Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia Out Loud, where women come to debrief. I'm
Speaker 2: Holly Waynwright, I'm mea Friedman.
Speaker 3: And I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2: And here's what's made our agenda for today, Wednesday, the
Speaker 2: twenty fifth of June. He's everywhere you look. He's on
Speaker 2: a supercharged comebat mission. But how do we solve a
Speaker 2: problem like Brad.
Speaker 3: Pitt plus, are you a maximizer or a satisficer? The
Speaker 3: fascinating theory on why women are more likely to end
Speaker 3: marriages and what it has to do with how long
Speaker 3: you take to look at the menu at a restaurant.
Speaker 1: And the woman who is obsessing a certain corner of
Speaker 1: the Internet this week has been dead for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: So why is Carolnbusset Kennedy suddenly everywhere? And why are
Speaker 1: so many people feeling furious about it?
Speaker 2: But first, the President of the United States crashed out
Speaker 2: this morning. That's another term that might also be called
Speaker 2: lost his shit.
Speaker 1: Emotional dysregulation.
Speaker 2: Yes, very emotionally dysregulated in a very reassuring display at
Speaker 2: reporters on the White House lawn on the way to
Speaker 2: the Netherlands for the NATO summit. This is what he
Speaker 2: said about what's unfolding between Iran and Israel, and we
Speaker 2: basically have two countries that have been fighting so long
Speaker 2: and so hard that they don't know what the fuck
Speaker 2: they're doing. You understand that he was upset because twenty
Speaker 2: four hours before he'd told the world that he'd sorted
Speaker 2: that stuff out. Just like that, everyone had listened to him.
Speaker 2: They backed off, they'd gone to their corners. Guess what
Speaker 2: they didn't.
Speaker 3: He's the anti war president, right he is.
Speaker 2: Mia is Trump less worried about escalating hostilities and casualties
Speaker 2: than he is about not getting a certain trophy he's
Speaker 2: desperate for.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're wondering why he's suddenly so fixated on
Speaker 1: peace and why he's branding himself the anti war president,
Speaker 1: you might not know. You might have missed the fact
Speaker 1: that he's been petitioning to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Speaker 1: Is this real citizens satire? He's actually been nominated five
Speaker 1: times over the last five years. You have to get
Speaker 1: nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. I'm not sorrying if
Speaker 1: you can nominate yourself, but various people have nominated him,
Speaker 1: including the Pakistan government this year. He wrote on the
Speaker 1: Truth social platform on Friday Night, which he owns conveniently,
Speaker 1: he says, no, I won't get a Nobel Peace Prize
Speaker 1: no matter what I do, including Russia, Ukraine and Israel
Speaker 1: I ran, whatever those outcomes may be. But the people
Speaker 1: know and that's all that matters to me.
Speaker 2: That's what you say when you really want to win
Speaker 2: something and you're not going to win it, You're like,
Speaker 2: I don't care. I didn't care anyway.
Speaker 3: I didn't want it.
Speaker 2: I didn't even want it. When he really, really really.
Speaker 1: Wants stranger things have happened, he could win a Nobel
Speaker 1: Peace Prize. I mean if this cease fire hold, which
Speaker 1: you know at the time of recording, hopefully it will.
Speaker 3: We're saying a lot of Dick's winging, and what's being lost,
Speaker 3: I think is the loss of civilian life in all
Speaker 3: of this conflict, and I'm not seeing that in you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of the Trump coverage. Civilians are not their government,
Speaker 3: and I think I would like to make space. I
Speaker 3: think a lot of out louders probably feel like this
Speaker 3: for the position of deep grief and distress and an
Speaker 3: acknowledgment of just all the innocent people who have lost
Speaker 3: their lives and continue to every day. And Trump can
Speaker 3: say those words, and he can swear on the lawn
Speaker 3: or whatever, but the reality is these are real human
Speaker 3: beings with real lives, and the scale of the tragedy
Speaker 3: is unimaginable.
Speaker 2: What do we do with a problem like Brad Pitt.
Speaker 2: He's everywhere at the minute, looming like a craggy, middle
Speaker 2: aged Donnis on billboards, pop up ads, on podcasts, photoshoots,
Speaker 2: in my dreams, but not about me. I'm talking about
Speaker 2: Brad Pitt because everyone is. He is on the promotional
Speaker 2: tour for his first like mega mega movie in decades.
Speaker 2: Right f one, you would have seen this about It's
Speaker 2: about cars, Jesse, You'd love it.
Speaker 3: I'm really into it now that I'm a Formula one expert.
Speaker 1: I'm also watching Drive to Survive, so I've got skin
Speaker 1: in this game.
Speaker 2: He's also jumping on the very fast bandwagon. It cost
Speaker 2: a sickening three hundred million US dollars to make this film.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of money, and it's directed by the
Speaker 2: same dude, and dude is the word, because these are
Speaker 2: real dude movies. Although I have to say I love
Speaker 2: this one Top grand Maverick, which is the one that
Speaker 2: this guy directed that also cost you know, the GDP
Speaker 2: of a small nation, but it made more than one
Speaker 2: and a half billion dollars at the box office. And
Speaker 2: so that's the kind of pressure that's on a Brad
Speaker 2: Pitt at the moment. It's like, if this movie costs
Speaker 2: this much, you've got to do a tom cruise and
Speaker 2: bring the dollar dollar bills in the door. And that's
Speaker 2: why we're seeing him tap dancing everywhere.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: The problem is that this is the first major major
Speaker 2: press tour that Pit's done really since this I'm about
Speaker 2: to read a couple of lines from a court document
Speaker 2: about the incident that is now nine years old between
Speaker 2: him and Angelina Jolie and their children on a private
Speaker 2: jet going from France to la and I also want
Speaker 2: to say that these documents have been read in court.
