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So who boycotted and who just didn’t get invited? Yes, we’re rounding out the Met Gala gossip with a rundown of protests (SJP?), basic-b*tch heartbreak (Hugh & Sutton) and bathroom selfies (alllll the hot ones).
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Plus, who actually won in the finally-finished court battle of Lively vs Baldoni vs Lively?
And what James Valentine’s Year Of Living Gratefully taught us about living (and dying) well.
And, Cameron Diaz is a mum again at 53 and no-one is calling it a 'miracle!' Have we turned a page on older parents’ double standards?
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What to read:
Blake Lively just got the last laugh at the Met Gala.
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have just settled their lawsuit. The timing says everything.
Cameron Diaz quit Hollywood for 10 years. When she returned, she noticed one major difference.
'As a fashion editor, I urgently need to discuss these 9 Met Gala looks in excruciating detail.'
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AUTO GENERATED TRANSCRIPT:

Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Wednesday, sixth of May. I'm Holly Wainwright and the first thing I'm going to do, the first order of business, very simple out louder is if you love your show, please vote for us in the upcoming Australian Audio Awards as a People's Choice category. It's really straightforward. We're going to put a link in the show notes, We're probably going to put it on social We're going to put it everywhere. We would love your support to help us get there. That is the end of my manifesto for the day.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I just would like to say as a lazy girl that there are all these things to fill out.
Speaker 3: You only have to fill us out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't have to do everything is just tick Mama Mia out Loud.
Speaker 3: So important for the lazy girls out there, and as as a bossy girl, I just concur with Holly. I know you can make that ask of people, and I think that's a great step towards greet our self assertive.
Speaker 1: I'm growing, I'm growing, Amelia Growing. I'm Amelia Lester and I'm Claire Stephen and here's what's made our agenda for today. So now that it's all over and many damning text messages scatter the ruins of what was the biggest celebrity story for a couple of years, Just who did win in the whole? Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni court case drama.
Speaker 3: Plus Cameron Diaz is a mother again at fifty three, and Holly has some thoughts.
Speaker 2: And veteran broadcaster James Valentine filmed the last year of his life for the ABC, and between a living wake and his openness around voluntary assisted dying, he's opened a conversation around what it means to die a good death.
Speaker 1: But first, Amelia Lester, the Mecgala.
Speaker 3: Did it feel different this year? A lot of people said that it did. Amy Odell, a fashion writer, wrote in her background newsletter that the Metgala was all money, no soul, and she wasn't alone in this criticism. Basically, people are saying that because Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez Bezos sponsored the event, it just started to feel a little craven, a little gross, and less fun than it used to be. So there were a lot of protests in New York. In the lead up to the event, they were all centered around Amazon's labor practices, its environmental damage. And then there are those who say, no, that's not true. The mech color's always been about rich people giving their money towards a good cause, which is the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute. And look, they did raise a lot of money on Monday night. The Bezos has bought the event for about ten million dollars, but then the event itself raised about forty one million. This is US dollars, which is a lot for this event. It's apparently kind of record breaking. So are we just complaining about nothing, Holly? Do you feel like celebrities stayed away? Did they agree that this was a sort of off event this year?
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you a list of the celebrities who people say boycotted, because none of the people so far who everyone is saying has boycott had actually verbalized that they were boycott.
Speaker 3: Well, we are boycotted, which we just had to take a stand because.
Speaker 1: I do feel a little bit like what soul when you said it's all money those salt like, I do feel a bit that I don't think this is the first year. It has been pointed out in the culture, particularly since trump Ism and all those things, that this feels very hunger games. Yes, yes, and I know although there's a more direct link here, you know, with the Bezos is buying it. I do feel like Jeff sort of bought it for Lauren as a gift, which is a nice gift. Nice, but it feels more avert. So anyway, let's look at this because when I was watching it on Tuesday and then I did a subscriber episode with me as straight afterwards, I was like, well, all the celebrities are there, like Beyonce's there. All the famous people I was expecting to be there were there.
Speaker 2: Well, actually a lot of famous feom we didn't expect to be there were there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then it was pointed out to me who was not Billie Eilish. Now that tracks because she doesn't like billionaires, and she remembers she gave a speech a while ago where she said, you lot give more of your money away. So I don't think she would have been either welcome or willing to go, because Jeff might have worried that she was going to shake him down in the bathroom to share more of his money. Zoe Saldana, she is somebody who is usually there. She was not there. She is almost as rich as the billionaires. She is an unbelievably well paid actress because of her Marvel and Avatar connections. So Zoe's at home count of dollars. Olivia Rodrigo that tracks too. She is political, That would not be surprising. She's in the middle of an album promo, so you might have usually expected her to be there. Lady Gaga an interesting one because she could have been expected to be there because she's in The Devil Wears prior of Too and the rest of the Well. Meryl wasn't there, but Meryl never goes, so that's not surprising. But Anne Hath the way Emily Blunt Stanley Tucci were all there.
Speaker 2: Stanley Tucci with Emily blount sister, it's always fun.
Speaker 1: So maybe Gaga, but also she's kind of said lately that she's going to focus on promoting things she wants to promote rather than just being around. Lewis Hamilton come on, like he's literally dating Kim Kardashian, who's extremely bezos adjacent. I don't think that was a political.
Speaker 3: Let's get to the big guns. Some were missing, right, some who we might have realized. Sarah Jessica Parker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, Sarah Jessica I reckon. That is probably I would say that's almost definitely a boycott. But she went to support Anna at a dinner, but she didn't.
Speaker 3: Go to the There was a dinner on the weekend before the gala. It probably would have been more fun.
Speaker 1: Anyways, she said anything, No, she hasn't, but she I think she was in support of the New New York mayor. Right, And obviously he didn't go, but then I wouldn't have expected him to go, and he did post about it. They posted a series of let's sell a the real heroes of fashion and you know, celebrated workers behind the scenes and particular designers and things. So yes, so Sarah Jessica Parker I reckon could be a boycott. But then they're saying, you know, j Lo, I don't think Jalo was boycotting. I just think she's tired.
Speaker 3: Harry Styles.
Speaker 1: Harry Styles is in the middle of record of rehearsing for his tour. He's in a studio in bethnal Green running through it. Not that I've been stalking him. Justin Bieber, he's just done Coachella. Boy needs to lie down. Miley Taylor Swift, she never goes, and I don't think she's so. I think that some of the boycott cots are not boy I.
Speaker 3: Think that's right. But it's interesting that some of the tech billionaires it clearly got to them a little bit. So it's interesting that Jeff did not walk the red carpet with Lauren. That's very unusual. They do everything together. We've learned this from various pieces about them and Lauren's dress being very boring. Do we think that was intentional.
Speaker 1: A little bit understated for Lauren, Yeah, but I think it was had a very specific art reference. It was the same dress as someone called Madame X and it's like scandalous women.
Speaker 3: Yep. It's interesting though, because Jeff did walk the carpet in twenty thirteen when Amazon sponsored the event. There was no outrage back then when Amazon sponsored the event and he walked with Mackenzie then Mackenzie Bezos his wife at the time. Mark Zuckerberg also made his Met Gala debut with his wife, Priscilla Chan, and they also didn't walk the red carpet, which I thought was interesting because it's kind of like, well, you want to be at the glamorous event, but you don't want the attention of being there.
Speaker 1: Do you think they might have been encouraged not to.
Speaker 3: I don't think anyone encourages Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos to do anything would have worked exactly. But there were some tech willionaires who did walk the carpet. Google founder Sergei Brinn. He showed up on the red carpet with his girlfriend. Her name is Gaylyn Gilbert Soto. The New York Times describes her as a con conservative gut health influencer.
Speaker 1: That is one of the six job title Claire.
Speaker 3: Do you think that there's something inherently conservative about gut health?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because gut health is very don't take antibiotics and don't take antibiotics is very That's what it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which used to be a sort of crunchy hippie vibe, but these days has come back around it.
Speaker 3: I thought it was just you know, drink your com your chart, but no, it means it can.
Speaker 2: Be very I feel like there's it's a short road from like gut health gut health to to anti vacs. Don't ever give your children antibiotics with my sour crow.
Speaker 3: And of course I'm AROUNDA was there. I just have to add she was there with Snapchat founder Evanstein on the carpet, of course.
Speaker 1: Possibly the biggest gun that I haven't mentioned though, is Zendaya. She does always go. Usually she didn't go, and that read like a boycott. And some people are saying, if your boycotting, say you're boycotting. I don't think so necessarily. You don't want to necessarily make everything about your politics. But I just have one question. I think that big charity galas of all types have always been, have always reflected the moment therein and they've always been a path to accessing status in a particular society. Watch the Gilded Age, It's all about that.
Speaker 3: And Nixon notably said that she thought it was great that the mayor didn't go.
Speaker 1: Yes, but like you know, you're reflecting the time. So you're going a big gala ball is the way you get all the fancy people together. This being a tech bro billionaire ball is very reflective of the moment we're living in, right, So is it surprising in any way in the nineteen eighties New York society. It was all about glitz and flash and Donald Trump, and now we're like again, I don't know. I kind of feel like, what did we expect to happen?
Speaker 3: No, that's right, But I think that the group that people are most angry at it's not the people who went in their pretty dresses. It's not the people who didn't go and stay quiet about it. It's the people who went but then tried to have their cake and eat it too. See.
Speaker 2: I'm not as frustrated about this because Sarah Paulson is getting a hole at a crap because she wore a dress that then and then had a blindfold that was a dollar bill, and it was people like it's making a statement about about like eating the rich.
Speaker 3: Well, she herself said that it was a statement about the one.
Speaker 2: Besides yes, and and I thought that was like a far swing. But the dress is actually called like the one percent by the artist, the designer who designed it, and the mask was called blinded by Money, and it was a statement on greed and corruption that comes with extreme power. I think it's a little bit unfair to look at her and say, well, you've got a net worth of twelve million dollars at which how does anyone calculate anyone's net worth on the internet? But you have a net worth of that you're at this event, how dare you then make a protest when it's like, well, isn't that exactly how how you do it?
Speaker 3: Don't you go in? And well, people do have a history of using that platform. So Alexandra Ocazio Cortez, who is a Democratic congresswoman from New York, famously wore a dress on the Megala red carpet a couple of years ago which said tax the rich. But people actually have the same criticism for her. To your point, Holly, the met Gala in some corners has always been seen as a kind of repulsive show of excess and decadence, and she got a lot of aoc got a lot of flak for even attending the event back then, reading the canapasey while saying.
Speaker 1: You guys are discussing while Charlie free directions.
Speaker 2: But if you're not there, you don't have a microphone to say anything about the event, do you know? Well, I guess you do. I guess like Vende could opposed to something on Instagram.
Speaker 3: If you want Zendaya not going definitely took the air out of the room when that announcement came out, And I guess it wasn't an announcement so much as a news update. Everyone kind of went, that's big. When Zendeia's not there, it's big.
