Mamamia Out Loud: Ashton Kutcher & When The Monster Is Your Friend

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Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud, what women are actually talking about on Monday, the 11th of September.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Mia Friedman.

And I'm Claire Stevens.

And on the show today, a convicted rapist and two of the most famous people in the world.

Why everyone is talking about Danny Masterson, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis.

Also, a cry for help from a lonely generation for the cost of being in a coal.

We're unpacking a viral clip about friendship rejection.

And seeing the human side of people you vehemently disagree with, is it always a good idea?

Annabelle Crabb has thoughts.

But first, Mia.

In case you missed it, Rihanna and her partner ASAP Rocky.

No, no, it's ASAP Rocky and Mia, you just sounded 100.

You pronounce it ASAP.

ASAP Rocky.

Never, ever, ever say that ever again.

But sometimes I say, like, can you get that for me ASAP?

Well, all of this is quite apt because in case you missed it, Rihanna and Rocky have had

another baby, another little boy, and they've called him Riot.

And I think that's silly.

Riot.

Because also Elon Musk this week announced the birth of his third child with his ex-partner

who's called Grimes.

I just can't read people's names anymore.

That little boy is called Techno Mechanicus.

Techno Mechanicus.

Or Tao for short.

Elon's and Grimes first son is called, it's just a whole lot of symbols, like a password

that's generated for you.

And their daughter's name is also another one that's like a password, except it's more

like ExaDark, Sidorail, Musk.

And Rihanna and ASAP Rocky, their first baby is called RZA.

And I think you pronounce that, Reza, and I can't even deal.

And I've decided that baby names are the new tattoos and everyone has to just calm down.

As somebody who is a child of teachers, we have often talked about naughty names, names

that always mean that you're going to have a naughty kid.

Oh.

All of these.

Digmatising names.

For example, I think a Blake is always going to, I'm not saying they're a bad person.

I'm just saying a Blake is always going to be just a little bit naughty.

Yeah.

They're just always going to be a little bit naughty.

You cannot tell me that Riot is going to be a well-behaved child because it's quiet.

I just think it's babies names have become, I mean, they always have been branding for

parents, really, because when you have to choose a name for your child, it is a reflection

of you.

None of your kids are called Bob and John.

I agree with you.

Your kids have all got interesting names.

It's all branding in a way.

Did you see it that way, do you think?

I think everyone does.

And I think that now the idea is that your name of your child has to be very extra special.

And that's why we've now seen this proliferation of companies like one called Nom de Bloom naming

where you actually pay for a bespoke list of first and middle names.

You give them a briefing of whatever criteria it is you're looking for.

Like maybe you want a name that is based on your mother's name or that matches the vibe

of the baby's oldest sibling.

Or maybe you just want one that's outside of the top 500 or even 1000, most common baby

names.

And then for a whole lot of money, they come back with a list of possible names.

There's only one test you need.

And this was my life growing up in Manchester.

We used to play in the street.

Remember when kids used to play in the street?

You have to test every name by what it would sound like if you were yelling it out in the

street.

And so you were going, riot, it's time for your bath.

Yes.

And it's like, that's not going to wait.

That's what people now do with their dogs.

They yell it and imagine yelling it at the park.

Yeah.

So you go, Caesar, Caesar.

Yeah.

And I still love him.

Still love him.

There's one story dominating this week.

And it's about Danny Masterson, a Hollywood actor who has been convicted of rape.

And about Ashton Kutcher and Miller Kunis, two of his very famous friends who wrote Masterson

glowing character references to try to minimize his sentence, which after two trials on these

charges has turned out to be 30 years.

Now, Claire, this story takes a lot of turns.

So for those of us who are not that familiar with the show that all three of these people

were on, and I believe the sort of genesis of their fame, that 70s show.

Who the hell is Danny Masterson?

That 70s show is the show that I grew up watching.

Is it kind of like everybody loves Raymond or something like that?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

My era?

Yes.

Exactly.

I have seen every single episode of it.

And Danny Masterson in that was like the stoner.

I don't love people.

I love Camaro's, Zeppelin and French fries in that order.

So Ashton Kutcher and Miller Kunis played sort of an on again, off again couple.

Danny Masterson is not like a household name.

So he hasn't done much since then, right?

Unlike Ashton and Miller.

He was doing a show a few years ago with Ashton Kutcher.

And as soon as these allegations came out, they kicked him off the show.

He's a Scientologist, quite a prominent Scientologist.

Yeah.

What has he been convicted of?

What did he do?

He has been convicted of two counts of rape.

And there are more accusers.

So there is in particular an ex-partner who accused him of rape.

