Mamamia Out Loud: Come On, Mate: The Toxic Commentary About Andy Lee's Relationship

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Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded

on.

Mamma Mia Out Loud!

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud.

It's what women are talking about on Wednesday, the 15th of March.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I am an executive editor at Mamma Mia, which is Australia's only women's media company.

I also write books.

I grow veggies.

I am good at jeans and an ice top.

That is me.

My name's Mia Friedman.

I put the Mia in Mamma Mia even though I don't have much to do with the website these days,

but I own a media company.

I have three kids, one of whom is getting married in just a couple of weeks and I am

recovering from COVID.

I'm Jesse Stevens.

Coincidentally, I'm getting married in a couple of weeks.

I am also an executive editor at Mamma Mia, a podcast star.

I feel 100 years pregnant and sometimes I'm on the television, so that's me.

On today's show, Ozempic, Pedro Pascale and one very awkward red carpet interview, yes,

we have three things we need to talk about from the Oscars, plus what the comments on

photos of one Australian celebrity couple tell us about the pity we throw at perfectly

happy couples, but first...

In case you missed it, the worst thing about this podcast is that sometimes I am made to

bring a story that I don't give a shit about.

I am bullied by my bosses and I say, I don't want to and they say, you must.

And I say, okay, I'm a peacemaker.

So here I am doing the job I'm paid to do.

Meghan Markle, I'm so done with Meghan, but Meghan Markle might be reviving her blog.

It was called The Tig, and since she's back in California and she's back into all her

passion projects, apparently the New York Post sites a document filed with the US Patent

and Trademark Office that indicates that a prospective, relaunched version of the website

could encompass articles and interviews about food, cooking, recipes, travel, blah, blah,

blah, health and wellness, blah, blah, blah, no one cares.

You've got it wrong.

We all care.

You know who really cares today?

Who?

I'm going to send Gwyneth Paltrow because if you're wondering what the hell The Tig is,

it was the website that Meghan had before she married Harry.

And when she married Harry or when she got engaged to Harry, she was told to take it

down and it was very much goop.

So it's like all the glamorous places you can go and all the glamorous things you can

eat and you know, buy this very, very goop, you know, the little black book of the Hollywood

insider.

And the thing is, is then she wasn't a massive name, but now she's Meghan fucking Markle,

right?

And Gwyneth will be going, shit, she has everybody in her black book.

This is going to put me underground.

Don't you think Mia?

I do.

I don't think she'll necessarily be, oh no, she probably will be selling things to be

honest.

Girl on Spon Con, she really does.

And I think that if you've read all the stuff about Harry and Meghan and one of the things

that she was really clashing with the royal family over was the lack of freebies.

And I mean, it's easy to kind of laugh about this, but when she was on suits, she used

to get sent a lot of free things, right?

You would put them on the TIG or she would like wear them and tag them.

And then when she became a royal, royals aren't allowed to accept gifts that aren't declared.

They're not even allowed to accept clothes.

And she thought as a grown ass woman, this is not fair.

And so she kind of needs a vehicle and there's nothing wrong with being an influencer and

doing some Spon Con.

She can't keep making that podcast.

So I understand.

She needs a P.O.

Box.

Put it on your...

Montecito.

...in star handle.

People can send you things.

I think Gwen will be sending her some goop to try and get featured on the TIG.

To be clear, it wasn't me in terms of Boss that made you do that story.

When I heard that we were doing this story, I was like TIG, Tignitaro, who is a lesbian

comic, one of my faves, I didn't understand what the item on the script was, but it was

producer Lize who believes that the people want to know about Meghan.

Let us know in the out louders how much she don't want to know.

Welcome to the 95th Oscars.

If anyone in this theatre commits an act of violence at any point during the show, you

will be awarded the Oscar for Best Actor and permitted to give a 19 minute long speech.

I've got a little bit of an Oscars round up because the 95th annual Academy Awards took

place on Monday where the big excitement was that it seemed to be brought to you by a Zempick

and also the red carpet was more of a sad beige rug or, as Jamie Lee Curtis said, apparently

at the Oscars their carpet is going to match my drapes, which I assume is in reference

to her presumably grey pubic hair.

Because the dust settles on awards season, there were a few moments that stood out.

A Zempick is one of them.

