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: MoMA Mia.
Speaker 3: Out loud.
Speaker 2: What women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the second
Speaker 2: of October. I'm Holly wayIn Wright and Mea and I
Speaker 2: have already been talking all morning today. We have because
Speaker 2: we watched the vice presidential debate together. For those of
Speaker 2: you who are obsessed with US politics as we are,
Speaker 2: It's going to drop tomorrow. It's with Amelia Lester, of course, telling.
Speaker 1: Us what's what?
Speaker 2: Do JD bancewin? Tim waltzwind? Will it make any difference?
Speaker 2: It drops tomorrow for our subscribers.
Speaker 1: I'm Mea Friedman and I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2: And on the show today, the biggest pop star in
Speaker 2: the world right now needs a mental health day and
Speaker 2: her fans are really not happy about it.
Speaker 1: Kids get off screens.
Speaker 2: And out into the world. But no, not like that.
Speaker 2: The who ha around a TV anchor, her son and
Speaker 2: a very long train ride. So do you want to
Speaker 2: know what all the fuss is about? The movie Substance?
Speaker 2: But you don't want to watch body parts exploding? We
Speaker 2: have got your covet.
Speaker 4: But first Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Iran's ballistic missiles shot
Speaker 4: at Israel, more innocent lives lost in what is being
Speaker 4: called the most dangerous moment in the history of the
Speaker 4: modern Middle East. Israel has launched a ground invasion in
Speaker 4: southern Lebanon, and the Israeli military has described this invasion
Speaker 4: as limited, localized and targeted raids against Hesbela. Hesbla, however,
Speaker 4: claimed that there are no troops in Lebanon, while Israeli
Speaker 4: air strikes continue in Lebanon, officials say that more than
Speaker 4: a thousand people have been killed in the past two weeks.
Speaker 4: Iran has now launched a missile strike on Israel. Hesbelah,
Speaker 4: recognized as a terrorist group, has been trained and armed
Speaker 4: by Iran for four decades, and now Iran's direct involvement
Speaker 4: is seen as a major escalation of a war now
Speaker 4: being fought on multiple fronts. On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister
Speaker 4: Benjamin Ettnyahu told his security cabinet Iran made a big
Speaker 4: mistake this evening and it will pay for it. Whoever
Speaker 4: attacks us, we will attack them. Look, what we know
Speaker 4: is that this war has escalated, and every moment this
Speaker 4: conflict goes on, we see more loss of innocent civilian life.
Speaker 4: For more on this fast moving crisis, listen to The Quickie,
Speaker 4: our daily news podcast. There's a link in our show notes.
Speaker 1: Twenty six year old pop star Chapel Rone is having
Speaker 1: the best and worst few months of her life, and
Speaker 1: things seem to be picking up speed in both directions.
Speaker 1: We spoke about her pushback video that went viral about
Speaker 1: how her fans were too much and she was telling
Speaker 1: them to back off when she's in public, and now
Speaker 1: she has canceled three festival appearances. She shared a statement
Speaker 1: on social media saying, I apologize to people who've been
Speaker 1: waiting to see me in New York and DC this weekend.
Speaker 1: At all things go, but I am unable to perform.
Speaker 1: Things have gotten overwhelming over the past few weeks and
Speaker 1: I'm really feeling it. I feel pressure to prioritize a
Speaker 1: lot of things right now, and I need a few
Speaker 1: days to prioritize my health. I want to be present
Speaker 1: when I perform and give the best show possible. Thank
Speaker 1: you for understanding, be back soon. In the last two years,
Speaker 1: chapel Ron that's her stage name, her actual name is
Speaker 1: Kaylie Rose Amstaltz. She's done one hundred and eighty seven concerts,
Speaker 1: with one hundred and four this year alone. I went
Speaker 1: back and looked, because you know how Taylor Swift is
Speaker 1: doing a big eras tour, Chapel Rone is doing a
Speaker 1: different thing where she performs at lots of different festivals.
Speaker 1: She performs like her three songs. Sometimes she headlines, sometimes
Speaker 1: she's just one of many acts, and so it's kind
Speaker 1: of a way of reaching lots and lots of people,
Speaker 1: and you know, often the video, the social from it
Speaker 1: will go on YouTube and it'll go viral on social.
Speaker 1: She's really blown up in these past few months. Her
Speaker 1: album Midwestern Princess's top charts and singles like Hot to Go,
Speaker 1: Good Luck Babe, and Pink Pony Club have come anthems
Speaker 1: and won all these awards. She performed at the Grammys
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago and won Best New Artist. And
Speaker 1: also they've been in the last few weeks a bunch
Speaker 1: of big cover stories that have dropped in interviews, like
Speaker 1: a cub story of Rolling Stone where she's sort of
Speaker 1: spoken in depth about how she's finding fame and even
Speaker 1: though she's been a performer for a really long time.
Speaker 1: This level of vile fame and how sudden it is
Speaker 1: has been a bit of a shock to her system.
Speaker 1: So what's changed over the last few weeks is that
Speaker 1: she's also found herself because of these interviews in a
Speaker 1: controversy when it comes to the US election, because in
Speaker 1: one of the interviews, she made some remarks about refusing
Speaker 1: to publicly endorse a candidate in the US election. Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift recently came out and endorsed Kamala Harris, but she said,
Speaker 1: I have so many issues with our government in every way,
Speaker 1: and those remarks really blew up overnight, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people were furious with her and accused her of
Speaker 1: supporting Donald Trump because she said she wouldn't endorse Kamala
Speaker 1: And so then she had to clarify, which she did
Speaker 1: in a series of videos in her stories on Instagram
Speaker 1: that she would be voting for Kamala, but that an
Speaker 1: endorsement like Taylor made was different and she wasn't comfortable
Speaker 1: with that level of alignment because there were democratic policies
Speaker 1: that she didn't agree with. Here's a little bit of
Speaker 1: one of those videos where she was sort of becoming
Speaker 1: increasingly angry and upset with commenters who were criticizing her.
Speaker 2: I just woke up and to like people just skewing
Speaker 2: it even more. Doorsing and voting are completely different. I
Speaker 2: don't agree with a lot of what is going on
Speaker 2: with policies, like obviously fucked the policies of the right,
Speaker 2: but also fuck some of the policies on the left.
Speaker 1: That's why I can't endorse, That's why I can't like
Speaker 1: put my entire name, in my entire project behind one.