There was not enough evidence.

Probably the person people have seen in the media talking about the case

and talking about him.

But he has not been found guilty of her allegations in a court of law.

But he has been found guilty of two other women whose victim statements

did get read out in the court of law and they are really shocking.

So Miller Kunis and Ashton Kutcher wrote character references for Masterson, right?

He was found guilty.

Then there's a pause and they're going to get sentenced.

And so they've written him these quite glowing character references

about what a great guy he was.

And unsurprisingly, the internet was not thrilled and there has been a big pushback.

And so this weekend, Miller and Ashton released an apology video,

his little bit of what they said.

We are aware of the pain that has been caused by the character letters

that we wrote on behalf of Danny Masterson.

We support victims.

We have done this historically through our work and will continue to do so in the future.

The letters were not written to question the legitimacy of the judicial system

or the validity of the jury's ruling.

They were intended for the judiciary and not to undermine the testimony of the victims

or retraumatize them in any way.

We would never want to do that.

And we're sorry if that has taken place.

Our heart goes out to every single person who's ever been a victim of sexual assault,

sexual abuse or rape.

Why would Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher do this?

Why would they write those references?

Why does it matter what they think about Danny Masterson?

It's a pretty common occurrence to have character references when someone is awaiting

sentencing or consideration of a judge in Australia as well.

I've written a character reference for someone who was charged with something low level,

was not a sexual assault.

If I write a character reference for someone who was charged with a sexual assault,

I don't think I would.

The idea is basically so the judge gets a contextual picture of the accused or the person

who's been convicted before they sentenced them to work out well.

Are they a repeat offender?

Do they do good things in the community?

Have they never had a history of any transgression before?

And they're meant to take that into consideration.

Now, I think there were about 50 character references for Danny Masterson.

And I don't know whether character references are always public in a case

or whether these just became public after his conviction.

But obviously people are very upset,

particularly because Ashton Kutcher has a charity that helps to combat sex slavery.

Yes.

So sexual abuse in the context of human trafficking.

And it's been something we've talked about a lot in Australia

because people probably remember when George Pell was being sentenced

that Tony Abbott was a character reference and a few very high profile Australian figures

were character references and people felt incredibly uncomfortable about it

because there is something very different.

There is something that feels really different about reading a character reference

when it is in the context of a case about child sexual abuse

or sexual abuse or rape.

As opposed to...

Drink driving.

Like obviously you could argue that a person doing drink driving

also doesn't deserve that context.

But the reason it feels so jarring is because often it's just after an entire court case

that has questioned the victim because in a sexual assault case

it's different to any other case because the victim is the evidence in a bizarre way

and the victim and their integrity has to be questioned

in order to defend the alleged perpetrator.

It would seem that particularly in this kind of assault like they're irrelevant.

It is possible to be a good friend and you know appear to be a good friend,

a good dude who does whatever.

It's possible to be those things and still be a rapist.

There's no way you could possibly know whether or not that guy was guilty of these things.

Which is what they maintain.

That they were just talking about him within that time frame

and the person that they knew and that they weren't questioning the judicial system

or the validity of the victim's stories.

I've written a character reference for someone who was charged with a first-time low-range DOI

and I did not in any way try to make excuses for them, in fact the opposite.

And I didn't try to defend their actions or you know question whether they did it or not.

That's not the role of a character reference but even all of that aside

you would say they must have been really really close friends to have done that

because anyone could have seen that that was not going to go well for Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis when this came out.

No and the biggest thing people say is that these sorts of character references are retraumatising to victims.

They've just been through this horrible court case and then you hear Ashton Kutcher say

I do not believe he is an ongoing harm to society and having his daughter raised without a present father

would be a tertiary injustice in and of itself.

Is that what the character reference said?

Oh yeah.

Like how would he know whether he's an ongoing harm to society?

Exactly.

Exactly.

It feels so.

So it seems that the judge also kind of thought this was irrelevant

because 30 years is a very serious sentence for sexual assault

and in America sexual assault jail sentences are stricter than here.

So they say the average one for a convicted rape will be about 14 years

which is a long time happily in a way because here in Australia the equivalent is around four years.

But still 30 years is a really long time which suggests that the victims testimony was incredibly compelling.

They've said that obviously the crimes themselves were terrible

but then they were also then subject to intimidation and silencing.

Because they were Scientologists as well, weren't they?

Yeah, from people within the Church of Scientology.

The Church of Scientology very vehemently denies that of course.

They do.

The fact that the sentence was so serious suggests that the judge also didn't really give us stuff

about Ashton and Mila's character reference or any of the other 48 that were there.

