Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma 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.
Speaker 3: Out loud.
Speaker 2: What women are actually talking about on Monday, the twenty
Speaker 2: third of September. I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm.
Speaker 3: Mea Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2: And on the show today, the former First Lady of
Speaker 2: America is defending her right to express herself through nudity,
Speaker 2: which is ace, but defending herself from whom. Also, there's
Speaker 2: a surge in breast surgery among young women, but it's
Speaker 2: breast reductions, not enlargements that are on the rise.
Speaker 1: Why is that also?
Speaker 2: Take it down? One of the biggest celebrity media brands
Speaker 2: just bowed to pressure to remove a video interview with
Speaker 2: a very famous actress, but first Jesse.
Speaker 4: Last week, thousands of pages and other wireless devices simultaneously
Speaker 4: exploded across Lebanon and part of Steria. It began on
Speaker 4: Tuesday as thousands of handheld electronic pages, which had been
Speaker 4: distributed by Hesbela, exploded on busy streets. To back up
Speaker 4: for a moment, Hesbela is a designated terrorist organization, and
Speaker 4: they control the most powerful armed force in Lebanon. The
Speaker 4: assault continued Wednesday, with more devices detonating, including two way radios.
Speaker 4: As the Washington Post put it, the attack was unlike
Speaker 4: any other in size and scope, turning everyday devices into
Speaker 4: weapons of war. At least thirty two people, including two children.
Speaker 4: Reports vary between two and four children were killed and
Speaker 4: thousands more were injured. Many of the explosions happened in
Speaker 4: the vicinity of large crowds. Hesbelah has said this was
Speaker 4: an attack by Israel, but so far Israeli officials have
Speaker 4: declined to comment. Hesbelah has vowed retaliation. And I found
Speaker 4: something deeply unsettling in the reporting of the so over
Speaker 4: the weekend, I felt as though headlines and even the
Speaker 4: tone that was existing in a lot of the coverage
Speaker 4: was as though this was some sort of action movie,
Speaker 4: as if children didn't make up some of the casualties.
Speaker 4: And it felt like and it has felt like this
Speaker 4: for months that were becoming increasingly desensitized to the loss
Speaker 4: of human life. There's been comparisons to the James Bond
Speaker 4: element of it. I was reading one very highly respected
Speaker 4: publication that referred to it as an achievement, and I
Speaker 4: thought of the parents of the kids who lost their lives,
Speaker 4: and if I was in Lebanon or in any part
Speaker 4: of the Middle East right now, I'd be terrified, more
Speaker 4: terrified than I was a week ago. So it just
Speaker 4: served as a reminder to me that regardless of where
Speaker 4: you are in the world, the innocent human life matters,
Speaker 4: and we've got to be careful not to get excited
Speaker 4: or gleeful because there's new technology, because this isn't a
Speaker 4: video game.
Speaker 3: These are real people.
Speaker 1: It reminded me a little bit that sort of all
Speaker 1: or is the wrong word, but it's all a new technology.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety, when the Iraq War started, there was
Speaker 1: again another big leap in technology, with drones and cameras
Speaker 1: been used to drop bombs on targets, which you could
Speaker 1: then also see. We watched that on CNN and pilots
Speaker 1: were watching it on these screens, and there were interviews
Speaker 1: with the pilots after they finished their missions and bombings,
Speaker 1: and they came off and these were like pretty young
Speaker 1: guys and they were like, it was so cool. It
Speaker 1: was like playing a video game. And even then there
Speaker 1: was a little bit of discomfort in the same way
Speaker 1: that you say, where it can be really easy to
Speaker 1: forget that there are human lives, and in the case
Speaker 1: of what happened with Hesbola, the targets of this attack
Speaker 1: were terrorists whose sole aim is to kill other people.
Speaker 1: So I guess you would say very clearly they were
Speaker 1: the bad guys, but also civilians were injured and killed,
Speaker 1: and they weren't bad guys, they were civilians.
Speaker 2: I think also it's worth remembering that as we're watching
Speaker 2: this and everybody's talk talking about how did it happen,
Speaker 2: and pages and walkie talkies and getting explosives into systems
Speaker 2: inside people's homes, what it actually signals is an escalation
Speaker 2: of something that I think a lot well obviously a
Speaker 2: lot of the world is very invested in de escalation
Speaker 2: of the Middle East, in the Middle East, and so
Speaker 2: it's not good news for anyone who was hoping that
Speaker 2: peace was closer, because it's only further away.
Speaker 1: If anyone was wondering where Milania Trump has been during
Speaker 1: the past few years, she's been writing her autobiography and
Speaker 1: also signing a deal to make her own range of
Speaker 1: Christmas decorations Thank God, which is unexpected because when she
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump were in the White House, you might remember,
Speaker 1: hopefully you don't. You know, every first lady's in charge
Speaker 1: of decorating the White House for Christmas and their choice
Speaker 1: of Christmas decorations. Her choice was very dystopian. It was
Speaker 1: a lot of black trees and it was like melefelsince House.
Speaker 1: Maybe there was a leaked phone call where she said,
Speaker 1: I fucking hate Christmas. Anyway, Times Change now are launching
Speaker 1: Christmas decorations. But the promotional strategy for her book is
Speaker 1: what has been rolling out in the most surreal way
Speaker 1: the last few days with a series of again pretty
Speaker 1: dystopian videos, short in black and white. She really does
Speaker 1: like that quite severe, very stark lighting heavy.
Speaker 2: Usually yeah, she thinks it's sophisticated because dramatic music. What
Speaker 2: I've seen of the cover of a book is it's
Speaker 2: literally just a white Do you think that's really.
Speaker 1: The No, I don't think that is a way I cover well.
Speaker 1: In these videos she talks about all manner of things
Speaker 1: and looks and sounds well, kind of disconcertingly like dystopian AI.
Speaker 1: The book isn't actually out from a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: so nobody's seen the actual cover already yet, but here's
Speaker 1: a little bit of a taste of the videos.