Speaker 2: Because she's always one of the coolest on the carpet. Does something really original, remember that, like bloody light up dress and she.
Speaker 3: Oh, but there was a bathroom selfie. Some things always stay the same, right, and you saw this by Yes, it's always an iconic bathroom selfie. It's always the thing you want to look for. And there was an amazing one that had you know, the Margo Robbie all the people in it. But one of the things that was most striking about that And so I saw that in the wild last night and I was like, why is there an exceptionally beautiful woman in the middle of that who is wearing a quarter zip sweatshirt? I was like, was she at that party?
Speaker 1: And then it's having a lot of headlines today because she is actually a very famous model.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually love the story behind this. Her name is Bavitha Mandava and she that what she wore was a quarterzip jumper essentially and what looked like jeans. It turns out they weren't just any jeans. The jeans were made with silk muslin and had a blue denim effect. My jeans today have a blue denim effect. And it's a very important iconic look because she opened Chanell's show in December, which was on the New York City Subway, wearing essentially that outfit, and the fashion world lost their mind. That show was like considered extremely groundbreaking, and she was the first Indian model to open a Chanel show and she is now the first South Asian ambassador for Chanel. And incidentally, did you notice that Margot Robbie, who was also Chanel ambassador, It was right next to her in that photo. So Chanell must have been just so happy about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I know, but it just she just looked so out of place.
Speaker 3: But that's what made it so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I was like wandered into the shop. But she also read all about it and I was amazing. Yet she didn't have to have a bubble machine boobs.
Speaker 3: And then that look that she wore on the Chanel catwalk was actually a nod in turn to how she was discovered. I love this so much. She was a grad student m YU and she was discovered on the New York City subway waiting for a train. One would imagine probably wearing a similar outfit to the one she is now wearing in a much more fabulous incarnation at the metgala.
Speaker 1: But you were obsessed with another red carpet walk.
Speaker 2: Yes, because I am a basic bitch. If, like I swear, if there was like a thermometer for like, what's what does the basic bitch think about anything that's happening in the world right now? It comes over me and it's like bing bing bing bing bing because I saw the red carpet photos of Hugh Jackman in Suton Foster and I think I was sitting opposite you and Holly and I.
Speaker 3: Said, oh oh, was like I don't and I'm like, howm my.
Speaker 1: Here has it been?
Speaker 3: Now? Not that many at least well he was.
Speaker 2: Hugh Jackman was on the Red carpet with Debory Furnace in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: My group chats are very divided on this. Some love the two of them together and some are talking about deb Prowley.
Speaker 1: Do you have to not debut your relationship after a divorce five years, ten years? What do we want?
Speaker 2: There are no rules, but I am allowed to go oh poor deb Oh, no, I hate that I am allowed. And then the tabloids, because again I'm a basic bitch. The tabloids were like, hey, basic bitches, We've made up a story for you. So there are sources in Inverata commas who say that Debrale Furnace was a huge fan of the event and the decision to bring Sutton Foster was a final blow to deb And what I didn't realize when I went really deep on this was some Foster's wearing a ring, like they think that you proposed in January and they think they're going to have some trend in your wedding.
Speaker 1: And is that all are not allowed? He's not allowed to marry again, not ever, not ever.
Speaker 3: I I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: How do you know that, Deborah Lee Furness. This is what I don't like about this narrative is it victimizes a woman who maybe is totally done with that, you know what I mean. She obviously she made up some statements that made it clear she was not happy when that relationship broke down, But again three years ago, so now she might be living her absolute best life. Thank god I don't have to go to the met gala with that guy.
Speaker 3: She disagrees politically too. We don't know anything about it, like she was kind of famously a conservative political voice because he is the godparent of Rupert Murdock and Wendy Dang's children. Also, he's very close with Avanka Trump. So no one was surprised to see Hugh at the slightly maga codd metgala.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, he's unfair, And I know no one's crying for the celebrities, but I think it's unfair to brand everybody who was at that red carpet as maga.
Speaker 3: Co Oh no, no, no, I did too, But I just I'm saying that he's not exactly Alexandra Orcasio Cortez. No one would be expecting him to make a big political statement about the taxing the rich. No, he's very like to promote.
Speaker 1: In a moment, what the heck was all that Baldoni Lively business about? If we've both basically ended with nobody winning and no money changing hands. So moments before one Blake Lively swept onto the met gala carpet looking a bit like Cinderella, very trademark minus the bluebird. She didn't happen. She always said exactly body, She's pretty good all that stuff. But moments before that, a statement dropped into the inboxes of major press outlets, including People, New York Times and so on, and it read the end product the movie. It ends with Us is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life. And with no context, Everyone's like, why are we reading this? Raising awareness and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors and all survivors is a goal that we stand behind. It becomes clear this is a joint statement from Blake Lively's team and Justin Baldoni's team about the court case we've all been obsessed about for years. We acknowledge the process, presented challenges, did it.
Speaker 3: Recollections and recognized concerns raised by mes Lively deserved to be heard.
Speaker 1: We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. This is one of those statements that so many lawyers were involved in drafting that it.
Speaker 3: I hate an unproductive environment and I'm with that.
Speaker 1: That's fair. It is our sincere hope that this statement brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online. And in the hope of moving forward constructively and in peace, Blake goes to the met gal Yeah, yep. Now we'll get to whether or not they got their respectful environment online, But just a very quick catch up, because we would be here for a year if we went into all the ins and outs of what's been going on here. But it all started when Blake Lively. Do I need to explain who she is? Significant star actress, possessor of wonderful hair, one half of a very powerful Hollywood power couple, made a movie called It Ends with Us, based on one of the best selling books in the past decade by Colleen Hoover.
Speaker 2: And you guys are weird about it because I said this morning that it's objectively one of the worst movies I've ever seen. And you guys, it's fine. You guys were so mad well. I didn't stop you so mad well.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to that in a minute. The thing is is that making a movie based on one of the best selling books of the decade is smart business and lots of people wanted to do it. But the man who owned the rights was Justin Baldoni, who's a lesser known dude. He's an actor, producer, self proclaimed feminist. Done. Some Ted talks about it.
Speaker 3: Everything I know about this man I've learned against my will exactly done.
Speaker 1: Some Ted talks about it podcast with Liz Plank something something something. Anyway, the movie itself is about domestic balance. That is not a mystery or a surprise at his front and center in the plot. The movie got made, and the movie was a huge hit, proving Claire Stephens wrong.
Speaker 3: All I need to say.
Speaker 1: Against the modest production budget of twenty five million, it grossed around three hundred and fifty one million dollars. Huge movie, right, But before the hit part happened, obviously, it was obvious that things were for apart. Behind the scenes, everything had gone very very wrong. We're not going to take you through because again I know Klas Stevens has a PowerPoint on this somewhere. You It went very deep at the time. You were a great source of it.
Speaker 3: It was great. A lot of this was going down.
Speaker 2: I think maybe just as I submitted my books, and my reward to myself was finish your book and you can read all the legal poculars.
Speaker 1: Yes, and there was this press tour that was like separate red carpets and warring factions and all this stuff. And then in December twenty twenty four, Lively sued Baldoni, accusing him of harassment, sexual misconduct, and a smear campaign on the set of their movie. She claimed that Baldoni conspired with publicists to preemptively destroy her reputation, hence the dodgy press tour after she privately accused him of sexually harassing her on the movie set. There were a lot of damning texts released, all hell broke loose. Then Baldoni countersued. He basically alleged that Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds always wanted to take over this movie, the control of the script, to the edit, all the things that they had it in for him, and they used their very famous friends to intimidate and harass him.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget the email that when unanswered, that she sent to Matt Damon.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know. There were a lot of damning texts revealed.
Speaker 2: Again, sorry, the one to Ben Affleck where she like, oh, she just made an awkward joke about how she had sent the email to Matt Damon and how great Matt Damon was, and I was like, honey, that's like Ben Affleck's biggest point of in security is comparing himself to Matt Damon and you don't know the idiots and your correspondence with Ben.
Speaker 1: And so here we are suddenly, just weeks before this mess was all going to go to court, all these cases have been it.
Speaker 3: Hadn't even gone to court.
Speaker 1: No, some things had been dropped dropped. So first of all, Baldoni's case against Lively got dropped, and some elements of Lively's case against him got like so there was all that was stuff, but it was it was meant to go to court I think on May eighteen, so soon. Wow, And days before it's been disappeared. Lawyers have made millions, reputations have been trashed and nobody apparently no money exchanged hands between the two parties, and no one, as you as evidenced by that really confusing press release, nobody is saying that they've won or not. Claire does the fact that Blake Lively stepped onto the met Gala carpet the minute that happened signaled that she sees this as victory or that she'd liked to pretend the whole thing didn't happen, And how the hell does she move forward?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Claire, what does that mean that she shot up at the Metgala?
Speaker 1: One?
Speaker 2: I think it's genius. I always think that the best publicity in response to this stuff is to be around and change the narrative, like changing a different direction. Celebrities are so clever that it is no coincidence that this statement came out when it did and that then she was on a red carpet, because you just you know that there's so much going on in the world. People are going to be all the celebrity reporters are going to be distracted, just like the zones.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, And.
Speaker 2: It's the same reason it always happens. When I was editor in chief, the local Australian celebrities would always announce their breakup at like five pm on a Friday, and it's like, you know.
Speaker 3: The journals have gone to drinks or boxing day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, we've gone to drinks, you know that West Skeleton stuff on the weekends.
Speaker 3: We're not going to go as hard on this story.
Speaker 2: So I think it was smart that it was released when it was, and it was smart that she turned up at the met gala and that she reminded everyone I look really good in address.
Speaker 1: You to figure but disagree because what immediately happened the minute she opened her mouth.
Speaker 2: Well, this is what's interesting that depending on your algorithm, and depending on what side of the Internet you're on, there are two very different stories. So on certain apps, the story I'm saying is this was a win for Blake Lively that, for example, the line at the end of that statement including a respectful environment online, that that was very much acknowledging what had happened to her, which was all the allegations about manufactur orchestrated campaign.
Speaker 1: Because that is the thing that I will take away from this mess the most, is that seeing the messages between Baldoni's press people and him about ways that you can use and manipulate social media to dent somebody's reputation is not just like when you see suddenly start seeing everywhere lots of tiktoks around of like, look at this interview with this person, doesn't she come across a bit like this but there can be a lot more behind it. And this is also things that we pointed out about amber Hood joining the amber Hood Johnny deppcayse that there can be a really orchestrated dark arts going on there, and certainly the examples that were pinging back and forward between Justin Baldoni and his reps suggested that I knew that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so there's there's a lot of arguments that that line in particular is about what she went through, because she really has been torn apart on the internet. However, I couldn't believe that she turns up at the met Gala. She there's she clearly you could actually tell from her speaking when she was interviewed that she was nervous, that she was trying, like, I can't put my foot in it.