So again, why all this glare on them?

There's the hypocrisy element.

The people are looking at somebody like Ashton Kutcher

who has done so much public facing work about victims of abuse

and then doesn't seem to have empathy for a victim of abuse

when it happens to have been perpetrated by his friend.

There's that element.

There's also the stark nature of these character references.

There's another part where Ashton Kutcher says

Masterson helped him not fall into the typical Hollywood life of drugs

whereas we know and Ashton Kutcher knew at the time of writing that

that Danny Masterson drugged his victims.

So it's like, oh, okay, cool.

So he wasn't taking drugs and he helped his friends not take drugs

but he was using drugs in order to commit these offenses.

So it does seem as though Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis by extension

are these people who really put out this image of caring about victims

but it's very different when it's close to them and their circle.

My first reaction when I was looking at this

and how all of the oxygen is being sucked up by them

is that that must also be very infuriating for the victims

because really our focus should be on Danny Masterson and the victims, right?

Unless the thing I was thinking is I guess it's justified that every headline I'm reading is about Ashton and Mila

if what we're suggesting is that this kind of cronyism

and powerful people looking after their own is part of the problem.

You know what I mean? Like in a me too sense.

In the same way that we discussed how Robert Downey Jr. was paying for Army Hammers rehab

or that Celebrity Circle will close in and protect its own

which is never going to be good for people from the outside who are trying to get justice

but is it that or is it just tantalising because they're famous?

What's happened recently is that one of Masterson's accusers

his ex Chrissy Carnell Bixler shared a number of old clips

and accusations on social media about Ashton Kutcher specifically

and she wrote on her Instagram stories,

I know the secrets your role model keeps for you.

Ones that would end you. Did you forget I was there?

You were on speakerphone the night that Downey called on February 21, 2001.

So she's shared that and it has been in the news

and people have asked what the hell happened on February 21, 2001.

Now for context this has been in the news for a long time

that a woman that Ashton Kutcher was dating was murdered

in February 2001.

The man who murdered her is in prison.

We definitely know who did it.

His name is Michael Gargiulio.

He's known as the Hollywood Ripper.

There is irrefutable evidence that he is the one who murdered Ashley Ellerin

who was the woman Ashton Kutcher was seeing

but this has now been brought up by one of Masterson's accusers

as though there's maybe something we don't know about this story.

It's a very dangerous territory to go down

but I'm sure a lot of people are now really reading about that Ashton Kutcher case

and doing it with a very different lens.

Which is a dangerous thing to speculate about.

That feels kind of gross.

It feels like Ashton Kutcher is in the headlines for what's clearly a misguided

and you know depending on your perspective like Downright Traumatising Act

and so let's trawl through everything that's ever happened to Ashton Kutcher

and point out all the ways in which he's problematic

which is something that we like to do on the internet but is that really fair?

I mean I don't know, I don't want to make in any way sound like I'm defending the undefendable

but it also feels a little bit like a feeding frenzy at this point.

It does.

It feels like the internet has turned on Ashton and Miller in a really vicious way.

It always seems to be the case that in these stories

we get further and further away from the victims and the victims' experiences.

We're now on to focusing far more on the two celebrity friends of Danny Masterson

than the people that he hurt and the lives he ruined.

We spend so much time and energy on our skincare

and that means sometimes our scalp gets forgotten.

We know just how common dandruff can be

and it turns out those with dandruff often have an unbalanced scalp microbiome.

Take care of your scalp and target dandruff effectively with Dirkos Anti-Dandruff Shampoo by Vichy

which eliminates up to 100% of visible dandruff after just one use

and rebalances the scalp microbiome after four weeks.

Vichy is recommended by over 50,000 dermatologists

and is dermatologically tested so it's the results that you can trust.

Discover Dirkos exclusively at Chemist Warehouse.

I was feeling about being rejected as a friend. Here's some of what she said.

I am so tired of begging people to want me in their life.

I don't understand. I don't understand.

I am trying so hard.

I've been trying so hard for so long to connect with people

and I'm trying to just love without any strings attached, not expect anything in return

but it's so tiring to always be the one reaching out, trying to make plans

just trying to get any sort of interest from people I don't understand.

I do not understand.

This is such a 2023 thing because she's being so genuine

and she's so clearly distressed

but then there's also the music that she's put underneath it.

And also the fact that she is doing it to the camera in the front of her car.

I do think that I'll defend that in some way

because it's like when you are feeling incredibly lonely and isolated

and like you're the crazy one, saying that and being reassured by strangers

can actually be quite comforting.

I don't know how sustainable it is long term as a solution.