Speaker 5: Writing this memoir has been a deeply personal and reflective
Speaker 5: journey for me, as a private person who has often
Speaker 5: been the subject of public scrutiny and misrepresentation. I feel
Speaker 5: a responsibility to clarify the facts. I believe it is
Speaker 5: important to share my perspective the truth.
Speaker 1: But the title of one of these videos, in particular
Speaker 1: that I didn't play just then, stands out, and it is,
Speaker 1: why do I stand proudly behind my new modeling work?
Speaker 1: So you know it's going to be really excellent before
Speaker 1: you even here? Ply on this one, here's a little
Speaker 1: bit of what she says in that video.
Speaker 5: Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modeling work?
Speaker 5: The more pressing question is why has the media chosen
Speaker 5: to scrutinize my celebration of the human forum in a
Speaker 5: fashion photoshoot? Are we no longer able to appreciate the
Speaker 5: beauty of the human body? Throughout history, master artists have
Speaker 5: revered the human shape, evoking profound emotions and admiration. We
Speaker 5: should honor our bodies and embrace the timeless tradition of
Speaker 5: using art as a powerful means of self expression.
Speaker 1: While she was talking that voiceover on the video, there
Speaker 1: were all pictures of like famous works of art by
Speaker 1: famous artists like Angel and Sassan, And she didn't actually
Speaker 1: show her pictures, but she post naked for a French
Speaker 1: adult magazine in nineteen ninety five and for British GQ
Speaker 1: in two thousand and The modeling photos were highlighted a
Speaker 1: little bit in the twenty sixteen campaign when The New
Speaker 1: York Post published several of the nude photos. Because of course,
Speaker 1: there is going to be some media discussion about your
Speaker 1: nudes when you're the first lady or the want to
Speaker 1: be first lady, especially when your husband is all about
Speaker 1: slut shaming female enemies and imposing traditional roles for women.
Speaker 1: So we're certainly not endorsing any shaming of anyone for
Speaker 1: being nude. But what's interesting is that she's answering a
Speaker 1: question that nobody was asking, and it's puzzling, Holly, what's
Speaker 1: going on.
Speaker 2: So apparently Milania has asked for the rights for those
Speaker 2: images to include in her memoir. So she wants you,
Speaker 2: she wants to republish that she wants you to know
Speaker 2: that those nudes are going to be in her book.
Speaker 3: So she going for and Rada.
Speaker 2: I think she's going full and Rada. But also I
Speaker 2: am obsessed with Milania Trump. Why because say what you
Speaker 2: like about Donald Trump, and we have said many things
Speaker 2: about Donald Trump. His era of political assent in the
Speaker 2: US has ripped up so many conventions, all the sort
Speaker 2: of things that we used to insist on from politicians,
Speaker 2: like that they at least pretend to be a nice
Speaker 2: sort of human being and can go around saying things
Speaker 2: like grabbing by the posse and insisting the elections that
Speaker 2: you lost that you actually won, and all those things
Speaker 2: that we used to think, oh, that's not very presidential,
Speaker 2: things like fidelity and all that's gone, lack of nudity
Speaker 2: in Paul being a felon. But you could argue that
Speaker 2: all that through some lenses, you could say it's quite refreshing,
Speaker 2: because American presidents have got away with a whole lot
Speaker 2: of shit a lot of time, but they always had
Speaker 2: to pretend that they had this lovely wife by their
Speaker 2: side who adored them, happy family, blah blah blah. Milania
Speaker 2: barely even pretends to live with him, like him sleep
Speaker 2: with him, certainly, not hang around him, hold his hand.
Speaker 2: I think she obviously has. I mean, I know this speculation,
Speaker 2: but a lot of people say a certain amount of
Speaker 2: agreed appearances are in their.
Speaker 1: Contracts quite well.
Speaker 2: So she's like, you know, I know you do kind
Speaker 2: of need a wife by your side as you're running
Speaker 2: for president. We're not going to do this in a
Speaker 2: conventional way. I'll just turn up on these particular dates.
Speaker 2: The book is great. It's released on October the eighth,
Speaker 2: which is less than a month before the presidential election.
Speaker 1: Now again, have you seen it?
Speaker 2: No? I mean it sounds great from this, like such
Speaker 2: a good idea. You're like, I'm going to published a
Speaker 2: memoir a month before MyD It's just hilarious. It's just
Speaker 2: hilarious because the thing that the Trump's are great out
Speaker 2: is grifting. So on her site, you can buy images
Speaker 2: of her, you can buy NFTs that she's made of,
Speaker 2: like pretty flowers, you can buy Christmas ornaments, you can
Speaker 2: buy jewelry. It's like working every angle right srifters, which
Speaker 2: is not again not generally what first ladies do. And
Speaker 2: I have to say that what I admire in all this,
Speaker 2: I mean I don't really admire in any way, but
Speaker 2: I admire their complete disregard for convention. Like for years
Speaker 2: and decades and forever, first ladies have had to pretend.
Speaker 2: She's not pretending, She's just going all out.
Speaker 4: You say that, But what Milania has done here, which
Speaker 4: is surprising, is that she's agreed to be a cog
Speaker 4: in Trump's election campaign.
Speaker 2: But only if it benefits her and her Christmas ornament business.
Speaker 4: Do you think she really wanted to write this book.
Speaker 4: I feel as though they sat down and they looked
Speaker 4: at Trump's campaign and they went, what we need here
Speaker 4: is Milania to say something, or to stand for something,
Speaker 4: or to contribute to the momentum. Obviously, one of the
Speaker 4: clips that went quite viral was the one where she
Speaker 4: is suggesting that there was more to the assassination attempt,
Speaker 4: and she shares the family perspective that he's someone who
Speaker 4: you know, he's a father and he's a husband. And
Speaker 4: how much at her what she's doing, at least in
Speaker 4: this promotion is humanizing him.