Speaker 2: He has never explicitly denied this happened. He has made
Speaker 2: comments Pitt through his lawyers that you know, he feels
Speaker 2: like he's been victimized by Jolie and their divorce proceedings,
Speaker 2: but he has never denied this account explicitly. Pitt pulled
Speaker 2: her into the bathroom and began yelling at her. He
Speaker 2: grabbed her by the head and shook her, and then
Speaker 2: he grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her into
Speaker 2: the bathroom wall. One of the children, who were between
Speaker 2: eight and fifteen at the time, verbally defended Jolie, the
Speaker 2: countersuit says, and Pitt lashed out. He lunged at his
Speaker 2: own child, and Jolly grabbed him from behind to stop him.
Speaker 2: To get Jolie off his back, Pit threw himself backwards
Speaker 2: and into the airplane's seat, injuring Jolie's back and elbow.
Speaker 2: The children rushed in and all bravely tried to protect
Speaker 2: each other. Before it was over, Pitt choked one of
Speaker 2: the children and struck another in the face. Now, Pitt
Speaker 2: disputes a lot of Jolie's account, and ever since what
Speaker 2: happened in their divorce, their relationship been going on a
Speaker 2: long time. They had six kids together, and she has
Speaker 2: said since that there was other violence in that relationship.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you a question about that, because some
Speaker 1: people say when this comes up, which in invariably does,
Speaker 1: particularly at the moment, they'll say this never went to court,
Speaker 1: which is true.
Speaker 2: It's quite weedy because the FBI got involved because originally
Speaker 2: these were all part of really redacted court documents that
Speaker 2: protected the identity of everybody in it, and then that
Speaker 2: got leaked and Jolie's thought that there was something dodgy
Speaker 2: about that, so then she was bringing a case against
Speaker 2: the FBI. It's very like muddy Waters got it. But
Speaker 2: what we do know is that Pitt has never explicitly
Speaker 2: denied that right that particular incident he said I won't
Speaker 2: take through his lawyers. He's never really spoken much about
Speaker 2: it at all. To be fair, it's not like he
Speaker 2: has been trashing her publicly. The leaks are enormous.
Speaker 1: His people have been really smearing her over a really
Speaker 1: long period of time. I think that's pretty well known.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but she's been I mean, like they're both. I'm
Speaker 2: not defending him, but I'm just saying that this is
Speaker 2: a very for nine years now, this has been a
Speaker 2: very very messy situation. Yeah, he is not saying that
Speaker 2: didn't happen. So let's assume, as the courts do, that
Speaker 2: that did happen, right, The point I'm trying to make
Speaker 2: is that whatever all that he said, she said, is
Speaker 2: he did that? Yeah, and so what does that mean? Well,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It certainly seems that way. And it's also worth admitting
Speaker 1: to the public record that of their six children, I
Speaker 1: think four of them have legally changed their name because
Speaker 1: they're over eighteen to drop the pit from their names,
Speaker 1: and none of them have been seen publicly with him
Speaker 1: since then.
Speaker 2: He's estranged from all his kids, so he's not denying that.
Speaker 2: So how do you handle that? Back to the problem
Speaker 2: of Brad Pitt, how do you handle the fact that
Speaker 2: one of the most famous and high profile love affairs
Speaker 2: marriages families of all time fell apart under a huge
Speaker 2: dark cloud of abuse allegations. How do you handle that
Speaker 2: and go on to be mister three hundred million dollar movie.
Speaker 2: That is the question here right in a way what
Speaker 2: Pitt has decided to do. It's clear I'm not necessarily
Speaker 2: being cynical in this is play. That's not who I
Speaker 2: am anymore. Most notably, he's talked about getting sober. There
Speaker 2: was a lot of alcohol in that. In the account
Speaker 2: of that about him drinking heavily, he says he's got sober,
Speaker 2: he's in a AA And this week he went on
Speaker 2: Dak Shepherd's Armchair Expert podcast, where he spoke to Dax
Speaker 2: and Monica about very little. Actually the words wife would
Speaker 2: never mention. The children were never mentioned, and normally Dax
Speaker 2: talks a lot about kids because he's a very much
Speaker 2: a dad, dad guy. None of that was mentioned. They
Speaker 2: talked a lot about cars, but he did reveal Dak
Speaker 2: Shepherd that he and Brad are in the same men's
Speaker 2: AA group in Hollywood. And this is what Brad said
Speaker 2: about Dak's reaching out to him to invite him to
Speaker 2: their circle.
Speaker 4: You know, I was in pretty it's pretty much on
Speaker 4: my back, yeah, you know, on my knees, and I
Speaker 4: was really open to I was trying anything and everyone, anything,
Speaker 4: anyone throughout me. It was a particular difficult time. I
Speaker 4: needed rebooting. I needed to wake the fuck up in
Speaker 4: some areas. And it just meant a lot to me.
Speaker 2: So the Hollywood narrative is clear, even without spelling it out.
Speaker 2: I fucked up. I sorted my shit out. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to be a better man. Let's move on. What do
Speaker 2: we make of it?
Speaker 3: I struggle with that narrative and with men talking about
Speaker 3: AA and addiction recovery as this personal triumph without any
Speaker 3: acknowledgment of what lays in their wake, whether that is
Speaker 3: children and women that are hurt, which often are, and
Speaker 3: so it just becomes this really one note narrative. You know,
Speaker 3: there's a quote in that interview where he says, when
Speaker 3: I've stepped in shit, I'm pretty good at taking responsibility
Speaker 3: for it. And it's basically like I'm stubborn, but I
Speaker 3: own my failures and blah blah bla, And it comes
Speaker 3: off like Brad Pitt deserves a round of applause, right,
Speaker 3: And I think that there's a clue in what you
Speaker 3: were saying, Holly about sort of the pr machine around
Speaker 3: Brad Pitt, which is the three hundred million dollars when
Speaker 3: three hundred million dollars hinges on us all not forgiving,
Speaker 3: but putting aside the allegations against Brad Pitt, that machine
Speaker 3: is going to work really, really hard because he's not
Speaker 3: only an actor, but he's a producer. And interestingly, he
Speaker 3: was a producer on adolescence and that was quiet. That
Speaker 3: was only like a little.