Do you think that that's the motive for the video is the validation of strangers

it wasn't to get at somebody in particular?

Oh, that's interesting. I didn't see it as an attention seeking in that sense

or a revenge kind of...

I did think everybody who is friends with her would be thinking

this is about me.

It's reached almost 7 million people now

and a lot of people commented sort of sympathised

and have said that they can relate

because they have been in or are currently in a similar situation

with people who don't value their friendships.

It's kind of like that trope of he's just not that into you

but in a friendship sense, not a romantic one.

There's several surprising parts of this

and one of them is that she seems from the outside like the kind of person

who would not have problems being socially connected.

She's young and she's beautiful but we know that actually Gen Z women

are the loneliest demographic of all

and it's no coincidence that they have been raised in the internet era

of social media and we know what damage that has done.

We're only really understanding that now.

We reached out to Rebecca Sparrow who is an outlier

also a bit of an expert in this area of friendship and young women

and she wrote a great article about it for Mama Mia

with some advice and some tips

for people who might be struggling with it

because you might see that and not be able to relate to it yourself

but maybe your daughter, maybe your friend, maybe your cousin

maybe someone in your life has experienced that or is experiencing that.

She said that some of the things to ask yourself are

are these really your people?

When you're trying to sort of insert yourself into groups of people

that don't seem to want you, should you be looking elsewhere?

She also says something that's really interesting

and I want to ask you about this.

She says are you looking for more intensity than what your friends can give?

Are you being needy?

She says there's a fine line between enthusiasm and smothering people.

Ask yourself if you're comfortable being alone in your company.

If you're not, it could make you quite needy as a friend

needing others to entertain you and prop you up.

When I read Beck's article I found it really helpful and informative

but there was also a bit of me that was like

oh it's kind of brave because in this climate these days

people would be like oh that's a bit victim-blamey.

Like what do you mean she's needy? She's a poor distressed young woman.

But Beck is so right and wise in this explanation

because it's not about saying to her there's something wrong with you

but one of the things that can happen in friendships and families

is that needs clash like if your needs don't meet.

So some people need more social connection than others.

Some people need to feel like there are more people around them than others

and if you're clashing with people in your life

because they don't seem to be giving you what you need

it might be because they already have it

but it also might just be because they don't need it in the same way that you do.

It's interesting we say everybody has to learn to be comfortable by themselves

but not everybody can.

Again we're all wired a bit differently

that some people really need to feel that web of connection

literally around them all the time to be able to feel safe

and other people find it suffocating.

So neither of those people are wrong or right or needy or whatever

but you've got to match yourself

which is what's really interesting in the way Beck puts it

and she's like match your intensity with somebody else.

Again you can read that as critical like a little bit like

oh you're a bit much aren't you?

But actually what it means is

find the people who need what you need

because it can be really easy to miscommunicate

you asking and reaching out to arrange this and do that

can be overwhelming for someone who just does not need that in their lives.

So I've had to really re-examine my response to this video

because when I first saw it

I was frustrated and annoyed

and I couldn't work out why my response to somebody

who has been incredibly vulnerable and incredibly open

and crying was to be annoyed with them

and I'm listening to her saying I'm so tired, I'm so tired

and I just looked at her and felt angry

and it was because I think I get the sense

that that emotion that she's putting out there

that's a lot to put on other people.

I think sometimes we can be vulnerable about

I feel like this about myself

or situations that you're not asking for anything from somebody else

but I think my visceral reaction of being annoyed by it was because

You feel pressure.

So you automatically put yourself in the shoes of her friends

and the people in her life and thought

oh my god that's a lot of pressure to put on them.

I didn't think of that.

And she's looking at the camera

and she's looking at the people in her life

and basically saying I'm so tired and I put in so much work

and this is what I want and I'm not getting it.

Yeah, my initial reaction was to be annoyed by that.

So was your response more like we'll change it?

Like that's on you?

Yeah.

And I actually feel horrible that that was my response

because as you say we know that GenZ

are the loneliest generation

and there are so many social issues that are contributing to...

Why do you think that is?

Why do you think GenZ are so lonely?

They've replaced genuine social interaction

with being on their phones.

With a phone.

I think I was even viscerally frustrated by the fact

that she was whinging about it to her phone

and I'm like your phone isn't going to fix the issue.

Your phone is the issue.

But they don't know what to do.

They've not grown up without one.

They know no other way.

So what are they meant to do?

Like they're not going to go and join a book club.

They don't know how.

But there are things.

There are things you can do.

Once I put that frustration aside

and I appreciated the fact that what she's talking about

is incredibly valid,

I then realized I was coming from a place of massive privilege

which is that I'm not the Nicole.