Speaker 2: I don't think so, though, do you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 2: maybe that might be a strategy if it was a
Speaker 2: completely different strategy.
Speaker 1: So she's talking more from the videos that have been
Speaker 1: released so far, it's more talking politically because she's like,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, the election happened and it changed everything
Speaker 1: gasoline prices, cost of living, and it's like, that's not
Speaker 1: the perspective that I would be most interested in from you.
Speaker 1: And look, there's also a long history of first ladies
Speaker 1: and former first ladies writing their story, and they absolutely
Speaker 1: should because their perspective is interesting.
Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton just released a book this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but also Michelle Obama, her extraordinary book, Becoming, which
Speaker 1: is one of the top selling nonfiction books of all time.
Speaker 1: I know what you're saying, Holly, that she's disregarding all
Speaker 1: of those conventions, which is ironic her saying, you know,
Speaker 1: the nude body's fine when her husband is so sexist
Speaker 1: and well at all women.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that all his far right bodies would
Speaker 2: agree that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if you've read Michelle Obama's book, The First
Speaker 1: First Lady of Color, what she had to do and
Speaker 1: what she had to not do, like the tiny, tiny,
Speaker 1: tiny little space that she had, she couldn't say this,
Speaker 1: she couldn't be that, she couldn't do this, she couldn't
Speaker 1: show her arm. She had to wear a hair like this,
Speaker 1: couldn't raise her voice, all of these things, and I
Speaker 1: guess the same qulb we said for Barack Obama compared
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump as the first black couple. Compared to them,
Speaker 1: it's just not fair, like the double standards are just yeah.
Speaker 2: But again, it's strange because you know the thing that
Speaker 2: is interesting about if this is a strategy to use
Speaker 2: Milania to remind everybody that Trump has a wife and
Speaker 2: a family, I don't know that that's really what this does.
Speaker 2: Like these very stark black and white talking to the
Speaker 2: camera about things like that relatable the videos I've watched.
Speaker 2: It's everything from that time I renovated the rose garden
Speaker 2: in a white house to how the election was stolen,
Speaker 2: to the very important role I've played in this thing,
Speaker 2: that thing to nude photos like they're.
Speaker 4: They're not saying I love Donald and I love sitting
Speaker 4: next to him on the couch.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because I don't know that necessarily, given Trump's
Speaker 2: position on race that he's been stoking hard lately, that
Speaker 2: it is that great for his base to be reminded,
Speaker 2: Because you know, you very rarely see Millennia's speak, right,
Speaker 2: so when you do like like other women who you
Speaker 2: don't see talk very often, like Kate Moss. You were
Speaker 2: saying on Friday, Mia that when you do see her talk,
Speaker 2: it's a bit of a jolt because you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's right. And she's from Slovenia, so she has an accent.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if the Trump's base that's probably not
Speaker 2: a good thing.
Speaker 4: But it's not like Trump and his team are going
Speaker 4: to be surprised that millani are. Oh, no, of How's
Speaker 4: And I think it's worth noting as well that Donald
Speaker 4: Trump has said he hasn't had time to read it.
Speaker 4: He hasn't had time to read it, but he says
Speaker 4: you should read it unless they are bad things about
Speaker 4: me in it, And then don't I see it as
Speaker 4: positioning Millennia because there's got a big strategy behind this.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, but you're not getting a book written by Milania.
Speaker 1: It's an always.
Speaker 6: Strategy, but you don't sell published. Do you remember when
Speaker 6: she wore that jacket and it said frankly, I don't
Speaker 6: care or yeah, whatever it was when she was going
Speaker 6: to the border to see the kids in the cages.
Speaker 4: But she said, and I'm trying to take this from
Speaker 4: like a perspective of a Republican or someone who supports
Speaker 4: his family, because let's not forget half of Americans do.
Speaker 4: She said that message was for all the media criticizing her,
Speaker 4: and she took the jacket off before she saw the children,
Speaker 4: and that was a way to signal to the media.
Speaker 2: And she also the most human I've ever heard Millania sound.
Speaker 2: And I don't mean in any way the way she speaks,
Speaker 2: but in terms of what she's saying. Is in the
Speaker 2: leaked phone call that we referenced earlier where she said,
Speaker 2: who gives a fuck about Christmas? She was complaining about
Speaker 2: the criticism that she gets in the media, and she
Speaker 2: did sound like an actual human being, and she was saying,
Speaker 2: they don't care what I think about those children, They
Speaker 2: don't care about this, or that they want me to
Speaker 2: give it into you Fox. I don't want to give
Speaker 2: an interview to Fox like she. I think that Millennia
Speaker 2: is much harder to manage and handle and put in
Speaker 2: a neat little box for Trump than a lot of
Speaker 2: other first ladies.
Speaker 4: See. I think that when they came up with a plan,
Speaker 4: and they came up with what Trump's campaign would look like,
Speaker 4: this was part of the strategy. This was very much
Speaker 4: part of the strategy, and there were things that are
Speaker 4: intentionally like for example, the framing of Millennia as a
Speaker 4: mother and her talking about loving motherhood, Like I think
Speaker 4: that's important for a first lady.
Speaker 2: Is the selling of ornaments and jewelry fit into that?
Speaker 1: Oh well, I guess it's Is it grift or is
Speaker 1: it like think, well, it's not raising money for anyone,
Speaker 1: like if it's not a lot.
Speaker 3: Of people release books, so they're not raising money.
Speaker 1: I mean the Christmas ornaments, like the Christmas ornaments is
Speaker 1: pure grift. But what I love about Milania the only
Speaker 1: thing is that she's been quite quitting since before that
Speaker 1: was even a thing. Yes, she's been quite quitting her
Speaker 1: role as a wife. She hates all this stuff, quite
Speaker 1: quit as a first lady, like pretty much the only
Speaker 1: achievement she had was redesigning the Rose Garden and her
Speaker 1: be Best campaign, which actually no one could understand what
Speaker 1: it was for and what it meant. So I think
Speaker 1: by all objective measures, she was pretty ineffective first lady,
Speaker 1: And yet everyone expected her to split with him after
Speaker 1: they left the White House. That's why I find she
Speaker 1: didn't so she obviously signed on for a.