Speaker 3: I can't like that.
Speaker 2: There have been viral interviews of her for a couple of years now all over the Internet of her just saying slightly the wrong thing in an interview, and it becomes that she's an awful person. Blake Lively did an interview on the met Gala red carpet and it has been analyzed to death, and people think she was rude to the interviewer in this instance, well, you look gorgeous.
Speaker 4: I am wearing Jackson weederhot gorgeous, thank you beautiful hair. She yeah, you look studying. And this is archival versace, but they met a fid it by adding a big beautiful train. So it's a piece from two thousand and six. And it was just such an honor to be able to wear this gorgeous, gorgeous gown. It looks like a sunrise and a sunset and watercolor and gorgeous range shworts, jewelry. But this this, but these, this is a Judith leberbag. And we were trying to find a piece of famous iconic art to put on and make it look like it was in a frame. And then I said, would you actually, if you're gonna make it custom, would you do my kid's art? So my kids each painted a painting, a watercolor painting. So each of my four kids did this.
Speaker 1: That is so spoo especial.
Speaker 4: So I have them with me.
Speaker 2: And that has been interpreted as her being a bit, as her being dismissive, as her being self scentered. The other thing that's been I think we want to know what this is.
Speaker 1: So here's my challenge to your strategy, be public, give them things to talk about, because she can't get away from this narrative now for some time, it's been years of her lit like every time she opens her mouth. There's a lot of people invested in you're a terrible person, as you say, so they're just going to find ways to say that over and over again. In the way that the Internet is now very invested in hating Blake Lively a certain so, just in the way that the internet's very invested in hating Megan Markele. It doesn't matter what she does, what she says, where she goes. You can't win that game.
Speaker 2: One of the great arguments was it costs one hundred k for a plate at the Met gala, and part of her claim was the financial stress caused by Baldoni smear campaign. And it's like she's not paying for that one hundred k plate, neither is anyone people being like I thought you were arguing you were locked out of Hollywood.
Speaker 3: Doesn't look like you're locked out of Hollywood.
Speaker 2: And she had a bag where her interpretation of the art theme was that she got her four kids to draw a picture on each side of the back no self centered, made it about you.
Speaker 3: You wanted to.
Speaker 2: Claim authorship over this event, So there are people.
Speaker 1: This is why I think her best strategy is to go away for a few years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think the weird thing is I think if Justin Baldoni had turned up, I think there's something, there's an anonymity that we give men that we just don't give women like I just don't think he is going to be plagued in the same way. And I think it's Marina Hyde who says he'll probably do some low budget it.
Speaker 1: Will definitely have dented his possibilities of becoming a big name. I think that because, as Marina Hyde says in that story in The Guardian, she wrote a column about this, saying that the overarching lesson of this whole thing is never ever go to court, never ever ever. And they didn't actually end up in court, but still is that for the rest of time. Their names are now linked, every interview, every pro file, every project they do. This will always be part of the story in a way that it wouldn't if it hadn't entered the courts. But when I say I think go away free, I don't mean disappear like I don't mean silencing women. I mean work on projects, work on producer projects, hustle behind the scenes, do all your hollywoody stuff until you can come back to address this with more nuanced Look at Lena Dunnan. We've been talking about that a lot lately. Famously one of the most hated women on the internet for a period of time, couldn't put a foot right, couldn't do anything right, opened her mouth, everybody jumped on her. We know how the culture treats women who speak out about all kinds of things. There are local examples of this too. In a way. You've got to like let the air out of it and then come back when there's some nuance and distance.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean That her while best friend Taylor Swift would have told her that too, because Taylor, of course also famously disappeared and was getting around in large boxes for a while just to stay out of the public eye. That comment of Marina Hides about never go to court is interesting because a few years ago, someone in a professional context did something to me that made me want to take them to court, and so I went to talk to a lawyer about it, who have been recommended to me, and the lawyer heard me out. I was very grateful for the advice she gave me. She said, look, I think you have a strong case, but if you did this, everyone in your field would say that you were a nightmare, no matter what happened in the court case, no matter how right you are, and I do think you're right, it would affect you professionally and it would follow you professionally for the rest of your life. And I think getting that advice from someone who had kind of a monetary gain to taking the case on was something I really appreciated. And I just wonder if Blake Lively's legal advice turned out to be deeply misguided.
Speaker 1: I know. The sad thing about this argument I've never taken to court is, of course, that women putting up with sexual harassment at work are just always this guy from ever doing anywhere with it, because you're going to get your character smeared. And it might be on the scale of a Blake Lively, or it might be just the local gossip at the football club, like whatever it is, and that it's like we've seen this play out in massive letters across the sky that watch out, women will get you one way or another, and whether or not Blake Lively is particularly likable, is always nice to everybody? Blah blah blah, isn't the point?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is quite scary for women knowing that if you pursue, which is what an element of what Blake Lively was pursuing, a sexual harassment claim, that all your texts will be looked over and mocked and made fun of. Like, that's a really scary cost to pay. After the break James Valentine and why everyone's talking about the concept of a living wake. On the twenty second of April of this year, cast out musician and author James Valentine died age sixty four, leaving behind his son, his daughter, and his wife. The ABC veteran had terminal cancer, and he was widely loved by his audience, who had been listening to him for three decades. He had been transparent over the last two and a half years about his health. He was a very talented saxophone player and anyone who grew up in the eighties in Australia probably knows him as part of the band The Models and their iconic songs Barbados and Out of Mind, Out of Sight, and he was a Sydney radio presenter. Emilia and Holly, what was your connection to James Valentine as a radio personality?
Speaker 3: He was a really important figure in my childhood. He hosted a thing called the Afternoon Show on ABC when back when there were forty TV channels in this country. I remember those days, and he would host and it was cartoons, it was variety. And I never really listened to him on the radio, but I have such you know, in the way that those childhood figures loom large for you. I've always held such fondness and affection for him. And how about you, Hollie.
Speaker 1: He's clearly just an incredibly skilled communicator. I mean, I would be lying if I said I listened to that show. But anyone who knows how radio works, how the ABC works, so many people I know who know him. He was just clearly exceptionally good at what he did and very loved.
Speaker 2: It's a reminder I think that parasocial relationships have existed long before the Internet. The fact that when the news of his death came out there was a widespread kind of public grieving and a lot of listeners who called in the next day, and his wife and his kids were kind of saying how much that meant to have people remember their dad through sense of humor and his energy. So two and a half years ago he was diagnosed with esophagal cancer and he was given two different treatment options, and he chose the one that was a bit less invasive and would preserve the things he loved in life, which were presenting radio, playing saxophone and enjoying food. Then in January of this year, he's given a terminal diagnosis and his response to that diagnosis and what he planned to do next was documented in Monday's episode of Australian Story, presented by Lee Sales, and it started a huge conversation about the concept of a living wake, which he very fittingly held on Valentine's Day of this year. Here's what he said on the show stage.
Speaker 5: Four, terminal, inoperable, uncurable. I don't want to hear any of those words, let alone in the one sentence. So a friend suggested Tommy, maybe you should do a living wake, and oh, that sounds like fun. I will know the time and the day and so it'll be the last weekend. What do you do on that last weekend's dinner? Before? What do you think is that the last meal, I will probably know exactly when I'm going.
Speaker 1: That's so moving. So seeing the footage of his reference at the end there was due to the fact that he ultimately chose the time he was going to die, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he chose voluntary assisted dying and was very transparent around how he made that decision and what that decision entailed. For context, voluntary assisted dying is legal in all states in Australia and the Act except the Northern Territory, and obviously it's an incredibly complex and incredible, incredibly personal decision that has sparked. It's sparking more and more conversation the more we have and aging population and the more people are getting certain diagnoses that may keep them alive for a very long time, but the quality of that life may be poor, and him kind of taking people through that decision was a huge part of the Australian story. But it meant that he got to plan this living wake and there's footage of it, and he's got his family and friends there and there are so many familiar ABC faces and he's really good friends with Norman Swan, who he had on radio to discuss his diagnosis, like what all the different parts of the body were and what they did. And there was something so moving about seeing him on stage with a microphone at his own wake, basically saying, please come up to me and tell me stories and memories about us, because they are what's going to carry me through the next few weeks. And I guess I thought it must be such a relief for his family that then when you do a funeral, he's heard all the beautiful things that you're then going to say about him. I think this is really something we should we should all be looking at.
Speaker 1: If it's possible, this episode of Australian Story is really recommended viewing. I think, whether you know who James Valentine is or not, in a world where we hate to talk about death, and yet it touches everybody obviously, I mean that's a ridiculous thing to say, but it does touch everybody. I'd lost a friend to this same cancer when he was only forty six. It's like all cancers. It's a it's it's cruel and the idea that we're also we don't like talking about illness, we don't like talking about death, and seeing somebody such a skilled communicator like James Valentine in this episode talking about why he wanted to do the things he did, and they document the year so very like him talking about how very much clarified for him that he loved his work, so he didn't want to stop working. He loved playing his saxophone, so he wanted to try and avoid procedures that were going to stop him from doing that. That he really wanted to work, play and be with his family, and those are the things he wanted to spend his last year doing. It's just it's very powerful, it's very clarifying. And then to see him at his living way and he says, you know, it wakes People always say, oh, he would have loved me there, and he says, so I wanted to be there, And I just think it's very refreshing. I think, you know, I, as I said, I didn't have a direct listenership with Joe's Valentine, but people who do, and people I know who've worked with him said he brought joy all the time. And it feels like a gift to give be so honest and so open and so clear eyed in talking about this thing that nobody wants to talk about. Is like the last incredible gift that a great communicator could give, and his family is so amazing in it. I really recommend watching the show.
Speaker 2: There's a great quote in one of the ABC articles about his kind of decision making towards towards the end, where I think, as a psychologist says, dying people are not the actual act of dying is not the thing they're most scared of. They're scared of the invisibility and the absence of conversation around it. They're scared of people turning away and not wanting to be around them because of how confronting it is. And this was just such a reminder to look it straight in the eye and have the existential conversations with the people around you. The way that he spoke to his kids, and his kids were able to say, what do you think is going to happen afterwards?
Speaker 3: And I bet that that's so much harder to do than even it looks. It doesn't look easy, but I bet it's even harder to actually enact these principles that we can all agree are worthwhile.
Speaker 1: I love that his kids say that this was perfect for him in particular, this living weight, because he loved being center of attention. He loved a party, He loved being told I'm brad he was. I love the way they you know that families are really kind of I mean, I'm sure no families are perfect, but they're really healthy and loving when they can just call out that stuff about you and be like, he would love this because he just loves everybody tell him how great he is.
Speaker 3: So good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I loved that it wasn't a sanitized version because I think something I always bristle at is when you hear of somebody getting a terminal diagnosis or of you know, knowing that they're going to die. I bristle at the narrative of I guess almost toxic positivity that they're just like, well, I'm completely grateful and joyful. And then I feel for the people who don't have that response, which is completely bloody normal. But I loved there was a lot of light and shade in this. They talked about they went on a holiday, a family holiday to Bali, just before he was meant to get the surgery for his esophagus, and that the whole family's like, oh so bloody terrible holiday. Everyone was sick, everyone had covid Dad.
