Speaker 1: It's eleven forty PM in an airplane hangar in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and you're listening tonight. Call hello and welcome back tonight
Speaker 1: call a call in show for our dystopian reality. I'm
Speaker 1: Molly Lambert and with me are Test Lynch and Emily
Speaker 1: or Shita. Here we are, and today we are super
Speaker 1: excited to welcome our very special guest, Gia Tolentino, staff
Speaker 1: writer for The New Yorker and author of the essay
Speaker 1: collection Trick Mirror Reflections on Self Delusion. Welcome Gia tonight.
Speaker 1: Call hi, guys. It's nice to, you know, talk to
Speaker 1: someone after a long day a loan. It's nice to
Speaker 1: everybody figure out complicated audio setups so we can all
Speaker 1: connect to each other as humans at home. This is
Speaker 1: how God intended it to bes Master. Now I figured
Speaker 1: out all the well we were all last night connecting
Speaker 1: with our friend Fiona Apple, whose new album Fetch the
Speaker 1: Bolt Cutters. I fetched the bolt Cutters, Um, Emily, Giah
Speaker 1: and I all Fetch the bolt Cutters. Oh yeah, we
Speaker 1: just wanted to give our our un baked takes on
Speaker 1: the album. I had been like I just filed a
Speaker 1: thing that I was like kind of Deep Reporting all
Speaker 1: day and I had like had my head in it.
Speaker 1: But of course I've been listening to Fiona the whole time.
Speaker 1: And then I went for like a walk the length
Speaker 1: of the album and listened to the whole thing through,
Speaker 1: and I mean, I'm still very overwhelmed by it. But
Speaker 1: one thing, I just felt so grateful for an album
Speaker 1: that like it requires and demands your complete attention, you know,
Speaker 1: and like the more attention you give it, the more
Speaker 1: it gives you. It's it's just like I wish that
Speaker 1: I wish that there were like I wish that I
Speaker 1: could be riding the subway and listening to it like
Speaker 1: it was gonna be driving and listen to it. It's
Speaker 1: like I just hadn't heard an album like that in
Speaker 1: a real a long time. Yeah, I basically I was
Speaker 1: thinking about maybe taking a drive out to the beach,
Speaker 1: not getting out, but just driving and coming back because
Speaker 1: that's allowed. This is uh, this is like an honor
Speaker 1: that I really only give to like Lana del Ray
Speaker 1: albums at this point, as far as like having a
Speaker 1: dedicated listen, so I was thinking it might warrant that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and it's also just like she it's it's
Speaker 1: really refreshing to hear a new album that really doesn't
Speaker 1: sound I mean, it doesn't really sound like it's in
Speaker 1: conversation with anything else right now musically or genre wise.
Speaker 1: It's like its own thing, and it's just like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm listening to like a completely fully formed artist who
Speaker 1: just knows what the funk she's doing. It's great. Um,
Speaker 1: I feel like she's an old friend at this point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of my group texts was saying, like, we're so
Speaker 1: lucky that we had her when we were like thirteen,
Speaker 1: and also when we were five, and also now you know,
Speaker 1: like I feel. I went down a total spiral about
Speaker 1: the Spin Girl issue which came out in UM, which
Speaker 1: had Fiona on the cover, which I bought at the
Speaker 1: small the West Side Pavilion. That was just a knockdown
Speaker 1: r I Pu Side pavilion FASTI mall to be turned
Speaker 1: into a Google campus. One thing I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: with Fiona recently is that for whatever reason, the way
Speaker 1: that she's released albums because she doesn't very frequently. This
Speaker 1: has been like eight years since I had Their Wheel
Speaker 1: and seven years. It was seven years between Extraordinary Machine
Speaker 1: and i'd Their Wheel and for whatever, like whenever her
Speaker 1: new album comes out. I am. I guess I'm the
Speaker 1: age that she was when I guess it's just our
Speaker 1: age difference. I don't know how math works. I'm revealing
Speaker 1: this right now, but but I am the age that
Speaker 1: she was whenever she released the last album. So then
Speaker 1: I'm like going and doing my whole Fiona re listen
Speaker 1: and like getting excited and everything. And then I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: now I get it in a whole new life, like
Speaker 1: passing all these sort of like emotional maturity milestones or something.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, So it was it was weird just to
Speaker 1: like remember the girl issue because it just had a
Speaker 1: big impact on me. I think it was also the
Speaker 1: first time I was like, why would you need a
Speaker 1: girl issue? Why can't it just be an issue? So
Speaker 1: I am saving my listening party. I had a really
Speaker 1: I had a crazy night last night. Um that was
Speaker 1: not super like it was. It was crazy just in
Speaker 1: terms of like very pandemic e I guess, like my
Speaker 1: husband was doing something, recording something, there were technical issues,
Speaker 1: my kids were having all of these like meltdowns, and
Speaker 1: then I was like nervous that the emotional impact of
Speaker 1: listening to this album would be not what I required,
Speaker 1: so instead of a fance. Yeah, but so tell me how,
Speaker 1: like where were you when you started listening to it
Speaker 1: and where were you after? Just so I can prepare
Speaker 1: at home and at home right like emotionally, you know,
Speaker 1: what did it do to you? I'm nervous. It's like
Speaker 1: interesting because it is like we've all been making fun
Speaker 1: of the celebrities for putting out entertainment and being like ha,
Speaker 1: like captive audience, like people are just going to have
Speaker 1: time to consume things. But then when something that's actually
Speaker 1: thoughtful comes out and you're like, wow, I have nothing
Speaker 1: but time to do like a headphone listen in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night right now, and this is like
Speaker 1: the perfect thing for that. Is it gonna make me
Speaker 1: super depressed? Though? I don't think so. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's I don't think it's depressing. It is like I
Speaker 1: would say, like alarming is the word that I already used,
Speaker 1: but like in a good way. Here's what it is.
Speaker 1: It's like for jazz moms, which we all are you
Speaker 1: like speak it's like an experimental jazz album. You know,
Speaker 1: it sounds and it sounds like like hot Knife was
Speaker 1: my favorite song on the last album. So much of
Speaker 1: it is like that. It's like depressive and really like
Speaker 1: everything circling. I was walking in the woods and I
Speaker 1: just felt like very enveloped and clarified, kind of like
Speaker 1: I was like kind of it was that like sober,
Speaker 1: trippy feeling where everything, like the edges of everything got
Speaker 1: really bright and I felt very physically present in a
Speaker 1: way that I hadn't for a month. You know. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: I recommend, Yeah, you were right to save it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So now I'm really excited. I mean, I knew I
Speaker 1: was gonna do it. It's I think it's just one
Speaker 1: of those things where like often it comes up just
Speaker 1: the difference in having kids versus not right now, and
Speaker 1: how it made like just how you kind of consume
Speaker 1: media when you have like two hours and that's all
Speaker 1: you have in the day. So I just didn't want
Speaker 1: it to be the thing that pushed me over. But
Speaker 1: now I'm like, no, it's exactly what I need. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great. I can't wait to listen to it again.
Speaker 1: I need another Like, actually, you know what, this is
Speaker 1: why I'm so grateful for it. It's like it's the
Speaker 1: kind of album that made you know right now it's
Speaker 1: kind of and I'm sure it's different when you have kids,
Speaker 1: but it's like, I haven't felt great full to be
Speaker 1: alone in a while, and to be alone with the
Speaker 1: album made me feel really glad to be alone and
Speaker 1: and to like have that space in my head. And
Speaker 1: I mean, that's like the least of the reasons the
Speaker 1: album is great, But that was a feeling I had. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw somebody saying on Twitter that, like, I feel
Speaker 1: like we're going to associate this album of course with
Speaker 1: the Quarantine, and but like in a good way, like
Speaker 1: this was like a bright spot in it or like
Speaker 1: something some kind of balm I guess in the middle
Speaker 1: of all of it, which it feels like that's that's
Speaker 1: what it is. It's also nice to know that, you know,
Speaker 1: like every woman from the age of you know whatever
Speaker 1: to whatever is listening to the same album today, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean totally. I think I just like,
Speaker 1: because she was always just a little bit older than us,
Speaker 1: I had forgotten how young she was. So I was like,
Speaker 1: looking at the Spin cover, I was like, oh, it
Speaker 1: is like Billie Eilish, like exactly, it's like a sad
Speaker 1: teenage girl making music, but like the way that gets
Speaker 1: marketed is very weird. But it also made me be like, oh,
Speaker 1: billy II, like she's gonna be fine. Then, well, Fiona
Speaker 1: has one thing going for her and that she is
Speaker 1: a genius, so that's helpful. Yeah, but she's also like
Speaker 1: it seems like she is like very you know, eccentric
Speaker 1: and oh yeah, and like you know, uncommercial in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. But again, that's like the fun thing
Speaker 1: about listening to something by somebody who's just really doing
Speaker 1: their own thing right now. Like she's like both physically
Speaker 1: kind of put herself in her own little universe and
Speaker 1: then the sound is kind of there too, so it
Speaker 1: just feels very refreshing. Yeah, I really liked them dust
Speaker 1: Bound profile. Oh that was great. Yea. I think that
Speaker 1: also got everybody hyped for the album. And friend of
Speaker 1: the podcast, Rachel Handler has basically been like the Fiona
Speaker 1: Whisper for like the past year. Yeah, she's just been
Speaker 1: like constantly like face timing with her and stuff, which
Speaker 1: I'm very jealous of, but she's been doing it awesome,
Speaker 1: Like all the stuff that she's written, I would love it. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: we also wanted to talk a little bit about some
Speaker 1: other coronavirus activities weird nightmares. The biggest coronavirus activity is sleeping.
