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Mama Mayor acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.
Guys, everyone has a kid's book but me, and I think I should have come a children's to.
Buy you a book like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I actually are you were to write one?
I think that I should write one because I think it has come to my attention that everyone's written children's books.
So the celebrity children's book is a big, big.
And if I'm a celebrity, like, why am I spending time writing a children's book? I think it's got to be a money machine. They must just be pretty, might be.
I interviewed Aated Nicodemu last week. She's written many. She has a whole series called Maya. There's something.
Maya.
Yeah, she said, she loves the name Maya and it's kind of about it's loosely based on her childhood because she was like a theater kid who likes singing and dancing and.
Yeah, and all of that's catered to your attention span.
Yeah, so it's like.
For like seven eight year old Yeah, it's that primary school.
Well, look at Andy Lee, right, any parent listening to this will be triggered by the words do not open this book. He do not open this book series, and now it's like you can get box sets and merch and everything. I listened to an interview with him where he said he makes I mean news exactly these words. I'm paraphrasing Twillian's ship ton of money. That ship ton.
I just need to be Andy Lee. But just the book needs to be good.
What should it be about? Well, who's going to review it? I think that you think, yeah, I know, you kind of think they don't have many words in them. I surely I can write them in just half an hour.
On the world.
They need to have a rhythm. All about the rhythm, pretty picture.
I want to apologize to any children's book authors who are listening to this right now.
I haven't printed.
Any money lately. Hello, and welcome to Mama Mire out Loud and to our Friday show, you know the Friday show. I'm doing a little dance because it's our fun show where we take the break from the news cycle and we just like have a good time. Oh sorry, and we breathe there it'sane. This is my one exhale meditating right now today, It's Friday, the twenty seventh of September, and I am Holly Waynwright.
I'm Meya Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens, children's book.
Author trying that on for size on the show today. Imagine being so confident that when someone asks you if you're surprised you got offered a big opportunity, you say, no, I'm not surprised they were right to choose me. I'm going to be brilliant at it. Yeah, no, we need We're talking about the female confidence trap. Plus, our weekend recommendations include a movie for kids that's really for us, a gen X Hollywood memoir, and the previous TV show
of them all. And someone's been rummaging around in me is downstairs area, Jesse's had a skin scare, and I am really pissed off about something very silly. It's our best and worst of the week, But first me have Friedman in capes. You missed it.
There has been a very interesting hit piece on Harry and Meghan.
But particularly got my hand up Mayor Freeman. When you say hit piece, expand.
A hit piece is like, I mean, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a tacky takedown.
Written on purpose to hit to hurt.
Yeah, it's a not a particularly kind or balanced, a bit scurrilous, maybe very negative. And what's interesting about this hit piece because Harry and Meghan are not new to this is not the first radio when it comes to people writing negative things about them. But it's where it was published that is raising some eyebrows. It was published in the Hollywood Reporter, which is like a it's not a tabloid, it's like almost trade press.
It's like Variety's competitor, isn't it the business of Hollywood?
Right?
Serious?
And it's titled why Hollywood keeps quitting on Harry and Meghan, And according to the Hollywood Reporter, it's all about how they can't keep staff. There's a reportedly a survivors club called the Sussex Survivors Club, and it details some of the people who've left their employ including it says Josh Kettler, the Santa Barbara based consultant who'd been serving as chief of staff to the Duke and Duchess reportedly resigned in August after just three months on the job, becoming the
latest member of the ever expanding Sussex Survivors Club. Everyone's terrified of Megan, claimed sources. She belittles people, she doesn't take advice. They're both poor decision makers. They change their minds frequently. Harry is a very very charming person, no heirs at all, but he's very much an enabler and.
She's just terrible.
Oh my god, that is bad.
It's really negative. And there's been that's an unsourced quote, right, All of.
The quotes are unsourced, and it sort of talks about all the people that have left working for them, and a couple of things that are interesting about this and why everybody's talking about it. Firstly, it's not the kind of thing that usually happened in that publication, so it's like, well, why, what's the reason for this piece? Like who's motivated to take down Harry and Meghan because it's not the royal family.
A lot of their claims about previous bad publicity is that it was being sourced by rival palaces, by the British media who didn't like them, by racism in the UK, by people who didn't like that there was a woman of color who'd become a member of the royal family and that was kind of their owns. Yeah, their defense, right, And so now that it's happened in Hollywood, first of all, in whose interest is it to paint them in this
negative way? And secondly, it paints a picture where the common denominator is in fact them and not the royal family leaking it or unfair treatment by the press. So some people are saying that it's because Hollywood's realized there's no more money to be made out of either of them. They came to Hollywood or they came to California in America,
did these big deals. One hundred million dollars at Netflix I think another hundred million at Spotify, And apart from the documentary that they did on Netflix where they sort of just spoke about everything that had happened to them, they had a few other projects that went nowhere. The big podcast deal they signed with Spotify kind of yielded about seven episodes. I think she did her podcast called Archetypes, which has now been picked up by another podcast company
who's going to apparently do another season. But a lot of people lost a lot of money on these benches, which is not the fault of Harry and Meghan. Like, if someone wants to pay you a lot of money you don't deliver. I guess it is the fault of them, but maybe people overestimated the public's appetite for the things that they.
I don't think it's true that they haven't made a lot of people a lot of money in books.
They have.
Even if the only thing they ever make for Netflix was that twenty five million piece documentary, it was the highest rating thing that Netflix has done in twenty million years. They would have made that back in spades, which just made a docco series for them that's about Polo. The try to do like a drive to survive for Polo,
you know, like make it sexy reality TV stuff. She's got a lifestyle show coming out in January February, which is supposed to be very Martha Stuart, very goofy, very like cooking, and that's not only cooking, like cooking lifestyle homes, which will be very pervy because it'll be in their houses. It'll be Megan. I think it's not true that they're not going to make anyone. So why, Holly, why, what's.