Speaker 4: New isn't very quiet quitting of her. This is a
Speaker 4: nice Again.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's good strategy to have the first
Speaker 2: Lady release a book one month before the election. I
Speaker 2: think you wait for that because it could be depending
Speaker 2: what was in that book. And there isn't going to
Speaker 2: be anything silatious in the book, apart from the nude photos,
Speaker 2: which will be fun. If there was anything slacious in it.
Speaker 2: It pulls focus. It's distracting. Da da da da da,
Speaker 2: like in a conventional campaign, that would all come later,
Speaker 2: Like you don't want that to happen. This is what
Speaker 2: I mean about them, is that they just do these
Speaker 2: crazy things. And I think that Milania my read on
Speaker 2: her as always reading and watching things about supermodels and
Speaker 2: all that, and that era of time when she started
Speaker 2: dating Trump and married Trump. I don't think this is
Speaker 2: what she ever signed up for. Right she thought, I'm
Speaker 2: marrying a rich dude. I'm going to get to live
Speaker 2: in my fancy house in New York and have my
Speaker 2: child and just basically be a rich lady in New York.
Speaker 2: She didn't sign up for any of this, and you
Speaker 2: can tell how much she hates it all the time,
Speaker 2: and I don't know, I find that kind of appealing
Speaker 2: out louders.
Speaker 1: If you want to stay up to date with what's
Speaker 1: happening in the US, there's two types of people, the
Speaker 1: ones who are living for election coverage and the ones
Speaker 1: who do not want to hear a word of it.
Speaker 1: Now it's a great time to become a subscriber because
Speaker 1: every week we've been inviting friend of the poet to
Speaker 1: the incredibly knowledgeable Amelia lest onto the show to unpack
Speaker 1: everything in US politics. I could listen to her for days.
Speaker 1: You can listen to all of those episodes. There'll be
Speaker 1: another one coming this week via the link in our
Speaker 1: show notes.
Speaker 5: The challenges and rewards of motherhood, from sleepless nights to
Speaker 5: joyful milestones, bring immense fulfillment which only a mother understands.
Speaker 4: Hell yoga boobs, fashion boobs, the desire for a bra
Speaker 4: la summer. According to The New York Times, small breaths
Speaker 4: have newfound power and they are all the rage in
Speaker 4: the clinics of cosmetics surgents in the US, the biggest
Speaker 4: increase in people who are getting breast reductions is in
Speaker 4: women under thirty, but this rise isn't just happening overseas.
Speaker 4: Last year, it was reported that breast reductions in Australia
Speaker 4: had tripled over the three years before, and there has
Speaker 4: been a push to make the surgery more accessible through Medicare.
Speaker 4: I believe it covers some of the surgery, that's if
Speaker 4: it's causing other health issues, but there's still a considerable gap.
Speaker 4: The New York Times reports that patients used to ask
Speaker 4: for sea cups. With reduction, it was like, I want
Speaker 4: my sea cup, and now they're more likely to request
Speaker 4: a B cup. Many of the patients are young, postpartum mothers.
Speaker 4: The writer Lisa Miller concludes to decide to reduce them,
Speaker 4: to make them lighter, smaller, easier to carry and cover,
Speaker 4: more discreet, can be seen as an act of self
Speaker 4: love and empowerment, a woman's prioritization finally, of her own
Speaker 4: comfort and independence over what others have traditionally found sexy.
Speaker 4: She writes that on the other hand, it can be
Speaker 4: interpreted as self loathing, an agreement with a sexist culture
Speaker 4: that can also regard larger breasts that aren't youthfully round
Speaker 4: and upright as repulsive, droopy, flabby, jiggly, hard, to contain, Holly,
Speaker 4: why do you think that small breasts everywhere?
Speaker 2: Don't you just love it when it's arbitrarily decided that
Speaker 2: parts of our bodies are.
Speaker 3: Out of fashion. Yeah, it just happens all the time.
Speaker 2: Just deal with that. Those boobs are not on trend.
Speaker 2: Sort them out, won't you. But if we are accepting
Speaker 2: the fact that there are body trends and that women
Speaker 2: are adhering to them, I reckon this fits with two
Speaker 2: trends at the moment. The fact that younger women in
Speaker 2: particular want smaller boobs, a move away from the Kardashian
Speaker 2: body and all the things that come along with that,
Speaker 2: the curves. You know, we've seen it a lot on
Speaker 2: red carpets, and we've seen it in that we're kind
Speaker 2: of moving back culturally towards the skinny size zero aesthetic aesthetic,
Speaker 2: and that's much cooler and then possibly a little more positively,
Speaker 2: I'd say, the other trend is women giving fewer f's
Speaker 2: about them. We've talked a lot about how all the
Speaker 2: cool artists are young females at the minute, and Chapel
Speaker 2: Rohane has this song where she talks about her type
Speaker 2: and she's like, no long hair, no bra, and you.
Speaker 3: Know exactly what she means.
Speaker 2: There is a cool girl vibe that is very no
Speaker 2: bra that only works if your boobs are little. Anybody
Speaker 2: listening to this who has big boobs, and there will
Speaker 2: be many many women go, yeah, it would be nice
Speaker 2: to have little boobies that can just hop around with No,
Speaker 2: that's not how it works the most of us.
Speaker 4: The other trend there, though, I reckon is youth, so
Speaker 4: like it's about smaller breasts are code for younger because
Speaker 4: often if you've had babies, or if your menopausal or whatever,
Speaker 4: the shape of your body changes. So there is something
Speaker 4: I imagine like small breath and the braless thing. And
Speaker 4: fashion is now the youth have such a hold on
Speaker 4: all things fashion, which is like you know, no bras underneath,
Speaker 4: or like the tops with all the cutouts and stuff
Speaker 4: you need to.