Speaker 1: I had a really scary nightmare. I I usually don't
Speaker 1: have nightmares. Um. We talked about this a lot on
Speaker 1: the podcast. I think, uh, some of us don't have
Speaker 1: nightmares from smoking a lot of weed, and uh, I
Speaker 1: may or may not be one of those people. But UM,
Speaker 1: I had a really intense nightmare the other night and
Speaker 1: then realize realized that I had seen a lot of
Speaker 1: people mentioning that they also were having horrible nightmares. Not
Speaker 1: super surprising, but G you mentioned you've been having crazy
Speaker 1: dreams too, write Yeah, Well for me, um, I think
Speaker 1: like something I feel like my brain. You know, if
Speaker 1: we supposedly we dream every night, right, and we just
Speaker 1: don't remember it, and we go through like seasons where
Speaker 1: we don't remember it. I think that like The Times
Speaker 1: did a piece on this, kind of trying to explain
Speaker 1: like why we're all like why am I having these
Speaker 1: crazy dreams? And to me, my own explanation is like
Speaker 1: my brain is like where are all the people? And
Speaker 1: so it puts all the people in my head at
Speaker 1: night because it's not used to like my brains, like
Speaker 1: you need to have more people in your line of
Speaker 1: sight or something. And for me, it's been weird because
Speaker 1: I'm pregnant right now, and it was weird things and I, UM,
Speaker 1: and I've been like for the first two weeks, I
Speaker 1: was having really intense dreams every night, so much so
Speaker 1: that I would wake up and sometimes even write them down,
Speaker 1: which I almost never do. Um. But they had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with coronavirus or pregnancy. And then very were
Speaker 1: worried that your husband had sold has sold at the
Speaker 1: devil for I wish you would honestly please Also, I'm
Speaker 1: never marrying that man place. But um, but then both
Speaker 1: things started to come into my dreams, you know, like
Speaker 1: both both things are now in them, and all of
Speaker 1: my friends are in them, you know which is I
Speaker 1: think why? I think my brain is like, where are
Speaker 1: these people? Like? You need? They like they need to
Speaker 1: be in your sight? And I had a dream last
Speaker 1: night that I couldn't like, I woke up and I
Speaker 1: couldn't remember it. But I've been having You do you
Speaker 1: ever wake up after a dream and you have such
Speaker 1: an intense aftershock of feeling and you spend all day
Speaker 1: and you're like I feel like someone is really angry
Speaker 1: at me, or that I'm really angry at something, or
Speaker 1: that I just figured out something incredibly important, or that
Speaker 1: I'm terrified and I don't know why and you've forgotten
Speaker 1: what actually happened. But you know, like in your dream
Speaker 1: the time lasted like three weeks, and you're right, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been having lots of those have Yeah, those are
Speaker 1: the like clingy emotional film where you're like, I don't
Speaker 1: remember what it was, but I'm like coated in the Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll say like, because I've been sleeping so much, I've
Speaker 1: just been oversleeping in the morning period when I'm just
Speaker 1: like sleeping ambiently to avoid waking up, that's when I
Speaker 1: half weird anxiety dreams for half sleep trying to get
Speaker 1: out of bed type stuff. Yeah, that's the worst. I
Speaker 1: hate that. I mean, I will say, like, I'm very
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of other shitty things happened to
Speaker 1: me during this quarantine, but my dreams have been great.
Speaker 1: Just like parties. I feel like I've mostly been at parties.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's so sick, But yeah, I did. I
Speaker 1: had to. I had to be let off the hook. Somewhere.
Speaker 1: My college ex boyfriend, like so many college ex boyfriends,
Speaker 1: was really obsessed with like lucid dreaming, you know, cognitive
Speaker 1: whatever there, and and he would try to you know,
Speaker 1: he'd right left and right on his hands and he
Speaker 1: would stare at them before he like did all the
Speaker 1: techniques or whatever. And I was like, that's I was like,
Speaker 1: you're being ridiculous. This is so so dorky. But now
Speaker 1: I'm like, I would fucking love to be able to
Speaker 1: lose a dreams I could, yeah, yeah, exactly. I was
Speaker 1: talking with somebody about this, like because we were talking
Speaker 1: about how we both like tried to lose a dream
Speaker 1: at different points in our life. But it's so like,
Speaker 1: the last thing I want to do when I wake
Speaker 1: up in the morning is like write a journal or
Speaker 1: like write a report of my dream that sounds like
Speaker 1: work immediately in the morning. It's like a performance review too.
Speaker 1: You're like, how did I do? So? Like I've always
Speaker 1: sort of not been able to get into it because
Speaker 1: of that. But then I was thinking, like I probably
Speaker 1: still like I don't think I would be able to
Speaker 1: because I even just tried to keep a journal during this,
Speaker 1: which is like something I'm pretty bad at in general,
Speaker 1: and I can't do it, so I don't know. It
Speaker 1: might not be my time keeping a podcast, like I
Speaker 1: also keep a journal of your dreams because they're good,
Speaker 1: like whatever you're doing is. A scientist in this National
Speaker 1: Geographic article about why people are having weird dreams said,
Speaker 1: some dream experts believe that withdrawal from our usual environments
Speaker 1: and daily stimuli has left dreamers with a dearth of inspiration,
Speaker 1: forcing our subconscious minds to draw more heavily on themes
Speaker 1: from our past. Yeah, there was this guy that they
Speaker 1: like profiled in this National Geographic article and his he
Speaker 1: had had a dream that they described early where he
Speaker 1: drew on an obsession with comics and like the and
Speaker 1: the constant scroll of political posts on Twitter. So he
Speaker 1: was kind of just using what it was like, the
Speaker 1: the endless kind of flood of news information had like
Speaker 1: lodged itself into his subconscious so that was appearing in
Speaker 1: his dream, and like you know, lot points, which is
Speaker 1: my that is a that is a nightmare. Dreaming about
Speaker 1: treating does sound like a nightmare. Yeah, I don't. I
Speaker 1: have y'all ever dreamed about Twitter? I have never. I
Speaker 1: don't think I everything. God, how boring. I think I've
Speaker 1: had nightmares where I made him like it was probably
Speaker 1: right after that the woman who was on the plane
Speaker 1: and then her life was ruined. I had an anxiety
Speaker 1: nightmare that that happened. I definitely had a did a
Speaker 1: mistake on Twitter? Did a mistake on Twitter? It's like
Speaker 1: my number one panic. Yeah, because it always seems so passive.
