Speaker 1: Hey guys, Hi, how is everybody. It's Jackie Goldschneider and
Speaker 1: we are two Jersey.
Speaker 2: Jays and we just had a we I got some
Speaker 2: d MS last week about our audio, so just FYI
Speaker 2: it's fixed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have all new Mike's brands, banking new mic
Speaker 1: Actually hear us.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's like.
Speaker 1: The only piece of good news I've had in the
Speaker 1: past few days. My son broke part of his knee
Speaker 1: in a basketball game and he had surgery this week,
Speaker 1: and oh my goodness, I feel like there is nothing
Speaker 1: like watching your kid in pain. Oh it's the worst.
Speaker 1: So he is so uncomfortable. So I am just you know,
Speaker 1: I am just dealing with all of that right now.
Speaker 1: We just got out of the hospital. So but on
Speaker 1: the road to recovery. So it's Friday.
Speaker 2: Good things to come. We're going to see Michael Rappaport tonight.
Speaker 1: I am not going.
Speaker 2: You're not you know, We're gonna got cans.
Speaker 1: I didn't even sleep last night because I stayed in
Speaker 1: the bed with Aiden. You did yet to help him,
Speaker 1: So no, I am not going. But maybe i'll see
Speaker 1: him when he comes back to Jersey, because he's coming
Speaker 1: back into me.
Speaker 2: He's coming. Well, that's I think that's he's going to
Speaker 2: speak on Israel. This is more of his comedy show.
Speaker 2: But oh okay, yeah, we're excited to go on with
Speaker 2: some friends. We love us some Michael Rappaport.
Speaker 1: Ah, so fun. Well, I'll live vicariously through you. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm getting a cat tomorrow. I'm so excited. So I
Speaker 1: got it tonight. My my Friday night activity is going
Speaker 1: to pet coat to pick up cat stuff.
Speaker 2: All right, I.
Speaker 1: Haven't had a pet since I'm twelve years old.
Speaker 2: I keep telling you can take one of these, but
Speaker 2: I can't seem to like unload them on anybody. But
Speaker 2: you have one cat. I have two cats, Jack, you
Speaker 2: have two black cats.
Speaker 1: I thought that was the same cat walking around here.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's like Halloween in here. My kids suckered me
Speaker 2: at COVID. Oh they're cute, They're not cute. Moving on,
Speaker 2: go ahead, we have an exciting topic.
Speaker 1: We do. I love this topic by way, very strong
Speaker 1: feelings about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. So I have not seen Me and
Speaker 2: Girls of the movie. Have you the original? Of course
Speaker 2: I've seen you. Oh I haven't seen the Rien now,
Speaker 2: so I haven't either. But everybody's talking about it. Sorry,
Speaker 2: So Jackie and I thought it was a great time
Speaker 2: to talk about real mean girls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like not only mean girls in high school,
Speaker 1: middle school, middle school mean girls might be worse, by
Speaker 1: the way, but not only that age group, but like
Speaker 1: mean women, like women are really mean to each other something.
Speaker 2: Yes, And we both signed up for show where it's
Speaker 2: a lot of times not always but rewarded and I
Speaker 2: think people like get off on it, right, and I'm not.
Speaker 2: I joined that show, So this is not it's not
Speaker 2: even judgment. It's really more like an observation that thinking
Speaker 2: it through and thinking about especially the way that since
Speaker 2: I've joined, I've taken a lot of mean social media
Speaker 2: comments and I've been you know, we we've all sort
Speaker 2: of taken We take digs at each other, and sometimes
Speaker 2: it's fun and sometimes it's shady, and sometimes it's hurtful
Speaker 2: and mean. And I don't know, like, is there a
Speaker 2: line not just in reality television, but also jack and
Speaker 2: I were talking about just in terms of like everyday
Speaker 2: lives as women living in suburbia, and there's always sort
Speaker 2: of like this. It seems like there's this pecking order
Speaker 2: and the mean girls always on top.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean do you know where I see it
Speaker 1: the most is on like these Facebook mom groups that
Speaker 1: I'm a part of. If you say something and you
Speaker 1: have like there's one little iota of something wrong with
Speaker 1: what you say, the other moms jump all over you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like they just attack you and tell you everything you're
Speaker 1: doing wrong. And you know, in Suburbia, what I find
Speaker 1: is not so much outright meanness.
Speaker 2: It's just that that need to be snarky, wanky, one up.
Speaker 1: Cooky, exclusive, that need to look right through people who
Speaker 1: are not in your circle. That doesn't go away.
Speaker 2: So I think, well, let's talk about housewives. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: there it because I feel like that's you know, the
Speaker 2: Housewives's sort of like a microcosm of real life, right,
Speaker 2: and that is definitely part of it, that pecking order.
Speaker 2: But specifically, we have just watched and the reunion of
Speaker 2: Salt Lake City, Yes, so you know, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of talk of the Monica of it all. I actually
Speaker 2: heard Tamra and Teddy talking about Monica and they sort
Speaker 2: of I think they feel like she has been victimized
Speaker 2: a little bit. When I watched the entirety of the season,
Speaker 2: I definitely got a mean girl vibe, like to say
Speaker 2: the least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean she fought dirty, like when she would
Speaker 1: say things, when she would insult people or come back
Speaker 1: at people. It was very mean things about their appearance,
Speaker 1: about she would call Lisa Barlowe old, she would talk
Speaker 1: about her her wrinkles. I mean she was she just
Speaker 1: went low.
Speaker 2: Oh listen, And that's very common in housewives culture. But
Speaker 2: for me, it was the idea that when she was
Speaker 2: doing the Reality of Ante's, when she was in charge
Speaker 2: of that page and then finding out like the ways
Speaker 2: in which they attacked the other women and then they mentioned,
Speaker 2: you know, they went after their kids. I think Whitney
Speaker 2: was saying, how and that's we all know as mothers,
Speaker 2: that's the absolute worst. So I don't know she claims
Speaker 2: it was all about Jen. It sounded to me like
Speaker 2: she was attacking every women and doing it in a
Speaker 2: way that's so upsetting, I think for us, because there's
Speaker 2: so much anonymous trolling to think that you're working with
Speaker 2: someone on a daily or on a daily on you
Speaker 2: know whatever throughout a season that was doing that anonymous cowardly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where she was even invested in the show. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to get on the show and be
Speaker 1: Lisa Rena okay, and I have nothing against Lisa Renna,
Speaker 1: but she was a villain. Or Erica Jane. I don't
Speaker 1: really know her. I mean i've met her, but she's
Speaker 1: a villa in my eyes. They are just they're cold
Speaker 1: and they have no problem like cutting you to the bone, right.
Speaker 1: But Monica, she wasn't on the show when she was
Speaker 1: actively trying to take people down and insult them. And
Speaker 1: I always say, like, there are times when I dislike
Speaker 1: people and I like wanted, you know, I would like
Speaker 1: to see, you know, something bad happen. Let's say, right,
Speaker 1: nothing too bad. But I would never consider being one
Speaker 1: of these people who sits behind a computer screen and
Speaker 1: goes after people online who I don't know. I have
Speaker 1: never in my life. I mean I've only been on
Speaker 1: the show six years and Instagram's been around a lot
Speaker 1: longer than that. I never left a nasty comment on
Speaker 1: somebody's page of celebrities page or anyone's page.
Speaker 2: I've definitely wanted to, right, but I've never done it
Speaker 2: because it's just it was just a little too mean,
Speaker 2: especially if I didn't know somebody.
Speaker 1: You know, I've never done that, so to be that
Speaker 1: type a person who could be so outrightly mean. It just.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 1: I just don't understand that.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've think on Housewives, a lot of
Speaker 2: the women will call that confidence and call it you know,
Speaker 2: it's under this guise of honesty. I'm just honest. But
Speaker 2: you know, I think there's certain well we know that
Speaker 2: there's a difference, right between honesty and being mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but so what happens if you take a person
Speaker 1: like Monica or Lisa or Erica and then you learn
Speaker 1: about their past and why they might be snarky?
Speaker 2: Does that mean like Monica and her mom? Right, so
Speaker 2: obviously they say what hurt people? Hurt people. I don't know,
Speaker 2: is that always an excuse. I can tell you that
Speaker 2: I had, we all have had very difficult and challenging lives,
Speaker 2: because that's just the nature I think of life and childhood.