Speaker 2: Have you do. And also but I also think that
Speaker 2: if there was anything positive in it, right, is that
Speaker 2: if women have the financial power increasingly all the time
Speaker 2: to be able to go this is the surgery I
Speaker 2: want it could be seen as somehow positive, that it's
Speaker 2: not this male fantasy of like bigger, bigger, bigger. It's
Speaker 2: more like I know that having big boobs is I
Speaker 2: don't mean I I mean one. I know that big
Speaker 2: boobs can come with a lot of pain, discomfort, hiking
Speaker 2: them around, having men's start, and all the time, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'd like, smaller boobs. It's interesting when you
Speaker 2: ask women what they want and they've got the power
Speaker 2: to have it, they'll often say something different.
Speaker 1: I would love smaller boobs for esthetic reasons only exactly,
Speaker 1: and models have always had no boobs, right, And for
Speaker 1: me it's different. It's not well, of course, I'm partly
Speaker 1: influenced by the culture, but also I just don't feel
Speaker 1: like their mind. Because I always had pretty small boobs
Speaker 1: until perimenopause, when my boobs grew and they're now probably
Speaker 1: a double D. I feel like they're not connected to me.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like myself. And your body changes in
Speaker 1: lots of ways as you get older, whether you've had
Speaker 1: kids or not, and one of them is for many women,
Speaker 1: your boobs get bigger. And I often think that that
Speaker 1: must be difficult if you've had an augmentation when you
Speaker 1: were younger. But they don't grow in like a perky way.
Speaker 1: Even this morning, I didn't have that feeling of my
Speaker 1: boobs touching my stomach when I bent over or something,
Speaker 1: and I think there might have even been a little
Speaker 1: slapping sound, and it's just I like it.
Speaker 4: I was watching scenes from Friends because we're doing Friends
Speaker 4: for canceled next week. I was going very deep on
Speaker 4: fat Monica. Do you remember the fat Monica carrack.
Speaker 1: When she'd wear a fats she'd wear a fat seed in.
Speaker 2: The flashback, something that we don't do now.
Speaker 3: We do not do that now. It was very of
Speaker 3: the moment.
Speaker 4: But if you look at photos of fat Monica, the
Speaker 4: first thing you'll notice is it she's not fat. The
Speaker 4: second thing you'll notice is she just has breasts. She
Speaker 4: has breasts and hips. And I look at Courtney Cox
Speaker 4: and who she was, and there's a whole thing to
Speaker 4: be read there about how she was basically a clown
Speaker 4: and mocked in those flashbacks. But I went, oh, that
Speaker 4: body in the nineties was coded, even the way that
Speaker 4: you'd skin dressed, the curvy body was coded as fat.
Speaker 4: And then the Kardashians came along and kind of changed
Speaker 4: change that. But now they're getting everything reversed. I think
Speaker 4: the other element at play is exercise. So with women
Speaker 4: prioritizing exercise more than we ever have, whether it's running
Speaker 4: or going to the gym or or whatever. The size
Speaker 4: of your boobs has an enormous impact on your mobility and.
Speaker 3: Literally can do.
Speaker 1: Fact, I have to wear something called a shock absorber
Speaker 1: bra under my sports bra. I have to wear two
Speaker 1: and it cost are more than one hundred dollars. So
Speaker 1: it's like there's a tax on having big boobs.
Speaker 2: There definitely is. One of my oldest best friends has really,
Speaker 2: really big boobs. We were used to joke when we
Speaker 2: were at high school that she was saving up for
Speaker 2: a breast reduction. Right, she never actually got one. She's
Speaker 2: spent all of her life figuring out how to dress
Speaker 2: that dress around her boobs, what swimwear to wear around
Speaker 2: her boobs, what broad to wear around her boobs. Like
Speaker 2: any conversation like this would drive her nuts because she'd
Speaker 2: be like, you don't understand, Like, boobs aren't just these
Speaker 2: fun things. If you've got really big boobs, it impacts
Speaker 2: all kinds of things and is very expensive. But it's
Speaker 2: interesting to me that it's always been a bit of
Speaker 2: a status symbol. Well, certainly back to the friend Zierra
Speaker 2: that you're talking about Jesse. That was the last time
Speaker 2: it was really cool to be really skinny. If you
Speaker 2: watch TV from that time, late nineties, early noughties, it
Speaker 2: was size zero, it was tiny, skinny, it was no bra,
Speaker 2: it was visible nipples. It was cool to be skinny.
Speaker 2: And we're back there. Apparently, when you lose weight, your
Speaker 2: boobs shrink quite dramatically, and that immediately gives you a
Speaker 2: very different look in your clothes. But equally, as you say,
Speaker 2: if you've got really big boobs, it doesn't matter how
Speaker 2: much weight you lose, you're always gonna look bigger. And so,
Speaker 2: because we live in a fat phobic society that thinks
Speaker 2: all women should take up as little space as possible,
Speaker 2: those boobs are really unfashioned. I guess it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: Out louders tell us what do you think is the
Speaker 1: size or the age where you go from having boobs
Speaker 1: to having a bosom? Because I think I'm int the
Speaker 1: bosom age and I don't like it.
Speaker 4: Every Tuesday and Thursday we drop new segments of MUMMYA
Speaker 4: out Loud just from MUMMYA. Subscribers follow the link in
Speaker 4: the show notes to get your daily dose of out
Speaker 4: Loud and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.
Speaker 2: Take it down. Unfair, uncomfortable and sad to watch. People
Speaker 2: magazine posted a clip of an exclusive interview with Hayden
Speaker 2: Panettier last week, and plenty of people said that they
Speaker 2: shouldn't have for a bit of context. Panetier is an
Speaker 2: actress who blew up in the naughties on a show
Speaker 2: called Heroes, and almost as soon as her star rows,
Speaker 2: she became a tabloid fixture. Everyone was looking at her body.