Speaker 1: It's like it still is. It's always possible one of
Speaker 1: these days your number is up. And yes, you're turned
Speaker 1: to funk up on Twitter. Well, TuS, you were also
Speaker 1: posting about Sam Junipero the Black Mirror episode. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I because again I'm I feel so fragile. But that's
Speaker 1: also because I'm unlike a lot of people. And this
Speaker 1: is for better or worse. I am literally never alone
Speaker 1: during self isolation, and it's like normally I carve out
Speaker 1: at least like an hour or something during the day
Speaker 1: where I can kind of just like think thoughts quietly,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't exist anymore. Um So, I feel I
Speaker 1: felt like the only thing that was like safe to
Speaker 1: watch was just mindless garbage or something that I'd already
Speaker 1: seen and knew how it would make me feel, And
Speaker 1: so we turned on San Junipero and I was like,
Speaker 1: whoa it we are kind of in San Junipero because
Speaker 1: it's I mean, that's just the fantasy of like leaving
Speaker 1: the physical world, because you're going to leave anyway. It's
Speaker 1: we didn't want to leave the physical world, but here
Speaker 1: we are kind of in a like fantasy space. Although
Speaker 1: it mostly sucks, I know, I totally I interpreted it
Speaker 1: in a slightly different way, which was like, oh, because
Speaker 1: like no one can have like really new experiences, you
Speaker 1: just can sort of sit on dwell on the past,
Speaker 1: every good experience from your past, and so but yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely been thinking like and also because there's no fomo
Speaker 1: because it's like no one can do anything exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: beving like party like my friends are like literally it
Speaker 1: was like that, you know, post a picture of yourself
Speaker 1: when you were twenty. We were talking about how we
Speaker 1: all fall to this gap where like there are no
Speaker 1: pictures of us online when we were twenty, although maybe
Speaker 1: on like friends are oh yeah. But then my friend
Speaker 1: Max Sylvestry like posted a picture of us together from
Speaker 1: a Halloween party in college, like a picture I've never seen,
Speaker 1: but I was like, wow, that was the best party
Speaker 1: in all of college right when heyya came out. It's
Speaker 1: like sence the beginning of our the big chill. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean there's also the feeling of like trying to
Speaker 1: evolve friendships or just kind of trying to keep up
Speaker 1: relationships in a completely virtual way. And in a way
Speaker 1: like that too. When I was watching san Ju and Appero,
Speaker 1: it was like, Oh, it's this weird like virtual connection
Speaker 1: and you kind of just want like new to invite
Speaker 1: new people into it also, but it's just too weird
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't feel right. It's like this weird
Speaker 1: test on relationships that the you know, keeping things up virtually.
Speaker 1: But it's like, I don't think it's a test that
Speaker 1: means in anything. I think that people are putting too
Speaker 1: much stakes on, Like, oh, if I don't keep up
Speaker 1: with somebody during this pandemic, that means that we weren't
Speaker 1: really friends. It's just like, no, we have like friends
Speaker 1: that we interface with in all sorts of different ways,
Speaker 1: and I have lots of friends that I'm not exactly
Speaker 1: like let's hop on zoom right now. But I think
Speaker 1: that people are really like, oh, like, so many friendships
Speaker 1: are going to be over after this, it's like, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's not what friendship is. It's also like it's
Speaker 1: also like I I mean, I spent a whole year
Speaker 1: completely off the internet when I was in the Peace Corps,
Speaker 1: like not talking to anyone, barely had a cell phone,
Speaker 1: you know, middle of nowhere, halfway across the world, and
Speaker 1: my friendships, like it felt interminable obviously, like it's only
Speaker 1: been a month for us here, Like Peace Corps was
Speaker 1: like this basically but with no internet and um, and
Speaker 1: it felt like forever. And I felt like I had
Speaker 1: missed out on so much. But then but friendship wise,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. I just removed myself. And I mean,
Speaker 1: it's different when we're all in the same situation. But
Speaker 1: it's like I've been reading wolf Hall and I keep
Speaker 1: thinking like it's just a month, Like like our our
Speaker 1: whole lives are so short anyway, this is just a
Speaker 1: month of them like it it's our brains are making
Speaker 1: it feels endless and it will be kind of endless.
Speaker 1: But yeah, when you think about how short it actually is,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, you don't need to keep up with
Speaker 1: people really. Yeah. I've been reading also about like the
Speaker 1: Cambrian era and stuff like that at the timeline of
Speaker 1: human experience. I do that all the time. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: speaking of the timeline of human experience. We wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to Gia a little bit about a subject. She
Speaker 1: is the expert on Instagram face. It is plastic surgery
Speaker 1: April here on night call. Never let anybody forget it's
Speaker 1: plastic surgery April. This is very Wait, have y'all talked
Speaker 1: about what what do you what do you think it's
Speaker 1: going to happen to everyone's face? Like, do you think
Speaker 1: that all of them are getting That's how we kicked
Speaker 1: it off. We talked about some people clearly still have
Speaker 1: people on call, like Madonna and the Kardashians. I think
Speaker 1: it's like a personal chef, like they're just yeah. But
Speaker 1: a lot of the B level influencers, Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: didn't already have your person on call before this all started,
Speaker 1: like you didn't have a lot of time to get that.
Speaker 1: Influences are unemployed to guys, they're um, can you tell
Speaker 1: our listeners a little bit about Instagram face and what
Speaker 1: got you into it? Yeah? So Instagram face just seemed
Speaker 1: to me to be one of those things that, you know,
Speaker 1: any woman between the ages of I don't know, twenty
Speaker 1: and thirty five, who was on Instagram was aware of
Speaker 1: and talking about but just hadn't been like written about
Speaker 1: in a really head on way, or I guess it had.
Speaker 1: But I was like, Okay, so there's this thing where
Speaker 1: every influencer you know looks like a combination of every
Speaker 1: professionally beautiful woman looks like a combination of Emily Radikowski,
Speaker 1: Kylie Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Kendall Jenner, who looks the
Speaker 1: same as Emily Radikowski. And I was like, they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, like the my Marxist instincts were like, okay,
Speaker 1: what is the material reason for this? Like who what?
Speaker 1: What are the material conditions for this production of Instagram face?
Speaker 1: You know, and um, and so some of my friends,
Speaker 1: who are better Instagram observers than me, we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's this doctor, this doctor, and this doctor.
Speaker 1: I started following them on Instagram, and you know, watching
Speaker 1: their sort of before and after time lapse videos where
Speaker 1: you would see people get their Instagram face in real time.
Speaker 1: You know, everyone's face just started to look like what
Speaker 1: one of my friends called a sexy baby Tiger, and
Speaker 1: it was just like, you know, I had already been
Speaker 1: thinking like there's something about being alive today that I've
Speaker 1: always been like, I'm a little suspicious of how it
Speaker 1: sort of seems like social media systems are shaping identity
Speaker 1: into whatever increases engagement, you know, like they're they're they're
Speaker 1: sort of shaping thoughts and identity. They're incentivizing that, right,
Speaker 1: And and it seemed to me to be really interesting
Speaker 1: that the same thing was happening literally with your face.
Speaker 1: That your face, because all of these new technologies were
Speaker 1: available to tweak and alter your face, both digitally through
Speaker 1: face tune and physically through fillers, that you could just
Speaker 1: go back and forth forever, you know, the sort of
Speaker 1: endless arms race of incremental improvement, until you looked unrecognizable
Speaker 1: and you looked like the same sort of cyborg that
Speaker 1: every professional person, professionally beautiful person on Instagram looked like.
Speaker 1: And um, and so yeah, I just I went to
Speaker 1: Kim's plastic surgeon, Simon Orion, uh and you know, anonymously
Speaker 1: as a patient for a consultation, and you know, he
Speaker 1: like it was terrified, like I felt like if I yeah,
Speaker 1: well he and he like told you how like what
Speaker 1: specifically you would need to do to your face to
Speaker 1: get that yes? And you know, like I just walked
Speaker 1: in and I was like, I'd like to be prettier.
Speaker 1: What would you suggest? And he did tell me, like
Speaker 1: he told me what it would take, like he I
Speaker 1: genuinely felt like, I mean, he he he's clearly an
Speaker 1: amazing doctor. And he was, you know, responding ruthfully to
Speaker 1: this thing that I had said. But then the thing
Speaker 1: that depressed me was that I went to a couple
Speaker 1: of other doctors and said the same thing, and within
Speaker 1: like thirty seconds they looked at my face and they
Speaker 1: were like, yep, cheek filler, chin filler, you know, like
Speaker 1: do suck the fat out of your lower face? Like
Speaker 1: and then you And I was like fuck yeah, Like
Speaker 1: the whole thing made me think, you know, about like this,
Speaker 1: like I always think about the line between like seeing
Speaker 1: your body and life as a source of potential is
Speaker 1: both like amazing and deeply punishing, you know. And and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'll try to be really sort
Speaker 1: of mercenary and pragmatic about this, like I you know,
Speaker 1: I think I'm cute. I don't care, like I'll just
Speaker 1: be I'll just like ha ha, immersion journalism. See what
Speaker 1: they say. And then I left Beverly Hills and I
Speaker 1: was like, motherfucker, Like I can't look at my own
Speaker 1: face anymore. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta read Helter Skelter, the
Speaker 1: manga by Kyoko Okazaki that we just talked about. I will. Uh,
Speaker 1: somebody may have just found a pdf off it online.