Your read on why this comes out? I don't think they had the power that they might have had when they first entered Hollywood, But what would be the motivation of someone to either be that source or for them to write that.
Well, one way of looking at this is where this smokes fire, right, which is that if the same story keeps coming out over and over again, there's probably some truth to it. But then also, there are plenty of people in Hollywood and Silicon Valley and all those are the places who would be difficult in inverted commas to work for, right, But not all of them are as high profile and as exciting to sell stories onto the tabloids as Megan and Harry. But I'm sure as an
element of truth there. It also smacks a little bit to me that they're outsiders in that world, like Bill Simmons, who is a guy who was involved in their deals and in their ideation sessions, and he was he called them grifters, and he also made some really disparaging comments about Harry's ideas and how they were all terrible and
blah blah blah blah blah. It is very interesting that this is in the Hollywood Reporter, But there's probably a distaste in Hollywood for people like Harry and Meghan who come in charging a shitload of money, and then they have the temerity to want input on what they're making.
So you have to say, well, who's motivated. Someone's obviously clearly pissed off with them, right and either bitter that they spent their money or took their jobs or whatever. So you can see that it's kind of insulting to people who are actual producers scriptwriters. And also if.
You're making that stuff, you want the talent to do what they're told, right, Like basically, if you're a produce, you want the talent to like, we know how to make a podcast, you just say the words we want you to say, we know how to make a show, make the shows we want to make. Harry and Meghan are very clearly not interested in doing.
But based on what I mean, Harry's never had a job before apart from when he was in the military. Meghan know how done stuff. But I think that Hollywood feels a bit silly that they over indexed on how interested the public would be about Harry and Meghan talking
about anything other than Harry and Meghan. And once that story was finished, because there's only so many times you can say we were treated badly and they've got no more story to tell, like they used it all up in his book and in the documentary, and so then when he's made things for like the Invictors Games. She did write a children's book, but then she wanted to do an animated show about a little girl called Pearl. No one's really interested in the stuff that they make.
I want to know.
I was listening to a podcast this week about what would be the advisable next move.
Harry needs to make a Princess to Hanna documentary. Oh, that's what he should do. If I was advising, that would be amazing. Yeah, in fact, any royal documentary would be great, but about his mother would be particularly amazing.
That's a great idea.
But you know what, even though I sympathize with your point, mea like who are they? But I also think this story isn't over, Like I will be watching Megan's lifestyle show.
Well about Megan's lifestyle show, because what this podcast was saying was that she needs to go into They had two options. The first was skincare and the second was alcohol, specifically Gin because they said that it's very male dominated at the moment.
Where the margins are the beauty category and the alcohol category.
Are not known for, not just jam, you guys, your failure of imagination.
People.
It's a massive lifestyle brand. We've got te tails, we've got yoga mats, we've got cookware, we've got everything that's gonna sell. It's freaking socks off.
I don't know if it will.
Margin.
No, the margins on most things are really smart.
Understand marginal.
Yeah, Well, the margin means you produce it for one dollar, you sell it for three dollars. The margin is two dollars. Now on Jam, you produce jam for a dollar, you can't sell it for one hundred dollars.
Maybe you can try if I get invited into Megan's kitchen. It's the same with Gwyneth, It's the same with any of those very aspiate because that's where she's positioning herself right, aspirational lifestyle brand. That's why she's called it Montecido blah blah. She's drifting around with her apple orchard and all that shit, their chickens and everything. People love that.
I'd buy a serum. I would absolutely buy it. I would because she's got beautiful.
What's wrong with being? What's wrong with being?
What's wrong with being?
Confident?
A documentary, pulled, a bold career move, and a declaration.
Of absolute self belief. I want to talk about confidence.
Three things have happened in recent weeks that I am going to attempt to tie in an awkward not that doesn't quite fit. First, they finished filming a documentary about Oprah.
Who are they?
They are tying to make it?
Well, actually as Apple, which six degrees of separation. I'm sure that it somehow gets back to Harry and Megan, I mean Oprah, Harry and Meghan.
There we go.
Anyway, It doesn't matter who made it, Maya, because you're never going to say it.
It's not for you.
Let me explain filmmaker Kevin McDonald. He is Academy Award winning He did Touching the Void and he also did the Whitney Houston documentary Big Deal.
Big Deal.
He was tasked with creating a documentary about Oprah's life to be broadcast on Apple TV.
There was just one problem.
When it was finished, Oprah didn't like it, so she paid the money back to Apple and basically now owns the rights and there's no plans for release.
So was she involved as like a producer or something? It was made with her cooperation.
Yeah, so I imagine it would be a bit like Beckham.
Why didn't you like it?
Well, this is what we need to know.
What do you think could be a reason?
Secrets? I think?
Look, this is my theory is that when you do Beckham, when you do Beckham, it better be a work of propaganda.
Right.
The problem with this Kevin McDonald character is I worry he's a real filmmaker, in which case he might have actually just made a real documentary about Oprah where it's not just she's a perfect saint. Maybe it's a complex.
Your inattoria Beckham. Now I don't know if it was the same filmmaker that did David.
Do you get from Succession?
Yeah? I don't know. If it's Hugoys back for another round, but I think that's going to be interesting too.
Oh my god. You know that Beckham documentary has been one of their biggest hits.
Twice.
It has made the.
Beckham real documentary.
It has made the Beckham super famous in America.
Like, did he have creative control?
Okay, exactly right, So they do have creative control. Anyway, Oprah's gone, I'm the boss here and I'm putting this on the shelf because I don't want you to broadcast it now.