Speaker 2: He produces lots, he produces.
Speaker 3: Lots, but I think that he's taken in those instances,
Speaker 3: he's taken a bit of a backseat and let the
Speaker 3: projects speak for you.
Speaker 2: You can't do that when you're the star, and you
Speaker 2: can't do it.
Speaker 3: So you are not going to risk that film bombing
Speaker 3: because people go, I can't look at that man for
Speaker 3: two hours or whatever. And so I'm finding the stylist
Speaker 3: information really interesting. Maya, can you explain to me the
Speaker 3: stylist kind of analysis that's coming out?
Speaker 1: So it's interesting. When you think about Brad Pitt, you
Speaker 1: would think of a kind of a scruffy you know,
Speaker 1: he's a very good looking but not a fashion plate.
Speaker 1: He's almost counterprogrammed his good looks. He came up as
Speaker 1: this heart throb, and he's always worked against that by
Speaker 1: really not paying much attention to his clothes or publicly.
Speaker 1: Although in an interview when he was still married to Angelina,
Speaker 1: she gave a comment to a reporter who was asking
Speaker 1: her about getting ready in all the kids and everything,
Speaker 1: and she made a comment which was really interesting. She said,
Speaker 1: Brad always takes longer to get ready than me. And
Speaker 1: I've thought about that a lot since it became known
Speaker 1: in the last few months that for this whole rehabilitation
Speaker 1: press tour, he's hired Timothy Chalome's stylist, and that's taking
Speaker 1: a big swing. And if you've seen some of the shots,
Speaker 1: the guy's what sixty one, I think he's just turned
Speaker 1: sixty one. He's dressing in a way that is very
Speaker 1: celebrity well main character, main fashion character.
Speaker 3: The tied eye number, which was like a tied eyed
Speaker 3: T shirt with like a tight eye pant, and then
Speaker 3: like the blue velvet jacket. It's not what we know,
Speaker 3: Brad Pitt.
Speaker 1: It's not. And if you were looking at this cynically
Speaker 1: or perhaps pragmatically, you would say, how do you draw
Speaker 1: attention away from all of this? You have a beautiful girlfriend.
Speaker 1: He's got a girlfriend who's been with for quite some
Speaker 1: time and names Ines de Ramon. She is a sales
Speaker 1: associate for a high and jewelry company. She looks quite
Speaker 1: a lot like Ama Clooney actually, and they've been seen
Speaker 1: out and about together. They went public about a year ago.
Speaker 1: He's outside a lot, so they're being photographed together a lot.
Speaker 1: He's drawing a lot of attention with his clothes. There's
Speaker 1: a lot for people to be distracted by yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that's very strategic.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting because like a lot of gen X women,
Speaker 2: like Brad Pitt is an icon, Like here's an absolute
Speaker 2: icon to me. You know, Felmer and Luise. That made
Speaker 2: a very big impression at a very impressionable age, and
Speaker 2: then you think about the movies that he's been in,
Speaker 2: you think about that career. True cancelation, in a way
Speaker 2: is when you can, as you said before, Jesse, you
Speaker 2: can no longer look at that person without thinking about
Speaker 2: a lot of very disturbing shit. That is certainly the
Speaker 2: way I feel about Johnny Depp these days. I used
Speaker 2: to be a big Johnny Depp fan once upon a time.
Speaker 2: I can't. I just can't watch him now being Jack Sparrow,
Speaker 2: being anything. Everything about him is it now and I
Speaker 2: can't look at him. Brad Pitt is not quite Johnny
Speaker 2: Depp character yet. He's not guzzling red wine for breakfast
Speaker 2: and winging about being a victim like he's not that
Speaker 2: he's going on these kind of shows and a very relatable,
Speaker 2: I think, repentant, although he doesn't spell out his like
Speaker 2: I'm sorry I did this, I'm sorry I did that.
Speaker 2: The whole vibe about AA. It's about taking responsibility for
Speaker 2: your fuck ups. He's taking a very repentant thing. But
Speaker 2: then I like to play a little game in my head,
Speaker 2: which I know is simplistic, but it's called let's imagine
Speaker 2: Brad Pitt was a woman, and let's imagine that there
Speaker 2: was a very high profile actress who many moons ago
Speaker 2: publicly cheated on her much beloved famous husband, went off
Speaker 2: and built a family with somebody else. Obviously, the physical
Speaker 2: abuse thing is hard to gender flip, but let's imagine
Speaker 2: that that marriage fell apart in acrimonious, drawn out things,
Speaker 2: and then she was now estranged from her six children
Speaker 2: that she'd had in that marriage. Is she getting offered
Speaker 2: three hundred million dollar movies? It's laughable, It's not even it's.
Speaker 3: Not just estranged. Remember when I think it was his
Speaker 3: eldest child posted on Instagram on Father's Day basically being like,
Speaker 3: my dad is an asshole. Like he just essentially just
Speaker 3: sprayed him on social media. So you can imagine how
Speaker 3: those kids kind of feel about him.
Speaker 1: You know this sense, I've got it of it. Jesse
Speaker 1: is like, you know, Michelle Obama's when they go low,
Speaker 1: we go hi when they split. In custody, Brad got
Speaker 1: Hollywood all the reasons that you said, Wow, he's a producer,
Speaker 1: his box office, he's clooney, here's the power in that
Speaker 1: he was always the power and together they were amazing
Speaker 1: and you know, a huge story. But he got custody
Speaker 1: of Hollywood, and he also got custody essentially of public opinion,
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of people who still have
Speaker 1: not forgiven Angelina Jali for what she did to Jennifer Anniston,
Speaker 1: even though she wasn't married at the time he was.