Speaker 1: So in these videos, she sort of would finish making
Speaker 1: her point and then she'd come back to try and
Speaker 1: clarify it again. And we've seen this before in the past,
Speaker 1: maybe some of us have even tried it in video form,
Speaker 1: where you start brawling with your commenters and you start,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to explain yourself and explain yourself, and
Speaker 1: then they come back and back and it's hiding to nowhere, really.
Speaker 1: And it was a day or so after these videos
Speaker 1: were posted that she canceled these concerts. But Jesse, the
Speaker 1: response to the cancelation itself has been really interesting because
Speaker 1: she's clearly someone who is struggling with fame. She wears
Speaker 1: her heart on her sleeve. She is bipolar according to her,
Speaker 1: and has struggles with mental health, so you would think
Speaker 1: that people would be understanding when she canceled these concerts,
Speaker 1: but that's not what.
Speaker 4: Happened, especially a generation who is more literate and compassionate
Speaker 4: about mental health than I would think any other generation,
Speaker 4: until they lose their tickets, until the festival that they
Speaker 4: wanted to go to on the weekend doesn't have chapel ron.
Speaker 1: So people were then shouting at her, not just about
Speaker 1: who she supported or didn't support her endorsement, but they
Speaker 1: were shouting at her about canceling the concept.
Speaker 4: So there are viral tiktoks that have millions and millions
Speaker 4: of views that have been popping up on my feed
Speaker 4: all week that say things like, ma'am, you canceled your
Speaker 4: set at a festival because you are stressed. You have
Speaker 4: been famous for maybe four months. Justin Bieber endured that
Speaker 4: stress you're encountering for his whole life. I mean footnote
Speaker 4: that Justin Bieber doesn't appear to really perform anymore, also
Speaker 4: great himself. The other sentiments were sort of like, wish
Speaker 4: I had the privilege to cancel on my job commitments
Speaker 4: when I'm not feeling one hundred percent. Unfortunately, i'd be homeless.
Speaker 4: No one else in the world can cancel work because
Speaker 4: they're stressed.
Speaker 1: That's not true.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely not true.
Speaker 4: And another comment that was getting a lot of traction
Speaker 4: was therapy has just given everyone permission to prioritize their
Speaker 4: mental health, to just be selfish and mean to everyone else.
Speaker 4: So we think that we've made a lot of progress
Speaker 4: when it comes to understanding the whole that fame takes
Speaker 4: on people, and also that you might need a mental
Speaker 4: health day, Like in everyday life, there are situations where
Speaker 4: we would like to think that if someone put the
Speaker 4: hand up and said, I actually can't come to work more,
Speaker 4: I need a mental health day, then we'd be way
Speaker 4: more understanding than we were a generation ago. But this
Speaker 4: is symptomatic of how we see Roan as a product
Speaker 4: and not a person, like I paid for you, and
Speaker 4: now you're not going to be there, and how about
Speaker 4: my hotel and how about my outfit? And in fact,
Speaker 4: I think that frustration is probably valid, like I would
Speaker 4: be really upset, but to direct it, I keep thinking
Speaker 4: how she must be feeling right now, what it must
Speaker 4: take for an artist with her team and with her fame,
Speaker 4: to not turn up to a show is enormous And
Speaker 4: in fact, this one, the festival that she's pulled out of,
Speaker 4: was just a day before and a lot of people
Speaker 4: are going, you should have given us more notice. To me,
Speaker 4: that says she really wanted to do it, and she
Speaker 4: realized that she couldn't, and that I feel an enormous
Speaker 4: amount of compassion for that.
Speaker 2: She's such an interesting study in overnight fame because it
Speaker 2: is like literal overnight fame, as you say, She's been
Speaker 2: doing it a long time, but her fame has accelerated
Speaker 2: like a rocket, and probably a lot of these bookings
Speaker 2: were in the diary before she was who she is
Speaker 2: right now. Right because Chapel Rone could fill a stadium
Speaker 2: on her own now, she doesn't really need to be
Speaker 2: doing festival shows. But I'm sure that a lot of
Speaker 2: these commitments were a long time ago, and she is
Speaker 2: in literally a cyclone of attention and she's trying to
Speaker 2: figure out how to deal with it. One of the
Speaker 2: things that I think is really interesting is rock stars,
Speaker 2: pop stars, musicians, whatever you want to call them, have
Speaker 2: always flaked out of shows, right and usually they would
Speaker 2: just tell you, oh, they've got a cold, they're dealing
Speaker 2: with the chest infection at the moment, or whatever. When
Speaker 2: it could have been mental health, it could have been addiction,
Speaker 2: it could have been whatever. The thing with the Chapel
Speaker 2: Roane is she is trying to be still the person
Speaker 2: that she probably has always been, who is somebody very honest,
Speaker 2: very authentic, very wearing my heart on my sleeve. So
Speaker 2: the way, even the way she talks about politics in
Speaker 2: that whole fuck the left, fuck the right, I'm trying
Speaker 2: to explain to you, this nuanced critical thinking piece is
Speaker 2: something that any really professional, high level artist with a
Speaker 2: team around them would be told. Do not do that,
Speaker 2: you know, either say nothing or say something definitive, but
Speaker 2: don't start trying to actually talk like a real person
Speaker 2: and start a real conversation with your nuance because that's
Speaker 2: not gonna go anywhere good. And so it's almost like
Speaker 2: you've given too much of yourself, You've handed over this
Speaker 2: pound of flesh. So she's telling the truth about why
Speaker 2: she's not turning up to these festivals, which is I
Speaker 2: am so overwhelmed. I can't handle it. I don't think
Speaker 2: I can do it. I feel so vulnerable out there
Speaker 2: I've got to be happy, I've got to perform. I'm
Speaker 2: an arms reach away from everybody, and she can't do it.
Speaker 2: In the old world, her team would have just said,
Speaker 2: Chapel's got flu.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: She posted a story as well, not a post, which
Speaker 4: means that people can't really respond, and she's close common
Speaker 4: and she's close comments, which I think tells us something.
Speaker 4: And I was also thinking to the people who were like,
Speaker 4: turn up, you had a job to do, the rest
Speaker 4: of us are doing our jobs. I mean, that is
Speaker 4: just such an unempathetic way to live your life. But
Speaker 4: I keep thinking about Avicy. So his real name was
Speaker 4: Tim Bergling, and if you have seen the documentary of
Speaker 4: Eachy True Stories, you'll see that he had a meteorite
Speaker 4: rise to fame and he started doing maybe fifty shows
Speaker 4: a year, and I think in the final year he
Speaker 4: did about two hundred and fifty shows. And he has
Speaker 4: infections and like his body is falling apart. And it's
Speaker 4: not just the performing, it's the whole, like it's what.