I'm not the organizer in any of my friendship groups

and I am so lucky to be surrounded by people

who take on that mental load.

So Nicole is shorthand for out louders who aren't aware.

It's a brilliant comedy sketch by Geraldine Hickey a few years ago

saying that every female friendship group has a Nicole

who's the person who books the restaurant,

circulates the menu,

reminds everybody what time we're getting there,

you know, all of those things.

My biggest fear with travel though

is travelling in a group with no leader.

It's when you need a Nicole to come in, all right?

Nicole comes in, she's like,

righto girls, this is what we're doing.

Buffay finishes at 10,

you want to get there before 9.30,

that's when they stop cooking the pancakes,

you want to get in on those pancakes, they're good pancakes.

First shuttle bus leaves at 10, 15 from the hotel,

we're going to be on that bus for a morning of shopping.

In every social situation there's someone who takes that role on.

Now often that person seems to revel in that role.

Like a true born Nicole likes it

because you get a lot of control that way,

but also it can be entirely exhausting.

But you need appreciation and you need agreement.

So if you're the Nicole that keeps trying to organise something

and everyone's just like, I can't make it,

that's really difficult and really painful

because you do feel rejected.

But then I thought there's also something to really be said for that

and there's an empathy to have for that person.

I think it's also, and I got the sense from this woman,

when you are single and a lot of your friends are in relationships

and they're getting their intimacy

and they're getting their connection from something you can't be a part of.

Those people are great Nicole's

because they genuinely want to have fun

and they genuinely want to go out and spend time with girlfriends

and that kind of thing.

But that's kind of where the tension can come from

where people are in another life stage.

I loved the way Beck approached this

because like you, Hol, we're so used to going,

oh, this poor woman, aren't her friends awful?

Or what's wrong with us as a society

where young women are feeling like this

or that anyone can be lonely?

You can't change how other people respond to you.

All you can change is your own behaviour

or your own expectations.

So some of these questions that Beck suggested that you ask

if you're in that situation,

I get why it could be perceived as victim-blamey

but it's not, it's actually proactive and helpful.

I also, when I watched it,

social media has something else to answer for

which is not just the fact that it's made people lonelier

but it has really raised the expectations

of what friendship is and what friendship looks like.

So the amount of times I see girls going to lunch

and there are 18 girls going to lunch

and I think, how do you know that many people?

How do you get a booking that big?

Where did they come from? How do you have that many friends?

You go to some of those lunches?

You've got friendship group?

18 is a lot.

I actually think it's an age thing

that I was not going to 18 people lunches when I was 25

but I think you gradually grow a bigger social network.

But so I think even looking at something like weddings

where people have 15 bridesmaids

and you think, how do you have that many close people in your life?

I think social media has set us up to have really superficial

and unrealistic ideas of what friendship is.

Women's tears, tears of disappointment

that that's actually not the reality.

That friendship is not as exciting as it looks on the internet

and friendship isn't as glamorous as it looks on the internet.

100%.

But the other thing is, is we've kind of convinced ourselves

you are socializing when you're doing it on your phone

and you're actually not.

Like you're really actually not.

You know, if you're obviously got a young daughter

and I talk to her about this all the time,

it's like seeing the difference in her demeanour

and she does actually go and do something physical

with her friends for a while.

Yes.

And how she is when she walks back in the house

and how she is, how her mood is

rather than spending two hours talking to all her friends.

Sure, on her phone.

Yeah.

But just lying in her room.

Alone in her room, yeah.

It's absolutely stark.

So the point earlier on me when you were like,

this is the soup they've swum in their whole lives.

They don't know any different.

It's not going to change

unless people do push themselves beyond that.

Not to say that that is this woman's particular problem,

but it's like we've tricked ourselves into thinking

that those connections are the same and they're not,

they're not the same.

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We spend so much time and energy on our skincare

and that means sometimes our scalp gets forgotten.

We know just how common dandruff can be

and it turns out those with dandruff

often have an unbalanced scalp microbiome.

Take care of your scalp and target dandruff effectively

with Dirkos anti-dandruff shampoo by Vichy,

which eliminates up to 100% of visible dandruff

after just one use

and rebalances the scalp microbiome after four weeks.

Vichy is recommended by over 50,000 dermatologists

and is dermatologically tested

so it's the results that you can trust.

Discover Dirkos exclusively at Chemist Warehouse.

There's currently a big conversation going on

about the ABC's kitchen cabinet hosted by Annabel Crabb,

a half-hour show where Crabb,

who's a political journalist, author and commentator,

shares a home-cooked meal with one of federal parliament's

most powerful figures from across the political spectrum.