Speaker 3: And remember he got up since this happened, and we
Speaker 3: didn't know yet about these allegations, but since that happened,
Speaker 3: he's won an Oscar and he stood on stage and
Speaker 3: he said, I'm going to add this to my Tinder
Speaker 3: profile and then he said, oh, a movie about a
Speaker 3: divorce and this and a that like really hard like
Speaker 3: he made kind of jokes about this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And he was well known to have had a team
Speaker 1: of writers when he was on that award circuit. All
Speaker 1: his speeches at every awards ceremony were knockout, which is fine,
Speaker 1: that's all part of campaigning. But it's so interesting that
Speaker 1: he's got this kind of I don't care, you know,
Speaker 1: I just happened to be very good looking and very successful.
Speaker 2: But there's a lot of.
Speaker 1: Paddling that goes under the surface. But back to the
Speaker 1: low and high. I feel like what Angelina Jolie's done
Speaker 1: is that she's chosen the children. So she's the one
Speaker 1: that said, I'm not going to speak the truth. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to tell people what really happened because I
Speaker 1: don't want to distress the children and I want to
Speaker 1: protect the children. And she's suffered for that and he hasn't.
Speaker 3: Before we move on, can we please talk about this
Speaker 3: Simone Ashley story, because I keep saying the headlines everywhere
Speaker 3: that she has been doing so much press for this
Speaker 3: F one movie. We should say Simone Ashley, she was
Speaker 3: in Bridgeton, she was in sex Education. She's really on
Speaker 3: the rise, but this F one movie was meant to
Speaker 3: be like her big break. And she provided all these
Speaker 3: comments to the media. She'd an interview with Variety where
Speaker 3: she was like, it's so exciting to be cast in
Speaker 3: this movie.
Speaker 1: That's a big break for her. She's very much a
Speaker 1: rising star. Was she the love interest or a love interest?
Speaker 3: I don't even know Mayor, and you know why, I
Speaker 3: don't know, because she has been completely cut from the film.
Speaker 3: People went watched the film after watching her doing all
Speaker 3: of this promotional stuff, and she's in the background in
Speaker 3: like a couple of shots or whatever, doesn't have any
Speaker 3: speaking roles. And what people are really annoyed about is
Speaker 3: that they're going, this is a movie predominantly about men,
Speaker 3: right like It's f one is very much about men
Speaker 3: are in the driver's seat, men are behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: A lot of women watch it, but what the director
Speaker 3: appeared to do was kind of simone. Ashley did an
Speaker 3: exclusive interview with Variety about the film about being cast
Speaker 3: in the film in July last year, and then speaking
Speaker 3: with Glamour, she was talking about the director and she said,
Speaker 3: he was so open to hearing my ideas about the
Speaker 3: character and what it means to be a female character
Speaker 3: within a story like this. I love seeing more women
Speaker 3: in the driver's seat. And then she's been cut.
Speaker 1: The optics of that are terrible. Jesse, did I not
Speaker 1: see her on the red carpet for the premere and then.
Speaker 3: She turned up on a red carpet recently, which I
Speaker 3: don't fully understand.
Speaker 1: The ball of move.
Speaker 3: It's a ball move because by that point I think
Speaker 3: she knew she wasn't in it. I didn't know this
Speaker 3: was even a thing. I've heard about actors who turn
Speaker 3: up to the premiere watch it and they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: I was cut. I didn't realize that.
Speaker 2: Apparently it's a real thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. When we went to the Strife screening with the
Speaker 1: cast for season two and for season one, they hadn't
Speaker 1: seen it before, so they didn't know how much they
Speaker 1: were going to be in it, which, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: shocked by that too. But oh, Samie Ashley's extraordinary. If
Speaker 1: you want to see some of her best work season
Speaker 1: two of.
Speaker 3: Bridges and oh, she's amazing in a moment, Are you
Speaker 3: a maximizer or a satisficer? And if you think I'm
Speaker 3: saying that weird, I will explain what that word actually means.
Speaker 3: We'll tell you after the break. Are you a maximizer
Speaker 3: or a satisficer?
Speaker 1: I keep thinking that you're saying satisfier but with a
Speaker 1: speech in perfect can.
Speaker 3: I just explain that this is a word that is
Speaker 3: a mix of two words, which is satisfier and suffice,
Speaker 3: And so that's why there's a wed on the end,
Speaker 3: and I'm saying it's slightly wrong every time. I just
Speaker 3: think we've got to put that on the table.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: It's not a real word. It's constructed. Yea.
Speaker 3: I learned these two terms recently while listening to a
Speaker 3: philosopher named Agnes Callard talk about marriage. Have either of
Speaker 3: you ever heard an interview with her or read the
Speaker 3: New York.
Speaker 1: Times profile one time?
Speaker 3: Okay, she's this really interesting philosopher. She's with her husband,
Speaker 3: long term relationship, two kids, very happy, happy relationship. She
Speaker 3: then goes to work and she starts working with this
Speaker 3: new guy. Things are fine, she has an interesting relationship
Speaker 3: with him, and then she goes into work one day
Speaker 3: and this guy is a little bit younger than her
Speaker 3: says I've fallen in love with you.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And she's this in real life.
Speaker 3: This is in real life, this is her real story.
Speaker 3: And she looks at him and goes, oh wow, I
Speaker 3: think I've fallen in love with you too. She walks
Speaker 3: out of that kind of interaction and she goes, what
Speaker 3: am I to do? She's a philosopher, right, So she
Speaker 3: thinks about this stuff a lot, and she goes up
Speaker 3: to her husband a few days later, and goes, I
Speaker 3: think I've fallen in love with someone else, and I
Speaker 3: don't know what to do. So she just tried kind
Speaker 3: of honesty to see what happened. And her husband, also
Speaker 3: a philosopher.
Speaker 1: When shout on a mountain, thought.
Speaker 3: About it and just kind of when that happens in relationships, right,
Speaker 3: So she leads a husband for this new guy, and
Speaker 3: then the interesting point is that she now lives in
Speaker 3: a house with her ex husband, the two kids, and
Speaker 3: the new.
Speaker 1: Guy, and I bet no voice is are raised. There's
Speaker 1: just a lot of thoughtful comments there is there is
Speaker 1: anyway she's still romantically involved with her ex husband.