Speaker 1: Oh really, Oh great, somebody it was my dad. We're
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break, welcome back. Maybe now it's
Speaker 1: a good time, actually to take a night call to
Speaker 1: talk about the rubicon of how this began, how we
Speaker 1: got here. Let's do it. Let's take this night call.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, this is Brooke a long time, long time
Speaker 1: really enjoying classic surgery months. Um, I've been rewatching the
Speaker 1: hill famously got ten surgeries done in one day, um,
Speaker 1: and now regrets it and has a lot of pain.
Speaker 1: But I think she is one of those people. I
Speaker 1: think she kind of marks this like demarcation between numerous
Speaker 1: surgical enhancements and sort of the objections, because when you
Speaker 1: think about people that have like really changed the way
Speaker 1: they look, kind of sense Heidi Montag, like someone like
Speaker 1: Bella Hadid. She's done it so piecemeal, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that she's done is more injection based
Speaker 1: as opposed to surgery. UM and Heidi, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think in a desperate attempt to be the star of
Speaker 1: the season, like did this like huge dramatic kind of
Speaker 1: like the fox that or Foxes like the Swan, like
Speaker 1: full body rehab thing. Um, and she was like pilloried
Speaker 1: for it, and ultimately like they left the show and
Speaker 1: we're kind of living in Danna Barbara and ob security
Speaker 1: like after the Hills until the new season. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I just think she's like a really interesting person in
Speaker 1: this story and UM loving living this month. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: by great question from our friend Bruck Baker, who um
Speaker 1: really really smart to bring up Heidi mont Tak. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think what happened is that this happened in two
Speaker 1: waves in the two thousands, and first there was the
Speaker 1: wave of people in their twenties and younger getting plastic
Speaker 1: surgery for things that were traditionally reserved for older women
Speaker 1: trying to look young. And then they became about like
Speaker 1: younger women trying to look like trans human. So at
Speaker 1: first it was kind of you know, like a like
Speaker 1: freakish I want to say it was like treated as
Speaker 1: a novelty and sort of you know something still that
Speaker 1: like very over the top people only were doing, and
Speaker 1: then it became normalized via Kylie Jenner. Then there was
Speaker 1: like a second wave with Kylie Jenner of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: everyone's gonna do this, maybe we're gonna acknowledge it, or
Speaker 1: maybe we're just gonna say we're overlining our lips with
Speaker 1: lip liner, And like Deny, a lot of people would
Speaker 1: be like, puberty is what made my lips get big? Suddenly.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me that people are still thinking about
Speaker 1: Heidi Montag. Montag was a blip for me. I mean
Speaker 1: it was it just seemed sad and then I moved on.
Speaker 1: But I was never that immersed in the hills. But
Speaker 1: I guess she was twenty three um and she I
Speaker 1: do remember her kind of like appearing on um, you know,
Speaker 1: the covers of magazines and stuff about ten years ago,
Speaker 1: talking about I think she had ten. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: start the list because it's like really like it's the
Speaker 1: first time I've ever heard of like a back scoop
Speaker 1: um um. It's like a thing. It's like I guess
Speaker 1: it's like kind of like, I guess a Brazilian without
Speaker 1: the um without the taking the fat and then putting
Speaker 1: it in your butt, like it's just you take you
Speaker 1: basically like I don't know, it's just like taking some
Speaker 1: of your back fat out so that you're like Coop
Speaker 1: but looks more pronounced or something. Um I need to
Speaker 1: find Okay she got, Okay, here's the list. This was
Speaker 1: a This is a spread in um People magazine at
Speaker 1: the time. Also, wait, didn't she have like a bunch
Speaker 1: in one day? It was all at once, It was
Speaker 1: all the way. So it was minni brow lift, boat
Speaker 1: talks in her forehead and frown area, nose job revision
Speaker 1: because she had already had a nose job, fat injections,
Speaker 1: and her cheeks, nasal labial folds and lips, chin reduction,
Speaker 1: neck lipos section, ears, pinned back, breast augmentation revision, LiPo
Speaker 1: section on her waist, hips in her and outer thighs,
Speaker 1: and a butt augmentation all at once. That's so dangerous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I she did have a lot of complications with it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Really she said that her heart stopped and they had
Speaker 1: to Yeah, yeah, I mean that. See. I think of
Speaker 1: that episode which I wrote the episode where she unveils
Speaker 1: her face and like she she goes home to her
Speaker 1: parents and like Colorado or whatever, and um, and like
Speaker 1: her mom sees her daughter like completely remade for the
Speaker 1: first time, and it's like it's truly one of these
Speaker 1: moments in that show. And there are many in that
Speaker 1: show where it's just like, Okay, I am watching a
Speaker 1: work of high art, like this is like I've never
Speaker 1: seen this happen before in any medium. Um. What was
Speaker 1: the reaction was her mom was really upset, but she
Speaker 1: was trying to make yeah, and she was trying to
Speaker 1: be nice about it. She was just like, well, if
Speaker 1: this is what makes you happy, but she was like
Speaker 1: crying and stuff, and it was just like it was
Speaker 1: really rough. Her mom's kind of normal. Her mom is
Speaker 1: not like a momager at all or even like an
Speaker 1: Orange County like housewife. I'm very like rich like Boulder types,
Speaker 1: rich religious people. It's funny, Like I think that the
Speaker 1: Heidi montage saying like, I also don't think of her
Speaker 1: very much at all or at all, but I think
Speaker 1: that it's funny she is. She was that sort of
Speaker 1: early precursor to both this idea that you know, it
Speaker 1: makes obvious practical sense in a too, in a very
Speaker 1: sort of unabashed open way, just modify your body according
Speaker 1: to whatever will make it more money, you know, And
Speaker 1: it also makes complete sense, you know, as an ordinary
Speaker 1: person to you know, use your own body and personality
Speaker 1: as a vehicle towards um like economic success, like like
Speaker 1: like she's so so ordinary that that the fact that
Speaker 1: she did both of those things, she was already like
Speaker 1: the bitch on a successful soap opera, you know, like
Speaker 1: she or she became the bitch when she did the
Speaker 1: plastic surgery because actually the thing about it that was
Speaker 1: concerning I think was also that it was like maybe
Speaker 1: Spencer's idea that was that was why I was always
Speaker 1: so repelled and maybe why I never let myself become
Speaker 1: interested in what was going on with her was that
Speaker 1: it just seemed like such a gross, toxic relationship and
Speaker 1: it didn't seem like I couldn't get interested in it
Speaker 1: if the dynamic was that it was just like two
Speaker 1: awful people and one of her was forcing the other
Speaker 1: tastic to turn in the shows her rent like when
Speaker 1: she gets with Spencer, her friends are like, we don't
Speaker 1: like this guy. We think he's bad for you. And
Speaker 1: then she's just like in it so deep immediately that
Speaker 1: there's nothing they can do, and then they are together
Speaker 1: forever and uh still together now. But she came out
Speaker 1: later and said she regretted it. She had a lot
Speaker 1: of them undone. She said it was like a terrible idea. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think, yeah, Heidi Kim Kardashian obviously. I mean
Speaker 1: the thing about Heidi that I feel like is kind
Speaker 1: of pretty different from the kind of work that a
Speaker 1: lot of people her age at that time are getting
Speaker 1: now is that I don't know what she's emulating other
Speaker 1: than like Barbie or like you know, Anna Anderson or
Speaker 1: something in Courtney Stotton and people that's like a very
Speaker 1: specific type of person. Not gonna say it's l a
Speaker 1: specific although obviously, you know, like the good version is Angeline,
Speaker 1: Like she this idea of you know, or Marilyn Monroe,
Speaker 1: just the idea of like, yeah, use what you have
Speaker 1: augmented a little bit and then make yourself like a
Speaker 1: vehicle for selling glamour on your own term. In a way,
Speaker 1: that's why it doesn't seem as insidious to me, because
Speaker 1: it's like this came out of somebody's like imagination and
Speaker 1: had very little to do with peer pressure. I wanted
Speaker 1: to throw it to Gia about that because when you
Speaker 1: look at the pictures of Heidi Montag it's there's a
Speaker 1: kind of dated nous just in terms of comparing it
Speaker 1: to Instagram phase and Gia like, when you started noticing
Speaker 1: this kind of homogeney in in the look, like the aesthetic?