Here is what host Jimmy Kimmel had to say.

When I look around this room, I can't help but wonder, is a Zempick right for me?

And a quick refresher in case you've forgotten what a Zempick is.

It's a drug that's meant for type 2 diabetes to moderate blood sugar, but it is also being

prescribed to fight obesity and also in Hollywood to get into smaller dresses.

Jameela Jameel, who likes to stir some shit, but is also a body image advocate, posted

this.

She said, a lot of discourse about how skinny everyone is at the Oscars this year.

Many people start dieting unsustainably like fucking mad just after Christmas for this

one night on a global stage.

A lot of people this year took weight loss injections, which don't keep the weight

off permanently.

I'm not being judgmental.

I just don't want you to be triggered or to make any sudden decisions because of the

images of impossible standards that come out today.

It's a temporary extreme, none of this lasts, very rarely is it unrestrictive and healthy.

Don't shame yourself because you don't look like these women did last night.

Disclaimer, this doesn't apply to all the people at the Oscars.

Now there was also an article in The Australian written by journalist Jenna Clark today and

she said, Oscars so white is dead, Oscars so thin is in.

Individual style was replaced with professional stylists and bodies that looked emaciated

instead of excited this year.

Holly, I'm going to throw to you first, it's not a new thing, is it?

This idea of weight loss being an Olympic sport of sorts during awards season.

But do you think that a Zempik and the accessibility that A-listers have to it have really leveled

things up?

My personal view is no because I think that there wasn't a single person on that red carpet

that I saw who was as skinny as the people on the red carpet in the late nineties and

early naughties.

We used to insist it was entirely coincidental that all the best actresses in the world were

also a size zero.

Like, oh, it just so happens that all the people who are really best at pretending to be someone

else in a movie also happen to be incredibly thin.

And that lollipop look that we used to talk about then, which I'm sure is a derogatory

term, but you know, it was very skinny body big head.

This is not new.

My view is how people get there is entirely irrelevant.

What needs to be called out, as Jamila Jamil did, is the fact that it is unsustainable

however you get there and that we shouldn't be comparing ourselves with it.

So I don't know.

I feel like pointing the finger and saying a Zempik, a Zempik, a Zempik is kind of irrelevant.

It's more the fad of skinniness that is the worrying thing.

I reckon the fact that it was brought up by so many celebrities, it was sort of a joke

even the day before.

There were lots of tweets that were like, this year people do a Zempik in the bathroom

instead of other drugs suggest to me that everyone is doing it and everyone knows that

it's being done.

The difference was that a number of men looked very different.

So I think that this is going kind of across gender lines in a lot of ways.

Jenna Clark named names.

She said, from Emily Blunt to Austin Butler, Lady Gaga to Mindy Kaling.

It takes a lot to make glass onion star Kate Hudson look like a mere mortal, but compared

with her po-faced peers, she stole the show.

She was a glowing beacon of beauty in a sea of svelte statues.

So she was basically saying, if Kate Hudson is looking in quote marks big for Hollywood,

what the hell's going on?

It reminded me of the early days of Botox.

And I suppose this has just become more extreme where you think if you're going to the Oscars

and you knew everyone else was doing it, then are you going to stick out like a sore thumb

if you're the only one not?

So it's an arms race.

It becomes an arms race.

And I also think that the other thing worth acknowledging, the other massive story that

obviously came out of the Oscars was the film The Whale.

And that won Best Makeup and it won Best Actor.

And the Oscar goes to Brendan Fraser.

That cannot be ignored because it's so perfectly represented.

The contempt Hollywood has for obesity, right?

That film, there's a lot of really valid arguments and discussions to be had.

But that was about the spectacle of obesity and the sadness and the pity and the disgust

that we project towards fat bodies.

And for that to win an award while everyone in the room is on Osempic says everything,

I think that is a real cultural snapshot of where we are in the Western world at the moment.

I have a real problem, I just have to say it with going around pointing at people and

saying what medication they're taking.

I just do.

I think that Hollywood's thinness is a real issue.

And I very much agree with you, Jesse, about the outright hypocrisy and all those things.

I'm really uncomfortable with pointing at people and saying you're taking this medicine

when they haven't said that they are.

Completely agree with you, Hull.

And two things are true at once for me because that's true.