Speaker 2: She had on off relationship, there were rumors of substance abuse,
Speaker 2: a well publicized episode of postnatal depression. After the birth
Speaker 2: of her daughter, she searched back in the public censure
Speaker 2: when she appeared on Nashville. We were all obsessed with that.
Speaker 2: She was the singer Juliette Barnes in a role that
Speaker 2: echoed a lot of what happened in her real life.
Speaker 3: Right, good point.
Speaker 2: I hadn't yeh addiction and that was a bit part
Speaker 2: of why everybody was obsessed with her in that part.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, she said in People magazine actually
Speaker 2: that she had received treatment for alcohol and opiate addiction.
Speaker 2: She also said that this dated back to her being
Speaker 2: a child star. She said that she was only fifteen
Speaker 2: when people on her team started offering her what they
Speaker 2: called happy pills when she was doing publicity. They were
Speaker 2: to make me peppy during interviews. She said, I had
Speaker 2: no idea that this was not an appropriate thing or
Speaker 2: what door that would open for me when it came
Speaker 2: to my addiction. Fast forward to last week, after quite
Speaker 2: some time out of the media, she gave an interview
Speaker 2: to People, and in it she talked about the loss
Speaker 2: of her brother, who died last year from complications caused
Speaker 2: by an enlarged heart. Here's a little bit of that interview.
Speaker 7: Losing my little brother's there's nothing like I mean, he
Speaker 7: was my only sibling, and he was my younger sibling,
Speaker 7: and it was my job to protect him and my
Speaker 7: lost him. They felt like I lost half of my soul.
Speaker 7: I remember saying to somebody, and it hadn't even been
Speaker 7: a year, and I was like, don't ever ever expect
Speaker 7: me to get over the loss of him.
Speaker 2: It immediately attracted a lot of criticism from people saying,
Speaker 2: Paul Hayden, obviously not so, but do better. People, I'm
Speaker 2: shocked that this is posted. It's uncomfortable and sad. To watch.
Speaker 1: Can you describe how it looked whole, because you could
Speaker 1: listen to that and you could go, oh, that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound so bad.
Speaker 3: Maybe she just sounds did look well.
Speaker 2: It's a relatively close cut of her face. The way
Speaker 2: I would describe it, she looks quite blank. Also, her
Speaker 2: eyes are half closed, closing glassy. The noise got so
Speaker 2: loud that she's had to release a statement. She said,
Speaker 2: I'd like to take a moment to address the controversy.
Speaker 2: It's unfathomable, but that I have to. Then she talks
Speaker 2: about the fact that she was exhausted. She said she
Speaker 2: hadn't slept for two days due to one of her dogs,
Speaker 2: who was recovering from a surgical procedure. She said her
Speaker 2: rep stopped the interview early as it became obvious that
Speaker 2: I was fading, especially on this as the subject matter
Speaker 2: became heavier. We asked the interviewer if we could redo
Speaker 2: it another day or do a follow up interview on zoom.
Speaker 2: She assured us it wasn't necessary and that she felt
Speaker 2: it was an emotional and heartfelt interview. We were also
Speaker 2: told that they would edit it and it would be
Speaker 2: a beautiful piece. She's worked with people lots of times.
Speaker 2: As we've said. She also said grief looks different on everyone.
Speaker 2: Whether or not I'm on medication is none of anyone's
Speaker 2: business and is between me and my doctor. I'm doing
Speaker 2: interviews to promote my new film because I'm proud of it.
Speaker 2: The real issue here is the toxicity of social media
Speaker 2: and a news cycle driven by clickbait. As we record
Speaker 2: the show, the interview is still up on People. So
Speaker 2: despite growing calls for its removal, Jesse should it stay.
Speaker 4: On the cover of People magazine. It's a picture of
Speaker 4: her looking really great in this picture, and it comes
Speaker 4: with the text I'm starting to feel like myself again.
Speaker 4: So people probably knew that there was going to be
Speaker 4: a stark contrast between what she was saying and how
Speaker 4: she was coming across. I do think that speculating about
Speaker 4: what she was potentially on isn't very helpful, because I
Speaker 4: also know that there are a lot of medications for
Speaker 4: mental health issues that can have those same side effects.
Speaker 4: Because she was slurring, she appeared a bit foggy, and
Speaker 4: I mean, I've had that experience if you're trying to
Speaker 4: get your dosage right or whatever. The people I look
Speaker 4: at in this story and go what were you thinking?
Speaker 4: I just had people. It's like, there should be people
Speaker 4: in the room looking out for you, and within five minutes,
Speaker 4: if it's not going how you want it, to go,
Speaker 4: pull the plug. If she wasn't feeling great days up
Speaker 4: to it, paul the plug. But they clearly didn't do
Speaker 4: that until it was too late.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm really torn about this because you know what
Speaker 1: I think about it's not the media's role to protect people,
Speaker 1: people who are wealthy and famous, and that's not the
Speaker 1: media's job. It's not to be their publicist, it's not
Speaker 1: to be their mother.
Speaker 4: Especially when they want to speak. And this is a
Speaker 4: mass of difference with Andrew O'Keefe, which we were talking
Speaker 4: about last week, is that he's not saying, hey, listen
Speaker 4: to me, give me a microphone. He's being stalked by paparazzi.
Speaker 4: This was she was fully consenting, fully, I'm ready to
Speaker 4: sit down and talk.