Speaker 2: And but at some point you become an adult and
Speaker 2: you take responsibility, You take responsibility for who you are
Speaker 2: and what you're saying. So it was, Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: hard to watch Monica and her mom. That dynamic is
Speaker 2: definitely a difficult one. Does that excuse Monica's meanness? Not really?
Speaker 2: Not to me?
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course not. No, I know many people who
Speaker 1: have been through Listen. My mother came over here and impoverished.
Speaker 1: Her family was Holocaust survivors, so you know her parents
Speaker 1: had to like they were in a refugee camp in Siberia.
Speaker 1: They've never been mean people ever, so I don't It's
Speaker 1: not an excuse for me, and I actually can't really
Speaker 1: relate to the people. I don't know why any house
Speaker 1: so ife would want to be a villain.
Speaker 2: What is that? I think it's again and no judgment
Speaker 2: because we're on the show, so we don't have any
Speaker 2: for judgment here, right, But I think that wanting to
Speaker 2: be relevant is tired, so tired of that word and
Speaker 2: that expression, but it definitely drives all of us, right
Speaker 2: and how to get there. Sometimes on these shows it is,
Speaker 2: I think, to be the villain. But I feel like, like,
Speaker 2: for instance, I actually really love Erica Jane, but in
Speaker 2: one of the latest episodes of Beverly Hills, she was
Speaker 2: going at it with the new Richard's and I don't
Speaker 2: blame her. Denise came in looking for blood too, I
Speaker 2: guess the first scene, and then there was another scene
Speaker 2: that they were in and it escalated. Erica stayed very calm,
Speaker 2: but Denise was going after the way she had been
Speaker 2: treated by Erica, and I think that was really what
Speaker 2: she wanted to talk about and to pin her down
Speaker 2: and say you are horrible to me, Say you're sorry,
Speaker 2: admit it. And then it turned into uron what is
Speaker 2: it called OnlyFans? And so is your daughter? So it
Speaker 2: went from definitely being Denise came in and started it.
Speaker 2: She definitely started arguing first, but then it dipped to
Speaker 2: a different level that was just mean, and Denise said it,
Speaker 2: you're a mean woman? Is Erica a mean woman? I
Speaker 2: actually really like Erica. I think she can do mean
Speaker 2: things like all of us can. But at that point
Speaker 2: I felt like that was going, especially with Denise's daughter,
Speaker 2: that was below the belt. Now we're just playing dirty
Speaker 2: and mean, right. I think I.
Speaker 1: Think eric is mean. I do. I think something's little
Speaker 1: mean too. I think Beverly Hills, of all the shows,
Speaker 1: has the most mean girls. I really do. And it's
Speaker 1: not to say I don't like I mean, I've met
Speaker 1: them all and they're pleasant to me, but I think
Speaker 1: on the show they're cold.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so listen, let's let's talk about this in
Speaker 2: terms of us, because they have mean. I think that
Speaker 2: everybody does mean things. It's capable of mean things, capable
Speaker 2: of saying and thinking mean things, right, It's I think
Speaker 2: there are extremes. So for myself, I think mean things.
Speaker 2: When I first got when I first got on The Housewives,
Speaker 2: the producer said to me, you know, your job is
Speaker 2: to say what you're thinking. And that's really you know,
Speaker 2: the crux of being a housewife is as opposed to
Speaker 2: when you're in you know, normal life, you can think
Speaker 2: nasty things and you don't say them. I think nasty things.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's why I'm never going to be a housewife,
Speaker 2: and I don't always say them. I think that there's
Speaker 2: a difference, right I am. I can definitely have a
Speaker 2: lot of mean thoughts, a lot of them, and I
Speaker 2: gossip like a mean girl, saying something mean and hurtful
Speaker 2: to someone though I don't think I'm really as capable
Speaker 2: of that as someone else. That doesn't make me better
Speaker 2: or worse because I'm thinking mean shit in my head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know there are times on the show and
Speaker 1: I have said something that is uncharacteristically mean, and it
Speaker 1: actually I had to like.
Speaker 2: Psych myself up to get to that place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where I'm like, yeah, where I had the thought,
Speaker 1: and then I was like, is this too mean for
Speaker 1: me to say?
Speaker 2: Well, the question is how does it hit you afterwards?
Speaker 2: Because I know, of course I have said mean things
Speaker 2: in my lifetime and it all feels really good in
Speaker 2: the moment. Right You're pissed, you really don't like this person.
Speaker 2: You want to somehow bring them down. It works, you
Speaker 2: say the exact mean thing at the right time. The
Speaker 2: problem is, I feel like it always comes back. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, as soon as you see that person's vulnerability,
Speaker 2: you see that you've actually really upset someone, you see
Speaker 2: the hurt in their eyes, then you're like, I am
Speaker 2: such an asshole. I mean, it doesn't always happen that way,
Speaker 2: but for me, you know, when I've actually hurt someone,
Speaker 2: no matter how good it feels in the moment, it
Speaker 2: really sucks when you realize what you've done. I don't
Speaker 2: have that.
Speaker 1: Experience on the show. I feel like when people have
Speaker 1: said really mean things to me, or I have said
Speaker 1: something really mean to somebody else, it just turns into
Speaker 1: a back and forth, really mean girl kind of fight.
Speaker 1: It never and the winner is the person who the
Speaker 1: audience thinks. Scott in the better barbes, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So you keep going and you keep trying
Speaker 1: to dig deeper. It's a really, you know, Housewives is
Speaker 1: a really. It's it's tough like that, Like the fights
Speaker 1: get so out of hand sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do have to keep going.
Speaker 1: Lower and lower.
Speaker 2: I don't know. And as you know, listen, I've was
Speaker 2: a viewer way longer than you were, and there were
Speaker 2: times where I didn't like a member of the cast
Speaker 2: as a viewer, right, and I really enjoyed seeing whoever
Speaker 2: she was get put in our place. Right. There's like
Speaker 2: a mean girl thing I think inside all of us.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's also part of why the show is so popular.
Speaker 2: It's also a matter of seeing women who are you know,
Speaker 2: who seem to be perfect on the surface, with perfect lives,
Speaker 2: and that mean girl in us wants to see them
Speaker 2: taking down a notch. And it's not something that I
Speaker 2: am proud to admit, but I do think it's human.
Speaker 2: I think all of us have it the whise I
Speaker 2: personally think, and we're going to talk to someone who's
Speaker 2: way in the know, but I think it comes out
Speaker 2: of insecurity. I'm jealousy.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: What have you ever done anything mean?
Speaker 2: Onh I'm trying to think on the show. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't think you have. Yes, I have, I have. I
Speaker 2: mean the Mazzarella you ate that that was not me? Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: I tore it abute that must well. No, but I mean,
Speaker 2: like in confessionals, I've said some snarky things mean. I mean,
Speaker 2: I never I haven't yet tried to ruin anyone's life.
Speaker 1: No, but I have said.
Speaker 2: Snarky, nasty little things. I don't know, is there a
Speaker 2: difference between snarky and mean?
Speaker 1: It can cross the line. I think, Yeah, what about
Speaker 1: growing up? Like, what's your experience of meaning?
Speaker 2: No? Yeah, well I was not a mean girl growing up,
Speaker 2: but I will tell you that like in junior high,
Speaker 2: we're saying that's sometimes that's the hardest r Yeah, Alexis
Speaker 2: is in junior high. You can't do it now. Yes,
Speaker 2: I was called so my main name is gutterman, and
Speaker 2: I was called literally throughout all three years of junior
Speaker 2: high or whatever, gutterface. I answered to it, and people
Speaker 2: used to make no and like, I just remember hating
Speaker 2: it so much. It was so mean, and kids in
Speaker 2: groups because I had moved to Texas from Long Island,
Speaker 2: and I was just an outsider and having people laugh
Speaker 2: at me and having no one to sit with at
Speaker 2: the lunch table and that kind of mean not just
Speaker 2: not just the girls, even right, the boys too. So
Speaker 2: I've definitely been as a young person, I've had I've
Speaker 2: experienced that whole mean girl, you know attitude from from classmates.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting because so have my kids, so have yours.