Speaker 3: Had BALI belly like. It's sort of I like that.
Speaker 2: In documenting this time, they've been able to show the highs and lows of what happened. But the nort Yeah, how normal it is. But the fact that he was able to do it his way, and that those conversations around what you want, what you don't want, they give so much empowerment in those in those final months and final days.
Speaker 1: Something completely different. There was celebrity baby news this week that I must mark because it was interesting. Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden just welcomed their third child. And it's interesting because Cameron is fifty three. Now. When I say that, I don't mean it's interesting in that way of like, oh, miracle baby, how did she do that? Why did you do that? Cameron Diaz. They announced that their little boy had come. They announced what his name was. His name is Nortous and he joins Raddix and Cardinal, which are all just the most rock star names of all time. They announced it. They didn't give any more details than that. It is safe to assume just because Cam's been on a press tour lately, she's been quite visible on a tour for a movie called Outcome, So she's been very visible, and it's safe to assume possibly that she wasn't heavily pregnant during that time, so likely that a surrogate was involved, but none of our business. But the thing that I found really interesting and refreshing that I wanted to unpack a little bit here is I wrote an essay a while ago when Sienna Miller was on the Red Carpet with her beautiful baby bump at I think forty three, and saying how we're entering a bit of an era of agelessness because perhaps of fertility technology, because of the different options that are open to us now, because of Hollywood and the wellness world's obsession with longevity, that we're in a different era now when it comes to age and women and kids. And I think nothing illustrates that more clearly than the fact that there haven't been a whole waterfall of stories about like, oh my god, a mom at fifty three and how could she and why would she? And da da da da. Is that now we're much more kind of like in the way that we might be about a man becoming a father at fifty three, because if you remove the biological complication from the advance for chility technology and all those things. It isn't really any different than the guy who's been doing that forever. Yeah, am I right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, I think so too. The interesting thing is, as well, when I've looked at this story, how old Benji Madam? Well, nobody ever, as I don't know, I don't know, why didn't I.
Speaker 1: Google similar age? I think, well, let's find it happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you're seven, so being a little bit younger Benji's forty seven, bloody spring chicken. But I it's interesting because whenever I see pregnancy baby news, it's obviously the life stage.
Speaker 3: I'man, I always google.
Speaker 1: How old is how?
Speaker 3: How old is that?
Speaker 1: Money is she?
Speaker 2: And you're right that we don't when we wouldn't blink an eye at a man having a child at fifty three. And obviously, if you want to think about any of the things that make rearing children.
Speaker 3: Difficult, the older you get.
Speaker 2: I mean, Amaran Diaz looks like a bloody pillar of health. She's gonna live forever, She's gonna live till she's undred.
Speaker 3: Well, I think what's interesting is that you said no one will blink, and I about a man. I wonder if, now, because women are also having babies older, all of a sudden, we're starting to blink her eyes at men having babies older. Men were allowed to do it for all of human history, but now that women are starting to do it, we're starting to revisit the whole idea of older parents because.
Speaker 2: We are interested, and there is actually more and more scientific research going into the health impacts of older because you know how, I'm called geriatric. Just for the record, I'm a geriatric mother. What age, I'm thirty five years old. No, they don't. They call it advanced material.
Speaker 3: They definitely call it just it's kind of coolrophistic.
Speaker 1: They definitely did call it geriatric though, when I had my second child at forty, I that's interesting.
Speaker 2: But if they call Brent geriatric, no, but they should have done it because he's elderly, I think.
Speaker 1: I think that's interesting. But then that also assumes.
Speaker 3: Like the judgments creeping in for both sexes now, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yes, and that assumes the idea about like we're becoming aware of the risks of older parents assumes assumes a lot about what might be going on here biologically. Yes, exactly, whereas if Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden and whoever else may be in their cohort are having are assessing all the risks, I'm sure they are. We know how health obsessed Hollywood is and making those choices, and there I think. I don't know that's interesting though, Amelia, where you say that that maybe the judgment, instead of fading away, just attaches itself to both genders.
Speaker 3: Well, because I don't think it is just about biology. I think it would be we need to put on the table to not be disingenuous. That a lot of people listening to this may have a reaction of if you have a baby at a more advanced age, shall we say, in your fifties, you automatically do a bit of maths, and you think, well, when that child in school, Cameron Diaz will be sixty three. I don't know how old Benji Madden will because I'm not that good at maths, but he'll be also kind of old. And so I think that's one of the concerns that people are now voicing a little bit more when no one ever used to say, well, Mick Jagger is going to be so old when his kids graduate but now we are starting to say that or feeling perhaps feeling more comfortable to say that.
Speaker 1: I think that's really interesting. But then I think in this privileged bubble that we're talking about, longevity is an obsession. So I think that that is also changing. This right is that people are thinking rightly, wrongly whatever that with all the right advances and all the right supplements and all the right that they're imagining themselves at seventy three, at this kid's twenty first, like leaping around, I'm doing yoga and pilate, particularly if they.
Speaker 2: And Brian Johnson says he's got what is it the sperm of a twenty old? Think about that, man, Yeah, So I'm sure Cameron and Benji are having the same conversation.
Speaker 3: So Cameron has remember she literally wrote a book about sort of how to be healthy as you get older, so she's this is clearly on her radar that she's sort of anticipating she will be living a long time.
Speaker 1: That's always got time for on this Wednesday.
Speaker 3: At births, deaths, any marriages, No.
Speaker 1: There weren't any couples at the met gala, were they? They all went.
Speaker 2: Solo boycotting, boycotting marriage on the metal, or.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was like, unless that engagement wing comes from Amazon, we don't sink, perhaps in her body, her head and she did anyway. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for to our amazing team for helping us put the show together. We're going to be back in your ears on Friday, of course, and for subscribers with some scorelous gossip with Mia tomorrow. That's all.

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Madonna was dressed as a ship. The Kardashian sisters committed to a sliding scale of breast plates. Lisa had some extra arms. And it was ‘bring your daughter to the carpet’ day for Nicole Kidman and Beyoncé.
Yes, today was the first Monday in May on the other side of the world, which means it was the Met Gala, which means Mia has a lot of thoughts about the best red (not red) carpet of the year.
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What to read:
Every single red carpet look from the 2026 Met Gala.
The 2026 Met Gala is tomorrow. There's one very controversial detail everyone is talking about.
Thank god Hollywood has started hiring hot men off the street again.
'The Met Gala has only had one successful theme, and spoiler: 2024 wasn't it.'
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It's all Harry Styles’ fault that the 'taxi cab theory' is everywhere you look. His engagement has everyone debating whether finding 'the one' is a matter of fate, or as Sex And The City’s Miranda Hobbes told us, all about timing? We do not agree.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is officially massive. So, is it good? Why did it almost make Amelia Lester cry and why do some Americans just not 'get' our Aussie love interest Patrick Brammall?
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Why is there a Sperm Olympics? How is Australia performing in it? And… again, why the hell is there one? Clare Stephens explains spermmaxxing.
Are you super-stylish, or are you just thin? Lena Dunham is heading back to the Met Gala this week, and a new essay from her about the reaction to her past appearances reveal who’s considered cool enough to go.
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'My commitment-phobic ex is married with kids. This viral theory explains everything.'
The 10 defining moments that made Sex and the City perfect television.
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A brutally honest review of The Devil Wears Prada 2, a movie that breaks everything.
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AUTO GENERATED TRANSCRIPT:
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Mamamia. Out loud, It's what women are actually talking about on Monday, May the fourth. I'm Hollywayen right, I'm Clays Stephen, I'm Amelia Lester, and here's what's on our agenda for today. The taxiicab relationship theory gets an update thanks to my close personal friend Harry Styles.
Speaker 2: Plus dispatches from the Worst Dressed list ahead of the met Gala tomorrow, and a lister shares what it was like to be mocked over her fashion choices for a decade.
Speaker 3: And the Devil West product is absolutely everywhere right now, so we unpack why, and we also talk about the fact that Meryl Streep, who must be the most celebrated actress of all time, apparently didn't discover her worth until she was fifty six.
Speaker 1: In case she missed it, though out loud as speaking of knowing your worth, we are pulling on our big girl pants and asking you for a favor.
Speaker 3: You have to know, if you're listening to this, that Holly is so uncomfortable right now to just go with us.
Speaker 1: To still like asking for this. I don't like asking, okay, But there's this thing called the Australian Audio Awards. It's like like the Oscars or the Emmys of the logos, except it's not but for people who speak into microphones like us, right, and we're up for some awards this year and we need your help to win them. So if you love love, love out loud, and we know that lots of out louders do, and you listen all the time, and you think you know what those those women need. They need some public accolades, Yeah, some affirmation.
Speaker 2: Think you think you know what I'd like to see. I'd like to see them dress up in some frocks, you get on a stage and make a speech.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but particularly you class evens, I would like to see you do that. The very pregnantness you will be when this event occurs, very high heel, great, and you're in your flop here you keep telling us, so maybe you'll be really indiscreet and just get up there and say something rude. Yeah, anyway, we digress. Tell the out louders how they can help.
Speaker 2: Okay, So basically these Audio Awards, you go there's a link that will put in the show notes and you can vote for There's two things and sorry, you can vote anyway that you got.
Speaker 1: We're not voting, you know, we've got suggestions.
Speaker 2: In our interests. We like you to vote for best Podcast Producer Ruth to Vine, Mummy are Out Loud, and Best Society and Culture Podcast Mummy.
Speaker 4: Because we are society high society, and we are very we're so cultured.
Speaker 2: And we do. The thing is we pretend to be cool, but we really like awards.
Speaker 4: And I think that's what people think of when they think of you and me. They're just like, we're.
Speaker 1: Too cool for school.
Speaker 2: And meanwhile we're like, we rely on achievement for something. But it would be funny. I think. So the podcast Awards the end of this month, right the twenty eight. I believe I would like to win this award. While Jesse's on Matt lead, I think.
Speaker 1: You want to just wade right into that weird Steven's Sister dynamic. Just get into the weird Twin stuff. Come in and help. I think there's a people's choice too, So anyway, like just vote for us, vote for wherever you get to vote for us, and we would love it. We can't bribe you with anything except our affection. Yeah, yeah, anyway, shall we get on with the friends over to you, Amelia Lester, I'm up.
Speaker 3: Well, it's been hard to escape the Devil Wears prior to of, like, really has it has been everywhere?
Speaker 4: I kind of felt like bullied into going to see it.
Speaker 1: I feel like Merril's chasing us down with that red pitchfork. She's like, literally, go theater on and look.
Speaker 4: It's done really well.