Speaker 1: She's on the publicity trail for this new comeback that
Speaker 1: she's done where she plays a character who tries to
Speaker 1: save a child who's been abducted. But where the tension
Speaker 1: is for me is I watched the whole interview and
Speaker 1: not all of it was about. Her point was that
Speaker 1: it was a heavy subject matter. That's why I was
Speaker 1: seemed upset. I watched the whole interview, which was more
Speaker 1: than ten minutes, and it covered a whole lot of
Speaker 1: different things. She talked about her child, very sad story
Speaker 1: because when her daughter was three, Kaya Hayden went into
Speaker 1: rehab and she'd already split from the child's father at
Speaker 1: that time. He was a hockey player, professional athlete, and
Speaker 1: he took custody and then she ended up losing custody,
Speaker 1: and she said she did a red table talk with
Speaker 1: Jada Pinkett Smith and said, I thought it was just
Speaker 1: going to be temporary, that she was going to go
Speaker 1: and live with her dad, and then it ended up
Speaker 1: being permanent. And so now Kaya lives not in the
Speaker 1: Ukraine but in Europe and has done I think she's
Speaker 1: about nine or ten now. And Hayden talks about her
Speaker 1: also in this interview in a lovely way as a mother,
Speaker 1: but clearly a mother who doesn't live with her child
Speaker 1: and isn't intimately familiar with her child's life and what's
Speaker 1: going on. So that's all just a bit of context,
Speaker 1: and it's true. I went back and looked at some
Speaker 1: other interviews that she'd done in the last few years,
Speaker 1: and she does speak slowly, but this was different. Again,
Speaker 1: the tension in it for me is they did some
Speaker 1: cutaways to vision and photos that they'd done in this
Speaker 1: shoot before the interview. She said in her statement it
Speaker 1: was an eight hour shoot, and then I did the interview, right,
Speaker 1: which tells you a lot. Right, Let's talk to someone
Speaker 1: for an hour at the end of the day, but
Speaker 1: we're going to spend eight hours photographing them. And I
Speaker 1: feel hadn't have listened to what she was saying, and
Speaker 1: you hadn't seen that video. She looked immaculate, she looked glamorous,
Speaker 1: she looked beautiful skin, she had glamorous hair. Like again,
Speaker 1: what is the media's role to help make this artifice
Speaker 1: that she's completely fine? To me, this interview is just
Speaker 1: filled in some of the nuance that recovery in grief
Speaker 1: is not linear. It's not you know, as we saw
Speaker 1: with Matthew Perry, right, Like the trouble is when you're
Speaker 1: famous and you have addiction issues, you need to have
Speaker 1: the redemption arc of I was addicted and now I'm not.
Speaker 1: And that's what Matthew Perry had with his memoir, and
Speaker 1: he's how come back and it's often not. Sometimes it is,
Speaker 1: but often not. And yet that is the only narrative
Speaker 1: that we will accept. And so it turns out that
Speaker 1: Matthew Perry was not sober when he was promoting that memoir.
Speaker 1: He was already back, you know, addicted to ketamine and
Speaker 1: taking drugs and spiraling back into addiction. But he was
Speaker 1: out there talking about it, kind of being behind him,
Speaker 1: because that's what we insist on. People Magazine is not
Speaker 1: a gossipy title. They always work very much on the
Speaker 1: side of the star, on the side of publicists.
Speaker 2: She would have had approven so I think not on
Speaker 2: that video she said you didn't, but she might have
Speaker 2: had approval on the cover, no.
Speaker 1: Question, probably in some ways. I mean, People Magazine is
Speaker 1: also when Britney spears memoir came out, they did the
Speaker 1: whole photo shoot with Britney, no interview, no video. So
Speaker 1: it's like, are they enablers to help rehabilitate the image
Speaker 1: of these stars or are they It's a fine line.
Speaker 2: It's interesting when I used to work, I don't know
Speaker 2: the answer and gossip mags if you wanted the interview
Speaker 2: with the Red Ark of I used to have post
Speaker 2: lital depression, or my marriage broke down or whatever, you
Speaker 2: absolutely agreed to picture approval. They would have one hundred
Speaker 2: percent agreed to picture approval. That's why the image on
Speaker 2: the cover looks so perfect. Video and audio and releasing
Speaker 2: the video and audio has changed that game, right, because
Speaker 2: it's very unlikely that her people had approval of that.
Speaker 2: If they had, then massive miss to let it go out,
Speaker 2: because this was probably inevitable the way that we pick apart.
Speaker 1: They would have been in the room when the interviews happened.
Speaker 4: They would That's what I can't understand. Why you wouldn't
Speaker 4: jump up and say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, says once the cameras are rolling, that then becomes yeah.
Speaker 2: But she says that her people did stop it, but
Speaker 2: that they were assured by people that they would handle
Speaker 2: little sensitively. As Mia says, it's not in People Magazine's
Speaker 2: interest to gotcha celebrities because they are the mouthpiece. They're
Speaker 2: the mouthpiece for Harry and Meghan, because they're generally friendly,
Speaker 2: they offer approval, They work very tightly with Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Agents, so kind of like the Women's Weekly use.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's interesting that this was allowed to go out,
Speaker 2: would you have published it?
Speaker 4: You do a no filter with someone and this is
Speaker 4: how no I mean, this is complicated. But they come
Speaker 4: and they're slurring or they're not, they're best selves, which
Speaker 4: props really.
Speaker 1: Tricky because occasionally I have not published a no filter.
Speaker 1: They've been about two times when I've done that to
Speaker 1: protect the person because I didn't think they were in
Speaker 1: the state to do the interview. But they were not
Speaker 1: big Hollywood stars with publicists and teams who had conspireds
Speaker 1: makes it sounds interstuff, but who had participated in an
Speaker 1: eight hour shoot and was publicizing a movie and contractually
Speaker 1: obliged to publicize a movie. It's interesting to know also,
Speaker 1: who wants her to come back. She probably wants to
Speaker 1: come back. She's got to earn money. She's got to
Speaker 1: earn money. She hasn't no money in a long time.
Speaker 1: It's just one of those heartbreaking stories that I don't
Speaker 1: think there is a bad guy in this. I think
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's a story about addiction. It's like
Speaker 1: Britney Spears. If you go and look at Hayden's Instagram again,
Speaker 1: I don't know if she's publishing it. She doesn't publish video,
Speaker 1: she only publishes stills, but the captions are eerily reminiscent
Speaker 1: of Britney Spears. It's like that very childlike way of
Speaker 1: talking doesn't sound like a grown woman who's in control
Speaker 1: of what's going on in a lite.