Speaker 2: Goes with it, it's what travel. And also festivals, you know,
Speaker 2: there's an enormous amount of output there. You're backstage with
Speaker 2: a whole lot of other people credibly and like it's
Speaker 2: not Taylor Swift and a very well organized machine world.
Speaker 4: Burgling in the end died by suicide and was such
Speaker 4: an incredible artist. But we get these lessons. You watch
Speaker 4: that and you see how me you started by saying,
Speaker 4: it's the best time of Rome's life and the worst.
Speaker 4: I don't think there is any best for Rone right now.
Speaker 4: Maybe in the future she'll see it, but I think
Speaker 4: she's living in hell. I think she is hating it.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's objectively the best time in her
Speaker 1: life because as a performer or an artist, this is
Speaker 1: what you dream of. You dream of Elton John calling
Speaker 1: you up, and every pop star shouting you.
Speaker 2: Out and your songs mean to them.
Speaker 1: And winning awards and going on stage to all these
Speaker 1: people and everyone warning you and the cover of Rolling Stone,
Speaker 1: like all of these things are these objective milestones in
Speaker 1: what it means to be a successful artist in the
Speaker 1: music industry. And I think that's probably what makes it harder,
Speaker 1: because it's funny. Claire's got this podcast called but Are
Speaker 1: You Happy? When often the objective measures of success don't
Speaker 1: bring you the happiness, and they actually bring with them
Speaker 1: a whole lot of shit that you never thought about.
Speaker 1: And what's so clear to us sitting back, not saying
Speaker 1: that we're famous, but we over a long period of time,
Speaker 1: as our public profiles have grown, we have learned what
Speaker 1: you can and can't do and what is a highway
Speaker 1: to poor mental health. And it's really unfortunate because sometimes
Speaker 1: you want to try and have a conversation and your
Speaker 1: humanity is being questioned, or your decisions have been questioned,
Speaker 1: or people are saying lies about you, and you want
Speaker 1: to push back or explain yourself better, and you think
Speaker 1: it's going to end well, and you have to do
Speaker 1: it a lot of times before you realize it's actually
Speaker 1: not going to end well. It's not going to end
Speaker 1: well for you, and you're not going to change the
Speaker 1: mind like she wasn't changing the mind of anyone who
Speaker 1: was slagging her off.
Speaker 3: So you think that those videos have contributed to the point.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent and to play Devil's advocate, and this
Speaker 1: sounds like I'm victim blaming and I'm not at all.
Speaker 1: But the people who are like, here's our contract. I
Speaker 1: pay for my ticket and I expect you to show
Speaker 1: up and I expect you to do what's required so
Speaker 1: that you can and show up, whether it's not staying
Speaker 1: up all night and partying and that's clearly not what
Speaker 1: she's doing, or not doing things that are going to
Speaker 1: make you mentally unwell so that you have to then
Speaker 1: take time off. So I guess I can understand because
Speaker 1: we all look at it and go, oh, Chapa, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? Like just stop, just stop, just step away,
Speaker 1: just step away. And this idea of her team should
Speaker 1: protect her when you become that famous that fast. Not
Speaker 1: everybody has a tree pain. That's Taylor Swift's famous publicist
Speaker 1: and the right people around them. I mean, interestingly, Travis
Speaker 1: Kelcey even this week just sacked his whole publicity team.
Speaker 1: So sometimes the people you have around you aren't equipped.
Speaker 2: Well and they're probably scrambling like this has been so fast,
Speaker 2: and she's no one's fault. The people that she has
Speaker 2: around her are probably people she really trusts and knows. Right.
Speaker 2: But the thing is is that the sad thing that
Speaker 2: has to happen is that really for her to protect
Speaker 2: her mental health, and not that we necessarily know this,
Speaker 2: but is a wall needs to go up between her
Speaker 2: and her fans, and she probably hates that idea everybody does,
Speaker 2: you know, Like she wants to be able to jump
Speaker 2: on live and say this is what I think about this,
Speaker 2: and you guys know the real me and all those things.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that's very important to her because she's an artist,
Speaker 2: and she's a brilliant artist, and she's clearly sensitive, and
Speaker 2: she's clearly got you know, she's been very open about
Speaker 2: her mental health, and unfortunately, one of the things she's
Speaker 2: going to need to do to protect herself if she
Speaker 2: wants to keep on doing this is put walls up right,
Speaker 2: like between her and her audience, her and her fans,
Speaker 2: her and what events she will do, won't do, where
Speaker 2: she can travel to, what the schedule's got to be, like,
Speaker 2: what time she needs. Like anytime you talk to anyone
Speaker 2: that level famous, whether you listen to interviews with them
Speaker 2: or you hear them talking on but are You Happy
Speaker 2: or shows like that, they'll say I had to learn
Speaker 2: what I needed to do to protect my mental health
Speaker 2: to be able to keep doing the thing I love.
Speaker 2: And it's that unpopular word boundaries. Yes, and Roan, And
Speaker 2: I'm not saying this in any way to blame her
Speaker 2: but I think that what we're literally seeing in real
Speaker 2: time with how she's grappling with fame and this believable
Speaker 2: attention being the person she is, she's working that out
Speaker 2: in real time, and it's really hard.
Speaker 4: I agree with everything that you say, but I would
Speaker 4: add that maybe what we're seeing with trying to convince
Speaker 4: her fans and going back and whatever, which is a
Speaker 4: strategy that we know doesn't necessarily work. But I can
Speaker 4: see and feel her desperation and I have felt it
Speaker 4: to just be understood. I think that's why people are artists,
Speaker 4: to try and be understood. I wonder if this is
Speaker 4: all symptomatic rather than a cause. If she is, and
Speaker 4: she's said before that she suffers from severe depression and
Speaker 4: bipolar two these preceded her face all of these stresses,
Speaker 4: would you be really difficult?
Speaker 3: But I worry.
Speaker 4: About us saying, and not just about Rome, but about
Speaker 4: people in our own lives when we go, you know,
Speaker 4: they're really struggling. And I've seen it, and I've been
Speaker 4: at the receiving end of it too, Like you know,
Speaker 4: she's really depressed, but she's not exercising every day, and
Speaker 4: she just ate a little bit better, and you know,
Speaker 4: I don't think that she's seeing her psychologist enough, which yes,
Speaker 4: But the nature of mental health is that, like the
Speaker 4: spiral is part of it, If that makes sense.