Speaker 2: I think so have most kids. When it happens to
Speaker 2: your kid, it's a different thing that I want with. Like,
Speaker 2: I remember, my kids are now obviously they're adults now,
Speaker 2: but I have I hold a grudge towards kids in
Speaker 2: my neighborhood that have been mean to my kids, and
Speaker 2: it will I will never let it go. Really, Oh
Speaker 2: my god. I mean I try. I don't. I'm not
Speaker 2: driving by their house and you know, throwing rocks, but
Speaker 2: I I see those kids that were mean to my kids,
Speaker 2: and my kids don't even remember, right, and I have it.
Speaker 2: It will it will torment me. I'll wake up at
Speaker 2: nights and times and think about something that some kid
Speaker 2: did to my son that made him cry, and I
Speaker 2: just get enraged.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I just I can see now in
Speaker 1: my daughter's friend groups who the mean girls are, and
Speaker 1: I just wonder, I wonder if they'll stay that way.
Speaker 1: Like she had a fight with one member of her
Speaker 1: like massive friend group and that night it so about
Speaker 1: two weeks ago, that friend sent to everybody a group
Speaker 1: text saying Alexis is out of the group. And everything
Speaker 1: ended up working out and it was fine. But what
Speaker 1: is that inclination to turn everyone against the one girl
Speaker 1: that you don't like? It's And I wonder if the
Speaker 1: mean girls then if they grow up to be mean women,
Speaker 1: because I do know mean women. There are plenty, and
Speaker 1: they'll look right through you. They still want to be
Speaker 1: the queen bees. Like that doesn't go away when you're
Speaker 1: I'm almost fifty, you're in your fifties.
Speaker 2: Maybe it does a lot. I hope I think that.
Speaker 1: No, I think for a lot of people, it doesn't
Speaker 1: go away. You're still looking to breathe the prom queen
Speaker 1: when you're fifty years old.
Speaker 2: Listen, I know that I'm such a different thankfully, thank
Speaker 2: you to my doctor, my psychiatrist. But I'm a different
Speaker 2: woman than I was, maybe not in terms of I
Speaker 2: was not really a mean girl. I'm not the insecure
Speaker 2: person I was. That has changed. I was probably a
Speaker 2: lot more jealous of people when I was younger. That
Speaker 2: has changed. Hopefully people can actually change, some can't. You're right.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting because as a mom, one of the
Speaker 2: most important things that I wanted to install in my
Speaker 2: kids was kindness. I mean, that was huge. And I
Speaker 2: guess the times that I've even had an inclination that
Speaker 2: one of my kids was being mean, I jumped on
Speaker 2: it hard. Do all moms maybe not? Maybe? Do you?
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want I never wanted. Nobody wants
Speaker 2: who wants mean kids? But I was always very sensitive
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I was very sensitive to it because
Speaker 1: people were very, very mean. I could handle people being
Speaker 1: mean to me, I couldn't handle them being mean to
Speaker 1: my brother. So I have a handlecalf brother, and he
Speaker 1: was held back a year. He's only a year older
Speaker 1: than me, but he was held back a year. So
Speaker 1: when we moved and we started high school, we started together,
Speaker 1: so everyone thought we were twins. And people at my
Speaker 1: new school, I mean, they were horrific to me, but
Speaker 1: they were so mean to my brother. Not everybody, but
Speaker 1: what they did to me I could handle. I was
Speaker 1: basically ignored. It was like I wasn't even there and
Speaker 1: I could handle it. But watching them go out of
Speaker 1: their way to embarrassing my brother.
Speaker 2: I remember that chapter in your book.
Speaker 1: Was yeah, I wrote about this because it was I mean,
Speaker 1: there was one incident and I write about this in
Speaker 1: my book where a bunch of kids flushed his shoes
Speaker 1: down the toilet and I can't even talk about it
Speaker 1: with that crying. And I that day, like I went,
Speaker 1: I watched him walk around the school with socks on,
Speaker 1: and I went into the bathroom and I just I
Speaker 1: was so broken and I just like bent down and cried,
Speaker 1: and I just wondered, how you can be that person
Speaker 1: who is mean to somebody who's handicapped, is just beyond it.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to be snarky, but that's another level.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the type of person that I'm
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know. I mean, again, thankfully we
Speaker 2: have someone coming on who can help us understand it.
Speaker 2: But I definitely I think to my do think to
Speaker 2: myself sometimes in terms of housewives, it's we're rewarding meanness.
Speaker 2: And it's also again, I loved being a viewer for
Speaker 2: years and years and years. I mean during COVID it
Speaker 2: got me through. I was like, it was just so
Speaker 2: it is so much fun to watch. Snarky and shady
Speaker 2: is hilarious and fun to watch. When it crosses a line,
Speaker 2: which it oftentimes does and gets really dark, then it
Speaker 2: becomes uncomfortable. But yeah, there's something about also when you're
Speaker 2: funny and you're narky and shady. But you know, I
Speaker 2: wonder once you really hurt someone right and like change
Speaker 2: their lives somehow, that cannot be easy to live with.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it depends who you are. I mean,
Speaker 1: but that's getting back to the whole Monica of it.
Speaker 1: You know, as a viewer of Salt Lake City, I
Speaker 1: love Salt Lake City. I forget that I'm on a
Speaker 1: show when I watched Salt Lake City too, so people,
Speaker 1: you know, I consider the question like should Monica come back? Right,
Speaker 1: And obviously at this point we all know that she's
Speaker 1: not coming back. But I would love to see Monica
Speaker 1: back because she was so entertaining and this whole story
Speaker 1: is so ridiculous and entertaining. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I'm on one of these shows and I have to
Speaker 1: think about, Like, would I want to be around somebody
Speaker 1: who would draw something page like that?
Speaker 2: No, sneaky, so sneaky, It's not even it wasn't sneaky
Speaker 2: at the time. I mean, lots of people have troll pages,
Speaker 2: troll accounts, whatever it's called. I just knowing it, even
Speaker 2: if she had been upfront about it, knowing that one
Speaker 2: of my castmates had a one time run a page
Speaker 2: that got off on tearing apart you know, housewives and
Speaker 2: their lives and there maybe making fun. I think of
Speaker 2: their kids, and you know, I get the gen Shaw
Speaker 2: of it, and I get I don't know exactly what
Speaker 2: happened between Monica and Jen, but I get that there
Speaker 2: was a revenge factor in there, and I followed the page.
Speaker 2: But from what the women said, there was trolling of
Speaker 2: them as well. It wasn't just a gen Shaw thing.
Speaker 2: That would be a hard pill for me to swallow
Speaker 2: to then like work with someone and trust them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I mean as a viewer, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: it's fun to watch these people be like villains, right,
Speaker 1: it was fun to watch what Monica did, But I
Speaker 1: put myself in their shoes, and like, I know the
Speaker 1: women on that cast, and I love them.
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: By the way, lots and lots of people love Monica,
Speaker 2: lots and lots for.
Speaker 1: That reason, because you like to watch a villain because
Speaker 1: there it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I know, and I know that, but they iice it up.
Speaker 2: They also understand her. I mean, listen, we don't all
Speaker 2: have to agree. Some people, you know, think that she
Speaker 2: was like Delta nasty hand by having to you know,
Speaker 2: buy I don't know, was she fired, did you quit?
Speaker 2: Whatever it was, a lot of people don't think that
Speaker 2: that's fair. So I don't know. I have a very
Speaker 2: hard time working with someone that ran a troll account.
Speaker 1: I mean, I agree, I understand why they all want
Speaker 1: her off. And that's the problem with these shows. If
Speaker 1: you have no friends left, and you have no allies,
Speaker 1: you can't be part of the friend group, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: or so, I haven't seen the remake of Mean Girls, right,
Speaker 1: But you think of all these movies from like the
Speaker 1: nineties and or the eighties or even two thousands, and
Speaker 1: like when there was a mean Girl. She isn't like
Speaker 1: the gross chick with no friends Rachel McAdams. She was
Speaker 1: the beautiful right she was Rachel McAdams, or she was
Speaker 1: the prom queen, and she's all that right. She was always.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, everybody wanted to be friends with everyone's wanted a girl,
Speaker 2: and yet everybody wanted to be close to her.
Speaker 1: So does that perpetuate the idea that being mean is
Speaker 1: an attribute, it's something that only the most beautiful and
Speaker 1: the most self confident women girls?