Speaker 2: I think the fact that there was such a pushback
Speaker 2: on people shows increased media literacy, shows increased understanding of
Speaker 2: mental health and addiction, and shows that the narrative from
Speaker 2: a different generation about the fact that st Britney spears,
Speaker 2: for example, as a victim.
Speaker 1: So what are we saying? We just want the fake?
Speaker 2: I think people think it's exploitative if somebody is not
Speaker 2: in the right frame of mind to be able to
Speaker 2: do that. To show that to everybody is exploitative. Whether
Speaker 2: or not it is, I'm with you, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: on the fence.
Speaker 1: Showing reality is exploited in well.
Speaker 2: It also shows the massive gap between as you've brilliantly expressed,
Speaker 2: the massive gap between the image that's being presented. But
Speaker 2: then don't we all want to put forward our best
Speaker 2: image a lot of the time. I don't mean necessarily literally,
Speaker 2: but do we all want everybody rummaging around?
Speaker 1: How much does how much agency does a thirty five
Speaker 1: year old woman with a team of managers, agents, publicists, wardrobe,
Speaker 1: hair and makeer, you know, personal trainers, or how much
Speaker 1: agency and responsibility does she have to take for you
Speaker 1: know what, guys, let's do the interview at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the day, or I'm just not going to do
Speaker 1: this and you know I've been on shoots. It can
Speaker 1: I'm not like that, but it can be hard. But
Speaker 1: you do have some agency. It's not the publications job
Speaker 1: or the media organization's job to take care of you
Speaker 1: or to make you look away. That's not true. It's tricky.
Speaker 2: Look, that was going to be all we had time for.
Speaker 2: But there's an urgent question I have for me in
Speaker 2: case you missed it. Barrel jeans are a big thing
Speaker 2: at the moment, which are well mia explained to us
Speaker 2: in your fashion language. What barrel jeans are disgusting. They
Speaker 2: are hyper wide leg but not just wide leg jeans
Speaker 2: in like a normal wide leg way. They kind of
Speaker 2: almost balloon out.
Speaker 3: Don't imagine we've.
Speaker 1: Been riding a horse for one hundred years.
Speaker 4: You know, when you stand on like an air gust
Speaker 4: and like you've got jeans on and it makes you
Speaker 4: go puff out at the knees and you look really silly.
Speaker 1: Yes, So if you're standing straight with your ankles together,
Speaker 1: imagine an oval shape from your hips to your ankles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you're standing in a circle. So kind of
Speaker 2: And the thing that I want to know because apparently
Speaker 2: so in case you missed everybody, they're a big thing.
Speaker 2: You'll look around and you will see them. But Mia
Speaker 2: has not yet embraced this trend. Now we know that
Speaker 2: Mia jumps on most trends. Last week we did post
Speaker 2: those ridiculous see through sockey jewelry things she's wearing. Pretty
Speaker 2: a lot of people just said to me in my
Speaker 2: DMS and Instagram like WTF.
Speaker 1: One person said, please Holly stop referring to mea as
Speaker 1: the fashion person because her style is appalling. But why
Speaker 1: have you not yet worn these jeans because I think
Speaker 1: they're repulsive?
Speaker 2: How long do you think you're going to think that?
Speaker 1: For Well, I've been looking at them, never once been tempted.
Speaker 1: Because you're right, I offer and will think, oh that's
Speaker 1: a look that I will never wear, like socks, for example,
Speaker 1: And now look at me go. My eye is very
Speaker 1: suggestible and I will usually adapt to whatever trend is
Speaker 1: out there, because you know, you see it enough times
Speaker 1: and it looks good. But I think it looks terrible.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking that maybe it's because we work
Speaker 1: with a lot of sort of cool younger people here
Speaker 1: at Mamma Mea, and none of them are wearing them.
Speaker 1: So I think maybe if they were all wearing them,
Speaker 1: I'll just find myself dressing by osmosis. Right, whoever's around me,
Speaker 1: I'll start dressing like them, except for you.
Speaker 4: And maybe for us, just a us thing, right, because
Speaker 4: they're going out to fall.
Speaker 1: They've been a barrel jeans have been around for more
Speaker 1: than a year, and they seem to be getting bigger.
Speaker 1: But some people, they look like wearing balloons on your legs.
Speaker 1: I think they're incredibly unflattering. But having said that, I
Speaker 1: don't think wearing flattering things because what does flattering mean anyway?
Speaker 1: Flattering is just a subjective idea. Although to some people
Speaker 1: flattering mean skinny doesn't to me. But I just don't
Speaker 1: like the way they look.
Speaker 2: I think, out louders, what we're going to put a
Speaker 2: picture of barrel jeans on our Instagram feed, and I
Speaker 2: want you to tell us whether or not you think
Speaker 2: Mia should do this. I think all it would take
Speaker 2: actually is for Dolf, our very cool social media producer.
Speaker 2: You can come in a couple of days wearing barrel
Speaker 2: jeans and Maya will be in them. She'll probably have
Speaker 2: them in every different shade.
Speaker 1: I'm really scared that they're going to start looking attractive
Speaker 1: to me. I need to hold this line because I
Speaker 1: don't have many lines.
Speaker 2: That I hold out louders. That's all we've got time
Speaker 2: for on this Monday. Thank you for being here with us.
Speaker 2: We will be back in your ears tomorrow of course.
Speaker 2: And a massive thank you too to our fabulous team
Speaker 2: for helping us put this show together. We'll see it.
Speaker 2: Bye bye.
Speaker 1: Shout out to any Mum and Maya subscribers listening. If
Speaker 1: you love the show and want to support us as well,
Speaker 1: subscribing to Mom and Maya is the very best way
Speaker 1: to do so. There is a link in the episode description.