Speaker 3: No, no, so they yes, yes, She's like, I love him.
Speaker 3: She's got a really interesting view of romantic love where
Speaker 3: she's like it's a way of experiencing and exploring a
Speaker 3: new identity, like I've become a different person with this
Speaker 3: version of And she has this quote that was like,
Speaker 3: thinking is something we do out loud with other people anyway,
Speaker 3: really mayor on a podcast, exactly right, thinking is something
Speaker 3: I do with you bitches. So story is fascinating, and
Speaker 3: I recommend you read the New York Times profile. But
Speaker 3: she'll about when it comes to marriage. She is a maximizer,
Speaker 3: and she thinks that so are most women. A maximizer
Speaker 3: is aspirational. They want the absolute best. They want the marriage,
Speaker 3: the friendship's, the workplace to be perfect. They think there's
Speaker 3: kind of an optimal experience, right. Satisfices, on the other hand,
Speaker 3: are good enough people. They settle, they make decisions quickly,
Speaker 3: they don't get hung up on the best outcome. And
Speaker 3: she says this is why it's often women who end
Speaker 3: marriages because they want more whereas men are and this
Speaker 3: is enormous generalization content with good enough. And she talks
Speaker 3: about this analogy of kind of going to a restaurant
Speaker 3: and the menu, and she says that satisfices will take
Speaker 3: one look at the menu or they'll say, you know
Speaker 3: what you order for me? I don't care, like there
Speaker 3: is no optimal decision whatever, And the maximizer will fret
Speaker 3: they're the one who looks up the menu before you go,
Speaker 3: because they're just like I think I can make the
Speaker 3: best decision.
Speaker 1: They need to optimize everything.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly right, and get the maximum out of every experience.
Speaker 3: Does this ring true to you?
Speaker 2: Yes, one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: Are you a maximizer?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Really, I'm not a maximizer. When I was looking at
Speaker 2: the definitions here and they said things like a maximizer,
Speaker 2: if they're going to buy a car, a washing machine,
Speaker 2: or lunch, they will do all of the research. They
Speaker 2: will stew over it because they can't bear the idea
Speaker 2: that they might buy the dishwasher and then find out
Speaker 2: tomorrow that there's one that has half a star more
Speaker 2: rating somewhere. Yeah, that is not me. I am not
Speaker 2: even a little bit like that, No way, I reckon.
Speaker 2: There are areas in my life where I'm a maximizer,
Speaker 2: but I'm not an across the board maximizer. So not
Speaker 2: the dishwasher. But yes, lunch, I will walk past twenty
Speaker 2: five sandwich shops to go to the one that has
Speaker 2: the thing that I deem the best. But I don't
Speaker 2: like doing lots of research. I don't like stewing on
Speaker 2: things till they're perfect. So no, I don't think I'm
Speaker 2: a maximizer. How about you, ma'am.
Speaker 1: I'm also a satisfycer, I think because even though inherently
Speaker 1: I think women, as you say, are programmed for self optimization,
Speaker 1: Like there's a reason that self help is so big
Speaker 1: with women it's women who are constantly trying to optimize.
Speaker 1: Improve our appearance, improve our careers, improve our wardrobe, improve
Speaker 1: our relationships, improve our friendships, improve our personalities. I think
Speaker 1: that's because society tells us, and we've internalized this idea
Speaker 1: that we're not good enough and that there's something lacking
Speaker 1: in us and that we need to be better. Whereas
Speaker 1: I think from a male point of view, they are
Speaker 1: told by society that they're pretty great.
Speaker 2: All the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no matter what, no matter how they look, no
Speaker 1: matter what they do.
Speaker 2: It's like we're interesting.
Speaker 3: So Callard has written a lot about aspiration, and her
Speaker 3: definition of someone being aspirational is as soon as you
Speaker 3: get to the point of appreciating that thing that you've
Speaker 3: aspired to pretty well, you are sort of itching for
Speaker 3: something new.
Speaker 2: Oh, in areas of my life one hundred percent. See
Speaker 2: I think this unless you are personally programmed. And some
Speaker 2: people definitely are to care equally about all the things
Speaker 2: and they have to have the best of absolutely everything.
Speaker 2: Most of us probably are maximizers in areas we care
Speaker 2: about more than others. So like in work, I reckon
Speaker 2: I'm probably a maximizer. Like I care a lot, I
Speaker 2: work really hard. I'm ambitious, I strive. But if I
Speaker 2: put my hand on my heart, could I say I'm
Speaker 2: like that in all my relationships, my friendships, my family relationships.
Speaker 2: Am I trying every day to be the best friend,
Speaker 2: the best partner, the best lover, the best daughter. No.
Speaker 3: Experts say, Holly, that you're healthy. Experts say that what
Speaker 3: you want is for the high stakes decisions.
Speaker 2: Those maybe.
Speaker 3: The high stakes decisions we're meant to be maximizers. And
Speaker 3: then for the little things that don't really matter.
Speaker 1: Like our relationship.
Speaker 3: Exactly, don't worry about those. And experts says that's really
Speaker 3: important that maximizers do better but are less happy. And
Speaker 3: I found that quite interesting, because I think I'm a maximizer, right.
Speaker 3: I think that not in everything, as you say, Holly,
Speaker 3: but I certainly think that. I get to a point
Speaker 3: and then I start getting itchy again, and then I go,
Speaker 3: all right, I've got to maximize. I need to make
Speaker 3: this situation or this relationship or whatever more optimal, more perfect.
Speaker 3: And I can get quite paralyzed by wanting to make
Speaker 3: the perfect decision. But the irony is that even if
Speaker 3: you make better decisions, and even if you end up
Speaker 3: landing on your feet in a really good job. Because
Speaker 3: you did all of that analysis, you're less happy and
Speaker 3: satisfices are more happy with shitter decisions. So what's the matter?
Speaker 2: Because I think that's true.