Speaker 3: It's done better than anyone expected at the box office over the weekend. I'm going to tell you what the critics said. They basically liked it, and then I want to know what you thought, Holly Claire. I know you haven't seen it yet. Yeah, the critics praised it. They said it was glamorous, they said it was wishy, They said it was the fun we need right now. They called it a millennial nostalgia bath. I love a millennial nostalgia brath. Look, some did question the whole premise of updating a movie that came out twenty years ago. Someone wrote it's less a follow up than a tribute at the satire apparently didn't bite so hard.
Speaker 4: Holy. What I want to know.
Speaker 3: Is did this movie live up to the marketing height machine for you?
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a debbie down of it. No, I went to see it with my sixteen year old daughter, and that was really interesting because the absolute enormous generation gap there in terms of so this is a magazine. Once upon a time, magazine editors were considered very important and influential. She's like, this was a job everybody wanted. That was a lot of groundwork being laid there with my daughter. And look, I'm not allergic to a nostalgia bath. I like that. I mean I back in the day, I was first in line for the Sex and the City movie like I was.
Speaker 4: And the vibes were similar.
Speaker 1: And even though as we know, that run of movies ended up disappointing us bitterly, in that first movie, I remember the excitement of seeing those women on screen again and being in the movie theater and seeing them walk down the street and like the audience was kind of like, yeah, there's a girl, and we're back in that world. And I think the Devil Wears Prada nostalgia is similar in that these were great characters who've entered, you know, our culture in lots of different ways. Miranda Priestley and Andy Sex and Emily Blunt's character Emily is just heaven. So I understand that wanting to jump back into that, but they've had to give it quite a cynical update to reflect where media culture is now, and so it ends up to me feeling like quite a negative, like it's not and to be honest, the Sex and the City movie was a bit like this too. I remember they were grappling at the time of the financial crisis and so they were like, this cushion costs two hundred and fifty dollars, and lots of the critics were like, who are these women and why are they spending that money? And this feels a bit like that, and that we're supposed to all be lolling and laughing along while they're telling us our media has been hollowed out, billionaires run everything.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Am I being a bit too cynical? No?
Speaker 4: I think you're right.
Speaker 3: When I went to see it, I went to see it with two friends and they both turned to me at the end and said, are you all right? Because I kind of feel on the verge of tears and didn't Nicki Gammel, Yes.
Speaker 1: I saw a review from Nicki Gammel in The Australian where she said, she cried, And she didn't cry because the plot line was really touching it. She cried because of what it was saying. Yea journalism, which is obviously not everybody's industry and they don't care. But if it is yours, you have this kind of affection for it, and this does not dress that up.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 3: And what's interesting is Lauren Weisberger, who wrote who wrote the book, The Devil was Prida a piece for Vogue dot Com on the occasion of this movie coming out about what her life has been like after that book came out. Now, that book was not seen particularly favorably when it came out. People criticize the bad writing. It was kind of seen as a little bit mean, a little bit throwaway, and then that first movie kind of gave the book a bit more of a sheene than it had on first publication. Now, Lauren Weisberger has done great for herself. She apparently announces in this article that she now lives on a boat in a remote part of the Bahamas, which is good for me. Absolutely sounds difficult to get your mail there, but other than that sounds delightful. But her article reminded me that her book was first and foremost about a bad boss. Yes, that's what people loved about it because everyone, practically everyone has been in a work situation where they felt oppressed underappreciated, and everyone could relate to that kind of idea that when you're young, you want to make your mark on the world, but older people kind of are trying to push you down, or that's what it feels like. So everyone knows what it feels like to be young and underappreciated, but the new movie is so far removed from that idea of bad bosses and bad workplaces as it feels alien to.
Speaker 1: It's also funny because the bad Boss, Miranda Priestley, obviously became a cultural hero, so much so that Anna Wintour, who she's famously based on, kind of kept her distance very much from the first movie, but now is entirely in on it. She's appearing in all the promo. There's a lot of partnerships between Vogue and this movie, so she's accepted that. But there are a couple of nods in the movie to how times have changed in that now Miranda Priestley isn't allowed to just throw her coat at people anymore, and she has someone who sits next to on the meetings and says things like you can't say that all the time, as if there has been like a woke update, if you like. And that feels a bit funny, But you're right, it was everybody related to this idea that these people are monsters like glamour.
Speaker 6: Like.
Speaker 1: The idea was that, you know, the Miranda Priestley was kind of a glamorous monster who you got to see a little bit of the humanity of. But by this movie, we're all supposed to be rooting for her, unquestionably.
Speaker 2: Because I think even if that was the kind of premise of the book, in the first movie, you're very much you're looking at Miranda Priestley, but you're also it's obvious that she's an icon and that it's Andy's character arc to kind of fight against that, not that there's something inherently wrong with Miranda. So so I'm interested to see in the second in the second one, whether, yeah, what the stakes are then if there's none of that tension. But as much as you say it was depressing, am I like because I'm going to go see it. I like a film that isn't good.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you mean, but for me it felt and look, I'm not no spoilers here. And you do get lots of fashion montages, you get lots of a fashion show montages. You get you know, they're walking in a different coat every two minutes, there's music, there's celebrities everywhere like this. It delivers all that, okay, but it just for me, it felt kind of a bit empty. And basically the steaks are which billionaire is going to get to own this business? Which was kind of the stakes the first time around two is like will Miranda get to keep a job? And it kind of feels like I don't know if I care about that. But Patrick Brammel, isn't it Remember last Wednesday we were all giddy on the show because he was here and we bumped into him in the offices. He wasn't here to see us, sadly, he was here to be interviewed by the amazing Kate Langbrook for No Filter, and that episode's out today.
Speaker 2: I have purely been absorbed being vibes so far online and I think you guys are pretty spot on with the vibe of people. People I've seen they're like, yeah, yep, fun But Patrick Brammel. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with him and Harriet Dyer, who's his wife. They co wrote, co starred in Colin from Accounts, and now he's.
Speaker 4: Maybe one of the funniest TV shows ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now he's in a bloody Hollywood movie with Anne Hathaway. Is he hot? Is he car like? What's the what's the go? Is there? Is there?
Speaker 4: Bare? So I want to.
Speaker 3: Say the outset that I love Patrick Bramore and I think he's so good in this movie. And to me he was a highlight. He was he was just so he gets to play an Australian. So you might remember in the first movie, Andy Sack's love interest is also played by an Australian, Simon Baker, my personal friend has discussed on the show, but he has to put on an American accent, whereas in this one, in recognition of the fact that there are a lot of Australians in New York these days, he gets to play an Australian. So I loved it, But then I started to hear the rumors that his part has really been cut down. People observed that it felt a little underdeveloped, and I.
Speaker 4: Was surprised to read that.
Speaker 3: A lot of the reviews felt there was zero chemistry between him and Anne Hathaway. Oh.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel that necessarily, But what I did fit I knew that his part had been cut. And the reason I knew this is because when we first found out about Patrick Brammle, there lots of pap of him and Anne Hathwayne. She's wearing this particularly incredible sort of bluey purple sequin slithery dress that's just like oh, and she was like spinning around a lamp post and it looked like she was tipsy, and he was holding her back and this kind of stuff. That whole sequence is not in the film, so it obviously has been cut back a lot.
Speaker 3: Boy, I love your forensic knowledge of this so bad.
Speaker 1: I did spy on that. But I think one of the reasons why he plays such a small part because basically he's the love interesting Again, no spoilers about whether or not that works out, But this movie is about girl bosses. Even though girl bosses are out of fashion now, this movie is ultimately about that. It's about Andy's ambition, It's about Miranda's ambition. They sort of talk a lot about how much they love work, and they're the partners are all a bit beta and a bit like not relevant.
Speaker 3: Including by the way, Meryl Streeps, who was played by Kenneth Branner. Yes, and the reviews also commented that that didn't work for them either. So maybe just the writing around these boyfriends and husbands felt hollow because that's not where the interests lay.
Speaker 1: But isn't it funny because we used to critique girlfriend roles, you know in movies. We'd be like, oh, the so and so actress, she just has to play the girlfriend. Not no character development, right, no particular complex characteristics or backstory. They're just the girlfriend. And I feel like this and so maybe this is progress. This is one of those movies where there are just the boyfriend roles.
Speaker 4: So it's just like true sort of.
Speaker 1: Middle aged guy. Well, I don't know whether Patrick Brewmle will qualify as middle age whatever, like nice enough age appropriate guy of name recognition is in this person's life, but we don't really care about them.
Speaker 2: There is one person who is pretty convinced that there was chemistry between Anne Hathaway and Patrick Brammel, and it is Patrick Brammle's wife, Harriet Dyer. She I lulled so hard at this. She has uploaded this Instagram video where the caption is trust No One, and she is filming her TV as her daughter stands in front of it, and Patrick's on a red carpet and he is asked by the interviewer about Anne Hathaway, and he says, playing someone who falls in love with Anne Hathaway. Tough gig, tough gig, and he looks straight at the camera, and then the interviewer says, the world's most beautiful person according to People Magazine and everybody in here, and he says, and me too. Andy rewinds it and plays that again and then switches a camera to her and she's like what, And she's got her glasses on and just sitting at home, and then she interspersed it with all this footage of like when you propose to her their wedding.
Speaker 4: Apparently they got engaged five days after he proposed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yea, yeah, they got married five days up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was like, so they've had this beautiful love story in him reading Newborn books and being miscored and hath the way talking about how gorgeous and joyful he is, and it's just so good But a great part that Amelia directed me to is that so ninety nine percent of the comments from Australians absolutely get it. That they're like, yeah, this is funny because like whose husband ends.
Speaker 4: Up in Hollywood?
Speaker 2: Blod faster. But there are a few Americans who are like, oh no, this is this isn't right.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, there's a distinct portion of the comments that are like I don't understand what's happening here, or like check on your husband, or like just completely missing the point. And I have reason to believe, in part from the spelling of said comments that they may be from Americans. There's a suspicious lack of us in words like coloring. And that got me thinking as to why Patrick Bramle, who I thought worked so well in the movie, had evidently been cut down. And I wonder if it's just because he is allowed to play such a quintessentially Australian part in it. He is very laconic, he's very understated, he's got that very kind of irony seeped Australian wit about him, and maybe it just didn't play very well in a movie that's actually not very irony drench.
Speaker 1: That's true. I just have to mention one more thing, because I think Mia would throw something at my head if I didn't. Twenty years have passed between these movies. Twenty years has not passed on these ladies' faces. Yeah, it's just be very clear about that.
Speaker 2: I could have told you that without saying any Yeah.
Speaker 1: That doesn't matter because in lots of ways, I think particularly Emily Brunt Blunt's character she plays, she's obviously still Emily, you know, the former assistant, but she's got a villain arc in this and she is meant to be again, this isn't a spoiler, the hot new girlfriend of a billionaire character. So they're like commenting. The script is commenting on the fact that the tech bros run the world now, and there's kind of a Bezosi character who's had a glow up in her hot new girlfriend, and she would have done all that stuff to her face. Question so perfectly character, you know, in character, and appropriate for the industry, for the vibe and all those things. But it is astounding to think it was twenty years ago. Because Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, who is just one of them.