Speaker 2: Well, I think a lot of being girls that are
Speaker 2: not mean, women that are not necessarily beautiful. They're more
Speaker 2: sort of just miserable. But yes, I mean in high school,
Speaker 2: like in terms of being in cliques and who's cool
Speaker 2: and who's not. Is it cool to be mean? I
Speaker 2: really hope so once you know, we get older, it's not.
Speaker 2: But does it? Is it? Yes? I mean I've also
Speaker 2: I live Listen, I live in the burbs and in
Speaker 2: a suburb where all the kids go to the same
Speaker 2: school and all the moms are at kiss and drop
Speaker 2: and we all go to back to school night and
Speaker 2: we all are invited to the same parties, And yeah,
Speaker 2: it definitely exists. There's drama, like we have not all
Speaker 2: grown out of it. There's drama, there's pettybs. There is
Speaker 2: mean girl behavior for sure, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: And men don't do that. To each other. I mean
Speaker 1: I know that like if Evan gets in a fight
Speaker 1: with someone or like an argument, or he like loses
Speaker 1: his taste for somebody, he'll distance. But men don't gossip
Speaker 1: about each other. I never hear him on the phone gossiping.
Speaker 2: Well, Jeff doesn't really get on the phone in bs
Speaker 2: with a lot of men. I mean, he has male friends,
Speaker 2: but they're not they're not chit chatting at eight thirty
Speaker 2: in the morning, like.
Speaker 1: You know, right, But even with that, like he doesn't
Speaker 1: bad mouth people the way that women do.
Speaker 2: You know what, can I just tell this quick story? Yeah,
Speaker 2: So Jeff and I were engaged about to be married,
Speaker 2: and the rabbi who married us was actually a friend
Speaker 2: of mine, but he was interviewing us for all intents
Speaker 2: and purposes, just getting to know us and getting to
Speaker 2: know Jeff a little bit better. And he asked me,
Speaker 2: it's so funny, I haven't thought about this in so long,
Speaker 2: but he asked me something that I really loved about
Speaker 2: Jeff Wessler. And I said, you know what strikes me
Speaker 2: is like sometimes like I'll say something nasty about somebody
Speaker 2: or not just gossipy, but just mean, and he'll go
Speaker 2: that's not nice. Just those three words. He'll go, that's
Speaker 2: not nice, and I'm thinking, well, the fuck cares about nice,
Speaker 2: I'm talking to you. But I remember thinking, like, for
Speaker 2: some reason, it used to And I remember saying that
Speaker 2: to Barry, the rabbi who married us. And it was
Speaker 2: a weird thing to pick out of the many things
Speaker 2: that I loved about Jeff, But I just loved that
Speaker 2: that was part of his character, you know, like he
Speaker 2: wasn't going to enjoy hearing me be a mean girl.
Speaker 2: Now having said that, Jeff watches now he's like obsessed
Speaker 2: with everything housewives and he also man's not perfect and
Speaker 2: he laughs along with the rest of us. But you know,
Speaker 2: I was always like, what do you mean nice? What
Speaker 2: are you talking about? Like the person's not here, Why
Speaker 2: don't have to be nice?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Evan, Evan just doesn't really engage. Like if I
Speaker 1: try to talk to him about people, he'll be like,
Speaker 1: oh really, Like he doesn't give me anything back. He
Speaker 1: doesn't really enjoy gossiping. He doesn't. He's not mean. He's
Speaker 1: really really nice. He makes me feel mean.
Speaker 3: But not.
Speaker 2: Jeff is definitely not mean. I don't think he's ever
Speaker 2: had a real confrontation with the guy really or no,
Speaker 2: not a man and not a woman. Not really, he's
Speaker 2: not He's really mean when he's behind the wheel, he
Speaker 2: is a what are they called? Like he has road rage?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Well I have a very bad road
Speaker 1: rage story. I don't think we have time for it today,
Speaker 1: but on another episode I'm going to tell you it is.
Speaker 1: It was one of the scariest things that's ever happened
Speaker 1: to me in my whole life. I'm convinced that I
Speaker 1: could have died that night.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, listen, that's like, isn't it sort of
Speaker 2: like internet trolling? Behind a wheel? They can't hear you.
Speaker 1: Oh man, But Jeff.
Speaker 2: Goes nuts, Like if you cut Jeff fessel Off, you're
Speaker 2: not going to know you did, because Jeff isn't going
Speaker 2: to drive up and try to or try to hit
Speaker 2: the back of your car, but he is going to
Speaker 2: have words for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well he should watch out because PSA, there are
Speaker 1: crazy people on the road who will actually kill you.
Speaker 2: And there are crazy people on reality televisions.
Speaker 1: There are actually a lot of crazy people. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about that. Where's Melissa? I want to talk
Speaker 1: about all the crazy people on reality television. So who
Speaker 1: do you think is the meanest Jeff in history?
Speaker 2: In history? History, who is the meanest housewife in history?
Speaker 2: I mean, there've been so I.
Speaker 1: Think Ramona has said the mean stuff.
Speaker 2: Ramona, it could be definitely could be mean.
Speaker 1: But yeah.
Speaker 2: The thing is about also about Romona is she's also endearing.
Speaker 2: Like there's something about her that's so kooky, Like you're.
Speaker 1: Like, is she yeah, No, she's definitely cooky.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I think that there's I'm not sure that there's a
Speaker 1: difference between mean and cold in my eyes, you know,
Speaker 1: like if you're really cold and you shut people out
Speaker 1: and you act better than I consider that mean.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's all different ways to be mean, it's true,
Speaker 2: but Ramona will put her mean. The thing is, I
Speaker 2: mean I remember that walk across the bridge that she
Speaker 2: did with Bethany. Oh yeah. The thing is you were
Speaker 2: so it was so outrageous what she was saying. I
Speaker 2: remember in the moment, it was like whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 2: And I think Bethany started crying at one point, and
Speaker 2: You're like, wow, what was she saying?
Speaker 1: You remind us?
Speaker 2: So think about that's why you'll never get married, or
Speaker 2: that's oh yes, And I remember just years ago watching
Speaker 2: it and thinking, wow, that is mean. But then I know,
Speaker 2: you know, watching Romona throughout the years, I think she's
Speaker 2: just I want to give her that. She's so kooky,
Speaker 2: like she does like things. I will think something like that.
Speaker 2: I just won't say it, I know, but wife, right,
Speaker 2: I'll think mean things like that all the time. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I think that our guest is here.
Speaker 1: So guys, we have Melissa right. She is known on
Speaker 1: Instagram as your bitch Therapist. She's amazing, so well spoken
Speaker 1: and knows every little thing about housewives. So she's a therapist,
Speaker 1: a brava holic. After many years and two degrees and
Speaker 1: clinical practice, she got her license and she has just
Speaker 1: been working in this area for so long. She's a
Speaker 1: cancer survivor and she had she.
Speaker 2: Had a varying cancer when she's very young.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think she she is managing chronic Yeah, but
Speaker 1: she is amazing. She used a self described psychology nerd,
Speaker 1: and she thinks that therapy is magic and so do I.
Speaker 1: And she is just so good at analyzing the housewives.
Speaker 2: We need your help.
Speaker 1: Melissa. Hi, Hi, Melissa, Hi, welcome. Hi.
Speaker 3: We're so nice to see you.
Speaker 2: Bo you two, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: We need your help.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is no other therapist that that can
Speaker 1: analyze the housewives like you can, but also like women
Speaker 1: in general.
Speaker 3: Yes, and ladies, I am prepared with the capital P.
Speaker 3: So I am ready.
Speaker 1: All right, Jen, go for it, baby.
Speaker 2: Well you know, so, Melissa, we're talking, as you know,
Speaker 2: about the meanness that unfortunately it does not just you know,
Speaker 2: perpetuate itself in the house in the housewives world, but
Speaker 2: you know, for young kids and even now we know
Speaker 2: mean girls, and you know, we also have mean inside
Speaker 2: of us. I know that I do. There are different
Speaker 2: degrees of it, but maybe give us your take on
Speaker 2: you know, what is driving a mean girl?
Speaker 1: Like, what's driving at what age? Are you thinking?
