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And I watched her have her friend over. They made candles, and then they made a cake, and then they made tea and also the skillet spaghetti. And I was like, if I went to a friend's house and they said let's go make some candles, I would say, I have diarrhea and I need to live because that is my idea. And you know what this is the types of people think some people love that.
Hello, Hello, and welcome to Mamma Mia. Out loud, what women are actually talking about? On Wednesday, the fifth of March. I'm Hollywayn Wright and I'm speaking in.
My b voice.
I'm mea Friedman and my bacon brings all the boys to the yard.
I'm Jesse Stevens and I love birds song.
If you don't know what we're talking about, then you didn't spend last night watching with Love Megan. They nearly got the title wrong. As Ever Megan, Yeah.
As ever, We love Mergan. Montecito, Riviera, American Now.
Anyway, sorry, we're already cracking ourselves up handle making flower sprinkles and that damn jam Welcome to Megan's world. We're getting to that. And a high school has banned mirrors in the kids' bathrooms. Some of us wonder if we could extend that band to the universe. Also, there's a cloud hanging over this season. That's Married at First Sight, that most watched ever and it's dB but first Mia.
We couldn't start today's show without sending our love to all our out louders who are currently preparing for cyclone Alfred to hit southeastern Queensland and northeastern New South Wales. The warning zone extends from north of the Sunshine Coast all the way down to Yamber. Schools are closed today. Evacuation notices have been issued for several areas in Southeast Queensland. Panic buying has commenced. There are five hour lineups for sandbags.
We've been speaking to out louders in Brisbane this morning. There are lines going down the street at bakeries and for basic supplies. A lot of supermarket shelves are bere and of course North Queenslanders are experienced with these kinds of natural disasters, but for Brisbane people it might be their first time. So I'm told that region or Queenslanders are offering some great advice to people in Brisbane who themselves have some real PTSD about fear of their houses
flooding again for those who experienced that last time. And look, the city is built on a floodplain, so it is part of Brisbane's history. But that doesn't make it easy. So our hearts go out to you. Queensland is pulled together really well in a crisis. We know that, and more than four million people are currently in the impact zone potentially, and it must be such a scary time.
And the waiting too. As we're recording this now, obviously it's the waiting period and we're just sending so much love and hopefully a little bit of distraction.
The biggest thing is keeping the low tone to talk in our b voice.
That's a fool. It is so heavy, the weight of the honey, you know what it is.
It's like also that reminder to do something that scares your movement.
I think that's part of it.
Like I'm trying to stay in the phone of it because it's beautiful.
To be disconnected.
It's not my perfume that's bringing them all in My bacon brings all the boys.
Megan marcle has eaten Jack in the box and loves funny too.
Do you keep saying, Megan Markle, you know I'm Sussex. Now you have kids and you go no, I share my name with my children.
Yes, and that feels so.
I didn't know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to see where our rainbow is coming together here. And you don't have to do a big platter of this. You could do this with one small row for your kids for breakfast, genuinely, and it makes the morning alone are fun. It's real delight in being able to be a present parent, and it's a luxury sometimes because we all have to work, we all have a.
Lot of stuff to do.
But when you can take a minute to.
Just starting, Meg, and I want to ask about your luke? Who your luke?
Your luck?
Megan?
Oh, my luke?
Your Luke?
Did I not say it right? I don't know. I mean we're cooler than I am. I don't know what you're talking my luke.
My look, she likes my luke. Welcome to Megan's World, where every guest gets a personalized bees wax candle, you're always fishing flower pedals out of your drinks and crew de taye plates are a much mentioned thing. When was the last time you thought about a crew to tay plate? What is to vegetables on a plate to dip in stuff? They feature in almost every episode that I've watched of Megan's show. They're a big deal.
Smell the home.
Cut flowers, sip the blood orange mimosa, and keep back in tasteful neutrals. While we get to our review of With Love Megan, but before we do, we need to talk a little bit about the complexities of discussing one of the most discussed women in the world. Megan Sussex as we now know she's called, and we will get to that in a minute of why she's called. That definitely attracts a level of vitriol that is usually reserved
for psychopaths, c criminals, murderers. There is no question about that, and the level of shit that this woman endures, particularly on social media, but also in the legacy media, who have various beefs with her husband and who sued a lot of them, and in the comments section of absolutely everything is entirely disproportionate. To anything that Megan might have in inverted commas done.
And it's underpinned with a tone of racism and sexism question entirely unnecessary, and that.
Can make it really hard because it means that any not even legitimate commentary, but discussion about her that's anything other than favorable. It's like going to a protest and finding yourself next to someone with a sign you really think is awful and going, oh, no, I'm protesting this issue, but I don't want to be associated.
With those It's not on your team.
Yeah, and so I don't want to be with the racists and the misogynists who attack Megan, the peers Morgan of it all. But then are we just unrelentingly positive if that doesn't feel real either.
