spoke to a women last week for mid who does a lot of cosmetic procedures, and she is furious at number of people who come in and show Chris Jenna's facelift, because she says, show me that without filters, show me that what it hasn't been through at facetine. She's like, she doesn't look like that. Nobody looks like that. Stop showing me that picture. But you could be onto that. But I don't know if
this is surgical grade blah blah blah. But the other thing that makes me really kind of exhausted about this because a lot of women reacted with, oh my god, another thing to worry about. And as you can tell by the fact that I do this, I'm exhausted by all the things I meant to be doing when I'm asleep now, right, It used to be that sleep was rest, but now I have to monitor the quality of it. How many times did I wake up in the night.
I have to cover myself in twenty five layers of stale snot I have to wear one of these I m ask mouth tape. I have to do all these things while I'm asleep, and no wonder nobody's sleeping. It's not very RESTful.
It was interesting because there was an article in the Sitney Morning Herald today about the return of the idea of sleeping on very thin, rollable mattresses, as the Japanese have done for centuries. So enough with the sort of optimized fluffy mattresses and perfect pillows. Just just roll out your little thin cotton mat and then you roll it up at the end of the night when you're done sleeping. And there's a sense of people wanting to return to basics. Now.
The question was is this better than sleeping on a full blow or mattress, and they interviewed a number of experts who basically emoji shrugged. The truth is we still don't know so many things about sleep. We know that it's good to get it, we don't understand a lot
about how it works or how to optimize it. That's because we only ever study sleep problems and not how to get better sleep, And so I wonder if part of this is that it opens the door to the snake oil salesman like him and like Skims, to say this is going to give you better sleep.
I was doing some research on this too, and there are images from magazines in the nineteen twenties of women wearing these. The idea that you would wear like a bandage or tape is actually quite old. It's not entirely new. I just think that the proliferation of it has been aided by social media, which is pretty eye catching. Did we also see the Anthony Hopkins, who obviously played Hannibal Lecter in Silence of Lambs what he put on so media wearing it?
I have to ask does he have a robust social media presence or is this.
Like me he jumps on every now and again and takes the mooky out of things.
Yep, here's what he said, Hello, Kim, I'm already fiving ten years younger.
Good bye.
My question when I saw that was is it organical paid? Because you should say if explicitly say if it's paid. But Dan that contributed to kind of a very big mind.
Surely the timing of it made me think it had to be paid a.
Massive thank you out loud as that is all we've got time for today. We're going to be back in your ears tomorrow and of course for the rest of the week. And thank you to our fabulous team for putting the show together. As always, Bye bye.
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