Not the first time she's done that. She's done that with another sh where she said I'm not.
You have to be really rich to be able to do that.
You have to be very powerful.
Then there's a little lady named Katie Perry. She's performing at the AFL Grand Final this weekend. Mom's Play of Air, and there have been numerous reports about an awkward back and forth between Perry and the AFL in regards to what songs she will play. The AFL requested she only perform hits from her back catalog, for example.
Firework, while her papers to Girl Yes, Friday Night Yes, while her people wanted at least two of the five songs to be from her new album like It's.
A Woman's World. Yes, I get that.
I was reading some analysis from a footy journalist who said she strikes me as someone who would push back. She would be a bit of trouble. You tell me to do A and I'll do B. That kind of thing, yep, in the end, a.
Bit of trouble.
Like every artist would negotiate this right, Like so, Kylie Minogues just announced a world tour and I'm like, I've been to a lot of Kylie concerts for decades. I don't want to go and hear her new music. I don't want to hear I mean, I don't mind hearing Pada, but I don't want to hear anything else. I only want to hear the old bangers, and she won't play the old bangers, and that's frustrating.
That's every artist ever.
The compromise that's been because she's doing it, not because she wants to sing Firework again.
She wants to promote a new album.
Duh.
So she has compromised and she's going to sing one new song and four classics.
She'll sing the new song just when everyone goes to make their tea because it's the halftime show.
What do you think the new song willbey woman's world? Or she's given up on that?
Hope it is that because I really want her to have that like petrol pump in a butt thing that would be so fun on that in fact, that the AFL Grand Final would really it would be fun.
I'd enjoy that. I think it'd be a vibe.
Then there's comedian Niki Glazer, who was asked to host the Golden Globes and speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, here's what she said.
Oh, I thought they made a good decision because I am just I know what to do to make it great. I know the amount of work that goes into it. I take it very seriously the job at hand. I think I can strike the right tone of making fun of Hollywood while while also just completely being sycophanic over it and being like I want you to like me, but also like, what are we doing here.
Stacy Hicks, who's one of the hosts of our parenting podcast This Glorious Mess, she sent around this video and she said, I don't think I've ever heard a woman speak like that about her career and her ability to do it. And the comments we're all commending Nicki Glazer on her confidence, with one saying this is how you should all pump yourself up for a job interview. It's the opposite to imposter syndrome. And in fact, all three women are doing exactly what we tell women to do.
To strive to set your boundaries, to back yourself. You deserve a seat at the table. You should say no. I want to know do you think there has been a shift and is this what confidence looks like. And if so, are we totally completely comfortable with it?
Maya.
I think that it's very American what she said, and I know that this is something that Australians often struggle with when they go and try and work in the US, because Australia is all about to poppy syndrome, self deprecation, don't be too up yourself, don't be too big for you, boots. I think Britain's prettyvil same, right, and I think we learned that from our British colonizes. In America, it's all fig jam, which is fuck, I'm good, just ask me. And if you go over and try that Aussie stick
in America, it doesn't work. If you're just like, oh really, oh no, gosh, I can't believe they chose me like everyone else must have been busy, ha ha. They're just like, what's wrong with you? Like you look at Donald Trump people, Confidence is contagious. Confidence is self affirming in America, whereas in Australia we're very suspicious of it from men or
from women, but particularly from women. And I think that you know, when you look at the women who are derided in Hollywood, particularly or in just the public eye.
They're always sort.
Of canceled for very small things like what did Megan Markle do we just spoke about her a minute ago. Oh maybe she's essentially she's she's the criticism of her some stuff.
Yeah, she had the temerity to complain.
Ellen DeGeneres is in the new cycle at the moment, you know, having a comeback, and will people give her a second chance? It's like a second chance from what because she wasn't incredibly friendly and didn't ask the three hundred staff how their weekend was some days and she was castigated for being mean. And then you look at the men that are canceled. It's like p Diddy e On Musk is still going strong and he's vile. So what men can get away with versus what women can
get away with assertiveness? We know all of this. And that's why Kamala Harris has had such a tricky needle to thread. Looking capable and confident enough to be a female president because there hasn't ever been one, but also not too much of a bull terror and too emasculating because men don't like that.
Do you relate at all to the way that Nicki Glazer talks about it.
I mean she's oh my.
God, no, she's not twenty two. She's been doing it for a while. She what she's good, actually knows she's gonna work hard.
Like I absolutely love it, But do I relate to it. Absolutely not, like I not even a little bit. It's really interesting because as I get older, and I think Mia said this before, my confidence in some areas has grown, Like I'm less likely to feel like I don't belong in a room, you know, where decisions are being made, or where important conversations we had, or to interview certain people or whatever. Much more confident in that kind of space because I feel like I've earned my right to
be there. But that's because that's true, I haven't my right to be there right Like, over time, I've built up my experience. I do know shit, so I can be confident in that space. But then in other areas,
I still feel very under confident. And it's interesting because I really admire this, But then I'm very suspicious of people who appear to have no self doubt, and I'm not attracted to it like I do in men or women, people generally speaking, who appear to have no self doubt never question themselves, never wonder why they're doing what they're doing, are generally unappealing to me. I find an element of self doubt and vulnerability very humanizing and I like it.
So it's a difficult balance, but I'm kind of forced to perform that, whereas men are discouraged from performing that.
I hate it, and men like arrogant men to me are immediately unappealing in every way, whether it's me watching their TV shows, or whether it's me working with them, or whether it's me being friends with them. Like, arrogant men are my least favorite genre of human because there's nothing interesting about a person who never questions themselves.
Yeah, there's no question in yourself.
But I reckon there would be a lot of people listening who know they're really good at their jobs. Ye, who know that they're good mums, or that they're really good friends, or that they're really good at something.