I think we should be allowed to take the piss out of what is unquestionably one of the most entertainingly nonsense television shows that we've seen in a while, Like it's not dangerous or harmful, like this TV show, like it's it's lovely, but we're allowed to point out that it's a little bit ridiculous without I think, jumping into a pit of Megan hate, which I certainly and I know, none of us want to add to that. It's so
toxic and so awful. It doesn't matter. This show could have been the most incredible thing that ever happened on TV. You could predict what all the headlines were going to say.
Yeah, Freens, didn't matter what she put out.
I am Meghan Markle's defender on this show, okay, yes, And I wanted to love this. I wanted I pressed play and I went, come on, Megan. Who doesn't love a cake, a candle and a fruit platter.
We all love it, especially when the fruit platter is in the colors of the rainbow.
I mean, what could go wrong? There were moments where I was holding my hand over my mouth in shock.
It's about what I watched.
I want to just tell everybody what the format is in case they didn't watch it, because some people didn't put themselves through it or enjoy it. As the case, maybe the format is a guest, not a very famous guest, which is one of the things that I'm interested in, but usually one of Megan's mates or someone she admires comes to a pretend house. There's no shade in that. Because very few of the lifestyle shows that we Watch and Consume are ever filmed in somebody's real house or certainly the host.
Real housing shows are never filmed in almost It is.
A little bit disappointing that it's not a bit more believable. And she declares in the first episode, in the first ten minutes, this is not my house, up and down to this place, because so much of it is about her home, her life, her vibe. You're a little bit like, oh, I'd love to see your real garden.
But anyway, she does film in her real garden. So the bits where she's in that picking a lot of the beds, not all of them, but some of the ones, like when she's picking berries and stuff, Apparently that is in her garden and it's her real I haven't seen the chickens yet. I'm only up to episode three, the chickens and the bees, so there are a good well that's her bees.
It would have to be right, because the garden is so beautiful it makes you want to cry. I also want to know you might know this if that's her real view with the mountains, because that's the best view I've ever seen her view. Anyway, the people come over to the pretend house and they do things together like make fried chicken cakes, rainbow fruit platters, make jam et cetera, and they chat while they're doing it. Right as you say, Jesse, I too very much wanted to love it because I'm
team Meghan. I found it hard to not criticize any of it. But I've worked really hard to find five positive things about it. Should we discuss some of them? Because I know you agree.
I want to just say firstly what I thought of it, because I was a bit like, I'm a bit the black hat when it comes to Meghan. I am reputationally without louders. I'm seen as someone who's very critical of her. I did not have that same reaction when I watched the first episode. I found it in the way that those shows can be that are on like the Lifestyle
Channel or you know, Nigella, just quite soothing. There have been times in my life where I've really got quite involved in them in that they're just lovely, pleasant, white background noise. And we talk a lot about the New Cycle being so horrible at the moment that sometimes it is nice to just retreat into a world where making a gift bag for a child's birthday party is your whole purpose, your whole purpose.
It's opened with Meghan making bath salts for her friend who is staying in her guest room, and she says, you always want someone who's staying in your guest cottage to know how much you've thought of them. And I thought, that's the most unrelatable shit I have ever heard in my life. She was like, you want obviously a moment at.
The bedside table was moments moment who.
Has a guest? Secondly who has a bedside table? Thirdly who has a bathroom for their guests?
I don't like people staying at the house.
This gets to one of the very big things about it is relatability what Meghan's going for, because no, I don't think it is no.
But what I found I'm going to use the word insufferable about it is that I like lifestyle shows. Right. So, Martha Stewart's stick is that she is a self described perfectionist, and she owns that, and there's something quite self aware about it. Meghan won't acknowledge that she's a perfectionist. She keeps saying it doesn't have to be perfect. The other thing I like about lifestyle shows is that while they cook or while they potter, we learn things about their lives.
That's usually the format.
That's the format is that there's something quite revealing about who that person is or what they think. There is none of that the depth of the conversation. The only place it goes to is Meghan saying to her friend, do you like tomatoes? Who doesn't like tomatoes? They're making a pasta and then they go and make.
I liked that pasta. It was like, why I would like to it past He right? So I was like, oh, this is interesting. I'm actually learning things. I wrote down a list of the things that I learned in this show list. Yes, yes, I stopped writing down things after a while because there was a lot of things that I will never do.
Right.
It's a bit like watching porn. You can go, well, that's interesting, but I'll never do that. But it's interesting to watch things go in different holes. I was like, it's interesting to see someone make bath salts from scratch, or someone pop corn with a dried corn, thing like stuff I would never do. But it did feel quite soothing in a way. Some other things that I learned is how to harvest honey. That's when she was talking in the clip that we had about the bees and bees.
Do you think that how to harvest honey and like how she still needs a beekeeper year on is a relatable life hack.
No, but I don't think these shows are relatable necessarily because I also learned that you can get wax. If you don't have your own bee harvest hive, you can get wax from your local beekeeper. She did mention that.
Where's our local beekeeper? Because I I'd have to go I.
Had I learned how to make a local beekeeper. So, you know, people, you know what, celebrities aren't meant to be like us. They're not like Megan Markle is royal. We would be kind of disappointed if she was.