Speaker 3: I don't want mental health.
Speaker 4: We talk about it as an illness, but there's also
Speaker 4: an element of it being your responsibility, which we don't
Speaker 4: do with other illness.
Speaker 2: Had a broken leg? Yeah, So the thing is is
Speaker 2: the people who are disappointed that she's not going to
Speaker 2: be at the festival that they are going to, although
Speaker 2: they're going to see lots of other people, they'll get
Speaker 2: over it. And if she had broken a leg and
Speaker 2: it was like Chapel Rone isn't performing today because she'd
Speaker 2: broken her leg, they would also be disappointed, but they'd
Speaker 2: get over it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But what if she'd have broken a leg because she
Speaker 1: was skydiving or skateboarding or skiing.
Speaker 3: Is that what we're saying that she's doing no life?
Speaker 1: I no, I'm just driving.
Speaker 4: For example, I was at a rider's festival a little
Speaker 4: while ago in quite a remote location. Took a really
Speaker 4: long time to get there, and I went to do
Speaker 4: this panel and before we started the panel, someone came
Speaker 4: over and said, there was meant to be four of
Speaker 4: you and now there's three of you. One of the
Speaker 4: people on the panel can't do it. And I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: no worries. And in fact, to be completely honest, i'd
Speaker 4: had food poisoning that night and I had a little
Speaker 4: I just went, oh, they can't, like I've been throwing
Speaker 4: up da da da, And they said this person had
Speaker 4: a panic attack and hasn't had that before. And I
Speaker 4: thought about it, and I went, imagine traveling all the
Speaker 4: way to this remote location to speak on a panel.
Speaker 4: Imagine the distress, how much pain you must be in.
Speaker 4: And anyone who's experienced of your depression or panic attacks
Speaker 4: knows that.
Speaker 3: There is nothing more debilitating.
Speaker 4: It's your head. And when your head's not working, you
Speaker 4: feel like you can't do anything right. I think that
Speaker 4: there's a lack of compassion in this story.
Speaker 2: You know how we keep being told that kids need
Speaker 2: to get off their phones and touch some grass. Well,
Speaker 2: good luck with that, because depending on how far away
Speaker 2: from your watchful eye that grass is, you might just
Speaker 2: find yourself in a pile of pooh. That is the
Speaker 2: experience of British TV presenter Allsop, who's at the center
Speaker 2: of a big ding dong in the UK because she
Speaker 2: thought that her fifteen year old son could do with
Speaker 2: a bit more independence. Now you probably don't know who
Speaker 2: Kirsty is, and for the purposes of this story, you
Speaker 2: don't need to. She presents a lot of UK TV shows,
Speaker 2: notably the ones about houses like Location, Location, Location, and Love.
Speaker 1: It or List It.
Speaker 2: She lives in a fancy bit of London and she
Speaker 2: sent her son Oscar Hercules off traveling with a friend
Speaker 2: on a train. Over the course of a few weeks
Speaker 2: in the northern summer, he traveled to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Marseille, Toulouse,
Speaker 2: Barcelona and Madrid with a sixteen year old friend. We
Speaker 2: call this in Europe interrailing. You get a ticket, you
Speaker 2: can jump on and off trains and you go around Europe.
Speaker 3: Did you do that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Okay, I did not do that.
Speaker 3: Is that because it was expensive?
Speaker 2: Isn't it because it was expensive?
Speaker 1: Is it a common thing that fifteen year old to do?
Speaker 2: It's a common thing. It's like in English education you
Speaker 2: have these two gaps. So when you're at the end
Speaker 2: of what would be here year ten, so that could
Speaker 2: be fifteen turning sixteen, is you do your GCSEs and
Speaker 2: that's where he was right, So she said he was
Speaker 2: just a bit young for his year. The friend he
Speaker 2: went with was sixteen and then if you carry on
Speaker 2: with school, then you do your A levels at eighteen,
Speaker 2: so year twelve ish and then you may or may
Speaker 2: not continue to UNI. Anyway, she spoke about this trip
Speaker 2: on social media and shortly afterwards she got contacted by
Speaker 2: the local social services saying that the matter had been
Speaker 2: reported to them and they'd opened a child protection file. Alsop,
Speaker 2: who's a pretty famous person in the UK, insisted that
Speaker 2: she had decided to allow Oscar to go because society
Speaker 2: has become increasingly risk averse and children need to develop
Speaker 2: the confidence that only comes from trusting them, and we
Speaker 2: do hear that a lot. She also said, of course,
Speaker 2: because everybody says this, that she'd read all those Jonathan
Speaker 2: Height reports from that book about the anxious generation, that
Speaker 2: we protect too much offline and not enough online, and
Speaker 2: decided to walk her walk. Confidence, she says, comes from
Speaker 2: trust and independence from doing things by yourself. My son
Speaker 2: is capable. It was his idea, his plan, his savings.
Speaker 2: He came to me and said can I do this?
Speaker 2: And I saw no reason for saying no. And when
Speaker 2: I mentioned that he'd done it, I wanted it to
Speaker 2: be inspiring. As you can imagine. Her critics have jumped
Speaker 2: on it, went crazy. They were like, you're irresponsible, how terrible.
Speaker 2: And she has written a lot about how she really
Speaker 2: believed that it was a very important rite of passage
Speaker 2: for him, and she makes the point she says, the
Speaker 2: child services thing is just absurd and made me very angry.
Speaker 2: If anything, it's a distillation of where we've got to.
Speaker 2: But it isn't the main issue. The main issue is
Speaker 2: that so many people seem to think the world is
Speaker 2: a more dangerous place to travel in. Yet modern communications,
Speaker 2: safer transport, and better emergency health means it's actually a
Speaker 2: safer place to travel in than it's ever been. What
Speaker 2: do we think, friends.
Speaker 3: May or would you let fifteen year old travel to
Speaker 3: another country? Well, actually interstate is probably a better Yeah.
Speaker 2: She wants to make the point that in England and Europe,
Speaker 2: she said, the actual distance covered it probably wouldn't have
Speaker 2: got you out of New South Wales. Do you know
Speaker 2: what I mean in terms of actual distance? She said,
Speaker 2: if we're in Australia, probably I mean you probably wouldn't
Speaker 2: be out of New South Wells. But you know what
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: But it's going to different that's a lot of countries.
Speaker 1: My no trip, massive envy, and he's fifteen year old.