Speaker 2: She seventy, She is incincredible.
Speaker 1: To look at her Jita performance and this is great. You're just like, Wow, my twenty years and your twenty is not the same. Maybe I live in doggy well, Meryl.
Speaker 3: I did want to also say that Meryl had a great moment in her interviews for this She was being interviewed on the American Today Show by Jenna Bush Hager, who was incidentally George W. Bush's daughter, and Jenna was talking to her about the fact that she initially turned down the.
Speaker 4: Role on the Devil Wes product Let's Have a Listen called me up and they made an offer and I said, no, I'm not going to do it. Why because I.
Speaker 1: Wanted to see. I knew it was going to be a hit, and I wanted to see if I doubled my ask. Wow, And they went.
Speaker 4: Right away and said sure, And I thought, I'm fifty six year It took me this long to understand that.
Speaker 1: I could do that, that you can ask for what you want. Yes, and I wanted it. But you know, if they didn't want to do that, I was okay, because I'm old. I'm ready to fifty six.
Speaker 4: I was ready to retire.
Speaker 1: But you know, I love that story. I also love that story because, as she says at the end, there she was fifty six, and she thought, well, I'm winding down, you know, like good years. Her career has been unbelievably amazing in the last twenty years.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: And it's also quite inspiring to think you can have that lightning rod moment at fifty six, because I beat myself up thinking, oh goodness, maybe it's too late for me. I should have had it backbone before. Now I've got some time.
Speaker 4: We've got time time to develop it.
Speaker 1: Merril's shown us all that after the break. What Harry Styles can teach us about love? I don't think so what Harry Styles can teach us about taxicabs, which I also have to explain to my daughter what they are as well. God help me. But while we're on a roll of things from another time, A TV show that ended in two thousand and four has provided some of the most enduring relationship theories of several eras. I think there was He's just not that into you, which can also be She's not just not that into you. It's fine, And the other is everywhere in the news this week because of my close personal friend Harry Styles. I think we touched on it last week that Harry and Harry is engaged to Zoe Kravitz. Now, he hasn't said that because he never says anything about his personal life, but sources close to have confirmed.
Speaker 4: Oh good, old sources.
Speaker 1: The woman is wearing a golf ball sized diamond on her finger. It's on. It's definitely on. And this has started a lot of headlines like this one. Harry Styles and Zoe Kravitz are reportedly engaged after less than a year, and fans think this wild theory explains why, and they mean the theory I'm about to explain to you. Harry Styles proposing after eight months is further proof that taxi cab theory is real and none of us are safe. Okay, are you across what taxi cab theory is?
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm across it from Sex and the City. As you say, I believe it was a bit of Miranda Wisdom.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it was Miranda brand I'm about to play it to you. Yeah, Season three, episode eight. This iconic statement the wait.
Speaker 2: Hedge, it's fate.
Speaker 4: It's not fate.
Speaker 5: His light is on, that's all what lights. Men are like cabs. When they're available, their life goes on. They wake up one day and they decide they're ready to settle down, have babies, whatever, and they turn their light on the next woman they pick up them.
Speaker 2: That's the one, Mary.
Speaker 5: It's not fake. It's dumb luck.
Speaker 1: It's not fake, it's dumb luck, so says Miranda Hobbs. Now, obviously none of us, not even me with my close relationship to missus Steals, knows whether or not there's any truth to this in terms of their relationship. But the reason that it's being applied to him is because it has one of the classic characteristics of taxi cab theory, which is that he has had quite a lot of high profile relationships. And when I say high profile again, he's never mentioned any of them ever, but there are photographic evidence.
Speaker 4: Is that right?
Speaker 1: He doesn't talk.
Speaker 2: About his was his most recent one before.
Speaker 1: So he was with Taylor Russell, who's a British actress, for quite a long time. He obviously famously dated Taylor Swift. Yeah, he was with Olivia Wilde for quite a long time. He's dated Kendall Jenna, He's dated Caroline Flack, He's dated a lot of people.
Speaker 3: Can I just interrupt Holly and ask do you think he's going to come to the tailor swift wedding now that he's engaged to no should wedding guests.
Speaker 1: I we really hope so that wedding is going to be the best. The reason why they're applying this theory to him is they're saying that a trademark of a taxi cab the taxi cab theory, And I don't think this is just a men thing. I think this is men and women. Is that you know, you date lots of people and you try them all on and whatever, and the theory is that one of them is right for you. But taxi cab theory says it's not that one of them is right for you, it's that the timing is right for you. And they're saying that's why Zoe and another trademark of it is quick. So you've been dating, dating, dating, dating quite long relationships a year here, two years here, three years there, whatever, But then eight months he has been dating Zoe that we know of, he puts a ring on it. Taxi cab theory thoughts.
Speaker 2: From the outside, he's looking ready to settle down, and so we all then assume that he's gone, Okay, who am I? Who am I next to right now? Who do I happen to be at dinner with?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: I happen to be with Zoe kra which is Bloody Convey, which.
Speaker 1: Is a very good dinner because, as I discussed, absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2: She's incredible. But the way at least this article was constructed was very much that it was about him and his readiness. And the thing I worry about is that do we start thinking if we use this theory, do we start thinking that someone is only with somebody because of timing, that it's interchangeable, it could have been anyone. It's not real, it's not a real life.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the correct way to view taxi cab theory. I think it's not about you'll do, it's that the timing is right. And the reason they're not applying it to Zoe Kravitz is because she's been married before and she's been engaged before, so it doesn't apply to her in the same way, do you know what I mean? So my theory on this, and the reason why I think it's true not for everybody, like everything isn't for everybody, is that we like to have a romantic narrative that there's one right person for us, and whether we meet them when we're nineteen or fifty nine, we will just know that's the right person for us. That's it. And what taxicab theory says is that's not true. There could be lots of right people for you, but in order for you to to get together and settle down in verted commas, you have to it has to be the right timing. So other examples for this might be Taylor and Travis. Right if they'd have met at twenty two, because at the same age, would we not have any of these beautiful songs that we have for Taylor, Or if they'd have met when they're twenty two, would the timing not have been right for them both to commit in the way that they are now ready to commit. So in my mind, taxicab theory doesn't mean you're settling or it's the wrong person. It just means timing is everything. So the people I dated before I met my guy, if you're a serial monogamist, and many of us are, we like to go, well, none of those people were right, This one's right. But the truth of it is is probably like that one probably would have been fine, but if we weren't ready, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know it's by romantic sensibility.
Speaker 3: I think I sort of agree with both of you a little bit, and agree with both of you a little bit because I think what the taxicab theory misses is it makes it very one sided, now, whether that side is a man or a woman. I take your point, Holly that even though sex and city talks about men are like cabs, we could equally apply to women. But a relationship is about a dynamic between two people. And what I think this theory overstates is that it's just about one person picking another person. And I don't think that's how relationships work. I don't think a relationship works or like ends in marriage. And I'm using air quotes here for anyone listening, just because one person decided, Yes, this is the person I'm going to make it work. It's about two people meeting and deciding together. And that's what's different about when you get in a cab. It's not about a mutual decision.
Speaker 4: It's about one person deciding.
Speaker 1: I agree. But the way that I've always thought of taxi cab theories, you both have to have your lights on, do you know what I mean, like, you have to both have your lights on for the timing to work. If one of you has the light on and the other one doesn't, it's not going to work. You both have to have your lights on.
Speaker 3: I feel like that was what was really You know, we've been talking on this show about what happens over twenty years, and I think that that line from Sex and the City, they weren't talking about both people having their lights on. I think back then we had an idea of relationships which was that men in heteronormative heterosexual relationships men picked women. Yes, I think, and you're trying to update it, which is good.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Although I think I always that was always my understanding of that quote, because I think in later in the show, Carrie's talking about my lights not on, his lights not on, Like I always sort of understand it to mean it's all about timing. And I genuinely do believe that a great deal of whether or not a relationship will work or not is about time.
Speaker 2: I think you only have to watch one to eight seasons I've Married at First Sight to see that it is not oh that much about time, because you've got two people who's lights could not be more on who are matched by very clever, non manipulative psychologist and they go in and you can have your light on as bright as it can possibly be, and it still doesn't vibe.
Speaker 1: I don't buy that because I don't think their lights are on for that at all.
Speaker 2: Oh holy just because they're getting Instagram followers. I am not looking for real love. But the other thing is, I don't know. I think you hear so many stories of people who may be met at a time that wasn't on paper a particularly good time.
Speaker 4: Oh that's a good point to people.
Speaker 2: To meet, and it's still and it still happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I think, like any theory, it doesn't apply to everybody. One person's going to meet. Some people are going to football in love of their childhood sweetheart stay with them forever, right. But in the dating world, in the world where you are trying people on, if you are serial and anogamizing, I think that's where this comes in, because sometimes your lights on even when it shouldn't be. Like if you heard of the getaway car theory of like you find a relationship to get you out of the relationship you're in, so you could be married and one person's light is on and the other one doesn't know. Like I think the point of it is that for a lot of people, the one true love theory isn't necessarily it. It's more like, is this the right moment? Clooney and a mile? Very good, very good advertising for that.
Speaker 2: No, hard because I'm also like A miles A mile.
Speaker 3: Zoey, like, I don't know for a proving any extraordinarily Well, no, but I don't like that theory right because I bet that.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course a mile is extraordinary, and of course so is extraordinary. But that theory buys into the idea that everybody who didn't get picked there was something wrong with that and we're waiting for like. So my point about A mile and George is he was married when he was young, but through all his big rise he was single, and he was known as the most eligible bachelor in Hollywood. And I think that he made a bet with Nicole Kidman comes to mind, I will never get married again?
Speaker 3: Is that during that period, as people may remember, I had a long phone conversation with him. She went for about an hour in a work context, and I guess he's light his life just wasn't.
Speaker 2: Why.
Speaker 1: But the thing is is that of course these women are amazing, because of course they are. But if you believe that it just takes the right woman, then that's like a model of exceptionalism that I'm not that into. Was more likely getting to a point in his life where it's like, I don't want.
Speaker 3: To be a six I don't want the pot belly pig as my life, and.
Speaker 1: Then he meets an extraordinary woman, and he would have met other extraordinary women in Amma would have met a million extraordinary men who wanted to tie her down like she's a catch and a half in a million ways, intellect, beauty, human rights, like savior. She's incredible, but her light probably was not.
Speaker 3: I feel like you just out sexist argument to know. I thought the taxi like theory was sexist, which turns out I was carrying.
Speaker 2: Around the sexes I think. I think that there are I think the taxi light theory does make us feel better about ourselves, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's true, because because I think it's really convenient to be like, oh, that man like George Clooney. The reason he didn't end up with all those women was because of timing, not because he wasn't compatible, it wasn't right whatever, Whereas I think I lean towards Amal and George were always destined?