Because there's a real sneeriness, like let's be honest, there's a real sneeriness around

the use of Osempic.

It's like you cheated.

There's the idea that you somehow cheated.

And a similar attitude is sometimes expressed to people who have had weight loss surgery.

This idea that you didn't do the hard work, which is really shaming and incredibly unhelpful.

Where I think the comparison to Botox is a good one is that although it has its limits,

I think that as women, we're not looking to the red carpet for role models, but we look

at women in the public eye to see what women are meant to look like, right?

And to say that fashion and advertising and celebrities don't somehow create beauty standards

is incredibly naive.

And so if everyone's suddenly this size, is it because they're taking drugs that we may

or may not choose to take ourselves?

Or is it just because this is the size?

It's like it becomes a form of gaslighting again.

But it always has been, and if there's anything that I think is good about this round of size

zero hell that we're being subjected to now, is that at least we're talking about it.

Like when it was the 90s and 90s, people just kind of sucked that stuff up.

I think that at least in a post-body positivity movement world, at least now there is a lot

of conversation publicly from people like Jamila Jamil and others saying, do not look

at these women and decide what you should look like.

That's a lot harder to do because you're right, it's insidious, but at least we're calling

it out.

It's better than it was 20 years ago.

Hugh Grant was rude on the red carpet and I will not hear otherwise.

I want to play you, the red carpet interview with Ashley Graham that had everyone talking.

What are you wearing tonight then?

Just my suit.

Your suit?

Who made yours?

You didn't make it.

I can't remember my tailor.

So tell me, what does it feel like to be in Glass Onion?

It was such an amazing film.

I really loved it.

I love a thriller.

How fun is it to shoot something like that?

Well, I'm barely in it.

I'm in it for about three seconds.

Yeah, but still you showed up and you had fun, right?

Almost.

I hated this.

I love him so much.

I thought that was hilarious.

Oh my goodness.

Okay.

Before I let you speak, my theory is that Hugh Grant would never speak to a male reporter

like that.

I think there is a particular dismissing tone that can be used with females.

When you are being interviewed, I think that the same rules of sort of improv apply, which

is like the yes and like lean in and go with it.

We've all had to interview people before it is really hard.

There are only so many questions you can ask them.

You've got limited time.

He knows what he's going to be asked.

There was one question he was asked, which was like, basically, who are you rooting

for tonight?

He couldn't even answer that.

Don't be interviewed.

There's nothing to say, he was not under any obligation to stand there and speak to her.

The whole thing was designed to embarrass Ashley Graham.

Some people are saying, oh, he's not rude.

He's just British, which is a disservice to British people everywhere.

What is your defense?

I love him unconditionally.

I thought it was hilarious.

So I watched it and I just thought, that's Hugh Grant's shtick, right?

If you've ever watched Hugh Grant in the last 20 years, 30 years, that's what he does.

After Four Weddings in a Funeral and all of that and being the foppish English lovable

guy in the last 10 or 20 years, he's really embraced a very different image, exactly grumpy.

But also, it wasn't just Ashley Graham, have a listen to what he said when he was on stage

presenting an award with Andy McDowell speaking of Four Weddings in a Funeral.

We're actually here to do two things.

The first is to raise awareness about the vital importance of using a good moisturiser.

Andy has been wearing one every day for the last 29 years.

I've never used one in my life.

Still stunning, basically a scrotum.

I mean, the guy called himself a human scrotum.

That's just his vibe.

I think that the best commentary I've read is that the exhausting enthusiasm of Americans

and the complete lack of irony.

I know lots of girlfriends, Australians who've been living in America and who've gone on

dates with guys and thinking that they were getting on really well, only to have the guy

get up and go, I'm so insulted and leave because they didn't understand banter and sarcasm

and irony and humour.

Americans are very earnest and I think that's just what this was.

I think it was very uncomfortable.

Not least, there's a moment where she asks him what he thinks of the Oscars and he says

it's vanity fair and he's using it in like the dictionary definition, which kind of means

a festival of luxurious idleness, like a pointless and she thinks he means the vanity fair party

after the thing and she tries to make a joke about it and I felt so bad for her.

So I'm with you, Jesse, in that I think Ashley Graham was unnecessarily humiliated by this,

but Hugh Grant is in his I don't give a fuck years, as Mia says.