Speaker 1: I want his life. It's tricky, isn't it. I'm really
Speaker 1: in agreement. I've read a lot and thought a lot
Speaker 1: about the fact that if you don't let children take risks,
Speaker 1: then they get to eighteen and it's suddenly like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you can have alcohol, you can drive a car, all
Speaker 1: bets are off, You're free. You can do whatever you
Speaker 1: want now. And they've had no practice in navigating risk
Speaker 1: and assessing risk because we've never given them a chance
Speaker 1: to build that muscle through their life. And that's the
Speaker 1: argument behind free range parenting, isn't it that? You know,
Speaker 1: we mean well, but we think that it's our job
Speaker 1: to protect our children from all the risks and walk
Speaker 1: them around the fire and not hold their hand while
Speaker 1: they walk through it. And so yeah, I mean, I've
Speaker 1: got a sixteen year old. You know, we were overseas
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago when my daughter was sixteen,
Speaker 1: maybe seventeen. She really wanted to come home. She was
Speaker 1: not feeling great and not enjoying this trip. So we
Speaker 1: allowed her to fly home from Greece alone and then
Speaker 1: just be at home for a week or so until
Speaker 1: we got back. I mean, look, we could track her phone,
Speaker 1: we could do all of those things, and when she
Speaker 1: was eighteen, every night I was checking where she was
Speaker 1: when she was just recently traveling for six weeks. It's
Speaker 1: scary as a parent, but what a gift you give
Speaker 1: your child?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And what the criticism can never take into account,
Speaker 4: which I think has just should be the mantra of
Speaker 4: the internet, is that the mum or the dad or
Speaker 4: the caregiver knows the kid better than you do. So
Speaker 4: your fifteen year old might just in terms of maturity,
Speaker 4: not be there. We don't know her fifteen year old.
Speaker 4: I think she knows her kid, she knows what her
Speaker 4: kid is capable of. But what this story speaks to
Speaker 4: is the rub between the messaging we're getting in all
Speaker 4: the books and I'm getting it very very low, which
Speaker 4: is about independence, parents that are overfunctioning, and how there
Speaker 4: is this link between less freedom and trust and more
Speaker 4: mental health concerns. So we go, Okay, we've got to
Speaker 4: give them freedom and independence and play and don't get
Speaker 4: too involved in all of those things. But then the
Speaker 4: second you enact any of that, child service is a
Speaker 4: called or whatever.
Speaker 2: And even if not child service is a called, the
Speaker 2: judgment upon you from other people is enormous.
Speaker 1: Is enormous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's one of the tricky things, exactly.
Speaker 4: And the other thing I thought about this story was
Speaker 4: this is why you should never say a parenting decision.
Speaker 3: You make out loud of meaned so true.
Speaker 4: It's like anything that I choose, whether it's like feeding
Speaker 4: or what. And I know that sometimes it can be
Speaker 4: really helpful, but I'm like, I personally can't handle nor
Speaker 4: do I give a shit what anyone else thinks about it,
Speaker 4: don't you think.
Speaker 1: You often don't realize until you do say it, and
Speaker 1: then there's pushback and you go, oh, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize this was a problem. Sometimes the Internet is
Speaker 1: what tells you. I remember getting my son a smash
Speaker 1: cake for his birthday when he was I don't know eight.
Speaker 1: I posted a funny video about it, and it ended
Speaker 1: up in the Daily Mail about people were upset about
Speaker 1: the violence, and I was teaching my child violence because
Speaker 1: all the kids like smashed it and then all ran
Speaker 1: over the top of each other trying to get it,
Speaker 1: and they.
Speaker 4: Wonder why the well being of parents is really really low.
Speaker 1: And other people were being critical that I bought the
Speaker 1: cake in it we were also hundred dollars. Why didn't
Speaker 1: I just make the cake.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to me that the title of Heights book
Speaker 2: about the kids is the anxious generation, But actually the
Speaker 2: gen X parents who are making these decisions, we're fucking
Speaker 2: anxious because like we live to our south of Sydney.
Speaker 2: My daughters started making that train trip on her own
Speaker 2: a bit in school holidays, come see her friend or whatever.
Speaker 2: And when I put her on that train, of course
Speaker 2: I say to her, like if a creepy guy sits
Speaker 2: next to you, or if something happens or the train
Speaker 2: breaks down, or da da da da da. But every
Speaker 2: time she does it, she might face a situation where
Speaker 2: she's going to like most likely and what's generally happened.
Speaker 2: She gets on the train, she gets the other end,
Speaker 2: she has a great time. But every time she does
Speaker 2: get on the train, there is a chance that something
Speaker 2: might happen. And I was thinking that. Actually, when I
Speaker 2: was about the age of Oscar Hercules, I didn't go
Speaker 2: off interrailing. But me and a friend did catch a
Speaker 2: train from France to Italy where my parents were on holiday,
Speaker 2: and it was an overnight train.
Speaker 1: There was a.
Speaker 2: Carriage down the train of football hooligans. This was an
Speaker 2: era of football hooligans, the late eighties, and they were
Speaker 2: scary guys and they were drunk and they gave us
Speaker 2: loads of shit and we were scared. Right. Whatever we survived,
Speaker 2: it wasn't particularly pleasant and we had a story to
Speaker 2: tell everybody. But that could have gone bad, you know,
Speaker 2: it definitely could have gone bad, and it could go
Speaker 2: bad every time I put my daughter on a train,
Speaker 2: and the fear of judgment is one of the things
Speaker 2: that paralyzes parents. Is one of my mate says this
Speaker 2: to me all the time. She's like, if something happens,
Speaker 2: imagine what everyone will say, not because they're a public figure,
Speaker 2: but just like people in your world is they'll say, well,
Speaker 2: what did you think putting a fourteen year old girl
Speaker 2: on a train when there might be drunk guys getting
Speaker 2: on at that station and there might be boys doing this,
Speaker 2: and her phone might run out of battery and the
Speaker 2: train might break down and she won't know where to go,
Speaker 2: and then she'd be wandering the streets and then someone
Speaker 2: could come and like they're piling the anxiety and the
Speaker 2: judgment onto you. So you have to actually be a
Speaker 2: very confident, centered parent in this day and age to go.
Speaker 2: And I'm not necessarily defending Kirsty Alsop because I think
Speaker 2: she's probably a bit out there, but it's like, you
Speaker 2: have to be a very.
Speaker 1: What do you mean do you think she shouldn't have
Speaker 1: done it?