This season she has, literally and metaphorically,

broken bread with Dai Leigh, Linda Burnie,

Lydia Thorpe and Peter Dutton.

It's the Peter Dutton episode of the show

that has got a lot of people talking.

It's worth noting though, you know, that those four people,

and this is not an accident, one's an independent,

one's a Greek former Green, so actually two are independents,

and one's a Lib and one's Labour.

They couldn't have been more representative

in their first four episodes.

Exactly, and that is highly intentional.

When it was released three weeks ago, the Peter Dutton episode,

there was a strong camp that said it wasn't right

to humanise a person like Dutton,

who is the current leader of the opposition.

Journalist Jan Fran wrote on Instagram about the episode,

essentially, who cares?

She said,

This tree is unbelievable.

It's about 30 paces around, and I'd say, I don't know,

200 years old, but pretty incredible.

Wow, it's a fig, right?

Like it's a giant, giant fig.

But I was shocked by the part in her opinion post

where she said all politicians are lizard ghouls

who live in the bin.

Yes, she said it might be better to just assume

that every single one of them is an infernal lizard ghoul

who lives in a bin and go from there.

From reading all the context, what she was saying is,

that's Peter Dutton, and therefore we should approach

all politicians with that level of scepticism

and that level of rigor.

That's also her view of Peter Dutton.

Yeah.

So I just think it's bizarre, this idea that if I don't like someone,

I don't turn off the television or choose not to watch,

they should not exist in the world.

The bigger issue here, the thing that people always get upset about

about Kitchen Cabinet, which is a show that has been rested

for several years and has just come back,

is that it's seen as giving politicians a soft ride.

Now, that isn't what it is if you watch it

and if you're familiar with Annabelle Crabb's, you know,

phenomenal journalism, that's actually not what happens.

But what it does do is it humanizes them.

That's the point I want to ask you, Mia,

that when we are in a particularly political moment,

your inbox will be full of politicians

who go, so for the last federal election, for example,

I'd love to come on No Filter, Mia.

I'd love for you to show Australia the other side of me.

And sometimes you do do political interviews

and sometimes you don't.

But one thing that you do if you do them

is you're like, I'm not Lee Sales.

That's what you always sort of say up front.

This is not going to be an interrogation of policy.

This is going to be a discussion about you as a human being,

which is essentially what this is also about Kitchen Cabinet.

The people who hate it say that that is irrelevant

and that we should not humanize politicians,

particularly ones who we disagree with on various levels.

What do you think about that?

And how do you decide whether or not you're going to give

your platform and inverted comments to somebody who may or may not

have views that you know is going to upset a section of the audience?

I think it depends who they are and what influence they have

over the world in which we live

and the country in which we live.

You know, we have an ongoing invitation out to Peter Dutton

to come on No Filter because he's the alternative Prime Minister.

Prime Minister has been on.

Yeah, the Prime Minister has been on.

Did you do Albo before or after he became Prime Minister?

I did it before he became Prime Minister,

although he was on The Quickie last week.

And I've interviewed Prime Ministers from both sides of politics.

I've interviewed Josh Freidenberg when he was the Treasurer

and the Deputy Prime Minister or the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.

So yeah, I've interviewed lots of politicians.

I would argue that it's not about humanising them.

It's about learning more about them.

The very idea that people aren't human, I think, is a frightening one

because once you start othering people and talking about them

as being lizards who live in bins, you know,

they're the generalisations that racism is made up of

and homophobia is made up of and transphobia

and all of the discriminatory behaviours are about grouping

an entire lot of people, giving them one characteristic.

And so I think it's absolutely crucial that we know as much as we can

about these people and, Hol, you've always said

you find it insulting to think that you can watch Tony Abbott

or Peter Dutton Baker Cake or Barnaby Joyce

and then have your mind changed by that.

That's my position.

I mean, I really like Kitchen Cabinet

and I've watched all four of the new season

and every one of them has been fascinating in a different way.

And of those four people, you know,

maybe one of them I'm quite closely politically aligned with,

but the other's all not, you know.

Every time what's interested in me is it informs you

of why they think the way they do

and I think that's really, really important.

So the Peter Dutton episode, for example,

and I mean, I politically concur with a lot of what Jan Fran is saying

about Peter Dutton's track record in Parliament.

He's been walking out of the apology and voting gets so sick.

I mean, this is pretty far from where I sit,

but it was fascinating because Annabel Crabb

is a really skilled journal and she knows what she's doing

and she asked him questions about why he sees the world the way he does

and he spoke a lot about how he had a pretty blessed upbringing

and then he became a police officer

and he said basically seeing the worst of people every day

very much informed his political opinions and his worldview.