He's the male example of a woman who has just gone and done with it.

He hates the media.

Just remember he was absolutely at the forefront of trying to bring down news limited over

the hacking scandals in Britain in the Nordies.

He absolutely hates it all.

So I think he's just being Hugh Grant.

He's contractually obliged to walk that red carpet and all I could think of Jesse when

I saw it and you've done live interviews and you've had to do these things before we all

have, right?

All I could think of was how would I have handled it in this moment and it's very easy

for me to say that in Australia the next day.

But if I was Ashley Graham, I would have just gone with it and gone, gosh, well, this is

going well.

What would you like to talk about?

Hugh?

Like you just got to go in there.

In real time, you panic.

And if that was a woman giving you answers like that, I think she would have been branded

a bitch.

I think we give a lot of license to the kind of grumpy Hugh Grant character.

But I have been that interviewer speaking to a man of that age who looks at you with

his eyebrows raised like, what can this little girl ask me that's interesting at all?

And even when the interview finished, he raised his eyebrows like, what an idiot?

And I thought, you're treating her like a bimbo when that job is hard.

I totally think that's true, Jesse, but I would argue that Hugh Grant is an equal opportunity

humiliator of interview is I've heard him on like very well known podcasts being exceptionally

rude to the host.

He is generally rude to everybody, but I do agree that that particular dynamic is very

unfortunate.

Do you know who is not ever rude is the internet daddy, Pedro Pascal.

See what I did there?

Because this is the thing I wanted to talk about, right?

I am perturbed by Pedro Pascal.

Now, if you don't know who he is, it's because you haven't been following my recommendations

and I'm not angry.

I'm just disappointed.

Please do better.

He is one of the two main stars of The Last of Us, which is the only show anyone's talking

about at the moment.

He is also the Mandalorian, whatever that is, that's a Star Wars scenario.

And he was in Narcos and he was in Game of Thrones, but basically he is a very, very

hot middle-aged man.

And he is very handsome and he's very charming and he's having a moment because he's on the

two biggest shows on TV, right, The Last of Us and The Mandalorian.

The thing I'm perturbed about is that he is apparently, and I did not know this till

this week, the internet's daddy.

So I was watching the Oscars coverage and I was as excited as anyone to see Pedro arrive.

He always, always gives loads to the interview where he flirts, he goes along with it, he

plays the jokes, he does all that stuff.

I am your coolest slutty daddy.

But every single clip of him just said, daddy's here, daddy's here, daddy, daddy, daddy,

daddy, daddy.

He doesn't refer to himself as daddy, does he?

He has been asked several times about his status as internet daddy and here's what he's said.

Are you the daddy of the internet?

What's internet daddy?

Me?

Yeah, you are.

Internet daddy.

Internet daddy.

Yeah.

I'm still trying to figure it out.

No, people are obsessed by you being-

I feel like it's changed.

There's daddy, there's daddy.

Who's a bigger daddy, you or this man, Oscar Isaac?

I'm a bigger daddy than him.

I'm older than him.

Although he's a real daddy, he's got kids and I don't.

But daddy is the state of mind, you know what I'm saying?

I'm your daddy.

I was perturbed because in my house, daddy has only just stopped being used in the literal

term for it.

Daddy, I can't sleep, daddy, could I have a glass of water?

Whereas in the bedroom, it is alive and well.

Am I right?

Stop it.

Wow.

And so I was like, why is this so icky to me?

And I did a bit of googling and I know that daddy has always had a slightly icky sexual

connotation in the straight world, but it comes from the gay world where people would

be like a leather daddy, then they dropped the leather.

But it basically means an attractive man of an older age and former internet daddies

have included John Hamm, Idris Elba, Anderson Cooper, Jared Butler.

Is it icky or is it just me, Jesse, you're young.

What do you think about internet daddy?

Who's your daddy, Jesse?

I like this.

I spoke to a bunch of people at work to get it, a bunch of the young people, internet

people, more online than me.

And they were so enlightening.

They said it's about the fact he has a really soft, non-threatening energy as well because

Pedro Pascal doesn't actually have kids of his own, but he has this almost paternal energy,

good guy energy that people lean into and it makes them feel safe, especially because

of the last of us zombie father saving the world.

Like that thing really appeals to a lot of women.