Speaker 2: It was too well, I don't think she shouldn't have
Speaker 2: done it, but the way she defends it, of like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's a rite of passage and all those things, I
Speaker 2: just think that's not really true, you know. But I
Speaker 2: think you have to be such a confident, grounded I
Speaker 2: can handle it parent to go. No, I believe in
Speaker 2: my choices and I believe in my kid, and that's
Speaker 2: very hard to do, whether they're little and you're talking
Speaker 2: about feeding, or whether they're fourteen and you're putting them
Speaker 2: on a train.
Speaker 4: Also did speak to something that's very true, though, which
Speaker 4: is that the world is actually safer than it's ever been.
Speaker 4: But because of our exposure, and I've found this with babies.
Speaker 4: Everything that's gone wrong with a baby, I now read
Speaker 4: because it's served me an algorithm, So you will see
Speaker 4: every story about that fourteen year old girl, whether it
Speaker 4: is near your house or whether it's on the other
Speaker 4: side of the world, and so our sense of scale
Speaker 4: or our sense of likelihood or probability is totally thrown out.
Speaker 4: There was a great article though in The Atlantic about
Speaker 4: lighthouse parents. I really liked that terminology, which was the
Speaker 4: idea that similar to a lighthouse, you provide a bit
Speaker 4: of light, a bit of stability, so that the ships
Speaker 4: can see their way. This parent kept saying, and I
Speaker 4: think she worked in education or something, and she said,
Speaker 4: when her child comes home and says I'm being bullied
Speaker 4: or whatever, rather than go here's what you should do
Speaker 4: and I'm going to call the teacher, she'll say like,
Speaker 4: how did you deal with that? And work through it
Speaker 4: a little bit, which is idealistic, but I think it's
Speaker 4: probably a good place to start. And she's all about
Speaker 4: missteps before mastery. So there's got to be the.
Speaker 3: Let them mobble, let them mobile.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be hard though, be like when is
Speaker 1: it irresponsible to let them wobble? And well, when is
Speaker 1: it potentially dangerous?
Speaker 3: And one of the stakes of the stakes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wobbling. What's interesting though, it's funny we're talking all
Speaker 1: about this in parents and being judged, and none of
Speaker 1: this is about the kid, because every kid time has
Speaker 1: always taken risks like the shit I did when I
Speaker 1: was fifteen, but my parents weren't judged for it because
Speaker 1: they didn't know.
Speaker 2: Exactly, So that's not new.
Speaker 1: What's new is actually about the parents learning to let
Speaker 1: go more than the kids taking the risk. And also
Speaker 1: our definition of what a good parent is because it's
Speaker 1: contextual too, isn't it Because if that mother had gone
Speaker 1: off to Abetha and was taking drugs and partying and
Speaker 1: left the fifteen year old kid at home, would child
Speaker 1: services have been involved? It's interesting to know about how
Speaker 1: much of this is a How very dare you? You know?
Speaker 1: The privilege and all of those.
Speaker 2: Things out loud us tell us what are the risks
Speaker 2: you took as a teenager and do you regret them?
Speaker 2: And what kind of risks would you like your kid
Speaker 2: take at what age? Do you want daily outloud access?
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you? We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday
Speaker 1: exclusively for Muma Mea subscribers. Follow the link in the
Speaker 1: show notes to get us in your ears five days
Speaker 1: a week, and a huge thank you if you're already
Speaker 1: a subscriber.
Speaker 5: Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger,
Speaker 5: more beautiful, more perfect? One single injection unlocks your DNA
Speaker 5: and will release another version of yourself.
Speaker 4: For women, Aging is like a horror film. They are
Speaker 4: the words of a reviewer named Paula Frolick, who, just
Speaker 4: like the three of us, recently saw the award winning
Speaker 4: film The Substance. We went out for a little date
Speaker 4: night on Monday, which was lovely.
Speaker 1: Just developed a Monday night movie date night.
Speaker 4: And we're not going to give away spoilers here or
Speaker 4: analyze a film in great details, so if you haven't
Speaker 4: seen it, that doesn't matter. We just want to unpack
Speaker 4: its premise and what it tells us about aging.
Speaker 1: I think it was a masterpiece.
Speaker 3: I bloody loved it.
Speaker 4: It was quick summary of what the movie is about
Speaker 4: for everybody, though Jesse, No, not for everybody. It stars
Speaker 4: I say, Demi, Demi, what's this about Demi?
Speaker 1: That's just how she says it.
Speaker 3: Okay, I say okay.
Speaker 4: Starring Demi Moore and Margaret Quayley, a fading celebrity on
Speaker 4: her fiftieth birthday, decides to use a black market drug
Speaker 4: that promises to temporarily create a younger, better version of herself.
Speaker 4: It's about the deal one makes with the devil when
Speaker 4: they attempt to turn the clock backwards, chasing youth and
Speaker 4: beauty at all costs. Quayley, who plays Sue, is the
Speaker 4: younger version of Elizabeth Sparkle played by Moore. Written and
Speaker 4: directed by Coralie Fargit, The Substance is a satiric called
Speaker 4: body horror film which explores themes of agism, beauty, obsession
Speaker 4: with self image, capitalism, plastic surgery, and misogyny. Satirical body
Speaker 4: horror is not a genre it's familiar with, but then
Speaker 4: you watch it and you're like, yes, it is a
Speaker 4: satirical horror body what's.
Speaker 1: The satirical part? Because there's parts of it are funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not realistic, like it's not meant to be right.
Speaker 1: Are their body horror and horror film? Like I've never
Speaker 1: been to a horror.
Speaker 2: Body horror film. When they talk about body horror, they
Speaker 2: mean like there will be blood and guts, it will
Speaker 2: be gory.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: There are lots of different horror films. There are serial
Speaker 2: killer movies, and there are spooky things with ghosts and whatever.
Speaker 2: Body horror is like, it's about the gore.
Speaker 1: So, Jesse, this is your jam.
Speaker 3: I've watched every minute of it.
Speaker 1: And I know this because there were lots of times
Speaker 1: where I had was trying to bury my face in
Speaker 1: your shoulder, and Holly also was looking at you, and
Speaker 1: you were just looking straight at the screen, not flinching,
Speaker 1: smiling or laughing.
Speaker 3: Don't mind a little bit because it was quite funny.
Speaker 3: It was just a greater purpose.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny.
Speaker 3: It's funny movie, Holly.