Just she's actually not.
In her tracks and she is royal. Will you talk about the sussex things?
Explain that one of the things I learned is about the sussexness of it all. You said there isn't revealing stuff. There is definitely revealing stuff in this It's just you have to work quite hard for it because it's.
Not later Also, she stopped after the first episode.
The second one is Mandy Kayling and that was my favorite so far. Mindy Kayling good friend of Megan. They've already been on a show together on the podcast comes around with their mom friends. Apparently there's a lot of mommy in episode two. That's why you have to watch it, Jesse, because it's aimed at you and her second birthday party.
Many Kayling is very glam like. She comes over wearing double denim with a Valentino belt and very big fake eyelashes and more hair and makeup than I saw her wear at the Oscars. So I thought that was interesting.
Well, I think that's the vibe, right, because what I quite liked about Mindy is she was very clearly like, oh my god, I'm going to Megan Michael's house, even though she wasn't going to Mega michaels house, and she kept saying that, and that's why Meghan had to say but I thought with a little point, like a little bit of like, oh, you know what I mean, because if you're a famous person, you don't really want people
keeping saying like, oh my god, you're so famous. And that's why Meghan then goes, it's so funny that you keep calling me Megan Michaels. She didn't mean funny. She said that she meant annoying, she met annoying, but she was being polite. She said, because I'm Sussex. Now now what she means by that? And then she said, obviously not relatable to me that you have to have the same name as your children, otherwise you're not a unit. And I'm like, well that leaves all of us in
quite a lot of trouble. But anyway, yeah, anyway, the reason she's a Sussex now is Harry's official surname, Like as in, if he had an official surname but it was Windsor, it's Mount Batton, Windsor, right, that's' official surname. But royals, very often the surname is their title. So when Harry was at school, he was known as Harry Wales. When he was in the army, he was known as whatever rank he was Wales, right, William Wales. That's the
way it works. So now that his title is Sussex, the Duke of Sussex, Sussex is kind of like his surname now, so Harry Sussex, Megan Sussex, but Sussex. So that's how it works. So it's very much a royal thing that they've taken on, so she is still royal.
What would be cool is if she was just called Meghan Sussex.
Then, because even in the Executive Producer it's the first name that comes up. Is But I couldn't get through more than one. And I watched her have her friend over. They wanted to gossip like anyone does, but they couldn't. So he said things like, your peas look like pearls, actual green peas, and then they made candles, and then they made a cake, and then they made tea and
also the skillet spaghetti. And I was like, if I went to a friend's house and they said let's go make some candles, I would say, I have diarrhea and I need to live, because that is my idea. And you know what, this is the types of people thing. Some people love that. But there was something in the tone as well that I felt was like when I take lunar to a craft class where the teacher's going and now get your paddle pop stick and put it here that she was speaking to her friend like that.
In one of my uncharitable moments, I did write in my notes because I was taking notes. Obviously, if Megan was in my mother's group, I would fake a seizure and leave. And that's only because not because of her. But that second episode that was about hosting a child's birthday party triggered me, like I know that it did. In the group chat, you turned it that I turned, I wrote, I have turned because.
You announced your turning.
I am out of that phase of parenting now my kids are teenagers. I found that very stressful. She uses hostessing as a verbal lot like hostessing never stops. Hostessing demands a lot of it. I am a terrible hostess, and anyone who cuts their which is in the little star shapes immediately triggers me. Never mind the balloon art stop.
But in that episode two I did learn something that I think is quite profound, right because I kept wondering why she's the friend clearly when Daniel comes over in the first episode that you saw, she's clearly the friend who goes you look tired. I'm going to run you a bath and make you some tea for your allergies right now. Sometimes you love that friend, and other times you want to throttle that friend because you're like, you're controlling.
What do you mean I look tired, bitch?
I'm working hard. But anyway, in the second episode, because I kept thinking, why does she want to look after everyone so much? And why is she so obsessed with everything being beautiful? And in sad episode, she talks to me and nikayling about the tacos and how when she was a kid, and Mindy says, did you eat like this growing up? So she's talking about her veggie cru to tape platters and arrange the kids love. Yeah, that the kids love also triggered me. I am with vegetables
and children. My children have never knowingly eaten the vegetables. Still, anyway, she says, No, I was a latch key kid, she said, and I ate a lot of fast food. She came home, she put a microwave meal and they did a plate and ate alone because she had two very busy working divorced parents and no one was making her crew to tape plates. And so I think that one of the things that's really interesting there is an insight about Megan.
She knows that the greatest privilege of having money really is that you can spend our times and she said that quite a few times.
And you can spend time making them waffles for breakfast, setting, and I.
Think she's you know, she's clearly knows that, is self aware enough to know that, and she's leaning into it in a big way.
Can I ask you, Holly, what your five positives were? I have one positive. My one positive is that she has beautiful handwriting, a lot of writing.
Labels, and beautiful nails, very gorgeous hands. She could be handed.