And and confidence is different though, right, And that's why fake it till you make it is tricky.
Yeah, I don't know if I totally agree with that. I was reading an article in The Guardian about someone who who said, I think that's too much of a focus on the word confidence and thinking that you need to feel confident before actually doing anything, where it's the inverse. In order to feel confident, you've got to do the thing.
So I think that's true.
Adam Grant, he is a social social psychologist, and he talked about diving, like in college he was almost a professional diver, and he would go to the end of the diving board and he'd feel terrified and he'd be like, I can't dive because I don't feel confident yet with the dive. And his coach would say to him, that's why you do the dive, like you do it over and over again until you get the confidence.
The confidence doesn't confessed.
So confidence is something you have to building, you just wake up with.
Yeah.
So I think that there's this whole industry based on capitalizing on women's lack of confidence, particularly young women's lack of confidence. And they will say your book and a mantra and a fancy talk and you know, tell you that they can fill you with confidence. So I think that we're confused because there are a lot of gurus that are trying to imbue women with confidence rather than getting them to.
Do the thing.
And I don't think anyone ever sits down with Richard Branson and asks him where he gets his confidence from. I think it's a self fulfilling thing. We're just obsessed's I like that.
But then I've found I've had two people in my life, neither of them know me very well, but I have both said just by listening to the pod, it sounds like I've lost my confidence on the show, which I thought about a lot. And one woman I just met her earlier in the week when we were doing upfronts in Melbourne, and she said, I feel like I can hear you hesitating and I can hear you overthinking and
holding back on the show sometimes. And she said, I'm sure that's because you've been piled on and you're worried about that. And I was like, Oh, that's so interesting.
Isn't that good? Like in a way because back to the thing about where the confidence is just always a really positive trait. If I sit here on the show and feel very confident in all my opinions about all the things all the time, including things I don't really know a lot about, that's not a good thing.
No, you're right, and I used to be that. So we talk about strong opinions loosely held. So I'm still confident with my opinions, but I'm also completely prepared to change them as I learn more or change my mind. I don't know if that's confidence or just getting older.
And I think that's wisdom.
Do you.
I Actually that's funny you say that, because there was part of what Nikki said that I related to. When I heard her say that, I thought, if I was given a massive opportunity.
If they asked you to host them, extu me to host the logis And they said, Jesse w wee host logies.
Sitting in my own pa, famous children's book author, famous children's books. You've written this great children's book that's been made into a show. Host to logis, I'd be like, yeah, I'll do a good job of that. Like that would be my first response. And the reason is not because I have internal self confidence. It's not because I think I'm innately incredible at anything. It's that I know I'll
work really hard. Yeah, So my faith is in my process that you'll be prepared, that I'll be prepared exactly right, that if I'm given enough time, if I was told I was doing it tomorrow, I would freak. But if I knew I was given enough time, it's something that I've been honing or practicing for years, like talking, then I would have a very Semario.
It's based on experience, Like confidence is back to what you were just saying. Confidence is based on experience that you've been thrown a lot of things that you didn't think that you would necessarily be able to do, from doing this show to going on live TV to speaking it writers festivals and all of these things. And because you've prepared each time, you can objectively say that you
did a good job. And also people around you have said that you've done a good job, so there's been no objective marker that you haven't done a good job.
Yeah.
I remember speaking to Jane Harper once about she's written maybe five books, all of which are brilliant, and she was like, a lot of authors won't tell you that it gets easier, and for some it doesn't. Some for me, I know authors who you know. I got to book twenty one and it was unpublishable. But she's like, no, it gets easier because you know what you're doing. And that was a quiet confidence that I respected. But I think that it's not something that a lot of women are willing to say out loud.
But also that's very much born of enormous success, right, like, oh yeah, Because I was thinking about the different areas of life that I have confidence in and don't, and writing is one that I definitely still don't because to me, the bar is so impossibly high, like the amount of work out there and the amount of different kinds of incredible writers and the different levels of success and all that stuff, like I don't feel like I have yet written a thing that is, you know, brilliant.
I feel that way about parenting, Oh my.
God, and parenting speaking about non professional things all the time, question my ability, my instincts, my confidence. Have I done it right?
Haven't I? And when you said, Jesse earlier about you know, some people like, yeah, I'm a great mother. I don't know anyone who says that.
I had someone say it to me once real, yeah, yeah, and I really really respected it.
She said to me.
It's the only area of my life where I feel like I know what I'm doing.
And God, we all need some areas of our lives well we feel and see, this is one of the things I think about. We talk all the time about like you know what you lean into and what you lean out of. You will instinctively lean into the things that you feel like you're good at, right because it gives you more self confidence and more and it reaffirms it, and then you get better at it. And it's a circle.
And so if you're feeling like work is giving you a lot, but your home life's a shit show at the moment, for whatever, you will lean into work, you know what I mean, rather than what you should do, which is the other way around.
What interests me also is in certain careers it's the law of diminishing returns, like you'll get better at something and more confident. And then if you look at sport and modeling for example, and even acting, with acting, you can get technically better and better and more experienced, and you should get more confident. For women, the whole overlay on that is how they look, and then how that
tends to go backwards. And then with sport and modeling, of course, you do get to a point where you've peaked and you do get worse, so you do lose confidence. And I found that, you know, interviewing, for example, I've been doing no filter for almost ten years, and I know that I'm really good at I know I'm a
really really good interviewer. But I've had some experiences this year where I've done some really bad interviews and I found that really interesting because I sort of have lost confidence and in a way, that's made me more interested in it. Yeah, because it's not I can't phone it in, even though I know I'm really good at it, I can still fuck it up, even after all this time. So there's no guarantees.