Speaker 1: Have you been able to unsee it? Is part one
Speaker 1: and part two like are you starting to notice a shift?
Speaker 1: Are you noticing like an evolution of that look? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it will continue to shift because
Speaker 1: the thing about Instagram face that's so uncanny is it
Speaker 1: it's so gradual. It's like the celeb face things where
Speaker 1: you can't where Sometimes even if you see a picture
Speaker 1: being photoshop before your eyes, you can't tell which is
Speaker 1: the fur and which is the after. Sometimes you can't
Speaker 1: even see the change. You just know that their face
Speaker 1: looks different. And I think in the difference like the
Speaker 1: real evolution from Heidi Montage two or whatever to this
Speaker 1: sort of thing is that you know that was all
Speaker 1: at once, everything in a day with the Gardashians, right,
Speaker 1: It's it's over the course of four or five years,
Speaker 1: and even their doctor said to me, like talking about
Speaker 1: them specifically, like he was like, you know, my most
Speaker 1: famous clients, you will not be able to tell the
Speaker 1: difference between you know, before and after a visit or
Speaker 1: even month to month. It's just over years that you
Speaker 1: can tell a difference. And and so it's built in
Speaker 1: that it always it's a it's a like it makes
Speaker 1: it more insidious in terms of with the Courtney Staddon
Speaker 1: Heidi Montage thing, it's like, right, you have this one
Speaker 1: idea and it's Marilyn Monroe, right, it's bombshell pin up
Speaker 1: like Jessica Rabbit, hyperd Blade whatever. With these things, it's
Speaker 1: this continually shifting cyborg. Right. It's like the the ideal
Speaker 1: itself is being collectively create did and then continually altered
Speaker 1: in real time, both by face tune and by fillers
Speaker 1: and botox, and both of those things just keep building
Speaker 1: against each other. And I think the ideal will shift
Speaker 1: based on a sort of almost collective voting right way
Speaker 1: of um Instagram likes and sponsorships like whatever, wait, whatever
Speaker 1: face performs the best, that's what. And I think it
Speaker 1: will kind of shift a little bits. But I think
Speaker 1: I mean The thing that really got about another difference
Speaker 1: between the Montag look and the whatever we're seeing now
Speaker 1: is that one of the things I find most um
Speaker 1: disturbing about today's beauty ideal, like the Glossier whatever vibe,
Speaker 1: is that it's it's a sort of performative natural nous,
Speaker 1: right like bear skin you know, yeah, bear skin you know,
Speaker 1: eating Like, yeah, you just pump all of this, like
Speaker 1: you pump all of these chemicals and all of this
Speaker 1: money in to your sort of diet and wellness and
Speaker 1: skincer so that you can give off this like very
Speaker 1: faux natural aesthetic. And I think like the way in
Speaker 1: which you know this it's it's it's deliberately it's both
Speaker 1: like deliberately on canny and also supposed to be this
Speaker 1: very sort of clean, you know, probably healthy like interesting
Speaker 1: thing too, it's like like you know, eating clean and
Speaker 1: also putting botulism in your face. Yeah, and and those
Speaker 1: things are and and both of them kind of dovetail
Speaker 1: under this like you know bullshit like girl bless idea
Speaker 1: that you know, whatever you do to live your best
Speaker 1: life is good and both of those things qualified or
Speaker 1: anything a woman does this feminism, yeah, especially anything that
Speaker 1: makes her money right, or like makes you happy or
Speaker 1: makes your perform better on Instagram right, And that the
Speaker 1: hiding Montague thing is like a jackhammer to a piece
Speaker 1: of marble, and this is more like you can tell yourself.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, you're chiseling away. The doctors presented like
Speaker 1: going to the gym, I'm and that's what they you know,
Speaker 1: like because I asked them about Instagram face, you know,
Speaker 1: and I interviewed one of them like as myself and
Speaker 1: not as an undercover patient and um, and he was like, listen,
Speaker 1: you know we it's no longer sort of a shameful
Speaker 1: thing to you know, want to be happy in your body.
Speaker 1: And I was like, you know, my eyes are despiraling,
Speaker 1: because I was just like deeply in despair. And then
Speaker 1: because like Kylie came out about it eventually, she was like,
Speaker 1: I've had some stuff done. The Kardashians are all still
Speaker 1: really squorely on like what specifically they've had done, even
Speaker 1: though the human eye can tell, you know, from looking
Speaker 1: at them. But yeah, I think what you were saying
Speaker 1: about it being an arms race especially, so it's like
Speaker 1: any time a new procedure is invented, and it's like
Speaker 1: any tech thing where they're like constantly like on the
Speaker 1: bleeding edge, trying to come up with new things to
Speaker 1: sell people. So it's like I personally will learn about
Speaker 1: something that I didn't know people did to their faces,
Speaker 1: and then I won't be able to stop seeing it.
Speaker 1: There's so many new things out lift which people say
Speaker 1: allegedly Ariana Grande has had that makes her look very
Speaker 1: entirely and everybody um. And the other one is the
Speaker 1: the eye threading thing where people because also Bella Hadid
Speaker 1: was like photoshopping her eyes into a cat I before
Speaker 1: she did that, they would point it out on selub
Speaker 1: face that she was like photoshopping her eyes like up
Speaker 1: a little bit um and it looks like when actresses
Speaker 1: do that. It's called like the Hollywood facelift where you
Speaker 1: just like pin your face back tape. That's what it
Speaker 1: looks like, which doesn't remind me of Brazil. It's the
Speaker 1: subtle Brazil. Is this like a thread lift on your eyes?
Speaker 1: Is that what it is? Yeah, it's a lift on
Speaker 1: your eyes, and Bella Hadid did it. But like now again,
Speaker 1: like now that I have seen it, I can't stop
Speaker 1: seeing it. Yeah, there's a thing called one of my friends,
Speaker 1: Um who used to work in beautypr and like fully
Speaker 1: does Instagram face to herself. She always like, we always
Speaker 1: send her pictures of like, you know, like Jared Kushner
Speaker 1: looks super whack these days, like you know, mobile text
Speaker 1: pictures of like Jared Kushner or Joe Biden or you
Speaker 1: know this new adel face and you know, like be
Speaker 1: like tell us what, tell us what they got. And
Speaker 1: she was and she was telling me about this thing
Speaker 1: called boogle fat removal. You all know about that. We
Speaker 1: talked about it. Yeah it's so And I looked at
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, yeah, it's but she said
Speaker 1: she ate a lot of japanesewee potatoes in her face change.
Speaker 1: I remember that we were talking about too, because we
Speaker 1: were saying, like, because we all wrapped for like the
Speaker 1: Round Face Crew, It's oh yeah, it's like having that
Speaker 1: done makes you look it doesn't. It like doesn't make
Speaker 1: you look more youthful. It makes you look like more
Speaker 1: high fashion in this way that it's like more of
Speaker 1: a smoker, like you look like an as twin. It
Speaker 1: also makes you look sad because it kind of unless
Speaker 1: you do something to fix the fact that it drags
Speaker 1: your face down a little, like it drags the corners
Speaker 1: of your mouth down unless you have something to pat
Speaker 1: it and keep it up. Um. After we wrapped last week,
Speaker 1: I was like, now I'm going to be thinking about
Speaker 1: removal for the rest of my life. It's also like
Speaker 1: it targets insecure people obviously, but like I've known people
Speaker 1: who aren't, like the most insecure person who, like you said, Jia,
Speaker 1: it's like you go in and then they just like
Speaker 1: look at your face and they're like, m you know
Speaker 1: what you should do? And like, even if you are
Speaker 1: a person who is comfortable with your face at this point,
Speaker 1: it's like just having someone be like, you know what
Speaker 1: would make your face look better and suggesting it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's really crazy, like especially if with UM clinics
Speaker 1: that serve Asian people too, there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that's assumed that you want because everybody wants it if
Speaker 1: they're Asian, and the Boogle fat remover is one of
Speaker 1: those things because you know, Asian people tend to have
Speaker 1: full their faces, not necessarily always, but a lot you know,
Speaker 1: uh eyelid stuff, um, you know naso labial stuff that
Speaker 1: all ends up like that, that stuff that's just like,
Speaker 1: well you could you know, that's just like assumed that
Speaker 1: in the battery of things you might be going in
Speaker 1: for that you would want that if you're Asian, which
Speaker 1: is just you know, a whole other layer of it
Speaker 1: to me thinking about these procedures, because I mean there
Speaker 1: was of course, like after there was a part of
Speaker 1: me that was like, well, if if my looks were
Speaker 1: directly connected to my livelihood, i'd probably get this ship.