Speaker 2: Any any let's start.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the housewives. Okay, why do you think
Speaker 1: that meanness is rewarded on the housewives? And why would
Speaker 1: a housewife want to be a villain?
Speaker 3: Okay, so meanness is definitely rewarded. I think we've seen that.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, I think we've seen that time and time
Speaker 3: again on housewives. And I mean, look at what just
Speaker 3: kind of happened with Monica and Salt Lake and that
Speaker 3: whole thing. And so I think that sometimes, and I'm
Speaker 3: this might surprise you to hear this, but what makes
Speaker 3: a mean girl when we're young versus when we're older.
Speaker 3: It really isn't different. Yeah, it's the same stuff. It's
Speaker 3: just if you're a mean girl when you're younger and
Speaker 3: you have certain qualities and characteristics, like for example, no
Speaker 3: matter the age, the reasons are power and control. People
Speaker 3: want power and control over the narrative, the friendship, the
Speaker 3: social you know, relationship. Usually mean girls that have sincerely
Speaker 3: a lack of self esteem, right, they kind of you know,
Speaker 3: there's a bravado that people might put forth, but in
Speaker 3: reality there's a real lack of self esteem and self confidence.
Speaker 3: And the one thing I was doing a little bit
Speaker 3: of research, you know, preparing for this, and there's an
Speaker 3: expert in the field of bullying. Her name is Rosalind Wiseman,
Speaker 3: and she actually her book Queen Bees and Wannabes was
Speaker 3: the templan.
Speaker 1: Girl Jerkie's Night. Yeah I know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is so I think. And if you watch
Speaker 3: Me and Girls and have read the book, it's wild
Speaker 3: how mean Girls is really like an educational documentary on
Speaker 3: what it is truly. I mean, it's a wonderful movie.
Speaker 3: It's super funny, it's just really well done.
Speaker 2: So the mean girl gets hers in the end, which
Speaker 2: is kind of the joy of it.
Speaker 3: Right, always, always, because the thing with this is you
Speaker 3: can can't outrun the toxic stuff within that leads to
Speaker 3: that behavior unless you really want to get some help
Speaker 3: around it. Right, people can change, but only if they
Speaker 3: want to. And so back to your question, Jackie, if
Speaker 3: the housewives are getting rewarded for being villains, why would
Speaker 3: they change?
Speaker 2: Well, Melissa, let me ask you this, Why do we
Speaker 2: as a society and me personally like watching it? What
Speaker 2: is it about us that enjoys watching the villains and
Speaker 2: and you know, the Mean Girls?
Speaker 3: I think two answers to that. One is that it
Speaker 3: is entertaining, because, I mean, Mean Girls was one of
Speaker 3: the most amazing movies to ever be made. It was
Speaker 3: so entertaining, it was so funny. And I think that,
Speaker 3: you know, there is just a part of our human
Speaker 3: psyche that we love drama clearly I do.
Speaker 1: Is that. Okay? Is that healthy for us?
Speaker 3: Well? Okay, yes and no. So to answer your question, Jen,
Speaker 3: is that to me in my clinical practice, all things
Speaker 3: exist on a spectrum. Okay, so on a spectrum over
Speaker 3: here is just kind of the general you know, some
Speaker 3: slight behavior, so maybe nasty comments, things like that, and
Speaker 3: then as you progress to the other side of the spectrum,
Speaker 3: that's when the really kind of abusive, inappropriate stuff happens.
Speaker 3: And as a therapist, one thing I always like to
Speaker 3: say is that all of us have good and bad qualities.
Speaker 3: We all do, and I think we all have a
Speaker 3: little bit of that mean girl in it.
Speaker 2: Yes, my psychiatrist is that all the time. And it's
Speaker 2: like so helpful when I feel guilty for having said
Speaker 2: something and it, you know, badly about maybe having hurt someone. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: it is part of being human, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Melissa what it is more for me, it is less,
Speaker 1: it's less of this need to like, you know, you
Speaker 1: take a Ramona right where there's no filter. We were
Speaker 1: just talking about this, and like the things that come
Speaker 1: out of her mouth sometimes are just so mean. For me,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say stuff like that on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: But if I don't like somebody or someone does something
Speaker 1: to me, I get this feeling where I want revenge
Speaker 1: and I want to destroy them and life, I think, right,
Speaker 1: But I have to actively shut that off and put
Speaker 1: it out of my mind because getting revenge is all
Speaker 1: that I'll think about, you know. And I wonder do
Speaker 1: you think, like the proliferate like Housewives is so big?
Speaker 1: Now do you think that watching the behavior of Housewives
Speaker 1: on the show, does that bleed out into real life?
Speaker 1: Do people start to think that it's better to behave
Speaker 1: like that? Or Okay, what do you think?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Because what happens is this brings into the discussion
Speaker 3: parasocial relationships. So parasolctural relationships are relationships that folks think
Speaker 3: they have with a celebrity or someone they admire and
Speaker 3: see on TV, but they don't really have a relationship.
Speaker 3: And so sometimes fans if they feel they have a
Speaker 3: parasocial relationship, like for example, there are people who think
Speaker 3: they have relationships with you two, and they don't you know,
Speaker 3: they've seen you on TV, but they don't really know you.
Speaker 3: So if someone respects you and honors you and admires
Speaker 3: you and they see things happening on TV, if the
Speaker 3: watcher doesn't have that sounded like creepy like the watcher,
Speaker 3: If the person taking in that behavior, if they don't
Speaker 3: have enough self esteem and self worth to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is entertaining, but this isn't necessarily something I'd like
Speaker 3: to emulate. Then yes, that emulation of behavior happens. But
Speaker 3: one important thing I did want to note is that
Speaker 3: I believe that our society, there's a social conditioning that
Speaker 3: happens with women where we are conditioned to be nice
Speaker 3: and to avoid conflict at all costs. And so what
Speaker 3: happens is back to your point, Jackie, is that.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: But but people pleasers who have emotions like oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: I'm so angry, I'm not able to show this, so
Speaker 3: that emotion has to go somewhere. And so that's where
Speaker 3: some in the thoughts of revenge and things like that.
Speaker 3: It's all normal. It's normal. I mean that happens to
Speaker 3: me too. It's just do you have the ability, like
Speaker 3: you said, Jackie, to stop yourself and say, okay, it's
Speaker 3: okay to have this fantasy of revenge. It's okay to
Speaker 3: have that, but knowing that my behavior needs to align
Speaker 3: with my ultimate morals, values, and ethics.
Speaker 1: I love that. Let me let me ask you a
Speaker 1: million dollar question. I get a lot of people comments.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I read the comments sometimes and you get why
Speaker 1: can't we just watch women being friends and having a
Speaker 1: good time. Would anybody watch that show? Wod people watch
Speaker 1: that show? I don't think so.
Speaker 3: Well, Okay, here's my thought because sometimes I am one
Speaker 3: of those people, because sometimes for me, I'm a very
Speaker 3: sensitive soul, and when I watch like the whole stuff
Speaker 3: that happened with Salt Lake recently, it actually just makes
Speaker 3: me feel iggy. But I do love housewives, so I
Speaker 3: feel that, you know, I'm going to use Real Housewives
Speaker 3: of Orange County season one. Okay, they didn't have glam.
Speaker 3: They wore the craziest outfits. They went to tennis and
Speaker 3: lunch and it did really well. Now, all things need
Speaker 3: to evolve, right, I think anything, people shows, what have you,
Speaker 3: everything has an evolution. Nothing can stay the same. But
Speaker 3: I almost think that there's been an over correction in
Speaker 3: some franchise, not all. There are some franchises franchises I
Speaker 3: think that do it well and then others that you
Speaker 3: can almost tell that people are nervous about. In my opinion, well,
Speaker 3: if I don't bring the heat, yeah, we're gonna get canceled.
Speaker 3: If I don't bring the heat, am I going to
Speaker 3: not be asked? Back right. Yes, So I do think
Speaker 3: that there has become a toxic level to what we
Speaker 3: all think we need, and some of that, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be honest, is perpetuated by Bravo. I do believe that. Well,
Speaker 3: I do believe that.
Speaker 2: You know, I think about even the Anne Marie of
Speaker 2: it all and first time housewife, and I totally get
Speaker 2: that pressure she felt to go in there and you know,
Speaker 2: have some have some conflict, but she got so slammed.