Speaker 1: I think that sometimes too much choice, too much opportunity,
Speaker 1: can make you feel unsatisfied if you always think there's
Speaker 1: something better out there, you know, like the person who
Speaker 1: orders and then they look at what everybody else got
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh damn, yours looks better than mine.
Speaker 1: Like I don't hold onto things like I'm just like
Speaker 1: I'm the person who looks at the menu like yeah,
Speaker 1: that'll do.
Speaker 2: But my partner Brenn is definitely such a fice sung Jesus,
Speaker 2: it's been ten minutes and still can't get it right
Speaker 2: in that that classic example of menus and it drives
Speaker 2: me nuts is will sit down to eat and I
Speaker 2: will have looked at it and decided and gone, yeah,
Speaker 2: that sounds great, and then he just goes, yeah that
Speaker 2: sounds good, me too, And it drives me nuts. I'm
Speaker 2: like your own he doesn't care more aspirational. He's also
Speaker 2: gonna like whatever it is, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 2: he's not gonna care I see.
Speaker 1: I'm the opposite. So my thing is anyone that takes
Speaker 1: too long to order, and I'm just like, just fucking
Speaker 1: order anything like I didn't it just because I'm married
Speaker 1: to a maximizer who wants everything, has very high standards,
Speaker 1: and wants everything to be the best.
Speaker 3: My mum has a mantra that I try to live
Speaker 3: by because she knows better than anyone, and she says,
Speaker 3: the best decision is the decision you make.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm like, don't let perfect be the enemy of
Speaker 1: done friends. As the only vegetarian on this podcast, I
Speaker 1: have appointed myself our nature correspondent. Okay, well, I don't
Speaker 1: care that much about nature, but I care about animals
Speaker 1: in particular.
Speaker 3: And I'll have it on the record. I also care
Speaker 3: about animals. Do you.
Speaker 1: Like to stop eating them? Jesse? That's all I'm going
Speaker 1: to say. I have an Orca update.
Speaker 3: Were they wearing salmona's hats?
Speaker 1: Yes? Orca's are killer whales and they have just been
Speaker 1: filmed making tools out of kelp to give each other massages.
Speaker 3: No, they worry me, Holly, really clever. They're too clever.
Speaker 3: They're cleverer than we are.
Speaker 1: What's happened is that Michael Wice, who is a research
Speaker 1: director of the Center for Whale Research in the US,
Speaker 1: says that it is certainly the first case of a cetacean,
Speaker 1: which is a whale, dolphin, or porpoise, finding an object
Speaker 1: in their environment, modifying that object and using it as
Speaker 1: a tool, not just any tool, though, a tool for
Speaker 1: pleasuring other workers.
Speaker 3: They're evolving too far, they are.
Speaker 2: They getting smarter all the time.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a sexy massage. I think it's
Speaker 1: just a nice massage. But they filmed these interactions with
Speaker 1: drone cameras in the Salish Sea, which is the Canadian
Speaker 1: province of British Columbia in Washington. In case you're wondering
Speaker 1: why they do it, doctor Weese says, it's clearly not
Speaker 1: just a strange, quirky, one off behavior. It is a
Speaker 1: part of their social lives. Yes, no, yes, they're maximizers.
Speaker 2: They're maximizers.
Speaker 3: That's so true. And I've read that they're like highly social.
Speaker 3: So what remember recently it was like killer whales kept
Speaker 3: attacking boats. It was like contagious. And then if they
Speaker 3: want to take over the world, I'd be very concerned,
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: And they were wearing Salmona's hats, weren't they after the break?
Speaker 1: If you're wondering why a tall, blonde woman who died
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago very tragically is suddenly making people furious,
Speaker 1: her name is Carolmbusset Kennedy, and I will be taking
Speaker 1: questions in a moment one.
Speaker 2: On limit did it out Loud Access? We drop episodes
Speaker 2: every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers. Follow
Speaker 2: the link at the show notes to get us in
Speaker 2: your ears five days a week, and a huge thank
Speaker 2: you to all our current subscribers.
Speaker 1: Carolyn Bessett Kennedy has long been a fascination among a
Speaker 1: certain group of women, of which I am one. She
Speaker 1: became very famous in the early nineties when she started
Speaker 1: dating and then married JFK. Junior, before they both died
Speaker 1: tragically alongside her sister in a plane crash he was
Speaker 1: piloting a plane there on their way to Martha's vineyard
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety nine, and ever since then she has
Speaker 1: remained this icon of minimalist style that's really emblematic of
Speaker 1: the nineties. Hold do you remember much of her from
Speaker 1: that time?
Speaker 2: I remember that wedding photo, there's only one photo from
Speaker 2: their wedding, or there's a very iconic one where they're
Speaker 2: coming out of what looks like the most humble little
Speaker 2: weatherboard white chapel ever, and she's wearing just this very
Speaker 2: simple bias cut dress. And the thing is is at
Speaker 2: the time in that certainly in the late eighties, style
Speaker 2: was more and more and more and more more like wet.
Speaker 2: Celebrity wedding dresses were bigger than a house, you know,
Speaker 2: and everything was more like Trump was big, right, so
Speaker 2: gold toilets and all that stuff, and she was the antithesis.
Speaker 2: She was very simple, very beautiful. I was thinking it
Speaker 2: was a bit depressing in a way, how elevated she
Speaker 2: is as an icon because she is like skinny, blonde,
Speaker 2: waspy lady. But then I remember my obsession with Gwyneth,
Speaker 2: and I told myself to sit down, because she's very Gwyneth, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: like she was very good style before Gwyneth.
Speaker 3: Can I ask why we are hearing so much about
Speaker 3: her at the moment? She feels very in the ZEITGEI.
Speaker 3: So there was that book that's recently come out about her.
Speaker 3: You and Amelia were talking.