I did admire the money. Yeah right, she actually looks amazing full stop. As we've already discussed, the food is good and not that complicated, That pasta dish fantastic.
I meant that I want that recipe and the.
Quick except you can't because it isn't anywhere that did.
We have to address this at a later day. I want to know, Mia, why you can't get all the recipes.
Well, it's interesting because you would think the logical tie in if you were walking in the shoes of your audience, is you then click and go to the website and it shows you step by step how to do the balloon arch, how to make the bath salts, you know, how to make the little Lady Bug chrostini, all of those things, and they could just use steals from the filming of the show the recipes because I couldn't follow
all of that. I'm up to episode three where they're making fried chicken and there are so many steps and there's brining and all of these things, and not that I'm ever going to make it anyway, but if you wanted to, you couldn't, So that was surprising.
Another positive for me is that she's clearly on the sash she's a health nut, but she still offers boos at kids parties, which is something I approve of very much, and she at least pretends to drink the beer left over from that Brian for the fried chicken. So she's like kind of trying to show you.
I'm a good time.
I'm a good time. I also liked and I learned, and I was like positives that she shares a good fortune. So Daniel in that first episode, who's a makeup artist, who makes the point in a funny moment that where she's like, you and your boyfriend could just sit at the counter and eat this, and he's like, there's no
counter in my New York compartment. Queen like he looked like he'd had a rainbow shot up his bum when he was sitting on that amazing deck, and he's like, I like staying in your guest cottage and going home with all my free dab like she on the A club's doing that for people, which I thought was really nice.
What's interesting is also I was just enchanted by what she was wearing to cook and you know people are going to deconstruct this, and so you wouldn't cook them. It's like, of course, television's not real. Television shows aren't real. You don't have a whole crew there. There's a crew of eighty. Because she was asked in a People magazine interview why she didn't shoot at home, and she said, look, my home is my sanctuary, which I completely understand when
you're that much in the public eye. And she said, and also there was you know, when you've got a crew of eighty, that's a lot of people to have in one house, and it's very disruptive. And I understood that. But I think what she did achieve because what I liked about it was it got to show Megan being what she clearly loves doing. So sometimes people go a
whited blah blah do this reality show? The reason that most people give for doing reality shows or interviews is that they just want to be understood for who they are, and they feel that the public has the wrong idea about that.
I think that's what this project.
Yeah, And I think what it allowed her to be publicly is what her friends, she says repeatedly, know her to be privately, which is fun, easy going, nurturing, loves a crew, to tap, plate, crafty, all of those things, instead of being under siege, complaining about the royal family, traumatized, racism, all of that very negative narrative which set in really fast after she do that crib shift will work, Yeah, I do, because I think in the same way that
you were saying, you like that she's on Instagram now. I think that when you flood the zone, if we've learned nothing from Donald Trump, it's this, when you flood the zone with content, the only way to change the conversation is to start a new conversation. And this show is a new conversation. And if we've all said stopped complaining, it's not complaining it. Yeah.
But I think that the problem is probably that the show is dull and that it's not going to have traction. I don't think it's going to have the kind of viral traction that she would have wanted, and what we I think.
She wants to be viral. I think she wants to be dull, like the Tig was dull. Her lifestyle website was dull. It rubs maybe inoffensive, yeah, it.
Rubs against maybe an Australian sensibility in that what it appears to be is eight episodes of having friends come to your house and really talk to Meghan about how great she is, and go, Meghan, oh my goodness.
I can't believe I'm in your hand.
I can't believe you're so beautiful. Look at this amazing cake. Blah blah blah, which might have happened, but in an edit, I go just as a viewer, I don't find that particularly interesting. Sometimes you interview someone in this job and they come in and you do a bit of gushing. You cut that no one wants to hear it. But this show, to me is fifty percent gushing, which I don't find particularly insightful. So I'm stopping at one. I don't think I can do it. Please, I will watch Lindy.
I'll watch Mindy, but I need to know if you two are going to finish the series.
I am when I'm looking for something inoffensive kind of background noise. It's a great second screen show where you can look up every so often and go this person who's been this enigma for what almost ten years now, and there's all this drama and gossip. You can just see her living a life.
Absolutely, yes, I will. When the recipes come, I will be definitely trying to cook some things. I'm already gonna make quickles this weekend because I'm sad like that. And the last thing is for everything, quick pickles, quick pickles.
For those who haven't watched that episode.
Everybody who is wondering where is the jam today? The jams on the website, I can't buite look at it though, And and no one who has watched the first two episodes of that will be surprised to hear this flower sprinkles.
You know what. I'm off to find my local beekeeper.
In a moment. Why one school is banning mirrors in case you missed it, A new trend is starting to really piss off the hairdressers. And you don't want to piss off a hairdresser. They have scissors and they can give your pocket if they're in the mood. According to a story in the Washington Post, in the last six months, some hairdressers have seen a sharp increase in clients presenting
with AI images when asking for color or cut. The image, which is maybe sourced from Pinterest or Instagram, is flawless, the hair is too glossy, cut is too perfect, and the hairdresser has to say, not.