Speaker 1: Like after talking to them, they were like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: a couple of thousand dollars like last for a year,
Speaker 1: you know, I would like, I'm like, maybe I would
Speaker 1: put that on a credit card. I was really thinking
Speaker 1: about that. Gia had to leave. She had a little
Speaker 1: bit of a technical difficulty. So we're sorry for the
Speaker 1: abrupt ending. But you can find her book Trick Mirror
Speaker 1: and all of her other writing on her website gia
Speaker 1: dot blog, and you can find out where to purchase
Speaker 1: her book and all sorts of other good stuff. So
Speaker 1: we are so glad that she came by this week.
Speaker 1: This was great. Um, we're gonna take a quick break
Speaker 1: and when we come back, it's time to take our
Speaker 1: faces off. Welcome back tonight. Call a podcast for Taking
Speaker 1: Your Face Off. It's plastic surgery, April. What better plastic
Speaker 1: surgery classic to dive into than John Wu's Face Off,
Speaker 1: the movie where two people get facial facial taken off surgery,
Speaker 1: they got face swapped two people. Feels like it's under
Speaker 1: selling it when the people that you're speaking of our
Speaker 1: John Travolta and Nick Cage, like, I feel like they're
Speaker 1: they're like demigods, They're like on another level. And is
Speaker 1: it true you had not seen seen Face Off before?
Speaker 1: How did you miss it? Um? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it's just when these I
Speaker 1: feel like, this is a movie you see you with
Speaker 1: a bunch of friends in college and like a somewhat
Speaker 1: rambunctious setting where there might be some substances UH enjoyed
Speaker 1: or something. I never sure I saw it with my parents. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. This feels to me, like I this
Speaker 1: feels to me like the kind of movie that I
Speaker 1: now know, like the kinds of jokes a lot of
Speaker 1: my like high school and college like guy friends would
Speaker 1: make a lot and it's all kind of based out
Speaker 1: of this. But it was sort of weird to see
Speaker 1: the Rosetta Stone. Finally, I mean this movie is is justified,
Speaker 1: like the hype around it is justified because it is
Speaker 1: um super crazy, um fucking rules. Yeah. I love John
Speaker 1: Woo and I love the John Woo Hollywood movies. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about it because I watched Birds of Prey recently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, it's like the best action movie, best
Speaker 1: like superhero movie definitely, but also the best like action
Speaker 1: sequence is I've seen a long time. And then I
Speaker 1: read it was because they were doing a lot of
Speaker 1: Hong Kong style fight choreography. Um, and Face Off also
Speaker 1: just sort of was one of the first movies. I
Speaker 1: feel like that brought that kind of fight choreography into
Speaker 1: American brains, American brains that didn't watch martial arts movies
Speaker 1: already and Chinese action movies. Um. But you know it's, um,
Speaker 1: it's a perfect movie. It's basically like Death Becomes Her
Speaker 1: but with men. It's also though it's like it is
Speaker 1: I think Molly you may have said, it's like it's operatic.
Speaker 1: It is the most heightened emotional movie. I've never seen
Speaker 1: anything that jumps off from the point of like that
Speaker 1: elevated kind of like hysteria and only goes up from there.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole movie feels like a trailer, which
Speaker 1: I feel like the John Mouse style where everything is
Speaker 1: just high, like everything is punctuated with like seven exclamation points,
Speaker 1: which is yeah, but it's also I think I think
Speaker 1: it's partially due to the fact that if you're an actor,
Speaker 1: especially if you're an actor like Nick Cage or John Travolta,
Speaker 1: You've got to show up to that movie being so
Speaker 1: excited to get to do this, like it's a dream
Speaker 1: or yeah, why don't we explain the setup in case you,
Speaker 1: like Emily, haven't seen Face Off and to believe that
Speaker 1: anyone else hasn't seen Face Off. My Face Off story
Speaker 1: is that I saw a face Off with some other
Speaker 1: friends parents. This is another story like Death Becomes Her,
Speaker 1: where somebody else's parents took me to see a movie
Speaker 1: my parents would have probably thought was too scary for me,
Speaker 1: even though I was in the seventh grade. They would
Speaker 1: have just thought it was like super violent. So I
Speaker 1: saw it. I loved it, like I did anytime I
Speaker 1: got to see an R rated movie. And then I
Speaker 1: came home and I was like, Mom, Dad, we have
Speaker 1: to see this movie Face Off and just saw it.
Speaker 1: I want to see it again. You got to see
Speaker 1: it with me, and we went to see it the
Speaker 1: next day. Um, and my parents after we came out
Speaker 1: of it, were like, that was so violent. Why did
Speaker 1: we let you see this? And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I told you we were trying to see it. Maybe
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have let your parents see it. They obviously
Speaker 1: couldn't handle it. Definitely, just like one of those moments
Speaker 1: where I was like, I am differentiating myself in taste
Speaker 1: from my parents being into like, you know, just violent.
Speaker 1: So the plot if you have kids kids, So John
Speaker 1: Travolta plays um Shawn Archer. He's an FBI agent who
Speaker 1: is has been basically like destroyed, you know, by the
Speaker 1: fact that his son was killed by a terrorist, Nick Cage.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember Shawn Archer. No wait, so the
Speaker 1: and the deal Like Also, it's like he has a
Speaker 1: brother who's like Pollocks Troy. There's so many things in
Speaker 1: this but any really high our movie. It has references
Speaker 1: to ancient Rome that's super high brow. So Travolta is
Speaker 1: trying to like, you know, find and catch Cage. And
Speaker 1: Nick Cage has recently planted a bomb where do you
Speaker 1: plant the bombs Angeles Convention Center? The convention Center, there's
Speaker 1: so many good locations. Yeah, I've recently I've been seeing
Speaker 1: maybe because I've been watching all these nineties movies, I've
Speaker 1: been seeing the l a convention center in a ton
Speaker 1: of movies, and I've seen it filling as airports a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Also, they were talking about turning
Speaker 1: it into a shelter, yeah VENTI latter hospital, although that
Speaker 1: has not happened, which is stupid. Uh. Yeah, they should
Speaker 1: definitely could use it for a lot more things than
Speaker 1: they do, but apparently they're too busy using it. They
Speaker 1: might still be using it for anime x XPO, which
Speaker 1: is still like the only con that hasn't been canceled,
Speaker 1: just somewhere it has then their avatar. Um So anyway,
Speaker 1: travilled just trying to catch Cage then to find this
Speaker 1: like biological weapon and also just like fuck him up
Speaker 1: because Nick Cage's character killed his son, and so they
Speaker 1: decide that like the bust, can someone else help me?
Speaker 1: I'm like trying to dig through it, and I'm like
Speaker 1: talk about the fucking boat. No of course, um so
Speaker 1: he um tries too hard to describe. Wait, you're talking
Speaker 1: about which part? No, it's just to get like how
Speaker 1: do they get I forget, how do they get to
Speaker 1: getting their face? She wants to go undercover in the
Speaker 1: PRIs Nick cave because he the only person who's alive
Speaker 1: who would know how to defuse the bomb is his
Speaker 1: brother calls, and the only person he would talk to
Speaker 1: would be his brother. So naturally, the only thing to
Speaker 1: do is for somebody to surgically take Nick Cage's face
Speaker 1: castor Troy's face and put it on their bodies so
Speaker 1: that they can pose as him. M. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: and of course the person who has to do this
Speaker 1: is Sean whatever his face is Sean tv Um, so
Speaker 1: he undergoes the the surgery. I was shrieking at the
Speaker 1: at the screen because it's so like I don't even
Speaker 1: know anything about science, and I was like, this seems
Speaker 1: really stupid. The order of operations doesn't matter. That's why
Speaker 1: that's I think, there's so much like every single scene
Speaker 1: in this movie contains like all of these like distracting
Speaker 1: crazy things and plot, and everyone's like screaming and crying
Speaker 1: like an upset and then like diabolical. It's so that's
Speaker 1: why it's so great. It's just like it's like a
Speaker 1: bunch of it's a genre mash, it's like a bunch
Speaker 1: of different genres. So uh, Sean Archer gets Castor Troy's face.