Speaker 2: People have said a lot worse on housewives. You know,
Speaker 2: I wonder is there a difference between being shady and
Speaker 2: being mean? I mean talking about Sutton's esophagus didn't ruin
Speaker 2: Sutton's life. It was certainly shady and she certainly paid
Speaker 2: for it. But and I would understand her, you know,
Speaker 2: going in feeling like I have to bring some of
Speaker 2: this to the table. But why there was such a
Speaker 2: reaction to that? People? Do you know housewives can cut
Speaker 2: way deeper than that, And in my mind, I like shady.
Speaker 2: I laugh at shady, right, It's people can be very funny,
Speaker 2: very shady, but when it gets that dark, it's hard
Speaker 2: to watch. But why people have the reaction to her
Speaker 2: when I just thought listen, maybe it wasn't nice, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't so deep. I didn't think, you know, she
Speaker 2: became a villain pretty quickly she did.
Speaker 3: And I will I'm going to explain that because I'm
Speaker 3: one of the people who really had a reaction.
Speaker 2: To her, really because maybe because of my.
Speaker 3: Right. So for me, I'll just share briefly, I'm a
Speaker 3: two time cancer survivor and I'm going through a chronic
Speaker 3: cancer now that there's no cure, and I've been on
Speaker 3: treatment forever and it's just exhausting, but I'm doing okay.
Speaker 3: And so for me, and I think a lot of
Speaker 3: other folks who have had medical issues, whether it be
Speaker 3: mental health, physical health, you know, eating disorders, what have you,
Speaker 3: we have been exposed to folks like her that talk
Speaker 3: to us like we're idiots or like we like I
Speaker 3: personally don't like when a medical professional tries to talk
Speaker 3: about my body like they know it better than I. Right,
Speaker 3: So for me, what I always say is a medical professional,
Speaker 3: your degree is a piece of paper, but your morals, values, ethics,
Speaker 3: and you know, true education are shown in your behavior.
Speaker 3: And I think for me, what bothered me about it
Speaker 3: and many other peace people because a lot of people.
Speaker 3: I get a lot of dms and a lot of
Speaker 3: comments on my Instagram. They felt the same way. They
Speaker 3: felt shamed, they felt judged. And I think she tapped
Speaker 3: into you know a lot of people like me with
Speaker 3: invisible illness, like I look great.
Speaker 2: I know that, Yeah you do.
Speaker 3: And you know so sometimes when you have invisible illness,
Speaker 3: you're used to people really mistreating you and judging you.
Speaker 3: And I think she just represented that. Well.
Speaker 2: I didn't even think of that angle. I get that.
Speaker 2: I mean, that completely makes sense. I would have been different.
Speaker 2: I would have certainly had a different reaction if I'd
Speaker 2: been through what you've been through.
Speaker 1: Can I jump back to your over correction comment, because
Speaker 1: that really struck me. So the House I started out
Speaker 1: as a really like a show about friends, right, maybe
Speaker 1: with some like minor dis agreements, and it has over corrected.
Speaker 1: You are right, And now where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: What happens from here? Is it just going to can
Speaker 1: continue to get meaner and snarkier or is it like,
Speaker 1: are we just expecting more and more drama? What's going
Speaker 1: to happen with these shows? What do you think?
Speaker 3: That is such a good question, and I've posed that
Speaker 3: question myself on my Instagram is that I believe Housewives
Speaker 3: has become such a tox successful that it is becoming
Speaker 3: it's like, how do we move ask this if this
Speaker 3: is like the level of entertainment or the level of
Speaker 3: you know, villain era that we feel is entertainment, where
Speaker 3: does this go? And so Jackie, it's such a good question,
Speaker 3: and to me, my answer is that I believe it's unsustainable.
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going to happen. I kind of
Speaker 3: like my intuition it's something's common and I know, so.
Speaker 1: What then why do we?
Speaker 2: I still don't miss not I don't watch every franchise,
Speaker 2: but I don't miss an episode like if it's gotten
Speaker 2: to that place where it is so dark and I
Speaker 2: still here, I am, you know, telling the truth. I
Speaker 2: love it, you know, I don't always love every moment
Speaker 2: of it. I have moments where I feel, you know,
Speaker 2: sick for one of the women who is the brunt
Speaker 2: of you know, the meanness. But I still am addicted.
Speaker 2: What is that about?
Speaker 3: J One of the things I love about you is
Speaker 3: you're just like so honest and upfront and Jackie, you
Speaker 3: two you're just both so honest and real and I
Speaker 3: think what I love is just being honest about what
Speaker 3: you're saying, because that's that's a fact. I mean, and listen,
Speaker 3: I watch every episode too, right, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, does that mean that we're mean girls as well
Speaker 2: if we're enjoying mean girl behavior?
Speaker 3: No, I think for well, for me, it's it's content
Speaker 3: if I'm being honest, right, there's for me, the grosser
Speaker 3: things get, the more clinical interpretation I have. So for me,
Speaker 3: it's a gold mine. I'm going to be honest in
Speaker 3: terms of the work that I'm doing, but in terms
Speaker 3: of just the general public, I'm going to liken it
Speaker 3: to almost like a soap opera, right we you know
Speaker 3: people love soap operas, and it's kind of like a
Speaker 3: real life soap opera. But what's great about it is
Speaker 3: we feel, again because of these parasocial relationships, like we
Speaker 3: know the people, so what happens is I think we watch,
Speaker 3: but then there's that's where these teams come in, like
Speaker 3: team so and so, Team so and so, because we
Speaker 3: feel A we have a relationship with them, B we
Speaker 3: feel the injustice of what's happening and then see it.
Speaker 3: So it's like it's almost creates the faux sense of interaction.
Speaker 3: But it isn't is it? That's that's fun.
Speaker 2: Like Jackie was saying that when she gets hurt, her
Speaker 2: instinct is, like all of us, she wants revenge. So
Speaker 2: watching that, you know, feeling what one of the cast
Speaker 2: members feel in terms of being hurt and wanting revenge
Speaker 2: for that person, and then seeing that person get revenge,
Speaker 2: I guess can be cathartic.
Speaker 3: Sure, because let's take the scandal all situation. Right, everyone
Speaker 3: has been an areaana everyone well most a lot of
Speaker 3: people have been cheated on or mistreated, and so when
Speaker 3: we see this person who was us gets such vindication,
Speaker 3: it's like it fulfills something in us that never got that.
Speaker 3: It can serve as validation, right, it can serve as
Speaker 3: oh wow, I was wrong like this too, and look
Speaker 3: at all the attentions she's getting, and so it validates.
Speaker 3: So I think that to answer that question is that
Speaker 3: sometimes it gives us a lot of validation. And that's
Speaker 3: not necessarily bad human beings. We're human, we have you know,
Speaker 3: humanity is tough, and we all have sore spots and
Speaker 3: growing edges and trigger points. And so I think what
Speaker 3: Housewives ultimately does is it works on hitting those buttons,
Speaker 3: and then the viewer gets emotionally kind of sucked in,
Speaker 3: and then it becomes something that you just don't want
Speaker 3: to stop watching, even though it has felt so toxic, right.
Speaker 1: But even beyond that, like you have this portion of
Speaker 1: people saying, like, I just want to see you guys
Speaker 1: be friends and have some fun and have like times.
Speaker 1: But like the other day, Jen and I went to
Speaker 1: the Madonna concert and we went with.
Speaker 2: Which is really by the way, I don't know what
Speaker 2: people amazing people are saying, she is right on her game.
Speaker 1: Yes we went with Sisa and Jen aaden okay, And
Speaker 1: when when there is a picture of me and Theresa
Speaker 1: together on social media, the hateful comments are insane. I
Speaker 1: cannot believe how invested people are in us going to
Speaker 1: a place together. And I just wonder it's not just
Speaker 1: the shows, it's off season. Also, it's all the time
Speaker 1: people don't really want to see. I wonder do people
Speaker 1: really want to see friendships? Aren't these shows about like
Speaker 1: finding your way back to friendship after confrontation. Isn't that
Speaker 1: what they should be? And if so, why is there
Speaker 1: so much hate for people making up?