So here's the interesting thing. We've all just said that there are things that we feel like we're good at, and there are things we feel we're not necessarily good at. But a lot of people are very uncomfortable hearing a woman admits she's good at anything. There will be some people who just heard you say I know I'm a really good interviewer, or heard me say I know I've earned my place here, or you say I know I could host the logans. I know I'm misrepresenting you, I
know that isn't what you said. I've irritating where it will annoy them and they will literally now be looking at their phones and going, fuck you, show yourself, who do you think she is. And that's interesting to look at because we tell people like all the time, back yourself, back yourself, back yourself, but actually hearing people back themselves is really still jarring.
Do you know what makes me real is when I'm looking at reels on Instagram and there are people, not all young people, but people who are very convicted in their opinions and are very shouty about what they think, as if there there's no even.
Possibility of a shade of gray.
They're just so righteous in their belief and I find that really repellent. And I don't know whether I'm envious at how easy it must be to look at the world in black and white, but whether I'm like, you're a dick.
Because I think that's idealism and I reckon that as you dogmatic as well. Yeah, which the world needs idealism and needs young people who see the world as black and white, who have whether it's a little bit of naivety or whatever, I do think that the world requires that, But I can see how it can be irritating when you've had more experiences and you go the world.
Actually find vulnerability more interesting.
So generally speaking, I find vulnerability more interesting, and questioning things more interesting, and so I think this, But then I heard that, and I think that, Like, I find that more interesting.
People who are over confident tend to not be.
Curious, Yeah, and curious.
The people I know with the most self belief are the least successful, and by that I mean they have not achieved their goals. There is something about.
Like, really, I thought it was the other way around.
No, No, there are people I know that are so.
Consumed by self belief that they never finish a project because it's like they have nothing to prove.
Oh really, Yeah, I know that procrastination can be a form of perfection is and also fear.
Yeah.
I just find people who are really confident to be really boring because they're not open. They've made up their mind. The garage doors come down, and they will not be countenancing any new opinions at this stage. Thank you, the kitchen's closed.
Just rounding back to Oprah and Katie, Yeah, because that's where we started. They are women who have asked for things or made decisions that pissed other people off, like Katie Perry saying no, I won't just be a performing seal if I'm coming all the way to Australian performing I'm going to try and sell my new album, and Oprah saying I know you've all worked very hard on this, but it's my name, my brand, and I'm not doing it. And people just don't like women asking for things.
I wondered if there was an element of Katy Perry. We've talked before about tryhards and I don't mean that as like in any sort of malicious way, but women's striving, women's striving and how uncomfortable we are with it, and what Katie Perry has done is I'm going to throw everything at this second act, this new wind with my career, and it has objectively worked. The album has been panned critically,
like reviewers really don't like it. It's not selling, but there is a glee in watching women try really hard at something and fail.
I think I got the.
Meud.
It's Friday, so we want to help set up your weekend with our best recommendations of things to watch, see, read by eat, Do Holly tell me.
I'm so delighted with my recommendation this week because on the weekend, but I know I'm very confident in my recommendation today, particularly for anyone my children. I spent the weekend with Billy. Brent and Matilda were away for different reasons. He was so excited to go and see this movie because he's read the books and this movie is called The Wild Robot and it's a kids movie and it's
an animated movie. And any parent who takes their kids to go see animated movies sometimes you're like, oh my god.
Can you just look at your phone?
Well it rude, you could, but at what age can you leave them in the cinema and just go watch another movie?
Oh, like Billy's Well, you could do that.
But the whole reason he's excited is to share the experience. Jesse. Yeah, okay, that's why parents freaking love good animation. And there is lots of it. Right, That's what the whole point of Pixar, Right, the whole point of it. This isn't Pixar anyway, but The Wild Robot is one of the most beautiful films, kids films, adult films, any kind of films I have seen in so long. Very briefly, it is based on
the idea of this robot. She's like an AI assistant and she's being delivered somewhere and she has a ship WRECKX like castaway, and she ends up on an island all the wild animals and stuff, and she says, anyway, it's so good. Anyway, Lapeita, and Yongou plays the robot her voice, she's so freaking good. Pedro Pascal plays one of the other characters. But anyway, the thing that this movie is so beautiful. I read this headline in Vulture that was so true. It's like the wild robot will
ruin you. And it's tears so beautiful to look at. It's been made like a painting. It's got this beautiful slow pace but not like boring, but this beautiful pace to it. But most of all, it's the story of this robot who inadvertently manages to kill a whole load of geese and then find an egg, and that when the egg pops out, it imprints on her because you know that's what babybirds do, and then the robot has to raise this baby bird.
But she's got.
Anything to that baby bird. I am absolutely done.
Hello gostlings in print on the first thing they see, which would be you frei innother.
Now I do not have the programming, No one does.
He needs to swim and fly.
Swimming's easy.
I can teach him the way my mom tout knee swim.
She is not maternal, she has no feelings. She's a robot right exactly. And the thing is, it's got all these beautiful things say about motherhood, particularly for those of us who maybe were worried we weren't going to be good at it or it didn't necessarily come natural. I've always amazed and in awe of people who are like I always knew and I was going to be a great mom and maternal. I'm not a born nurturer, nor is my robot friend.
Ros you're over relating to the robot.
Yes, but it's so beautiful and then it's all about like the journey, and I can't recommend it more. It's funny, it's clever, it's beautiful to look at. It's called The Wild Robot. And I cried.
There's a film that we are all going to go and see in a week or so, The Substance, with Demi Moour and Margaret Quali, and it's all about a woman who takes a substance to make her younger. And I was listening to an interview with Demi Moour, who's on the publicity trail. She's in her early sixties now, which you wouldn't know if you saw a picture of her.