You know, I was a 19-year-old when I started policing

and had a fairly sheltered life in retrospect

and I just hadn't been exposed to that side

and the viciousness of some people, the depravity of others

and it's a small element of society, thank goodness,

but it does stay with you because it jars

and I think it scars as well.

Now, knowing that about him is really interesting,

but knowing that about him does not make me go,

oh, well then, that's why you think that, then that's fine.

The most interesting part was really,

she made a very good point, Annabel Crabb,

that politicians get to see First Nations communities

in a much more regular way than your average non-Indigenous Australian does.

They tour Indigenous communities a lot,

they go to all these corners of the nation

and she said, what have you learned about Indigenous culture

through doing that?

And he went immediately to a law and order question

and talked about squalor and education and crime.

Well, it depends on where you go.

If you go to East Arnhem Land, kids at school, 90% of the time,

they've got an attendance rate equivalent to what we would see

in a capital city.

There's employment programs and a building company

that has been established.

And she was like, well, that's very interesting

that that's where you go when I ask you a question about culture.

Now, that exchange was not combative, it was not a gotcha.

I am really aware, of course, though,

that there's some privilege innate in being able to say,

oh, I want to learn more about these people

and I want to understand why they think the way they think,

if my skin is not literally in the game

of what they're thinking about.

And obviously, some of those issues that Jan Fran's talking about

and some of the issues that Peter Dutton

and his party are talking about right now

are so intensely personal and affecting to some parts of the community

that I totally get that you wouldn't want to have dinner with the guy.

And I think we insult people's intelligence if we say,

well, we can't talk to these people

who we disagree with intellectually,

because what if there's something that Peter Dutton says

that I agree with him on?

Maybe he likes coriander and I like coriander.

Oh, my God, does that mean I'm a terrible person?

You know what I mean?

Like, I'm not that stupid and nor is the population.

But I'd love to know where we think the line is.

Claire Stevens, smart woman that you are,

because I do rankle at Trump being, you know,

those arguments about in the 2016 election

about whether he should have been going on Jimmy Fallon

and whether we should be doing at homes in Pauline Hansen's kitchen

in the women's weekly or whatever.

Like, there are obviously times in which that line is blurry.

But hang on a second, who gets to decide?

Because the people who are saying no platform don't interview,

it's people generally on the left who say it

when people on the right are interviewed.

Sarah Ferguson got it when she interviewed Steve Bannon,

who was, I think, chief of staff for Donald Trump,

who was at that time the president for Four Corners,

and people attacked her and said she shouldn't interview him.

The people on the left who are saying no are always fine

when it's their people who are being interviewed.

It's so hypocritical, I think.

I think the thing about kitchen cabinet that I sort of

haven't been able to get my head around is

that the people aren't about crab is spending time with.

They're democratically elected.

They're elected by the audience that is watching the show.

She's not going around and picking a terrible person

and putting them on television and asking them

what their favorite food is.

And if we believe in democracy,

then I don't understand what the problem is with this show.

I do think that a lot of us have a visceral reaction

to seeing people who we know are doing very, very bad things

portrayed in a lighter entertainment sense.

When you say bad things,

can we clarify things that you disagree with?

Because subjectively, politicians, they're elected representatives

and they're part of a political system.

It's not like they're criminals.

They're doing some things and they've got some positions

that you might not agree with.

I don't mean you personally, Claire, but a lot of people said

the same thing about when Scott Morrison was on 60 Minutes

during last election campaign playing his ukulele

and having a barbecue with his family.

You didn't like that question.

He was an elected leader.

I thought it was funny to recap.

You did a very good job at that.

That's interesting, Mia, because I do think

that's an interesting perspective to have in the present,

but I think if we look at history,

there will be political leaders who you look back on

and think you did a horrible, horrible thing.

I do think when you're passionate

and you have connections to certain communities

and you look at, especially in Australia and especially at the moment,

if you look at some of our politicians

and you look at some of the things they are doing,

and it is really hard to grapple with the historical consequences

of what they're doing.

And the fact that, I mean, interesting that we're talking about politicians,

some of the most evil people who have had the biggest consequences

on humanity in the last few hundreds of years are politicians.

Of course, they understand.

I understand general decisions that affect people.

Retroactively, you would look at some of them

and think, dear God, you hate to have given them a fluff platform.

But hang on a second, like Prince Harry copped it

when it was revealed that one of his pictures for Spotify

was him interviewing sort of controversial leaders like Donald Trump

and Vladimir Putin and asking them about their childhood.