Possible on actual hair that looks a lot better than.
Yours, exactly. And the same is apparently happening with wedding dresses. So people come in and show a photo of a floor length gown with no back, no size leaves, and drap fronts like that defies the laws of physics, and we can't make it.
And I think look to be fair. This is what I've always said about body image and why retouching in the days of magazines and now using filters and face tune is so messed up because you don't know that what you're looking at doesn't exist. But when you are looking at it and then looking at yourself in the mirror, whether you realize it or not, you're subliminally comparing yourself to something that actually doesn't exist.
And experts can tell because even like wedding planners that they'll be shown a venue or a table set and they'll go that is not real. That is basically a cartoon. People are coming into their plastic surgeons with artificially generated bodies. Holly, is this really that different to the time you took in a photo of Lara Bingal and said, can you make me look like this?
I was only thinking about that the amount of times have taken in a photo that might as well have been AI and in its relation to my actual head humorous Bridget Bardot, I'd like to look like this. Please, good luck to hale. Hair is not going to do it. Yes, it's exactly like that, and I just think we can all dream. But an honest hairdresser is a great gift.
First, some schools band phones, but one school in the UK has put a new ban in place that has sparked a very lively debate. William Farr Church of England Comprehensive School in Lincolnshire has just banned mirrors, according to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, because they were concerned by the amount of time students were spending in
bathrooms looking at themselves. The head master says the decision was made to reduce distractions during school hours, particularly between lessons, as students were often late to class.
Is this the girls on the boys toilets?
It did say, I think it's a co ed school.
At school because it's comprehensive and so that means it's a public school. But I think, breathing between the lines, I think it's the girls.
Interesting because they did say if students need a mirror for medical purposes, they are entitled to ask reception.
What medical purposes?
Well, good question. One woman said about her daughter that she has contact lenses and braces, so she needs a mirror. What if she needs to take her contact lenses out?
What then?
Oh?
Yeah, But another mom said that's quite specific. Yeah it is, And I think that's a medical purpose, so you would just, you know, go to the office and say I need a hand. One mom said though that she was actually really supportive of it, and she likes that her daughter can't go in and check herself out all the time and maybe she'll start getting to class on time. Yeah.
I've heard this happening at another school where people were going in and filming tiktoks and they were going in and looking at themselves for a long time, and then filming tiktoks at school, and it was disruptive because the people who actually had to go to the toilet could never get in because it was too busy.
Was part of that.
What's interesting A lot of people will assume that this is just girls, but what you know if you've got teenage boys, is that for a lot of teenage boys, they get to this age it's I think it's around fourteen fifteen where they suddenly become transfixed with their reflection and they cannot see a reflective surface without stopping and
looking at themselves in it and often flexing. And my reasoning for why both teenage girls and boys spend such a long time looking in the mirror is that when you go through puberty, you change so dramatically, and you know, you go from child to young adult essentially, and it takes a while for your mind to catch up with how you look, and so I think it's about adjusting
to that. Oh my god, is that me? I mean I remember being a little kid and looking at my shadow at the beach and seeing that my waist went in and being absolutely transfixed.
It's a fixture of adolescence, the kind of come looking at yourself.
Honestly, I'm not going to throw row any members of my family under the bus, but I've spent quite a lot of time around fifteen year old girls. They are looking at themselves too fucking much all the time. It's changed, though it has always been the case to a point. But the reason that they're looking at themselves so much
is because they've never been more surveyed. They have grown up looking at their faces in their phone cameras and looking at other women's faces in their phone cameras in a way that none of.
Us ever did.
And they are understandably, completely understandably completely obsessed with what they look like. And so they're endless looking in the mirror, putting on your makeup, lip gluss, lip gloss off. It's normal, it's teenagery. In my opinion, it is getting more and more intense for very understandable reasons that are not their fault.
But I hate it.
If I could remove all the mirrors from my house, I would. I remember Zady Smith, she's a famous British author, made a lot of headlines a few years ago for saying that she had given her teenage daughter as a band. No time limit of how long they're allowed to look in the mirror, and a lot of people were outrage. I think it was fifteen minutes. It was still a long time, right, And she said, this is fifteen minutes
that you are spending that your brother is not. This is time that you are spending staring at yourself and fiddling with your face and doing all the stuff that the boys are not. Now, I know you see your point mere about the transfixed with their appearance, but they're not grooming in there for hours and hours. And I think we need a little bit of good old fashioned stop obsessing about what you look like. But then maybe that's just a glimpse into my house.
I vividly remember being fourteen, and this was before Instagram and Facebook and phones. People didn't know if they had anything. They had a kind of nockier thing with snake on it. But I remember there were some classrooms that had a mirror and the girls you couldn't focus because they would look at themselves, they'd pull a face, they would redo
hair up. Well, I'm reading, and then there was this big mirror like above the bubblers and above, and the fixation on appearance was such a part of my high school experience, and I went through probably about two years between fourteen and sixteen, where I did not look in a mirror. I would brush my teeth in the morning, eyes down, I would avoid a mirror at all costs. I hated it because if you avoid a mirror, you can live in a world where your face doesn't exist,
and it's great. And I was deeply I was filled with self loathing. Was a lot why I didn't want to look in the mirror. I didn't like what my skin looked like, in my braces and all of the things. If the mirrors had been a mirror, it's healthy. I don't know if it's particularly healthy to.