Speaker 3: Okay? So I think there's two answers to that. I
Speaker 3: think that a lot of Bravo fans are very petulant
Speaker 3: in that they think that they want something and then
Speaker 3: when they're given that, they're not happy. So I just
Speaker 3: think sometimes it's human nature to say or to think
Speaker 3: that we want something and then when we're given that,
Speaker 3: we don't care for it. Number One, humans can be fickle,
Speaker 3: let's be honest, and especially Bravo. And number two, I
Speaker 3: think Jackie the situation with you and Teresa my understanding
Speaker 3: because I've seen those hateful comments too, which are you know,
Speaker 3: that's a whole other thing. People who just like say
Speaker 3: these awful things on the internet. It's it's wild. It's
Speaker 3: my least favorite part about what I'm doing because it's
Speaker 3: just so gross. I think that people with you both
Speaker 3: and listen, we're gonna see this, and I have no
Speaker 3: inside information. I think people think it's inauthentic and therefore
Speaker 3: their you know, frustrate or there are people I think
Speaker 3: that feel that Teresa did you grave harm, you know,
Speaker 3: by bringing up certain rumors, and so they think, well,
Speaker 3: how can Jackie be friends with her? And so But
Speaker 3: here's the thing about real life is in real life
Speaker 3: we are supposed to have conflict. Conflict is a part
Speaker 3: of relationships, and unfortunately our society and our parents, we
Speaker 3: don't really get taught how to manage that. So it
Speaker 3: is possible to have this really challenging relationship with someone
Speaker 3: and then grow and move forward authentically. I think in
Speaker 3: your case, the problem is the audience hasn't seen that
Speaker 3: authentic base because it happened in between seasons, right, so,
Speaker 3: and people have a lot of imagination, and everybody thinks
Speaker 3: that they're a therapist, trust me because they try to
Speaker 3: tell me about things. And I think people are assuming.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of assumptions of well, this is tactical
Speaker 3: or this isn't authentic, But it's because it happened in
Speaker 3: between seasons and we didn't get to see that natural
Speaker 3: authentic Bill.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense, Melissa, Well, don't you think is?
Speaker 2: You know? In life? And I think maybe even on
Speaker 2: the show. But I've been accused of not being authentic
Speaker 2: because I don't maybe engage. Well, who knows what's going
Speaker 2: to happen this coming season. You know, you'll watch and
Speaker 2: you'll tell me what you think. But I feel like
Speaker 2: my in therapy I have kind of learned that even
Speaker 2: the people that we can't stand or have so much
Speaker 2: resentment against, there's always a humanity there. I mean, I
Speaker 2: can't say that terrorists have humanity and I want to
Speaker 2: go there, But like, when you see the humanity in someone,
Speaker 2: all of that other anger and nastiness, it fades, right,
Speaker 2: And I think that it's so interesting that, you know,
Speaker 2: on the show, people can hate each other's guts and
Speaker 2: then love each other. And I feel like, because once
Speaker 2: you actually get through all of the anger and you
Speaker 2: can see somebody's for lack of a better word, humanity,
Speaker 2: all of that other stuff just sort of dissipates. So Jack,
Speaker 2: I mean, you would have to speak to that more than.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would really agree with that. So if you
Speaker 1: take the Monica of it all, right, like she clearly
Speaker 1: you can see how horrible her life has been. I mean,
Speaker 1: she was abandoned as a child, she has a tumultuous
Speaker 1: relationship with her mother, she's a single mom, and it
Speaker 1: still doesn't make me.
Speaker 2: But that's not what I mean seeing the humanity. I mean,
Speaker 2: like if you, let's say one of these women were
Speaker 2: to sit down and have lunch with Monica and she
Speaker 2: was to say this has been you know, such a
Speaker 2: shit show, and I feel so sick, and it's so
Speaker 2: hard to have had this reaction. And you know, let's
Speaker 2: say she really became vulnerable. Once she was vulnerable and open,
Speaker 2: I think that things would change in terms of how
Speaker 2: you were to feel about her. I think that was
Speaker 2: also a complaint at the reunion, right, she wasn't vulnerable.
Speaker 2: But oftentimes, and I don't know what happened with you
Speaker 2: and Teresa's between you and Teresa, but I think in general,
Speaker 2: you can have all of this animosity towards someone and
Speaker 2: then as soon as someone sort of shows their humanity
Speaker 2: or their vulnerability, that can dissipate. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Jen, that is so smart and such a stude observation
Speaker 3: because one of the things, like I kind of wrote
Speaker 3: it because one of you both are one of the
Speaker 3: things in how to handle of course, that's why I
Speaker 3: love Checkie. She's so smart. The one of the ways
Speaker 3: to handle the mean girl, one of them is to
Speaker 3: look at the humanity. And so, you know, JACKI you
Speaker 3: brought up an interesting point. Sometimes we can do that
Speaker 3: and sometimes we can't. So when we see someone that
Speaker 3: triggers us, if they if there's something about them that
Speaker 3: triggers something within us. We may not be able to
Speaker 3: see that humanity, Like I have a harder time seeing
Speaker 3: the humanity for Anna Marie, but I my whole Instagram.
Speaker 3: I have been kind of a champion for Monica in
Speaker 3: explaining why she is the way she is, and so
Speaker 3: as a therapist, I can see through the humanity to
Speaker 3: the humanity of some pretty egregious behaviors. But it's okay
Speaker 3: if we can't always do that. But yes, that is
Speaker 3: the answer to kind of getting to the truth of
Speaker 3: what's happening with this person. Because people are more than
Speaker 3: their behaviors. The behaviors come from somewhere, and if we
Speaker 3: understand that, it helps our empathy.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like on reunions when you see, you know,
Speaker 2: somebody who has been so mean, but you see them
Speaker 2: break down, You'll see another member of the cast go
Speaker 2: over and hug them. Can I just hug you? You
Speaker 2: see a lot of that, right, Like human instinct is
Speaker 2: to get up and comfort a person, So you must
Speaker 2: your career and what you do must be so interesting
Speaker 2: to see both, right, to see the struggle between that
Speaker 2: those mean instincts and those loving human instincts.
Speaker 3: I've had people come to therapy who literally yelled at me,
Speaker 3: treated me so terribly, and I ended up developing by
Speaker 3: the end of it, a wonderful, beautiful relationship with them,
Speaker 3: Because sometimes the behaviors come from a place of heart,
Speaker 3: and so if you're willing to see past that and
Speaker 3: you know, just be with someone, you know, that can
Speaker 3: change a lot.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you if you think like
Speaker 1: taking it out of Housewives and going back to movies
Speaker 1: where always the mean girl is popular, Well, I shouldn't
Speaker 1: say that there's always a popular, beautiful girl who's mean.
Speaker 1: The mean girl is never going to be the one
Speaker 1: sitting in the corner being ignored at school. She's always
Speaker 1: going to be the queen bee. She's going to be
Speaker 1: the prom queen, the one that everyone wants to be
Speaker 1: friends with. And yeah, she'll get in some drama and
Speaker 1: at the end, someone else will be more popular than her. Right,
Speaker 1: that's the way these movies go. But does do the
Speaker 1: way they portray mean girls as being popular and beautiful
Speaker 1: do you think that affects people like our daughters. Like
Speaker 1: our daughters are both in school, hers is in college,
Speaker 1: mine's in middle school. But like the middle school crowd
Speaker 1: is tough. Does that go out to them?
Speaker 3: Brutal? Middle school is brutal?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. Why why is it so bad? My god?
Speaker 1: It blows me away?
Speaker 3: Here's why? Because how do I answer this? Briefly, we
Speaker 3: as a society, as parents, I know you two are
Speaker 3: doing a great job of this. A lot of parents
Speaker 3: don't teach their kids how to manage emotions number one,
Speaker 3: how to handle conflict, and how to communicate effectively. Okay,
Speaker 3: kids learn how to communicate from their home. They learn
Speaker 3: it through not what they're told, they learn it through modeling. Okay,
Speaker 3: So to me, this behavior, there's usually something going on
Speaker 3: at home. Sometimes sometimes there is not, but there are
Speaker 3: definitely Like there's six signs of mean girl, and one
Speaker 3: of them is definitely appearance focused because I think again,
Speaker 3: in our society, there is this image of you know,
Speaker 3: to be a queen bee, you have to be the best,
Speaker 3: the best looking, the best dressed, the most popular. You know,
Speaker 3: there's all of these kind of difficulties. But ultimately, mean
Speaker 3: girls have trouble with friendships because of their behavior. But
Speaker 3: in middle school, we lack the ability to have self awareness.