Speaker 4: If your host a podcast called mid and it's about
Speaker 4: midlife women and something we often hear is that they
Speaker 4: feel invisible. And this is about, in many ways the
Speaker 4: opposite of invisible. How the harder you try to chase youth,
Speaker 4: the more monstrous you become. My question is can women win?
Speaker 2: Well, the answer to that is no. End of segment. No,
Speaker 2: of course, the answer to that is no. But that
Speaker 2: is exactly what this movie is about.
Speaker 1: Jesse.
Speaker 2: You are so right. And it's interesting that as gen
Speaker 2: x women are moving into this age fifties and in
Speaker 2: Demi Moore's case, sixties and.
Speaker 3: Is she a gen X or would she be a boom.
Speaker 5: Gen X.
Speaker 2: She's elder gen X. She's a gen x icon though
Speaker 2: because of her you know, brat pack years. This is
Speaker 2: a topic that's being explored more and more, right, and
Speaker 2: this movie is an example of that that I think
Speaker 2: is brilliant because it's not meant to be realistic.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The characters have no backstory, we know nothing about them.
Speaker 2: We're just dropped into this world and it's highly stylized,
Speaker 2: and the that it's shot is very ardy and it's
Speaker 2: sort of broad strokes the way they set it up.
Speaker 2: And what is incredibly true is the depiction of the
Speaker 2: fact that this woman is suddenly being pushed out right,
Speaker 2: So she is a TV person, she was an actress.
Speaker 2: Then she's obviously had a second act as like a
Speaker 2: Jane Fonder esque aerobics instructor on TV and on the
Speaker 2: morning show every morning she leads then ext sise thing.
Speaker 2: And she's too old in the eyes of the TV execs.
Speaker 2: And that's despite the fact that she clearly has done
Speaker 2: everything she was supposed to do to stay young. So
Speaker 2: she has had work, she is thin, she has got
Speaker 2: the long hair, augmented boom. She's got all that stuff,
Speaker 2: but still she is objectively too old now to be
Speaker 2: attractive and convincing to this audience who the male TV
Speaker 2: execs think she should be. And I think that what
Speaker 2: is brilliant about this movie because it is very over
Speaker 2: the top and ridiculous, but it absolutely drills home the
Speaker 2: horror and the very physical violence of the interventions we
Speaker 2: are prepared to make with ourselves to try and hold
Speaker 2: onto this bargain, this idea that we can be that.
Speaker 2: And I think it's interesting because one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why I'm very scared of surgeries of all kinds in fact,
Speaker 2: but obviously cosmetic surgery, is because I've watched too many
Speaker 2: of those shows that show you it happening, and when
Speaker 2: they give you a face lift and they literally lift
Speaker 2: your face up. When you see that, that is a
Speaker 2: very confronting, violent image that makes you really understand what
Speaker 2: you're doing to your physical self. And that's what this
Speaker 2: movie explores.
Speaker 4: And it's complicated because it's a violence perpetrated upon the self, yes,
Speaker 4: which is what this is looking at, I think and
Speaker 4: what I've realized watching it. There's a remarkable scene which
Speaker 4: is not a horror scene, although perhaps it is the
Speaker 4: most horror scene. It's when Demi Moore looks in the mirror.
Speaker 4: She's got makeup on it, and she's meant to be
Speaker 4: going to a day and she's kind of being haunted
Speaker 4: by the image of her younger version of herself, and
Speaker 4: every time she looks in the mirror, she looks great,
Speaker 4: but to her she can only see the lines and
Speaker 4: how the makeup isn't right, and it's almost like she
Speaker 4: tries to scratch her face off, like she tries to
Speaker 4: pull it off because she's so horrified.
Speaker 1: First she tries putting on more makeup and then less makeup,
Speaker 1: and then she changes the top, and then she kind
Speaker 1: of tries to do something with her hair. And I
Speaker 1: think we all know what that feels like when it's like,
Speaker 1: what's looking back at me? It's not how I feel,
Speaker 1: and it's not what I want to portray to the world.
Speaker 1: And what can I do to change what I see,
Speaker 1: which is my face and my body to conform to
Speaker 1: what society wants me to look like or seizes desirable
Speaker 1: and valuable and this beauty standard that I've internalized. So
Speaker 1: it's not that any I mean, yes, She literally has
Speaker 1: people saying you're too old, get off television. But she's
Speaker 1: internalized it as well. So even when there's nobody around
Speaker 1: and there's no stakes, she applies those same beauty standards
Speaker 1: to herself. And I think that's what some people don't
Speaker 1: understand when we talk about the male gaze. We've all
Speaker 1: internalized the male gaze. It's not actually men saying go
Speaker 1: get botox or be skinnier or whatever. We've internalized that,
Speaker 1: and some people have internalized it more than others. And
Speaker 1: that's why I always find it very trite just to say, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, getting older is a luxury, and love yourself
Speaker 1: and love your body. It's not as simple as that.
Speaker 4: What that scene spoke to was how much one must
Speaker 4: have to hate themselves in order to undergo some of
Speaker 4: these surgeries.
Speaker 1: So there's a real or house skin maybe hate, but
Speaker 1: also fear fear.
Speaker 4: But there's a mocking and there's a derision, and there's
Speaker 4: almost like a point in laugh quite literally in parts
Speaker 4: of this movie when it comes to women who try.
Speaker 4: And there's a story just in the news today about
Speaker 4: a woman in the UK who has died after a
Speaker 4: liquid Brisillian butt lift. She was thirty three with five kids.
Speaker 4: The tone of it all, it's it's more blaming, yeah,
Speaker 4: and also like victim blaming to a degree, but it's.
Speaker 1: Like serves you right for being so vain, yes, and
Speaker 1: so superficial, and it's.
Speaker 4: About so much more than it's like vanity in a
Speaker 4: way is the symptom. But that surgery as well as
Speaker 4: a facelift, as well as a breast augmentation, whatever your
Speaker 4: choice is. I'm not judging them, but they are full
Speaker 4: on like that takes a lot.
Speaker 1: It's not like a bit of hair dyets and makeup. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then when you come out that way and you
Speaker 4: inevitably do get older the way that you are then
Speaker 4: mocked and you're conspicuous in a new way where everyone.
Speaker 3: Goes, look at you.
Speaker 1: You have stuff.
Speaker 4: She's had work, which in that way I thought that
Speaker 4: more like even her casting was.
Speaker 2: Very brilliant, was very brilliant. I think it was brilliant casting.