Speaker 1: About so, I mean her stories actually depletely tragic, because
Speaker 1: if you think about Princess Diana and Meghan Markle, like
Speaker 1: early Diana without any of the confidence. Meghan Michael's not
Speaker 1: quite right in terms of she was very confident and
Speaker 1: she was a famous actress, and she's been very comfortable
Speaker 1: with public attention, obviously not the trolling. But Carolyn Besset
Speaker 1: Kennedy never wanted to be famous. She worked for Calvin
Speaker 1: Klein behind the scenes. She never did an interview, I
Speaker 1: don't think, and she was absolutely stalked and harassed by paparazzi.
Speaker 1: So they lived in New York and she was on
Speaker 1: the street everywhere. So there's a very limited number of
Speaker 1: photos of her and every outfit that she wore back
Speaker 1: in the nineties, you could look at it now, it
Speaker 1: would look current now, and it's weirdly always looked current
Speaker 1: ever since the early nineties.
Speaker 3: So why am I seeing stuff about like a movie
Speaker 3: coming out and people are mad about the movie exactly?
Speaker 1: So what's happened is that Ryan Murphy, who is the
Speaker 1: producer of all kinds of huge, big Hollywood things, He's
Speaker 1: got a series deal with Netflix. He's making a show
Speaker 1: called American Love Story, which is either a series or
Speaker 1: a film I'm not sure for streaming about JFK Jr.
Speaker 1: And carolmber Set Kennedy because it was hugely part in
Speaker 1: that same way when Diana died, all of the world
Speaker 1: and the UK went into shock and grief the Kennedys
Speaker 1: like American royalty, and when he died tragically and suddenly
Speaker 1: all these things about the Kennedy curse and the women
Speaker 1: who encountered the Kennedy's and what happens to them. So
Speaker 1: there's been absolute public fascination. It was super smart of
Speaker 1: him to decide to make this show about them. However,
Speaker 1: on the weekend last weekend, he released a series of
Speaker 1: photos of the actor and actress who've been cast to play.
Speaker 1: A newcomer called Paul Kelly's playing JFK. Junior, and an
Speaker 1: actress I'm not familiar with called Sarah Pigeon is playing
Speaker 1: carolynber Set Kennedy. Now, he says they were just camera tests.
Speaker 1: Everyone went nuts. The color of the hair was wrong,
Speaker 1: the burken bag that she was carrying was the clothes
Speaker 1: she was wearing. And since then they've started filming on
Speaker 1: the streets of New York and people have just ripped
Speaker 1: into the actress for not looking right. Karen Beusset, Kennedy's
Speaker 1: original hairstylist, a guy called Brad Johns who's retired now.
Speaker 1: He came out and said, the hair is completely wrong. Like,
Speaker 1: this is a woman who is there's a cult around her,
Speaker 1: and I would say I'm part of that.
Speaker 2: The cult is only about what she looks like. Nobody
Speaker 2: hardly ever talks about what she was like. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a little bit out there about yees new bit neurotic,
Speaker 2: maybe there was some you know, like people have speculated
Speaker 2: and said lots of uncharitable things, But it's what she
Speaker 2: looks like that everybody's particularly obsessed with. So if the
Speaker 2: hair color, and it's a very particular rich girl blonde
Speaker 2: right of the time, is half a shade wrong, it's
Speaker 2: a big deal.
Speaker 1: People feel insulted. People are like, you have all this
Speaker 1: reference material, So much of what we know about her
Speaker 1: is coded from photos.
Speaker 2: As you said, they all paparatta.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and some of those outfits still exist, and you know,
Speaker 1: various people own them, they've bet some of them being auctioned.
Speaker 1: So Ryan Murphy had to address the backlash because it
Speaker 1: was really full on a lot of my group chats
Speaker 1: with people who are also obsessed with her have lit up.
Speaker 1: I'm in a subreddit called John and Carolyn, who has
Speaker 1: absolutely gone off. I was in it beforehand, just anyway,
Speaker 1: I followed quite a few Instagram accounts. He came out
Speaker 1: and said he was clearly quite shocked about all of this,
Speaker 1: Ryan Murphy, and he said, Carolyn Bassett is clearly a
Speaker 1: religious figure, and it's a religion of her own. When
Speaker 1: narrating the story of an unknown individual who falls in
Speaker 1: love with the most famous man in the world and
Speaker 1: suddenly she can't leave her house, she was constantly photographed
Speaker 1: being insulted by the paparazzi. They're doing to our Caroline
Speaker 1: what they did to the real life Caroline. It is
Speaker 1: unjust cool.
Speaker 2: That's so true.
Speaker 3: This casting thing though, exactly what happened with the Crown.
Speaker 3: Remember they cast Diana ELIZABETHA Becky, Yeah, and they got
Speaker 3: really mad because they went not.
Speaker 2: Been good for this.
Speaker 1: She would have a little bit too old, though, Elizabeth Tibiki.
Speaker 1: But you're right. I mean there are a number of actresses,
Speaker 1: which of course everyone's always been talking who would you
Speaker 1: cast if you were going to cast the actor that
Speaker 1: they've chosen. I'm not familiar with her, I don't know
Speaker 1: her work. Obviously, Ryan Murphy's pretty good at what he does.
Speaker 1: I don't think you would have cast about actress, but
Speaker 1: your right hole. It's so coded in how she looks,
Speaker 1: and people are upset that she doesn't quite look right.
Speaker 1: And then the outfits that she was perhaps wearing on
Speaker 1: the street while they were filming. People are saying, it's
Speaker 1: like Temu Carolyn Bissett Kennedy that she's wearing like cheap
Speaker 1: satin skirt and converse. The thing most people are insulted
Speaker 1: by is that they showed her with like a pleath blazer,
Speaker 1: a black topic chocolate brown, nasty, cheap kind of bias
Speaker 1: cut skirt in satin, and a high top black converse,
Speaker 1: and like I could honestly recite to you every outfit
Speaker 1: she's ever worn. I could identify them. I could, And
Speaker 1: it's like, how can they have got this so wrong?