You're right that it's been borrowed from queer culture.

Like I read that in a homonormative sense, a daddy is a gay man who applies a state of

mind that encompasses care and consideration, mentorship and leadership.

So it's also the gay community has got behind this idea.

So is it a sex thing or is it not a sex thing?

It's like everything.

It's a bit sex thing and it's a bit not sex thing.

Everything's a bit of a sex thing.

Well, I don't know how Pete Stevens would feel about that.

Well, he's never been called a daddy and he never will.

I have a question.

I feel like Jesse, this is something for young people because for example, Holly and

I wouldn't say it in the bedroom because our partners are daddies.

Yes.

It says something about the age of the people who think they own the internet.

And that's that Pedro could be their father because even me, I think he's about 47.

He couldn't be my dad, right?

So it's like I wouldn't call him daddy if I was 18.

So might you call Harrison Ford daddy?

Yeah, maybe.

And I remember this is really weird, but did you guys ever watch the Alien Movie

episodes?

Yeah, I really have seen that, yes.

I remember walking away from that film at Stardt Mel Gibson and this was before he

did the naughty things.

So I put the naughty things to the side, but he was saving his family from aliens and he

was sitting there at the dinner table just caring for his family.

I felt something stir in my gut.

It wasn't sexual.

It was just like, thank you for looking after me.

And I think I felt a daddy relationship to Mel Gibson in that moment.

I think that's what people are feeling for Pedro because he plays with interviewers.

He's also, you know, a LGBTQI ally.

I think his sibling is trans.

I think that that all means that he's got a lot of communities behind him and he's the

good guy of the internet right now.

Is granddaddy a thing?

Oh, great question.

It's not as sexy as it is.

Is this the same as the commentary I saw around Nicole Kidman?

There was some speculation that maybe she'd had a few champagnes before she came onto

the red carpet.

She was pretty loose, having a good time.

And people were calling her mother.

Is that the same?

Isn't it funny that the word mother seems to have a real sexless connotation, whereas

the word mummy has a real sex connotation.

So I think that that's almost like a sacred Virgin Mary bow down, like almost like a Beyonce

you're untouchable mother status, it's like the main triage of Hollywood, but also older.

Yes.

The Oscar goes to Mother Mia Out Loud.

Going through the chapel and we're going to get married.

Andy, she is wife material.

We're just saying she is wife material.

My mum been texting you guys, what the hell's going on?

I'm just saying, I did not think you should be letting her get away.

She is a goodie.

This week, Andy Lee, who is one half of Hamish and Andy is a television host, a podcaster

who is not currently beating us in the ranker, but sometimes does.

He posted two pictures like a carousel they call them on Instagram this week to his 370,000

Instagram followers.

And it was a picture of him with long time girlfriend Rebecca Harding.

One of them was from nine years ago in New York and the other was from New York at the

moment.

And they sort of had their arms around each other.

It was really sweet.

I don't know if it was necessarily about their nine year anniversary, but it was nine years

in the same place.

How beautiful is this?

Now that was posted.

What was surprising or perhaps not at all surprising was the commentary that followed.

Holly, you saw that commentary and you actually wrote an article on Mother Mia all about it.

What was the overwhelming comment in the comment section?

So one of our clever colleagues at Mother Mia here, Emma Land Peterson, messaged about

this, but she is in a long-term relationship with her partner.

And she pointed out to me that underneath every picture of Andy Lee and Beck Harding

that ever gets posted, and he does it a lot, he's not afraid of PDA on the Instagram with

his long-term partner.

The only thing that then happens is a whole river of comments that are either just a picture

of an engagement ring or a comment along the lines of, put a ring on it, Andy.

For God's sake, Andy, isn't it time?

Propose to that poor woman, put a ring on it, Andy, bend the knee, Andy, like, oh my

God, that's what I'm thinking, but I don't put in the comments.

Oh, Mia Friedman.

I know.

I'm not proud.

And the thing that's interesting about this and that sparked me to obviously write a story

is obviously, and I know that we only spoke last week about pulling stories out of comments

sections can be like a lazy thing to do, but it tells you a lot about a culture when the

comments are all one way.

It's not just a couple of people.

It's almost everybody.

And then of course, other people jump in and go, leave them alone, they're happy, blah.