Speaker 3: Like cognitively, our brains are not fully developed until age
Speaker 3: twenty five and the last part of the brain to
Speaker 3: develop is the prefrontal cortexes that control impulses. So kids
Speaker 3: aren't doing it's developmentally appropriate. What's what's happening in terms
Speaker 3: of their hormones and their emotions in all of this,
Speaker 3: Those types of kids don't have the folks around them
Speaker 3: that they need to say, Hey, I noticed this behavior,
Speaker 3: what's happening. Let's look at this together, you know. Does
Speaker 3: that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yes? Is that though an excuse in terms of when
Speaker 2: we become women, we were never taught to control our impulses,
Speaker 2: to curb our mean girl impulses? Is that an excuse?
Speaker 2: Or is it time when you reach a certain age too,
Speaker 2: you know, to stop being so damn right?
Speaker 1: Because like if you look on like we were talking about
Speaker 1: the Facebook groups that were like Facebook mom groups, like
Speaker 1: they jump all over each other. They're so mean to
Speaker 1: each other in a way that men are not.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. Here there's so there's two different types of
Speaker 3: mean girls. Okay, there's the types of mean girls that
Speaker 3: were mean girls when they were younger. They grew up,
Speaker 3: they developed some self awareness and they said, oh boy,
Speaker 3: this is not good. Let me change my behavior and
Speaker 3: there definitely are a lot of people like that. You know,
Speaker 3: you hear stories on the internet of people who go
Speaker 3: back to their high people they bullied in high school
Speaker 3: and they apologize.
Speaker 2: And things like that.
Speaker 3: And then there are those women who don't grow out
Speaker 3: of it. They don't learn, they don't grow. And what
Speaker 3: I like to say is as we grow we all
Speaker 3: have issues, okay, and as we grow, if we don't
Speaker 3: deal with them, we either get better or we get bitter.
Speaker 1: That is it.
Speaker 3: And so the adult mean girls, by the way, those
Speaker 3: Facebook groups are atrocious.
Speaker 1: They really are.
Speaker 3: They're so awful. These are women who are fundamentally and
Speaker 3: by the way, research shows that these women have low
Speaker 3: levels of empathy and long term unhappiness and possibly that
Speaker 3: could even lead to depression.
Speaker 2: That's what I was about to ask you, Melissa. I'm
Speaker 2: sorry to interrupt, but that's what I want to know.
Speaker 2: Are there consequences, internal consequences to being a mean girl.
Speaker 3: Yes, but the problem is they're all internal and we
Speaker 3: don't often see it until something like the damn break,
Speaker 3: so to speak, until something really egregious happens. They this
Speaker 3: is what people have to understand. Miserable people feel miserable
Speaker 3: like our behaviors show how we feel about ourselves, okay,
Speaker 3: and like I've gone through a lot of stuff. I'm
Speaker 3: the kindest person you'll ever meet. I'll never treat someone
Speaker 3: with less than kindness. That's just my morals and values.
Speaker 3: But so these folks, there is karma, it's internal. They're miserable,
Speaker 3: they're unhappy, and Jackie, this might interest you is that
Speaker 3: there are research studies that show and associate perfectionistic tendency
Speaker 3: that often get kind of morphed into eating disorders with
Speaker 3: these women because it's very image based and they're miserable,
Speaker 3: non happy, and they're trying to control things, and we
Speaker 3: all know a lot of that is what you know,
Speaker 3: can create an eating disorder. So these women, I would
Speaker 3: argue that a significant amount of them have, you know,
Speaker 3: may have I have to be mindful here, some depression,
Speaker 3: some anxiety, some you know, disordered eating behavior, low self
Speaker 3: esteem and confidence. So when you look at some of
Speaker 3: these things that people write and you feel icky, that's
Speaker 3: how they feel all the time.
Speaker 2: Which, by the way, clearly I have mean girl in
Speaker 2: me because that makes me happy. Like mean girls are miserable,
Speaker 2: not miserable, but mean girls.
Speaker 1: You know, it's coming from a place of heart that
Speaker 1: makes no man.
Speaker 2: No, it makes me happy in a mean girl way,
Speaker 2: like if you're mean, you're miserable. Good you should be miserable,
Speaker 2: you're mean.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Some some people I just feel like
Speaker 1: they're just bursting with self confidence and they feel like
Speaker 1: no matter how mean they are, they'll be loved. I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, I believe that people who we feel are bursting
Speaker 3: with self confidence. It's it actually comes from a very
Speaker 3: insecure place. But listen, are there some people like that?
Speaker 3: For sure? Yes, you are correct, but you know, Jen,
Speaker 3: I don't want you to be hard on yourself because
Speaker 3: you're human.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so when we see someone, because I'm going to
Speaker 3: be honest, if I see someone who's mistreating other people
Speaker 3: and then they get theirs, there's of course a part
Speaker 3: of me that's a little satisfied.
Speaker 2: Welcome to housewives. I think that is one of the
Speaker 2: biggest I can't stand someone for whatever reason, not always
Speaker 2: because they're mean, maybe because for me they're beautiful and
Speaker 2: they seem perfect, and they seem full of themselves or
Speaker 2: and so I like to see them brought down a notch, right,
Speaker 2: which is my own young girl stuff. But you like
Speaker 2: to see the mean girl, just like in the movies,
Speaker 2: get knocked down, and Housewise will do that to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What worries me is that it just seems as
Speaker 1: an outsider watching other shows that it it's just this,
Speaker 1: this desire to watch people you mean to each other
Speaker 1: just gets stronger and stronger every year, and I wonder
Speaker 1: where it's going.
Speaker 2: I don't really think, you know, the producers when I
Speaker 2: joined Jersey, they told me to watch Miami because they
Speaker 2: said Miami is shady. Right, it's not again, They're not
Speaker 2: out to ruin each other. They are shady and it's funny,
Speaker 2: but it's not quite so dark. And so I don't
Speaker 2: know who knows, you know what what the executives all want.
Speaker 2: But what I was told was that they don't want
Speaker 2: it so dark. I think maybe we just need to
Speaker 2: move to Miami. Maybe maybe to Miami, it'll be sunny,
Speaker 2: it won't be just kidding.
Speaker 1: I love Jerseys, but you know, I am curious to
Speaker 1: see where where everything goes. It's but Melissa, you are
Speaker 1: just the most brilliant, the most brilliant, and I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful that you were here today to explain all of
Speaker 1: this to us.
Speaker 2: I know, can you come sleep over at my house?
Speaker 2: I know, just want I want you to hold me.
Speaker 2: I just want you like an intercom, like a buzz
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 3: I love you both.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I love her.
Speaker 1: I could talk to her all day and she's She's
Speaker 1: so in tune to like everything she says.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, you're right, yeah, yeah, and non judgmental.
Speaker 1: No, right, she's great.
Speaker 2: She's not a mean girl. She can't be a housewife.
Speaker 1: No, she would not like this, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: but no, she really is.
Speaker 2: Really that's so insightful and like I don't know, personally
Speaker 2: like helpful, right, And again I don't think, like she said,
Speaker 2: there's a spectrum and I have mean girl instincts. It's
Speaker 2: like nice to know that we all do, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: and sort of how to take it. And it was
Speaker 2: really helpful for me also to hear that, you know,
Speaker 2: mean girls, they are repercussions for it, and not not
Speaker 2: only externally but internally.
Speaker 1: And you're right of hurt people, hurt people.
Speaker 2: Hurt people, hurt people, right, Yeah, anyway, this is a
Speaker 2: good one. This was good.
Speaker 1: Gut her face, you guys, this was a fun episode.
Speaker 1: I loved it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved it too.
Speaker 1: All right, So we are going to sign off, but
Speaker 1: listen and review. Leave us five stars and we love
Speaker 1: you guys.
Speaker 2: We do in any comments the dms, they are really helpful,
Speaker 2: you guys. Try to keep them nice. Yeah, keep it nice.
Speaker 1: Don't be a mean girl.
Speaker 2: Don't be a mean girl. Talk to you soon.