I know, that's a whole other conversation. But I was listening to this interview that the New York Times did with her, and she was talking about how she's no longer worried about the male gaze, which if you've seen a picture of her lately, that's an interesting thing for her to say, because she is very male gazy. Anyway,
father about this, but I was interested in the contradiction. Anyway, she mentioned a memoir that she'd written, and I didn't realize that she'd written a memoir, but it was about five years ago, maybe a little bit longer. So I downloaded it as an audiobook, and I was traveling over the last couple of weeks and I've been listening to it.
Because she narrate it.
Yeah, yeah, but she speaks a little bit slowly, So I made it one point two to five speed, so it's to me, but a little let me drawly. I made it, and it was so interesting. Now I understand. I feel like I'm very well positioned to go and see the substance and to understand to me more a lot more. I mean, she was in the famous movies like Sonelmo's Fire About last Night Ghost, really iconic in the eighties, and.
A substances fiction correct, and that she's it's horror.
No, I understand that, but it's very you know, there's Oscar talk around it, because it's about this idea of this aging celebrity who's offered the chance to wind back time and look young in her aging body after she's told that she's fired from her job because no one wants to look at it. I think in the movie she's in her early fifties. And so I just learned so much about I mean, she's had this very interesting life, married to Bruce Willis, Ashton Kutcher, three daughters, substance abuse,
most messed up childhood. And I've got a lot more compassion for her now. Or is it really matter when it's an audio book, you know, because it's really just her recounting her life.
It's an autobiography.
So it starts when she was a kid and it goes all the way until you know, a few years ago when she broke up with Ashton and ended up going back into rehab and a whole bunch of stuff. You've got me into audiobooks whole, and I always forget and some times when there's something I want to read but I feel like I can't sit still, audiobooks are a really great way of being able to do stuff while you're listening.
My recommendation is the new season of Couples Therapy.
Love is patient. She has zero patients.
Love is kind.
He punishes me with silence, Love listens. I disagree with that.
Suse me.
I'm begging you to talk to me. Find something you always have an extreme here, stop start Love is commitment.
Rather than leave it alone, let's do something radical here on me.
Tell me, have you ever watched I've never watched it, but I hear people talk about it all the time, and I'm like that sounds like is it like a reality show or a fiction?
It's not really reality. It's more a documentary. And it is a couples therapist named doctor awna girlnick.
Why would anyone do this?
I wonder that too, because they're talking about the most private, mortifying Yeah, but it is so good. So it's four couples. There's a same sex couple, there's a poly situation and then two straight couples. But things that you think are small that end up actually being really big. I've found the discussions around jealousy with the poly relationship really insightful. But my additional recommendation is to watch it with your partner if you have.
That sounds really like your.
Hand, and then you pause it and then you look at them and then you wait for them, just because it is often sounds a good trap, it's really really good.
Then there are bits that we agree on.
So there's a couple where the man, so you know how, you get into a dynamic which everyone can relate with, where it's like the woman wants things done a certain way and then the man feels like you can't do anything right, blah blah blah, And they go into all this detail about how he vacuums and mops the floor for wiping down the bench, and she's like, but once you wipe down the bench, everything from the bench is
going to go on the floor. And at that point Luca and I stopped and went, no, we're both in agreement that you must wipe down the bench before you do the floor, because that's just the most ridiculous, sister, It is really really good.
It's become a bit of a celebrity. She's on podcasts and stuff. Is she great?
Yes?
And if you, like many people, are at a moment where you're trying to decide whether or not to get anti wrinkle injections, then may I suggests that you just watch this woman's forehead and the expression she just is just therapy with her forehead, and I'm like, oh, best supporting actor exactly her forehead loves love It.
A reminder that all our recommendations, the links to all of them are always in our Mamma Mia out Loud newsletter, so you can sign up to that in a link in the show notes.
Do you want daily Outloud access? Why wouldn't you? We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mum and Me. Are subscribers follow the link in the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week. Thank you if you're already a subscriber.
Now it's time for best and worst of the week. Remember this is a time where we can be silly, we can be serious, but we try and avoid anything heavy. Maya Friedman, what was your worst of the week.
My worst was trying to have a chat with a stranger who had her hand in my vagina.
Very common worst for you.
Well, we made eye contact, and funnily enough, it's just another Tuesday in me as well. It was a hand that had also been in Jesse's vagina, and you're paying for it.
We both paid for it.
So I went hand. No, maybe it wasn't hand, maybe it was a finger. I don't know. It was just like usually when you get so anyway I was, I should say where I was. I was at a pelvic physio because of the recommendation, but Jesse told me to go there, so I ended up seeing I don't think I meant to book the same doctor as you anyway, physiotherapist.
I did.
I didn't try not to. Anyway, we didn't talk about you while she had her hand up there. You'll be pleased to know.
This gets weird at this show, im HR.
I know.
So anyway, I've been having pelvic floor issues. I'm tired of it. I need to work on my pelvic floor, you know, coughing, wing, all that stuff. So Jesse said, go to the pelvic floor physio, which she did during her pregnancy. So I did, Claire, I didn't know that was even a thing, but they're popping up everywhere now. So I went, and you had to do some fun things like strip down to your undies and stand in the mirror with the very taut young physio behind you
and just quite confronting. But she was like, you're all lopsided and here's what's happening. And these muscles are pushing down on your pelvic floor and you can see.
Could you do a squeeze when she wanted you to squeeze?
Oh no, So then I was lying down. She goes, just so you know that there is also an internal situation, and I went, yeah, I know, and she goes, you'd be surprised when people don't, and they're very I'm like, what what do they think? You're gonna look look at their outsides and give a diagnosis.
So I was prepared.
So how did you go with this squeazing?
It's difficult.
So she's squeezed.