Speaker 2: And I've seen a lot of that oh she's so
Speaker 2: brave commentary and rolled my eyes. But actually having seen
Speaker 2: the movie, I think she is really brave. But there
Speaker 2: are things in this movie that will push your buttons
Speaker 2: if you go and see it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Some of the criticism I've seen is that the movie
Speaker 2: itself seems to fetishize the young body. But then I
Speaker 2: understand what they're trying to do. What the director was
Speaker 2: trying to do was to talk about how much we've
Speaker 2: all been conditioned to desire that, as you say here,
Speaker 2: but there are a lot of very lingering our shots,
Speaker 2: for example. And then also the other part that pushed
Speaker 2: my button. I started muttering to Jesse about it is
Speaker 2: that when Elizabeth Sparkle is her normal old self, because
Speaker 2: she can alternate between being the young self and the
Speaker 2: old self, she is a sad old lady in Verticoma's
Speaker 2: in her bathrobe who just sits in front of the
Speaker 2: TV watching infomercials and feeling terrible about herself. And I
Speaker 2: was like, oh my godness, that what we're supposed to
Speaker 2: be like is that, well how everybody sees us like,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of It pushes a lot of buttons,
Speaker 2: which to me is the sign of a.
Speaker 1: Really good, yeah movie. I can't stop thinking about it.
Speaker 1: And my daughter Coco came with us as well, and
Speaker 1: she didn't know anything about it, and I'm like, come
Speaker 1: to the movie through us, so it'll be fun. She's like,
Speaker 1: fun could be watching. I watched it the day before
Speaker 1: I turned fifty three this week, and I woke up
Speaker 1: on my fifty third birthday just really quite anxious. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about it a lot because it's all about at
Speaker 1: what cost? At what cost? What price will you pay
Speaker 1: to look a little bit younger? What financial prices, what
Speaker 1: physical price? How much pain will you undergo, how much humiliation?
Speaker 1: How much risk will you take? And is it worth it?
Speaker 4: And sort of like, be honest, do you give a
Speaker 4: shit what's in the substance because that's never really explored,
Speaker 4: like what it is?
Speaker 1: Well, that's the risk. She takes it without even knowing
Speaker 1: it's an amazing film, Like I know what you're saying,
Speaker 1: it's funny. Hole those things didn't push my buttons because
Speaker 1: I mean, this movie's been described as a primal scream
Speaker 1: of rage against beauty standards and society and a feminist masterpiece,
Speaker 1: which I really really think it is, and I can't
Speaker 1: stop thinking about it, And all I want to do
Speaker 1: is talk about.
Speaker 4: It when we know what the cost is. I think
Speaker 4: it's industry specific as well. Lots of people listening were
Speaker 4: like the industry that they work in doesn't necessarily punish
Speaker 4: them for aging, and the Hollywood context is a very specific.
Speaker 1: But I think everybody lives in the world, and I
Speaker 1: just think some people are better at shrugging off those
Speaker 1: beauty standards and saying I'm not internalizing them. I'm not
Speaker 1: or else I'm going to look in the mirror and
Speaker 1: just go, oh, well, aging my neck a bit wrinkly.
Speaker 1: Age people are just better than others.
Speaker 3: I think it's so much deeper.
Speaker 4: The one thing is I have lines on my goodness, irrelevance, invisibility.
Speaker 4: I'm doing an equation in my head that guess what
Speaker 4: part of it is correct that my value to maybe
Speaker 4: the opposite sex or whatever this is. Things that we've
Speaker 4: internalized might go down. I might feel like people don't
Speaker 4: listen to me in the same way. The other thing
Speaker 4: I kept thinking was about how much of our lives
Speaker 4: we've spent feeling old when we're not because we're aging.
Speaker 4: Like I've felt I'm turning thirty four in December, and
Speaker 4: I've noticed signs of aging because capitalism points them out.
Speaker 3: I've started having that feeling now. I think that was
Speaker 3: the point in the movie, was that when she felt, oh,
Speaker 3: you're not old.
Speaker 2: It was a literal manifestation of her being pushed out
Speaker 2: because she's old. Yeah, and that is how old. And
Speaker 2: it's true to a point. It's probably less true now
Speaker 2: than it has been. Ironically, it's also how young people
Speaker 2: feel about how they can't get in because they are
Speaker 2: like women are always made to feel, there are only
Speaker 2: so many spaces for us, and we can only have
Speaker 2: these ones for the old ladies and these ones for
Speaker 2: the young ladies, and these are.
Speaker 3: But don't you reckon that?
Speaker 4: The aging even more so, like whether it's lines or
Speaker 4: sunspots or gray hair, the reason that shocks us, and
Speaker 4: I've seen it shock men, like gray hair, for example,
Speaker 4: is that we go time is passing. Yes, I am
Speaker 4: getting older, I am closer to death. Aging is a
Speaker 4: horror movie because it's like the big truth that we
Speaker 4: all spend our entire lives trying not to think about
Speaker 4: is imprinted on our faces, and one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent that's what that's my midlife crisis often look
Speaker 1: different for men and women. Men might have affairs with
Speaker 1: younger women or go and start bi or training for
Speaker 1: a marathon, and women will look at surgery, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's because it's like, well, what does it mean
Speaker 1: to us to present as younger in the world. For men,
Speaker 1: it's about virality and physical strength, and for women it's
Speaker 1: about aesthetics.
Speaker 2: We have to fight it, though maybe it can't be
Speaker 2: in your place of like, well, that's how it is.
Speaker 2: It's like the only answer is to care less. The
Speaker 2: only answer.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you can.
Speaker 2: You have to teach yourself like you do about anything
Speaker 2: like yes.
Speaker 4: Like the smartphones does all the parents decide that they
Speaker 4: don't give the smartphones anymore and we all have to
Speaker 4: hold hands and so let's.
Speaker 1: Just do it.
Speaker 2: I don't mean to hold hands in allgo. We're not
Speaker 2: doing anything to our faces, but you change it in
Speaker 2: a monologue. You should listen to my episode about this
Speaker 2: on mid because my manifesto with Ali Dado is all
Speaker 2: about this.
Speaker 1: Will you put a link in the show notes place because.
Speaker 2: We we will A big thank you. I think that
Speaker 2: was a marathon show out louder, so thank you for
Speaker 2: being with us if you're still here, and thank you
Speaker 2: to our fabulous team for putting this show together. We
Speaker 2: are going to be back in your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 4: Bye bye by shout out to any mother and MEA
Speaker 4: subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want
Speaker 4: to support us, subscribing to MoMA Mia is the very
Speaker 4: best way to do so.
Speaker 3: There's a link in the episode description