Aspire to, but I think because I know a lot of women at the other end of their lives who do the same, a lot of older women who go, I'm just not doing mirrors anymore for the same reason. They're like, it's too confronting, it's stop setting. I don't conform to the standards. What's the point? And that living in a world where you don't have to think about it is liberating because extreme.
Ultimately it doesn't matter. And I had to keep telling myself.
That's fourteen, but it's okay.
It shouldn't matter, of course.
So there's the way the world should be, and there's
the way the world is. And given that we live in a world where women's appearances are weaponized against us, they're monetized by ourselves, by other people, to pretend that isn't the case, and to say, the whole world's telling you this, but you've got to pretend like they're not and not look in a mirror when a girl is really you know, at that age, you're also you're right, You're starting to realize that you are being perceived by others and you need to sort of close that gap
between how you perceive yourself and how you are being perceived by other people, and looking in a mirror is the only way to do that.
I think it's a brave, bold move from a school, And what are schools if not trying to imbue certain values into you. Do we just accept that people live on their smartphones, that people are being perceived, that girls at twelve are putting makeup on and doing tiktoks like that's why schools go, we're not wearing makeup.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good idea that the schools are doing. Yeah, I like in the same way as phones. It's nice to have lay in your work, but it's also nice to have a place in your life a few hours off from being perceived from thinking about how you look. I absolutely support that, But I think to say girls shouldn't look at themselves in the mirror is just not really.
But I don't think it shouldn't look at it. I don't think you shouldn't look at yourself in the mirror at all. Although I totally relate to what Jesse is saying about how freeing it is, but just the amount of time and energy, because of course you have to deal with the way the world is. But if we ever want to change the world, you have to question the way the world is. And it's getting worse, not better.
It's one of my points about this, right is that we might be more empowered in so many ways, and women have more choices in so many ways, but the fixation on appearance, because of.
The forward facing phone and.
The and all of those things, and social media is getting worse and worse and worse. And I remember so clearly my daughter when she was about twelve. Then I'd always said to it doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter what you look like. And she did a me or and she was right. Gave me a reality check one day. But Mum, it's all anyone actually cares about, and that's heartbreaking.
But I just don't think think you should shame girls or boys for looking in the mirror. Oh I do, because I used to. Have you been watching the latest season of Married at First Sight? Full disclosure, We have not been, but we know so many of you have and discussing it in the out Louders Facebook group and
on our socials. And the reason why we're talking about it today is because it has jumped from being a reality TV story into the zeitgeist and now the news cycle, and also because it's become a story about domestic violence and coercive control. But before we discuss whether reality TV is the right place to showcase serious issues like this, we needed an explainer about what has actually happened on the show. So we've invited someone who knows everything about
this topic. Tina Burke. Muma me is pop culture and social editor to people who know nothing about it, which is the three of us so we know some things about it, we need to know a little bit more. Tina, can you tell us, firstly, for the people who really know nothing, how does maths work? What's the basic premise.
I'm so jealous of anyone who doesn't know how maths works. But the basic premise is that a panel of three love experts, like qualified in various different areas, pull together a bunch of total strangers who first meet on their wedding days. In Australia it's not a legal wedding day, but in other countries it is. So they have their fake wedding and then they spend either weeks or up to three months in an experiment basically simulating what it would be like to be.
In a relationship.
Can you explain, because I've watched pretty much every season up until now, but I've seen a lot of headlines and commentary about a man named Adrian. What has happened on the show? Why is he kind of so front and center this season?
So Adrian has been paired with a fena, and so their match has been basically one of the most controversial so far this season. They were pretty much just matched together because they're twins. Like no one can see any other reason that they they're not twins. Sorry, they're both in sets of twins, twins both twin and that was the only reason they were matched. There's no other thing.
It does feel a bit married at first sight. To match twins with each other and be like, prank you're married anyway.
Would have been good TV, but scary TV. But so they were matched together. She's a single mother, so she's quite like earnestly they're looking for love. And then he's made it quite clear that he just wants to be famous, as most mass contestants do. And you know, they say they've got a good connection, that they've had some loving moments, but we've obviously only seen the negative.
To what's the drama with him is basically.
That he's coming across very controlling in the way that he is behaving towards a femurs. So his behavior has been called out by viewers. He's kind of said things like, don't tell the experts this when we go in, like, don't tell the other contestants that I said this to you. And he's also doing things that kind of make her, in very small ways, seem a little bit crazy.
So they'll be.
Having a conversation and she's talking at a normal volume and he'll be like, stop yelling, stop screaming.
And was there a background before he came on the show.