Now, if you got an opportunity to interview Vladimir Putin,

you'd, of course, you'd take it.

And I think that's where my attention lies,

because on the one hand, if somebody was going to sit with Putin...

It shouldn't be Prince Harry.

It shouldn't be Prince Harry.

Two, you would hope that you wouldn't be talking to him about his favorite music.

You would hope that you would put some serious questions to him.

However, when we look at history and how we study the cult of personality,

you do study who a person was and how they grew up

and why they turned out the way that they were.

Like, I think, you know, they say journalism is the first draft of history.

What Annabel Krab is doing is an incredibly important part of journalism,

which is who are these people? Where did they come from?

Where did their beliefs come from?

And I'm exactly with you, Holly,

that simply knowing why a person thinks the way that they think does not mean I agree with them.

I looked at Peter Dutton and thought,

the fact that your views are shaped by your time in the police force

says a lot about why our views are different.

I get the tension that Jan Fran is kind of talking about.

She also, just to give some context, she did say she didn't know what the solution was,

but she wasn't comfortable with the idea of humanizing Peter Dutton.

I have to say that Annabel Krab and her level of journalism is not something to be scoffed at.

She is incredibly intelligent. She knows exactly what she's doing.

And also, the solution is that there are other shows, even on the same network,

that do exactly what we're demanding,

which is rigorous interrogation of policy from politicians.

730, for example, is a really good example of that.

But the other important piece here is that I think that the idea of humanizing politicians is more important than we think,

because we really want the best and brightest to be the people who are leading our country, right?

From a really diverse range of life.

And who on earth would you recommend at the moment to become a politician?

Like, who would you go with that? Seems like a great career.

Off you go. Go do that, particularly if they're female, particularly if they're from a minority.

You would say, why would you put yourself through that?

And anything that paints a picture of people beyond the stuffy shoulder pads and the marching around Parliament House.

And I think it's really important, because also, we want people to want to lead.

The idea that if you're going to put your hand up for that job,

you are immediately going to be seen as one of the worst people in the world is actually a terrible thing.

And we want people to want to lead, so I kind of, I'm all here for the eating the soup with the people I don't agree with.

I think a theme of this episode, carrying on from Danny Masterson, is people with shit views,

or even people who do shit things, aren't monsters, they're humans, and that's the scariest part.

They don't have scales and they're not, you can't tell.

And I think we have to believe that we're smart enough in a democratic society to make decisions that grapple with that tension.

I have a recommendation.

So over the weekend, I went to the movies to see Past Lives.

It's from debut feature writer and director, Celine Song, and it has been getting rave reviews.

I've had it recommended to me by so many people.

Same, 10 out of 10 I've heard.

Yes, that I actually physically went to the movies, which was great.

There's a word in Korean.

In-yeon.

It means providence or fate.

Do you believe in that?

That's just something Koreans say to seduce someone.

What a good story this is.

A child had sweet hearts who reconnected 20 years later and realized they were meant for each other.

In the story, I would be the evil white American husband standing in the way of destiny.

Shut up.

It has been labeled one of the best films of the year.

It'll definitely win all the awards.

And it follows the story of Nora and Hye Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends who are pulled apart when Nora's family immigrates from South Korea to Canada.

And it sort of follows their lives in 12 years since, so they're 12 in South Korea and she moves away.

They reconnect at 24 via social media.

And then at 36, they reconnect again and spend a week together in New York where she now lives.

And they confront ideas like destiny and love and the choices that make a life.

And it is such a clever story about what it's like to immigrate and the life that you leave behind.

It totally made me think differently about culture and cultural differences and what it is like to go to another part of the world.

And by necessity, you have to cut off how it was that you grew up and the person that you were.

You have to leave that behind.

So the main character, Nora, is played by Greta Lee.

When she speaks Korean and when she speaks English and she's got an American accent, it's like she's two different people.

Oh, wow.

And her partner comments in it that she dreams in Korean and that there's a part of her he feels like he'll never be able to access or understand because of that.

Like you dream in a language I can't speak.

It is the most beautiful film.

T.O.U. plays Haesung.

I just guarantee go to the movies and see it.

You'll be thinking about it for days and days afterwards.

And if you can't get to the movies, but you want more content and you want a bit more of us,

I spoke about shopping addiction on our subs episode last week.

There's a link to that in the show notes.

Thank you for listening to Australia's number one news and pop culture show.

This episode was produced by Emily Casillas, the assistant producer is Tali Blackman with audio production by Leah Porges.

We'll see you tomorrow.

Bye.

Bye.

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If you love the show and want to support us as well,

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