Speaker 2: There's probably the difference between and maybe what we've seen
Speaker 2: now the test stuff, as you say, a very good
Speaker 2: costume department and are not so good costume department, Because
Speaker 2: the thing is is you can wear someone else's clothes
Speaker 2: like I could dresses mea today. Right, But if I
Speaker 2: don't have a deep understanding, and Mia obviously has a
Speaker 2: very specific style that Mia has about her style, I'm
Speaker 2: going to get it wrong. I'm going to get the
Speaker 2: shirt's not going to be quite the right kind of oversize,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. There's very specific details, and
Speaker 2: surely the really good costumers of the world understand that deeply. Right.
Speaker 1: He says, there's a ten person wardrobe committee, including people
Speaker 1: who have these Instagram accounts that have been going for
Speaker 1: twenty years. I think because there's a finite number of
Speaker 1: photos with her, because she tragically died so young, everybody
Speaker 1: is so so ingrained with these images, and anything that
Speaker 1: doesn't fit exactly people feel really insulted by. But it's
Speaker 1: interesting because it raises these issues of accuracy and taste,
Speaker 1: but also of ethics, because Jack Schlosberg, who is JFK
Speaker 1: Junior's nephew, the son of his sister, has come out
Speaker 1: and said, this is grotesque what Ryan Murphy's doing. Family
Speaker 1: of JFK Junior wasn't consulted. Presumably Carolen Bessett's family weren't
Speaker 1: consulted either. We hope you're going to donate some money
Speaker 1: to the JFK Junior Memorial Fund or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And Ron Murphy came out and said, yes, we did
Speaker 1: do that, and he's not trying to upset anyone, but like,
Speaker 1: is it is all a bit dicky. And I say,
Speaker 1: this is someone who has poured over photos of her
Speaker 1: for all these years, and I've been thinking so much
Speaker 1: about her poor mother who lost two daughters in that crash,
Speaker 1: and one of them was a twin, and her twin
Speaker 1: sister is still alive, Lisa Bessett, And yeah, I just
Speaker 1: think about them, like we've fetishized the image of this
Speaker 1: dead woman and she was a person, as you say, Holly. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's coming out on Netflix, presumably in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: Friends Before we Go. Megan Markle has released a rose
Speaker 3: or Azam Vernam likes to call it bitch dsl oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: do we like a rose?
Speaker 2: I love a rose. I have a basic bitch, like
Speaker 2: a very dry rose. I will be drinking Meghan's if
Speaker 2: I can get my sticky little pause.
Speaker 3: I was worried that you would say that, because holy
Speaker 3: the cost of the rose plus a seventy five dollars
Speaker 3: shipping to the regional town of New South Wales where
Speaker 3: you live. Is not a good use of money, and
Speaker 3: Maya and I need to intervene.
Speaker 2: How much is more energy?
Speaker 3: I don't even know because it's coming out on the
Speaker 3: first of July. And you might ask Jesse, why is
Speaker 3: that date significant? Well, let me tell you it would
Speaker 3: be Princess Diana's sixty fourth birth.
Speaker 1: Speaking of capitalizing on the image, I disagree, as that
Speaker 1: was her mother in law.
Speaker 3: Some people are going, you know, it's a significant date,
Speaker 3: and apparently that's when Meghan and Harry first met off,
Speaker 3: first reached out to each other. It's a significant date
Speaker 3: for them and their love story. I think it's just summer.
Speaker 2: Because is a summer thing. You got to wait for
Speaker 2: summer season. The thing is is this is genius on
Speaker 2: Megan's part, because every savvy celebrity knows that if you
Speaker 2: want the female market release of Bloody Rose, Brad and
Speaker 2: Angelina have a Rose. It's been one of the many
Speaker 2: things that.
Speaker 3: One thing they can't resolve in their divorce.
Speaker 2: It's good. It's called miravale. I have drunk much of it.
Speaker 2: Drew barrmol has one, Kylie Minogue has one, Jessica Parker
Speaker 2: has one.
Speaker 1: We have one.
Speaker 3: That's what I was going to say. I think we
Speaker 3: should start a rose.
Speaker 2: Can we call it bitch.
Speaker 1: Anyone's listening and you have a winery or or a
Speaker 1: wine manufacturer, We're interested in making our own. Out loud
Speaker 1: bitch Diesel come at us, Let's.
Speaker 2: Come out massive. Thank you out louders for being with
Speaker 2: us here on our Wednesday show where we have traversed
Speaker 2: all kinds of territory really from water Rose to Brad
Speaker 2: Pitt like I mean really Orcas. It's been a lot
Speaker 2: and that's what we hope you expect from us. Thank
Speaker 2: you to all of you for listening and to our
Speaker 2: team for putting it together. Please remember, if you are
Speaker 2: looking at us on social or of course on YouTube,
Speaker 2: our studio is a styled with furniture from Fenton and Fenton.
Speaker 2: Visit Fenton and Fenton dot com, dot a you to
Speaker 2: find out more about that. We're going to be back
Speaker 2: in yours tomorrow.
Speaker 3: But if you want something else to listen to, then
Speaker 3: on yesterday's Subscribe episode, Holly and Burnham and I discussed
Speaker 3: last meeting theory, and that's about if you've ever had
Speaker 3: a relationship or a friendship with someone and you've had
Speaker 3: a really monumental last meeting, or you feel like you
Speaker 3: keep running into them. I haven't been.
Speaker 1: Seeing this on social everywhere. You're going to explain it
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 3: We're going to explain it. And also, for some reason,
Speaker 3: I'm a real sucker for this, and I have some
Speaker 3: really creepy coincidental stories that I share. Holly is a
Speaker 3: little more skeptical as always. Will pop a link in
Speaker 3: the show notes.
Speaker 1: See you tomorrow, Bye bye.
Speaker 3: Shout out to any Mum and me a subscribers listening.
Speaker 3: If you love the show and you want to support us,
Speaker 3: subscribing to mom and Mia is the very best way
Speaker 3: to do so. There's a link in the episode description.