At one point, yeah, well her fingers up there. But at one point also she's got like a paddle popstick and she's measuring things and it's like it's quite a situation. But usually, like I'm completely unfussed, Like it always makes me laugh when she goes, I'll just leave the room and you can get unchanged. And I'm like, given what's about to happen, me taking my undies off is the least of my concerns. And also I don't care. I've had three babies. I don't care, So I'm like not
fussed about that stuff. But when you're examined usually it's like they examine you, they do the thing, and then they finish right, but she sort of like does it. But then she's sort of her hands there and you're talking, like not chatting about the weather and what you're watching on TV, but talking about.
The actual pelvic floor situation, and.
She's expling a lot of things. It was good, she was terrific, and the whole thing was terrific, if mildly depressing, but it just was weird. And then she told me all these things, and I realized when I got home, I forgot all of them because it's a lot of information to take in, and it's this and you've got to do this, and you've got to do it's not just doing kegels, because apparently what I do is I've never got my pelvic floor rest.
Yes, fully relaxed.
And when it's always a little bit pulled, then you can't when it needs to go more, you don't have enough room. Anyway, it's a relaxed So then I got home. I've got to do our strength training exercises and osteo. Anyway, it was just it was an interesting time. My best is our new social producer Isabelle Dolphin, and yeah, it is cool. Everyone that works on this except for us, does sound bad made up. So we've always wanted our own private, personal, full time social producer on this show.
And we've asked and asked and asked, but the asshole bosses me have always said no, can't. Now finally, after ten years, we're gonna have now. Che talked yourself round, I talk myself round. No, it's not just me, you know, there's a whole lot of people. But also I did just say, hey, we need a present. We need a little treat for our tenth birthday, and we'd like it to be Dolph. Anyway, My best is Dolph because have a look at our Instagram, have a look at us
on TikTok. We don't understand that stuff, but she does. And She's just all the stuff that we've always wanted. It's so fun. It's so funny. My daughter and her girlfriend, who are very hard task masters, are like, hey, out loud, really funny, really cool on Instagram, what's going on? And we said Dolph and they're like, oh, it's Dolph.
We love Dolf.
So it's just fun. It's I love working with people who know more than I do about things and who teaches stuff, and the things that she's doing with us and getting us to do are just very very funny.
You'll be able to tell if you have been watching. She just asks me to do things. I just do them without even thinking. Later I'm like, oh, same.
So this week we've been dancing, we've been signing autograph. It's been very funny. But go have a look at our Instagram and TikTok and our TikTok and it's all off.
Jesse, you've got to go next, because you're not allowed to go last because you're being depressing. I tell me about why you're being depressing.
I am being depressing. I've just had this. I've just had a shit week.
I had something chopped out of my head recently to check if it was a skin cancer. And the most annoying thing about this was that it was a scabby little thing. And I went to my yearly check up. I am so diligent with my skin checks because I know I'm a freckly white girl.
In your family, a lot of people had things cut out.
Yep.
So went and got it checked. All fine, it's just a bit of dry skin. I went back because I went, this scat's getting a little bit bigger. It's all all good. Put some vitamin A on it. And then I was at the doctor for Luna, like last week maybe, and I said to the doctor, Hey, it was a different doctor, and I said, I've tried this vitamin anything. Apparently this is just some dry skin.
Was right on your hairlines. So why would you have a bit of dry skin randomly exactly one part of your.
Hair And I pointed to it and he said, immediately that's a BASc I can tell that's a battle celloma, which is a skin cancer. It's not melanoma, but it's not ideal. And so I had to get a biopsy the next day and then no, it didn't hurt at all. And I've had one removed from my arm before and that did hurt, but this was fine, came back b SC.
So I've got to go to a plastic surgeon to go and get this thing removed, and I know, cut out or I've got to get the whole thing, and because it's gone under the skin, I've got to get the whole thing. And I think I'm going to walk into a plastic surgeon and they're going to be like.
No, that's not I don't think that's how it works. That's a different kind of plastics.
It's actually not. It's no.
They give you a referral and that the doctor was looking through and he's like this one specialized in breast augmentation.
I was like, not that one, not that one.
I have a lot of no.
But it's good because you want them to be esthetic or aesthetic because that's the whole point. And it's on your face. Yeah, So if they didn't need it to be esthetic, you could just have any old place and I could do it.
Hold your thoughts, that's what I want to say. The plastic surgion just remove my things. But now I've got a phobia of the sun. So I was even at lunch today and I put sunscreen on in the morning, the feeling of sun.
I'm just like a phobia to have. You also need a hat, sweetie.
I knows I had to work.
Do you know what I got? Sent a couple of hats by this amazing Australian female founder brand that I've forgotten but I'll put a link to in our newsletter. I've got some of their hats. They're like umbrellas for your head and done them where the laugh just sent her. They've just done that black, which is perfect for you. And what it is is like having a like a full awning on my head.
Yes, you head, so I'll sort you out.
Oh I like that.
Okay, I reminded me I need the skin check, So thank you for the.
Carter I think the brand is called and actually reminder for that it looked like a scab. It wasn't a freckle. And so if you've got anything looks like a little scabgo get checked out. And my the worst actually is that I've realized I was speaking to Holly about this last week. I just haven't been writing and I'm making me really sad.
I don't feel like who I am.
No may neither, and I've just I've been in a funk in terms of writing, and it's probably to do with time, but like Luna is fifteen months or something. I've written a handful of articles, like I just I'm not and I'm watching scripts. Oh yeah, I'm writing scripts, but that just feels like dialogue. It's not like and I'm reading this brilliant book at the moment that I'm finding so inspiring, and I'm just what it's all for?
The writing?