Speaker 4: Is that do I?
Speaker 1: Did we just say the word destined?
Speaker 2: I think romantic you.
Speaker 4: Are because you met the love of your life quite young.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think maybe I'm trying to justify my own choices, which is.
Speaker 1: And maybe I'm trying to just always because I don't. I don't buy the theory necessarily that everybody before was wrong and it was the right fit.
Speaker 4: Oh, you haven't met my ex boyfriend, fair cool.
Speaker 1: I'd love to know what we think about the taxi light theory, and also if there's an update, because I've heard a couple like some people say it's musical chairs, who are you with when the music stops? Some people say it's coughing season. EMM has said that, like there's times of years, seasons in your life where you're just like, Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 2: I need someone.
Speaker 1: But I was wondering because my daughter wouldn't even know about taxis and lights on.
Speaker 4: No, no, we need to fit into this.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, it's like the ubers available and empty.
Speaker 6: The.
Speaker 1: Waiting time on this No, I can't ten minutes too long. Tell us out louder.
Speaker 2: We're really in an era of maxing, which we've touched on on this podcast. Not me personally. I'm not maxing anything.
Speaker 1: I'm just everything is maxim but everything.
Speaker 4: Other people very optimi everything.
Speaker 2: Yes, so looks maxing, sleep maxing, fun maxing, which sounds gross. But here's one I hadn't heard of until this weekend. Sperm maxing. I like it because it's not something I can personally participate in. I feel excused from sperm maxing.
Speaker 1: What how does?
Speaker 6: What?
Speaker 4: How do you?
Speaker 1: Maxis swem? I'm not I don't need to know. I'm just curious.
Speaker 2: Headline in Sydney Morning heralds red iced testicles and abandoned underwear. This is the world of sperm maxing. And it begins by telling us about a lovely man named Mick and his partner Holly, and oh there you go, Holly, I'm in. So they were discussing their plans to have a family, and Holly was and Holly was saying she had fears about her fertility, and Mick said, you leave that to me, love, And so what he did was he stopped wearing underwear because most underwear is made of polyester, and that's apparently and a crime disruptor. Come on, and lowers testosterone.
Speaker 1: I believe many babies have been born to polyester wearing people.
Speaker 2: And then he would ice spark at least once a week, not that shrunk, No, no, no, Heat's the bad thing. Because then another guy called Tom was explaining that he goes in the sauna, but don't worry because he takes an ice pack with him.
Speaker 1: And puts it on this necessary that would be a very confusing sensory experience.
Speaker 2: Because apparently excessive heat is damaging to sperm. So apparently there is some evidence about heat and sperm. But the rest of this is complete. You won't believe it, but it's complete bullshit. But Brian Johnson, who's that tech entrepreneur who's obsessed with longevity, claims to have the one who has his sons.
Speaker 1: Yes, the one who has his son's blood injected into He's done so many and measure time erections. He doesn't need food after eleven am.
Speaker 4: Like that guy.
Speaker 1: He's living a long but very boring life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, he claims to have sperm quality to rival a twenty year old. He's got no basis that claim, but that's what he says, which brings me to the Sperm Racing World Cup. Are we aware of the Sperm Racing World Cup?
Speaker 1: Totally?
Speaker 2: I discovered this and it is the funnest thing I've discovered as of late. It's founded by tech entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1: They have too much money, too much money that they should come to my We did frog racing, peak racing, like good.
Speaker 2: Sperm race should be doing some sperm racing. It's a race that's going to be held in San Francisco next month.
Speaker 4: I think what they're saying is that their cab light is on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll show you with my literal sperm. And it's one hundred and twenty eight men, each representing a different country, and they submit semen samples which then compete in a microscopic race for a one hundred thousand dollars prize. Now here's the ad for it, because I know you guys are interested.
Speaker 6: The Sperm Racing World Cup one hundred and twenty eight countries, one hundred thousand dollars grand rights, the highest stakes competition elequancy. We are searching for the healthiest man alive. This race will immortalized a nation to your country is watching, the world is ready.
Speaker 3: I don't want to know what images are currently playing.
Speaker 2: It's sperm racing.
Speaker 1: This brings a whole new meaning to the term wanking. Frustrating one hundred thousand dollars price.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I as much as trust the tech bros To make a literal tournament out of sperm racing, which I have to say I'd love to attend. I mean, how do you make it exciting? I don't know. This is interesting in the sense that fertility has traditionally been in something that women have seen as their soul responsibility and burdens. And it's nice that men are starting to recognize that. You won't believe it, but fifty percent of fertility is down to the man.
Speaker 4: This feels like Elon Musky to me. It feels musky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I imagine, yeah, and.
Speaker 4: You got the That was the joke I needed.
Speaker 2: And obviously the problem is that not every fertility issue is has a cause or like it's it's not your fault.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry you're trying to what's problematic about the spermilm?
Speaker 4: So I think we get a crash and it's.
Speaker 2: Literally not a race. Do you reckon?
Speaker 3: You can do a little bit of a race. Are you familiar with the facts of life? It is literally a race.
Speaker 2: But do you reckon? You can tell when a man has very fast spur?
Speaker 4: Oh my god. Oh interesting.
Speaker 1: But do you think he's putting it on his dating profile like one this it would definitely be on that.
Speaker 3: It's going to immortalize his nation. Yeah, for Australia, I need an update on this.
Speaker 2: When it happens, we'll have to keep everybody updated on the tournament and Australia's participation. We need to find who's representing Australia. Oh my god, sorry, I've got another contact.
Speaker 4: So clear, like you asked, you posed a question to the group. Can you tell first sperm?
Speaker 2: Yeah, something tells me like you kind of know who would have fast sperm. But I don't think it's necessarily a good thing.
Speaker 4: No, it's not always.
Speaker 2: No, I think it's it's aggressive and it's like congrats Elon musk. But like you're releasing a lot of sperm and you're not like hanging out with that sperm very much?
Speaker 1: Are you may not taking the sperm to soccer again.
Speaker 2: No, you're not taking a sperm to sport on the weekend, and I think that's very sad. Oh my god, after the break, we get you across everything you need to know about the Met Gala before tomorrow. Tomorrow on the evening of the first Monday of May, which is always confusing. But America exists in a different time to us.
Speaker 1: There are one day behind us.
Speaker 2: They're one day behind us, and I always have to google time in New York. As is tradition, four hundred and fifty very glamorous guests are going to start arriving at the Met Gala. The dress code for this year is Fashion is Art and the theme is Costume Art and I don't understand the difference between dress code and a theme.
Speaker 1: And also always yeah, the Met Gala is about a costume institute in an eye museum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I'm glad I'm not the only one who was feeling like because I was like, I think it's just me not understanding fashion. But no, it's weird. So guests are invited to explore their relationship to fashion as an embodied art form. That might mean that there are references to literal art, literal paintings, literal kind of art, moments like whether it's the Renaissance or whatever. But it's the Met Gala, so I think everybody just goes bat it crazy and we don't really understand the tide of the theme. Most of her time, Anna Wintur is still the chair despite having handed the rains reluctantly.
Speaker 1: Streep is still the chair.
Speaker 4: Yes she is.
Speaker 2: And she's enlisted Beyonce, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams to serve as their evening's.
Speaker 1: Co chair, so they have to go.
Speaker 2: Yes they do. Holly, there's a little bit of gossip about Anna Wintour and whether we can expect to see Harry and Meghan at the met Gala.
Speaker 1: You see, the thing is about the Met Gala, and we'll get to this in a minute too, but whether this is is particularly fraught with who will accept an int because of the involvement of one aforementioned Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez Bezos, because they are bankrolling it. So in the past, big companies bankrolled it. I think Apple's bankrolled it before, TikTok's bankrolled it before. Now it's Lauren and Jeff, and some people are like, I don't think we want to be part of that, So we're not going.
Speaker 3: And there have been protests. People have been putting bottles of urine or a liquid that appears to be urine, scattering them around the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the lead up to the gala to protest the fact that the alleged fact that Amazon warehouse workers are not provided with toilet breaks.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a protest. And for the last few years they have been to kind of eat the rich vibe boiling away about the met gala for good reason, but this year it's overt, right, So I reckon that Harry and Meghan might use that as the excuse for why they weren't invited. You I didn't want to go any who wants to go and hang out with Jeff and Lauren. Those people are bad, evil, naughty. But actually it's that Anna wouldn't invite them, And why would Anna not invite them? So the word on the street is that Anna because it used to be Anna. Winter's relationship with celebrities evolved a lot over the years, and if you watch The Devil We was Proud of Too, you'll know that was a matter of survival. There was a time when she was like Kim Kardashian, I don't think so she's not vogue, and then she literally is exceptionally vogue these days. But she apparently doesn't like Harry and Meghan because she's a royalist, a staunch royalist. She's a dame after all. This might be overregged a bit, but she's a royalist, so she doesn't approve of what happened there and the way that Harry treated the late queen allegedly, and also that Meghan chose to do her first ever Vogue cover with Edward Ennafel in Britain and Anna was not happy about that and sees her as a bit.
Speaker 2: So I wonder if eventually they'll be considered.
Speaker 1: I think Anna's backtracked on enough things and in fact, you know, but as I say, I think that Harry and Megs, if they're not there, which I don't think they will be, well, could definitely use a social justice excuse. But there are a lot of very famous people who are going to be there, of course, including as you've said, the afore mentioned Nicole. Lena Dunham's going, which I find amazing because I've just read a memoir and she talks about the Metgala and not glowing terms, but she was on one of the committees as well. I think we've got Sabrina Carpenter, We've got Zoe Kravitz, so we might get Harry. We've got a lot of very famous people who are going. But this year, more than ever, it's kind of political.
Speaker 3: There's a bit of a tipping point being reached about it. Amy O'Dell, who writes a fashion subject called The back Row, wrote last week a piece that I've seen a lot being quoted and circulated which basically argues that the met Gala is in danger of becoming uncool.
Speaker 4: And the whole point of the met.
Speaker 3: Gala was that it was cool, right, It was like the ultimate and fashion. And the problem is that by allowing the Bezoses to bankroll the whole thing and a winter, risks turning the whole thing into this very craven exercise that no one will want to be a part of. So it's interesting. I'm going to be watching the Red Cup very carefully this year to see if it does feel like the star wattage has been slightly dimmed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if the people who make it cool because Ndaya is not going Zendaya makes things cool.
Speaker 4: She does.