Yes, So obviously the thing that happens is that they get paired. They go through all of these background checks, and in around August last year we found out like who was matched through paparazzi photos and things like that. So when that did happen, someone who knew of his past emailed EndemolShine and they kind of.
Said that the Channel nine.
Yeah, so they emailed them. They said that they were concerned about the fact that he had had a past of domestic abuse charges. But he was found not guilty of those charges. So in twenty twenty one, he was dismissed in a New South Wales court for assault occasionally actual bodily harm, domestic violence, common assault and resisting police and that was to do with an ex partner who he lived with. But yeah, he was found not guilty.
So the producers, when they discovered this and when it came out publicly said that they don't do police checks. They do very basic background checks. But I would have assumed even a Google search probably could have come up with that that was surprising to hear. But it's actually not this story that has been in the news. It's another couple and a guy called Paul. Yes.
So Paul and Karina have kind of been the Cinderella love story of the season. They're the ones that everyone really loves. They're very happy, and then last week we opened up an episode with them having a very serious conversation about the fact that he had punched a hole in the door after they'd gotten into an argument in front of another couple. So they were in an Uba and song came on the radio and Caarina says, oh
I previously slept with the rapper of this song. And then when they get home, they have an argument and he punches a hole in the wall, and then they're separated for the night by the producers.
So does that then play out the next day in front of this panel of relationship experts.
So they kind of were reunited the next day. They had a dinner party first where all the contestants kind of weigh in on this very serious topic, and then they did have the commitment ceremony, which is in front of all of the experts. So that is where they were called out for the behavior, and.
That's what Chill said. I felt disrespected, Yeah.
And so throughout even at the dinner party. In their first conversation, he kind of yoged between like I feel ashamed, but also like I was just angry and I had emotions, and like he doesn't really take responsibility and he does try to sneak back onto Karna the stutus of this.
Police are now involved, Is that right?
Yes, so police are investigating along with Safe Work because obviously this is an incident between coworkers.
And what did the show actually do. Did it provide a therapist? Did it provide the opportunity for either of them?
Was he ab to leave?
So he wasn't asked to leave, but he was put on notice. So he was explained that, like, if he wanted to move forward in the experiment, he has to do counseling to ensure that he doesn't let himself do it again. Was she offered counseling, Not that we know of, but they do say that they have counseling available to everybody.
She was kind of explained to by the experts that, like this was deeply troubling because she was defending his actions in front of the experts and saying we're European and they kind of said, that's not a justification.
Yeah.
Yeah. I wanted to just ask you one final question about the dynamics, because even though the women are free to leave or end, as you say, the experiment, if they don't like their partner or they're concerned about their behavior, that would then mean the end of their time on the show, right and the end of their what opportunity to win something become more famous.
Yes, So obviously this season we did have someone quit in like their honeymoon phase, and they were allowed to return. But for the most part, if you quit the show, you don't get to come back. So most people have quit their jobs. They've obviously come on here because they see what it can do for you and the success that you can have. So if you leave the show, it does mean that you're cutting down your screen time and like how much the public gets to see if you and fall in love with you because.
You can turn into an influencer and have can you have a lucrative career or is that just the carrot that's dangled.
I think it's for most of them, just the carrot that's dangled. They might get a few years of like influencer deals and Instagram ads, but for the most part, with the exception of maybe Jules Robinson and Martha Kelleftitis, there's not many mass contestants who've turned it into something long term.
That's incredibly helpful infam Currently, both couples are still on the show. Yes, both are still investigating. Yes, yeah, after the break we will unpack whether but reality TV is the right place for those kinds of issues to be discussed.
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.
That was really interesting what Tina explained. And I'm of two minds because the argument can be made that this should not be glamorized normalized by being on reality TV, or that it's exploited if But on the other hand, is it a teachable moment? Is it good to highlight how bad this behavior is?
There are a few issues at play. I think because I look at this and my friends who are watching it, the overwhelming question seems to be shouldn't Paul have just been let go? I mean, any act of violence on reality television, It's like, can we just.
Pause the guy that punched the walls? Yes, the guy that had charge.
I think the context as well for punching the wall was that that was her way out of the room, so there was something kind of doubly threatening about it, and like watching that in context.
It's incredibly threatening.
It's an incredibly threatening thing to do. It is escalating, you know, it is an act of violence to have someone It's really really menacing. And I would look at that and go all right, especially in a country that has the domestic violence epidemic that we do, can we just draw a really firm line on this? To be clear, this show has a dubious history with contestants who have been accused of certain crimes, like there are examples of that.
On the other hand, there are particular forms of abuse, emotional coercive control, psychological abuse that are almost impossible to explain. And when you sit with your girlfriends and you say it's just this argument and he says, I'm yelling, but I don't think like it sounds.
So I used to have those conversations in my head. I wouldn't even say them to a girlfriend because I'd feel crazy.