Speaker 1: Castor Troy is theoretically knocked out, but then he comes
Speaker 1: to and demands that he'd be given which is just
Speaker 1: like face. It's sitting around and he doesn't have a face,
Speaker 1: but it makes sense. It's like even if even he's
Speaker 1: such a like horrible villain, but if you see someone
Speaker 1: with like no face and there's a face city right
Speaker 1: there to so you know, he says, I want to
Speaker 1: take his face off. At some point the highlight of
Speaker 1: the movie, Um, they switch faces. What you need to
Speaker 1: know is that character Castor Troy is like a lecterous,
Speaker 1: insane person. Yes, and that Sean Archer. John Travolta's character
Speaker 1: is a family man, good man, and his daughter is
Speaker 1: Dominique Swain, who is a wayward teen and is so good.
Speaker 1: It's so good playing a wayward teen wearing some brown lipstick.
Speaker 1: The makeup is so specific. There's a really good line
Speaker 1: where he's like, if you dress up like it's Halloween
Speaker 1: all the time, you're just gonna get tools trying to
Speaker 1: get in your pants, which is like, yes, yes, please.
Speaker 1: His wife is Pat Nixon. I believe I thought she
Speaker 1: was Joe and Allen, Joan Allen, who was acting in
Speaker 1: a different movie. She's in a Sundance movie. She played
Speaker 1: Pat Nixon in the Nixon movie, so I just always
Speaker 1: think of her as Pat Nixon. But yeah, it's also
Speaker 1: like she's definitely in a different movie. She's supposed to
Speaker 1: be the hot wife, but she's like playing it very psychologically.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, she's playing it the same way that
Speaker 1: she played her character in the Ice Storm. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: in a way it's good because she's kind of like
Speaker 1: an audience stand in. She's just like so down in
Speaker 1: the normal emotional range that you're like, wow, this is
Speaker 1: really off the rails. Like Joan Allen's kind of looking
Speaker 1: around like should I let my husband touch me? It
Speaker 1: seems like everyone's kind of crazy stranger in the house now.
Speaker 1: And his name is Sean Arch with the body with
Speaker 1: the soul of castor Troy the body and without without
Speaker 1: that tell tale scar. It's not very explained how their
Speaker 1: bodies are also switched, because they're definitely like different. They
Speaker 1: said the doctor. I think at one point is like,
Speaker 1: you guys have like pretty similar bodies, and it's like, no,
Speaker 1: they don't, but he does some like doesn't he do
Speaker 1: some light work on their bodies? And then yeah there's
Speaker 1: the bullet enough, Yeah good enough, good enough to spend
Speaker 1: the disbelief everybody. So then of course Castor Troy is
Speaker 1: really Sean Archer goes undercover at the jail. It's like
Speaker 1: a super jail. It's called Boots arra one, which made
Speaker 1: me think because it was supposed to be like the
Speaker 1: prison that nobody knows where it is because it's nowhere backwards,
Speaker 1: and like, is this where they got the idea for
Speaker 1: the grocery store from the prison from Face Off? Because
Speaker 1: if so, I love it that all of a sudden
Speaker 1: that just improved standing Free dates Face Off And it
Speaker 1: comes from a like a novel called Arajuan that's about
Speaker 1: an imaginary like Utopia. Oh boring. I wanted. I wanted
Speaker 1: the founders of Arijuana to be huge John Wu fans,
Speaker 1: but they are low Kia cult so so um. He
Speaker 1: goes to the super jail. He finds his brother, who's
Speaker 1: very weird. I such a crush on Alexandra Novola in
Speaker 1: this movie. Wait, what really such a type for me,
Speaker 1: like weird, wiry, like I'm so not surprised by the
Speaker 1: nineties guy with like a blur haircut, and he's like, hello, brother, brother, brother,
Speaker 1: And then they escape from the jail um and go
Speaker 1: to a super sick party where Gina Gershawn is there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's and she's in the same movie as she's not
Speaker 1: in Joan Allen's movie. She's always knows, she always knows
Speaker 1: what movie she's in. She's very good at that. She
Speaker 1: just showed up on melrose Place and she knows what
Speaker 1: show she's on there as well. God bless yes. Um,
Speaker 1: I forget what happens after that. So okay, Gina gershon
Speaker 1: was Castor Troy's girlfriend and they have a son. And
Speaker 1: that's like another weird thing that comes in where it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, Archer and Troy both had sons, but Nick
Speaker 1: Cage took John travolt does, And now John Travolta, what's
Speaker 1: he gonna do with the kids? Isn't the son played
Speaker 1: by the same actor too, like a kid actor John
Speaker 1: Travolta sons. So he's like sees so and he gets
Speaker 1: all overwhelmed. I know that's crazy. I don't know, or
Speaker 1: maybe like that's just the Moppett kind of hairstyle at
Speaker 1: every child actor had in the nineties ninetie boy. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, oh and she's like also Gina Gershawn is
Speaker 1: also like the sister of his drug dealer. But like,
Speaker 1: are they like kiss on the mouth? Are they? Also?
Speaker 1: Is she having a thing with her brother too? There's
Speaker 1: a lot of incest vibes in this movie. Yeah, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course there's one really uncomfortable scene everyone will recall immediately.
Speaker 1: Um where uh Sean Archer who's really castor Troy like
Speaker 1: kind of hits on his daughter. It's so gross. I mean,
Speaker 1: but that's but that's why I love this movie. Is
Speaker 1: like it just won't spare you. It's like, you're here,
Speaker 1: you want to see a movie or not? Yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: this is a movie. Yeah, you will be fucking entertained
Speaker 1: by this movie. Um. I do know that face transfers
Speaker 1: really do exist, but they don't work like this at all.
Speaker 1: What's what's cool is that I am dB trivia for
Speaker 1: Face Off included the nugget that the first real life
Speaker 1: phase transplant was accomplished in on Richard nor Is, who
Speaker 1: had accidentally shot himself in the face with a shotgun
Speaker 1: the same year the movie came out The Bizarre. Do
Speaker 1: you think the movie made him be like, there's hope,
Speaker 1: Like what what do I have to lose? Just my face? Maybe? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He do you think after he saw the movie he
Speaker 1: was like, I'll just wait until this technology is invented.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. No, but but phase transplants. I
Speaker 1: remember hearing about face transplants like a while ago and
Speaker 1: going on a deep dive of the face transplants and
Speaker 1: how it's like, I mean, it's it's that that's just
Speaker 1: like a very very sad, horrible thing. But also it
Speaker 1: makes you think, like that's what plastic surgery is, like
Speaker 1: that I can save lives. So there's things that like
Speaker 1: plastic surgery is legitimately needed for. There's of course, like
Speaker 1: and especially yeah, that's amazing you can give somebody a
Speaker 1: new face. But it's really I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I wonder how far they'll be able to come with that,
Speaker 1: because right now it's it's nowhere near face off technology.
Speaker 1: I'll say that I was freaking myself out last night
Speaker 1: doing some of the Instagram filters. Do you guys ever
Speaker 1: do that? No? I did for a while, and then
Speaker 1: I was just like, I don't know if this. I
Speaker 1: think I'm too old for this. There's just all kinds
Speaker 1: of weird ones. Now you know that makes you look
Speaker 1: very like a York cover. Um, but a lot of
Speaker 1: them do you just sort of like change your face
Speaker 1: in a way that you were like, it makes you
Speaker 1: feel weird? But didn't you didn't you once postulate Molly
Speaker 1: that they were just trying to get you to like
Speaker 1: give enough angles and spend enough time under that case
Speaker 1: that they were like stealing your face. Face off. They're
Speaker 1: definitely also stealing your face. But that's like what all
Speaker 1: social media is for, so why not have fun? This
Speaker 1: is some fun. I want to do it. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: some of it. I was doing something because Emily posted
Speaker 1: a really good vampire selfie. Yeah, accomplished just with makeup.