Speaker 2: So what I found interesting in all the kind of stuff I've seen about the Met Gala coming up, there was a great piece on Lena Dunham's substack called and her subtacks called good Thing Going, and she wrote a piece called Dispatches from the Worst Dressed List, and I clicked straight away because having been a huge fan of girls, having been a huge fan of her, I remember years and years and years of seeing her constantly mocked for her fashion choices, and I remember wanting to scream at my computer and be like, it's not the fashion, you're talking about her body, And I was so frustrated. And she has now kind of processed that. And as you say, Holly, she's going to be at the Metgala, which is a bit of a surprise. But she writes at the beginning that she's in the process of getting ready for the Met Gala, which she loves to watch but tends to wobble through. And she talks about some of the things that were written about her and how it destroyed her relationship to fashion, and she had loved it when she was little, she had found it really really fun, but it got confusing. She writes when dressing became a bit more of a public affair. Basically, she quotes a bit that Joan Rivers said about her, where she said, it's okay stay fat, but don't say it's okay that other girls can look like this. Try to look better, and Lena Dunham Wrights, I was trying. We just have a different definition of what better meant. And do you guys remember those years? Oh yeah, her just being made fun of.
Speaker 1: But also because as I said, I've just read the book, or nearly at the end, it's very clear that she's got like she went through years where she was conventionally skinny, and if you correlate this in the book, that coincides with time when she was really struggling with her health and her addiction issues and with mental health and all those things. Since she'd be super skinny and people would celebrate her for that. She made the cover of Vogue famously once in one of those eras, and then there were other times where she was encouraged. There's a part at the beginning about girls where she was told put more weight on the fact that your body looks the way it does is the thing that makes this show Edgy get bigger. So like her body has obviously been objectified to send different messages at different times about all kinds of things. But it's also clear in her book that she does love clothes and style and fashion and that her mind did does and so it was part of her world. But that's not the case for everybody. Right, If you go to the Met Gala, especially these days, you're generally paid to be there by a brand. They will dress you, they will style you, they will do your duels, they will do your put you up at the hotel, and you'll do all these things and it will cost them millions. But I was reading about how it's seen as the best possible advertise, which is be interesting. If the coolness factor wears off, as you're talking about Amelia, that is the best marketing spender brand can have. Because apparently the media impact of the Metgala is bigger than the Super Bowl in terms of how Father's pictures travel, how much coverage it gets, the fact it's televised, it will be on every news side, it will be on every social media feed forever. That not only the brands who are actively involved, like Vogue and whichever are actually sponsoring it will be the ones who cover it, so it is seen as money well spent, and the event itself costs about six million to put on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's obviously at a level that few of us can relate to the met Gala, But that Lena Dunham piece gave me a lot of feelings.
Speaker 4: I loved it.
Speaker 3: I read it as a companion piece to the love Story discourse. This whole idea of Carolyn Bessett Kennedy, who was lauded for her fashion sense.
Speaker 4: People ask the question, is this fashion or is she just thin?
Speaker 3: And this was kind of the flip side to that argument, which is can I not be fashionable if I am not thin? And I loved the fact that she asked that question. This really hit home to me because I have never felt like someone who knows how to dress. I am surrounded by very stylish people, and I grew up with like friends. And I interrupt, Please don't I think of myself as I feel like I've struggled with what to wear my whole life. And I do enjoy clothes. But it's interesting that when I was at my skinniest and probably at a pretty unhealthy relationship with my body. I was lauded much more for my clothes and for my supposed style than at other points in my life. And I love that Lena's teasing out that connection. And just recently I saw some comments online that said that I don't dress very well, and it hurt my feelings because I was like, I try, and I do try with my clothes, and I meant to not try. I mean, as as Miranda Priestley reminds us in The Devil wes Prata, we all have to get dressed in the morning, so you may as well put some thought into it. But I do wonder how much of what we perceive of as stylish is actually connected to bodies.
Speaker 1: Oh so much of it is. And I mean this last night literally, I was packing for the week because I always come up to Sydney on a Monday morning. I usually stay for a couple of nights, so I've got to think on Sunday when I'm in my most harried, like what am I wearing? Obviously we're on camera, but and I was in my huffing around in my bedroom, going I hate all my clothes. I hate all my clothes, and my kids could hear me, and obviously because I am aware, you know, feminist mother, I do not huff around my bedroom going I hate my body, nothing fits me. But the code is I hate all my clothes. I've got nothing to wear, and my son it's like, what do you mean, why have you even got those clothes if you hate them? You know, But there is no question that these things are so connected, and that fashion world, particularly the high fashion world, they say we like to imagine that they've made a lot of progress on that in the ten years. But I don't think in Anna Wintour's world that progress.
Speaker 4: I'm just not talking about it as much. I think that's what it is.
Speaker 2: I remember it still sticks with me.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Remember when Kim Kardashian went on a red carpet wearing a It was kind of like a high neck dress. There's a lot of fabric, and she was very, very pregnant.
Speaker 1: I was working gossip mags and I'm not proud of this at all, but everybody says she looked like a couch. I think we printed that. I think we took the piss out of that overtly, and she was trying very hard to be high.
Speaker 2: Fashion exactly and I think about that all the time. As a pregnant person. I'm like, I the idea of being mocked and being so embarrassed because you're like, I didn't choose for my body to grow, Like, like it just grows in the direction and grows when you're pregnant, and it can grow in weird direction. And to be totally honest, this this move now, and I'm sure people have the total opposite perspective to me, But the move now of people having really cool maternity, you know, people make it look really really cool and sexy, having a bump like the Sienna Millers of the world with their like little top that will open and it looks really sexy. I'm like, God, you can't even be pregnant and be able to give up for just a few months.
Speaker 1: No, we're not allowed hot at all times. Okay, I just need to ask, right, Because as we said, this mat Gala has got this political weight to it. I feel like for the last few years it has, and there's been a sort of oh but it's fun and we all need the distraction. Are we going to be looking at that red carpet tomorrow? Because I know I will, Yeah, I will. I will I will.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will too, And I think that why I will be looking is because fashion is fun. It should be fun, it should be something that we enjoy looking at. And I love how Lena ties up her piece because it's not a hopeless piece.
Speaker 4: She ultimately concludes.
Speaker 3: By saying, what I realize now is I was making choices that maybe made people feel uncomfortable, whether it was because I was wearing clothes that that type of body should not have been wearing, for instance, or she was wearing clothes that weren't regarded as as exactly mattering me. She talks about how she spoke to a very well known fashion critic about this sort of debate recently, and the fashion critics said to her, you just have a point of view that's called taste. And I love the idea that just because you're wearing something that might not be universally regarded as flattering or fashionable, you can still have a point of view about it. And I guess that's ideally what these kind of red carpet events are meant to showcase is a unique point of view.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I'll be watching.
Speaker 1: We will rope in our absolute fashion expert May who used to love the met Gala. As she said, people take more risks there than they do when they're you know, at the Oscars or whatever, because it is the whole point of it is to be quite bad shit. So we will be doing a met Gala wrap up for subscribers tomorrow afternoon, and I'm sure that Maya will have many thoughts. That's all we've got time for this Monday. I hope everybody's week starts well. We will be back in your ears tomorrow for subscribers, and the three of us will be here on Wednesday. Thank you to our team. We'll see you then, Bye bye.
Speaker 2: Mummy acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.
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Can you be engaged for too long? Or is ‘engaged’ a full relationship stage of its own now, with no destination in mind? Ask Haylie Duff.
Is there a 'cluck' gap between Gen Z women and Gen Z men? And if so, do young men want a baby like a kid wants a puppy?
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Also, a woman opened her friend’s fridge and was so upset by what she found, she ended the friendship. Is it okay to expect your friends to abstain from the same things?
Plus, a burning question for Clare Stephens: Did she and Jessie ever just think it would be easier to marry twins. Bombshells ahead.
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And, Recommendations:
Em: The Testaments on Disney+, the Handmaid's Tale sequel.
Holly: This Is A Gardening Show on Netflix and hosted by Zach Galifianakis.
Clare: Striped shirt "dupes" from Cotton On.
Emily (Bonus): The Mamamia podcast But Are You Happy? — specifically the episode on boundaries.
What To Listen To Next:
Listen to But Are You Happy: Here's When Setting A Boundary Is Actually Necessary
Listen to our latest episode: The Real Reason You Resent Your Friends
Listen: The One Minute Of Live TV That Undid A Noughties Icon
Listen: Scurrilous Gossip: An Engagement, An Affair & A Royal F-You
Listen: The Family Ritual That Has Us Divided
Listen: The Most Honest Dating Questionnaire We've Ever Seen
Listen: Is WFH Bad For Women?
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What to read:
'6 things that happened to me on weight loss medication.'
The one comment that confirms Hilary Duff is in a 'secret' feud with her sister, Haylie.
'I just got engaged. Here are 8 surprising things that I didn't know would happen.'
'She made a move on my date.' 10 women on the friendship betrayals they'll never recover from.
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CREDITS:
Hosts: Holly Wainwright, Clare Stephens & Emily Vernem
Group Executive Producer: Ruth Devine
Executive Producer: Sasha Tannock
Video Producer: Josh Green
Junior Content Producer: Tessa Kotowicz
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land on which we have recorded this podcast.
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So there was a famous handsome man in the Mamamia office today and Holly’s a bit giddy.
But also. Russell Brand’s most-memed moment of a wild career might turn out to be what happened in a live interview this week. But why is he suddenly talking? About sex, about Katy Perry, about his day in court?
REMEMBER: All Mamamia subscribers get extra episodes of Out Loud. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Mia, Holly and Em Vernem go rogue, just for you. Subscribe HERE.
Also, can you wear soft pants to dinner? Take your undrunk drinks home? Show everyone pictures of your kid your phone? We unpack the (latest) latest etiquette rules.
And, what really happened at the White House Correspondents’ dinner and why does no-one want to believe it?
Plus: Why one star walked out of the White Lotus after two days.
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What To Listen To Next:
Listen to our latest episode: Scurrilous Gossip: An Engagement, An Affair & A Royal F-You
Listen: The Family Ritual That Has Us Divided
Listen: The Most Honest Dating Questionnaire We've Ever Seen
Listen: Is WFH Bad For Women?
Listen: When A Crappy Husband Makes A Great TV Show
Listen: Harry & Meghan Just Blew Up The Sandringham Summit
Listen: Your Boss's Unpopular Opinion & It's Taurus Season
Listen: A Fight About Who’s Allowed To Have A Crush
Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts
Discover more Mamamia Podcasts here including the very latest episode of Parenting Out Loud, the parenting podcast for people who don't listen to... parenting podcasts.
SUBSCRIBE here: Support independent women's media
You can now watch our show in full length video on the Apple Podcast app - make sure your phone is up to date and we can't wait for you to see
Mamamia Out Loud on Apple
What to read:
Consider this the definitive The Devil Wears Prada quiz.
Russell Brand said he had "consensual sex" with a teenager. Then he used a different word.
Russell Brand wants you to believe he's a changed man. He's just been charged with rape.
'A modern etiquette guide is going viral. But Australians? All you need are these 19 rules.'
THE END BITS:
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GET IN TOUCH:
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Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land on which we have recorded this podcast.
Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.