You know, when you just read something that's so inspiring and I keep thinking, oh, I want to write, I want to write, and then I get like a pen I'm like, I don't know what to write, Like it's just a weird I feel kind of stuck. So I want to start writing again because I'm.
Do you feel like writing a book or you just want to write?
I could write that tonight.
This is the process, though, this is your You're reving up because obviously you will write another book soon, and you just beginning to rev up your inputting, like yeah, you've brainspread a book that's made you go ah, and then you're inputting yeah, and it's like this is part of the process. Don't be down.
Yeah, good, it's the best part because it feels like a pulling. I've got that too, like a yearning, like I'm being pulled to write.
I don't know what I think.
And it's a different thing to get on a podcast, and you know it's it's also a way of using your brain, but not the same.
Holly, what's your worst?
Look?
My worst is very petty because you know how sometimes Hollywood announcements will come out in this famous book or whatever is being adapted and this star and this star is in it, and the internet gets really upset. And I always sit there going, you people need to get a life. Why are you upset about this? I always feel This week there was a Hollywood announcement about an adaptation of a book that has really pissed me off.
So you know, our wonderful, brilliant, talented friend, Emerald Fanell, she made Saltburn.
We're across and promising young woman.
I was very excited a while ago because her next project is she's making Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights is my favorite book. My two favorite books are Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre and they are.
You give me just sent wathering. Someone hiding in.
The room there's one someone in an attic anxiety work with Wathering Heights. I feel like there's a big sprawling.
For the new and Zietgeys and everyone on the internet talks about the Bronzie sisters. Fucking hell, they wrote the most unbelievable books about women with their ink and freaking whatever you call it.
I've read it, I just can't remember, probably.
On the moors in the north of England, and they had to pretend to be men to get them published. Like you people, You've got because it's the best book ever written, you idiots anyway, So Wathering Heights is one of my favorite books. So I was very excited because she's going to do a fucking great job of that. But guess who she's casting?
Hang on, is she setting it like in modern time?
We don't know. These are all things we don't know yet. Doubt pretty aggressive. I'm very upset.
Could she be casting that?
You could care about this? Margo?
What's wrong with Margot Robbie?
She's perfect and Jacob Alordie perfect?
Are you kidding? This is the only reason I'm going to watch this.
Can I tell you people?
Can I tell you people that Cassie as the song you were just singing.
I don't know what she's mean.
She's the lead in Wuthering Heights. She dies when she's nineteen. Where I'm going, Yeah, so like, why are we casting Margot Robbie?
I think she is.
I have faith Emerald for now. I'm sure her vision beyond mine.
Like a young person Lawrence Laurence.
Too old, any one of those young Flibberty Gibbit types. Not Sabrina.
She could be she could be busy and good. Jones would be good.
I look very bronzes.
Cassie dies at nineteen, so what's wrong with jameb Cliff is a monster? Yeah? I think he could play like
he is a dark month been anyone who is? He did Jacob Lord, who's like pretty hate Australians because I think this actually makes it sound interesting so funny, because as I say, I don't buy into these things, and then I saw that and I was like, I'm sorry anyway, the point being I'm half joking because I know everything was gonna do, but like, really, Margo Robbie as Cassie, can we please wait?
Once Angelina Jolly's kid, hil she.
Would be good.
Shiloh would be good.
Dearly English and ideally you look like you have lived.
Your whole life locked on more Princess Charlotte.
Yeah, Princes Arlotte.
But anyway, so that was my worst. I got all upset about that. I nearly wrote an angry comment somewhere on the Internet that I was got a grip a great woman. My best is related to my friend me. I don't like to give it too much positive validation, but I was start singing carefully and she needs to read mothering heights. But apart from them, last week she told me that clear. I was asked telling you how I was going to clear up my wardrobe, and he gave me all these tips of how to clear up
my wardrobe. I spent the weekend clearing up my water, but it took me a lot longer than I was I listened to an audio Bet you did it two freaking days. It was me and Billy did it.
My crack.
Oh.
I hated it anyway, but what came out of it was what you predicted, which was new outfits. So on a Tuesday Wednesday this week, I've worn shirts or skirts that I'd forgotten that I had that I found at the back of the closet. I took pictures of them, like I shopped my closet. So you did me a favor there.
My friend a few outladders have messaged me to say I started to say about wardrobe storage, and then I went, oh, I'll tell you later. Yeah, they said, I clickbaited. Well, I said, I'd tell Holly later. I didn't think anyone else would care. My advice is go to Amazon and search wardrobe storage and just enjoy the ride.
We know so many of you love are us presidential election subscriber episodes. We've got a brand new one.
It was quite moving this episode because it's about January sixth and the riots and the storming of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. And Amelia, who is friend of the pod and amazing person, her husband was actually in the Capitol building his doctor and he worked in there at the time. And we're going to play you out today with a little bit of that episode, and there's a link in the show notes if you want to listen to the whole thing.
And then I turned the TV off and I called Johnny and I said, do you see that there are like thousands of presumably armed mob protesters outside of your building right now, and he said he didn't hear anything. Everything seemed normal, so I thought, okay. So then eventually I get a text from a very good friend of mine who I charged with this, and I'll always remember the text she texted me and she said, I'm so sorry they're inside.
That's all we've got time for today. A big thank you to all of you out loud as of course, and a massive thank you to our very talented team. That's executive producer Ruth Divine. This is what Maya was talking about when she said people have goggles. Yeah, she's divine, Ruth Divine. Our senior producer Emmeline gazillis excellent, excellent name. Our audio producer Leah Porges, Yeah, I mean Adam and how wonderful already aforementioned social media producer they amazing Isabelle Dolphin.
Crowd goes, well, we'll see you next week.
Bye.
Shout out to any mum and me a subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to MoMA mia is the very best way to do so. There's a link in the episode description