Speaker 1: But then I was like, oh, I bet there's some
Speaker 1: good vampire filters and I looked it up and they're
Speaker 1: really good vampire filters, but like they'll make your eyes
Speaker 1: red for example, Um, and some of them have fangs
Speaker 1: where if you open your mouth there's fangs. You know,
Speaker 1: it is cool, but then like some of them were
Speaker 1: also just like really creepy, you know, um horror core,
Speaker 1: and I just kind of was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a fun disassociated experience experience. If you guys
Speaker 1: could have anyone else's face, if you had to do
Speaker 1: a face off and you could swop faces with somebody,
Speaker 1: who would you face swap with? Oh that's such a
Speaker 1: good question. I mean did they have to be alive
Speaker 1: so that you can take their face? And did they
Speaker 1: take your face? Or it's just like hypothetically so we
Speaker 1: can three D print their face, Oh okay, and like
Speaker 1: grafted onto your face the way that they put like
Speaker 1: teeth on top of teeth for famous people. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: really liked all the faces and where the boys are.
Speaker 1: I was like, they've all got great faces. I might
Speaker 1: take one of their faces. Yeah, I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: hard for me to. I can't really think of anybody
Speaker 1: or I would actually want their face, um, other than
Speaker 1: like any number of the like Instagram face girls that
Speaker 1: Gia was talking about with that or just be like
Speaker 1: kind of interesting to be a hot for a second,
Speaker 1: but you want that? Would you want like the era
Speaker 1: face or would you want you could go from any era?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I mean I I literally have
Speaker 1: my choices. I mean, you know the one that I
Speaker 1: would do. I would probably do the one that feels
Speaker 1: like the only celebrity uh comparison I've ever had, because
Speaker 1: then it wouldn't be that weird, I feel like. But
Speaker 1: but in speaking of York, I would like take a
Speaker 1: young York's face, which is like, you already look exactly already,
Speaker 1: so like that's the thing. I would just like want
Speaker 1: to look more like your Molly Who's face would you take? Oh? Really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I wouldn't that be fun? I mean he's got such
Speaker 1: an interesting well oh for a day it was permanent. Well,
Speaker 1: that's I would take. I would be like in Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones and take everyone's face on a different day,
Speaker 1: would be swapping them out, remember, and returned to Oz
Speaker 1: when she has all the different faces. That's one thing
Speaker 1: I think about, though, is like, because Instagram face is
Speaker 1: like one thing, and the whole thing about like beauty
Speaker 1: is that it's multifarious in some way, and you can't
Speaker 1: be every type of hot. You know, even if you're
Speaker 1: a Betty, there's always going to be a Veronica, So
Speaker 1: I always think about, like, yeah, it's just like what
Speaker 1: when when when we get to the point where people
Speaker 1: can like swap out their face for like a variety
Speaker 1: of slightly different faces. Well interesting you should say this
Speaker 1: because our night call listener, Evan wrote us an email
Speaker 1: and said, no magic movie science could explain how John
Speaker 1: traveled does giant face was going to fit on Nick
Speaker 1: Cage's regular sized head and vice versa, And then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you have to think about, like how
Speaker 1: a face would fit on your head? H yeah, because
Speaker 1: you have like this movie takes for granted that people
Speaker 1: have different skeletons or like the people don't have the
Speaker 1: same skeleton. Um, yeah, because it doesn't like your face.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't just be able to slap one face onto
Speaker 1: the other, like people's skulls are totally different. You'd really
Speaker 1: only be able to do it with your twin And
Speaker 1: then what would be the point unless one of you
Speaker 1: got disfigured. And now I've turned this into not fun
Speaker 1: well a thing that what we were talking about, like
Speaker 1: the weird like making yourself feel weird by doing Instagram
Speaker 1: like the weird art Instagram fillers like or if filters
Speaker 1: rather like there are, Yeah, but like I feel like
Speaker 1: that's one of the fun things about about Face Off
Speaker 1: is like this sort of weird, not quite magic thing
Speaker 1: that happens with the face where it's like like Sean
Speaker 1: particularly like he's like wearing the face of the person
Speaker 1: that he hates, and so every time he looks in
Speaker 1: the mirror, he's like, I want to kill you because
Speaker 1: like looks like the guy he hates most. Um, but
Speaker 1: I I just and and then it kind of like
Speaker 1: he kind of ends up inhabiting the character because he
Speaker 1: like that's the person that he sees in the mirror.
Speaker 1: I like that that stuff that much, Like it's like
Speaker 1: persona in some way. Total it's like, what does make
Speaker 1: you unique as a person? Like? Who are you? Actually?
Speaker 1: If you change your face, do you become the person
Speaker 1: whose face you have, the way that people in horror stories,
Speaker 1: like Inherit the personality of the heart transplant. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well there's also the fact that they when they swap
Speaker 1: faces and face off, they start to adapt each other's
Speaker 1: patterns of speech, which I think is you're meant to
Speaker 1: just not really think about the fact that a larynx
Speaker 1: um like a box that changes your voice, wouldn't change
Speaker 1: the way you express yourself. But but I guess it
Speaker 1: also makes you. It makes you wonder like, is it
Speaker 1: because your face has more to do with how you
Speaker 1: express yourself and communicate? Then you might assume is there
Speaker 1: some kind of like secret sauce there. I think it's
Speaker 1: because they're trying to passes each other, so they're like
Speaker 1: adopting each other's speech mannerism. No, no, they are, but
Speaker 1: then there are times when they're like kind of talking
Speaker 1: to each other or whatever where they wouldn't have to,
Speaker 1: but you know they do. I will say John Travolta
Speaker 1: does a really good Nick Cage impression in this. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's like a very low key great for four people.
Speaker 1: It's it's a fucking incredible performance. These are like to
Speaker 1: such great performances. And yeah, that's the thing is like
Speaker 1: the face off, like the surgery is a mcguffin. You know,
Speaker 1: it just like doesn't matter at all. It just allows
Speaker 1: you to set up this thing that's a body swap comedy. Basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: as a as a cool action thriller, we also really funny.
Speaker 1: We also have a minor mystery um that a listener
Speaker 1: wrote in about listener Craig wrote, I seem to remember
Speaker 1: a face Off game for PC, but I can find
Speaker 1: no evidence of it. I think it was maybe web
Speaker 1: based or a demo disc. The only gameplay I recall
Speaker 1: was a level escaping the prison with the magnetic boots.
Speaker 1: Curious if this will ring a bell with any listeners.
Speaker 1: I have no recollection of this, um, but I didn't
Speaker 1: want to. But if anyone knows about a face Off
Speaker 1: CD rom, give us a nightcall at two four oh
Speaker 1: four or six night. It's probably a good time to
Speaker 1: wrap up our little face Off chat. Any last thoughts
Speaker 1: on Face Off? Well, I'm glad I finally watched it. Um.
Speaker 1: It is like fits in right, like very well with
Speaker 1: all the stuff I've been watching during the quarantine. So
Speaker 1: shout out to pigeons flying away during gunfire. Shout out
Speaker 1: to peaches. I could eat a peach for Oh God,
Speaker 1: I hate to see you go, but I love to
Speaker 1: watch as always. I love like a line about kind
Speaker 1: of lingus is the line that they test his new
Speaker 1: voice on, because that's the one he has to like
Speaker 1: say over and over and over again while they're calibrating
Speaker 1: his voice. It's a perfect movie. You guys. Well, we
Speaker 1: will be back next week with more plastic surgery April. Um.
Speaker 1: It feels like months are going on both for a
Speaker 1: very long time and going by very quickly, but we
Speaker 1: are still in plastic surgery April. So if you have
Speaker 1: any thoughts on plastic surgery faces in general taking faces off,
Speaker 1: give us a call at to four oh four six
Speaker 1: night or you can email us at Night Call Podcast
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. Also, if you're enjoying the pod,
Speaker 1: please don't forget to subscribe and review and all that stuff. Uh.
Speaker 1: We are on Facebook at Night Call Podcast, Instagram at
Speaker 1: Nightcall Podcast, Twitter at Nightcall Pod. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening and we will see you next week. And
Speaker 1: you can also subscribe to our Patreon at patreon dot
Speaker 1: com slash Nightcall where we just put up another bonus
Speaker 1: episode on Helter Skelter by Yoko Kazaki, so check that out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and thanks for I Guess this week, Gia Tolentino. If
Speaker 1: you've got any more questions about Instagram Face, we'd love
Speaker 1: to know them. But also it's why to May after that,
Speaker 1: so start preparing your two thousand based quarries and we'll
Speaker 1: see you soon. M