And where do we see them? We don't because they happen behind closed doors. This television show is one of the most watched television shows ever created in Australia. Right there are millions of people watching this. When you have a country all looking in the same direction, is this holding up a mirror and going here are the real nuances and the early red flags and the early red flags of a complicated, toxic relationship that not only do you get to see it and go when I see
someone else in that, I don't like it. You're sitting on the couch going, oh, all right, this is maybe not so normal. The experts over the years, they used to kind of just watch and not intervene so much. Over the years they've started to intervene a little bit more and provide more commentary. Even mel Schilling, who's one of their psychologists, she's now on a podcast with Elizabeth Days. I've been elevated as someone who who can give real
relationship advice. I think they've got better at calling it out and going that is not appropriate. That is not how you behave see that thing you did, don't do that. So is there some couples or some behaviors that are being held to account that we might not see otherwise, Holly, is that a ridiculous position.
I don't think it's a ridiculous position because I think one of the reasons why people like this show is it reflects the very messy nature of a lot of human relationships that don't always go exactly you know by the book, Like he said something disrespectful to me. I left him immediately, Like that's not how a lot of relationships go. And I know exactly why people really like that.
But I am intensely irritated by the fact that New South Wales Police, who get four hundred domestic violence calls every single day and now investigating an incident on a ridiculous television show where people deliberately cast men with anger issues and put them in situations that will trigger those anger issues for drama and ratings, because at the end of the day, married at first sight for all of it's like this is an experiment, it is a ratings machine.
They do this deliberately. We have talked a million times about how you need drama and conflict, and drama and conflict in relationships can be kind of innocent. You know, did he say my bumbluck being in these pants? But they're not that that could even not be innocent in this situation, or it could be cheating, or it could be whatever. But domestic violence surely has to be a line that we don't cross just for ratings, because we
can talk about teachable moments. But the problem is these men are being rewarded, they're being made famous, they're being displayed as being hot and exciting. The whole reason why Adrian, who should never have been cast. I mean, I know that he was cleared of those charges, but that still seems like a very dangerous choice for producers to then put him with a young single mother who has a young child. That still seems like a dangerous choice. Right,
He should never have been cast. And the reason that they cast him is because they knew there would be drama, they knew there would be excitement. They're hoping it wouldn't be dangerous drama and criminal drama. But it's deliberately stoking this And that's the thing that I find really hard about this show is it's disingenuousness because I watch it sometimes I sit with my friend at the beginning and Adrian comes in and we go, oh, he seems like a nice guy, or actually, you don't, do you go
he seems like a troubled dude. In the first five minutes. I wonder what he's like. The producers know what he's like. They know all these things. They know exactly who they're putting with, who and why. So teachable moments maybe, but also dangerous manipulation, rewarding bad behavior.
Yes, well you say rewarding bad behavior or is he being held accountable publicly shamed? Like that stuff's not happening behind closed doors, because if it was, I know that. When I was in an emotionally abusive relationship, I didn't have the words for it. I thought it was just me and him. I didn't know about coercid control or gas lighting or any of those things. If I'd have seen it reflected on a TV show, that would have been a game changer for me.
I get that, and I think it's a really valid point. But let's just remember what happens after this, Like these guys then become you know, they're going to nightclub openings. They're low level influencers. There's an only fans career waiting for you. There are people on the show and off the show debating whether or not they're good dudes, whether or not that's okay, Well.
You know what you're getting if you date them?
Oh do you that?
I do think as well. With reality TV, in order for it to keep growing, it needs to escalate. So it started. It was quite innocent the first season, and then we went to a cheating scandal, and then there needed to be two cheating scandals. And now you can set your watch to it and go, all right, it's episode three, where are the seeds of a cheating scandal? We shouldn't be surprised that this is escalated to New South Wales police because where else is there to go?
Imagine, imagine you said those police. It must just be like, really, you think that's bad for the show, bad for the show's brand, or just well the real is more advertising.
It's great for the ratings. Were talking about it, Yeah, the ratings are just growing and growing. So the commentary will continue, the feminist commentary or the commentary about the ethics. But the reality is that every season gets bigger and bigger and bigger, So why would you wind it down.
If you do not approve and you think it's dangerous, don't watch it. There is only one thing you can do. Vote with your wallet, and your wallet, in this case, your eyeballs.
I know for some particularly women who are watching this, it's been really confronting because you might recognize some of the behavior. So we have some resources in our show notes. You can call one eight hundred respect or for other resources, just look at our show notes.
That's it for our show today.
Gosh, it was big.
It's a big show. It was a great show, great show.
It was a goodtual. We were outstanding. I think it was one of our best as a podcast.
As Megan's mimosas, That's what I wanted to know. She was using very posh champagne for those mimosas.
By the way, she one.
Of knows you use crap prosecco for mimosas and you use really good champagne if people are actually drinking the champagne.
You, meganis you know? Had it made this show better? Some sprinkled flowers.
A massive thank you to all of you out loud as for being here with us, and we'll be back in your ears tomorrow.
But if you are looking for a little bit of Oscars goss, we did a subscriber episode with a full debrief, including an honestory cap of the Red Carpet, Adrian Brodie's obnoxiously long speech, and Demi Moore's really bad night. A linkers always will be in the show notes. Bye bye.
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