But almost everything is just about when is this post going to be to say that you guys

got engaged?

And it grinded my gears because these people have been together for nine years.

They own at least one home together and a dog.

They are obviously deeply in love and very happy.

They always look that way.

But we do not see that relationship as valid because she doesn't have a ring on her finger

and we assume that there's something A, wrong, or B, she must be itching for this post that's

going to drop.

And maybe it will.

And maybe it won't one day that says, put a ring on it, Mia.

You and I had a bit of a row about it before I wrote that story.

Why do you feel like the way everybody does in the comments section?

I remember when we were campaigning for same sex marriage to become legal.

I remember talking to some same sex couples who said that before it was legal, same sex

couples were excused from this chronological narrative of how to determine a serious relationship.

It's like you delete the apps, you move in together, you get engaged, you get married,

you have a baby, you have another baby, and that's how it works.

And everyone really pushes you onto that next stage.

Why?

I don't know.

I really don't know.

But it's almost like a conveyor belt of expectation that everyone gets put on.

And same sex couples used to be exempt from that.

Now of course they're not because it used to be that same sex couples couldn't really

have babies and they couldn't get married now.

They're on that conveyor belt along with the rest of us.

And I've really had to challenge my own thinking about it because until you mentioned it whole,

I hadn't realised that whenever I see pictures of them together, I'm like, oh, this is the

engagement announcement.

And I mean, that must be awful for them.

And I don't know why I care.

It's because of how we've been socialised, but also something I've heard described

as announcement culture, which is that on Instagram in particular, the cascade of announcements

is sort of where you get the engagement you need.

And engagements, proposals, weddings, make great, bloody content.

If you follow Andy Lee and Beck Harding, what does a marriage proposal really mean to you?

It means the promise of more content.

And what are they to you?

Content creators.

So I think people just want wedding content.

No, that's not it.

That's not it.

That is such nonsense.

I don't think so.

So for me, I really like Andy Lee.

I don't know him well at all.

I've met him a couple of times.

Beck Harding seems lovely.

I've heard him talk in an interview before about how they got together and then they

broke up and then they got back together again.

And he said that he felt quite ashamed of the fact that he had in his mind that maybe

he had to marry a certain type of famous person, for example.

And he really had to get over himself.

He realized that she was the one that he really loves.

So I guess that what marriage still signifies in our society is that two people have chosen

each other.

Maybe not forever, for a period of time, they've chosen each other.

I want that for them.

But why can't we accept that people have chosen each other anyway?

Like if people have been together for nine years, they have chosen each other.

That choice is valid.

And obviously, I wrote this story on Mamma Mia this week.

I have skin in this game because my partner and I've been together for 18 years and we're

not married.

And I used to be subjected to this, but I don't really anymore because I'm too old.

But I know so many women who are constantly subjected to the kind of commentary that Beck

Harding is subjected to on the Instagram feed in real life.

When I posted about this story on Tuesday night, my DMs filled up with women going,

I've been with my partner for eight years.

We are so happy, and yet my boss will pull me aside and go like, I think he's stringing

you along.

And my friends will go like, oh, you're going on holiday, surely he's going to propose

this time.

And you're like, well, no, I don't think so.

And they go, oh, darling, and everybody projects this bullshit narrative onto you that you're

not part of.

And why is that narrative so stubborn?

Because I have a real issue with the idea that Andy Lee and Rebecca Harding or whoever's

relationship is not a real relationship or not a serious one because they're not engaged.

That's because your decisions aren't about you, Holly, your decisions are about me.

And that's the case with everyone and the way they live their lives.

I need your decisions to validate perfectly the decisions I have made.

I guarantee that 99.9% of the people that comment that are married themselves.

And so what they need is to understand Andy and Beck in exactly the same framework by

which they understand their own relationship.

And the reality is that people get married for complicated, diverse reasons, and people

don't get married for complicated, diverse reasons, right?

There are just so many variables of why you would or wouldn't want to do that.

But we don't know where to put them because we're like, hang on, Andy's in his 40s.

Obviously, he's also had this direct comparison, his entire career, which is Hamish Blake,

who is the family man married with two kids, and people are like, hurry up, Andy.

What are we to do with you?

And that's an extremely narrow-minded way to look.

And I hate the idea that Beck, that we position Rebecca Harding as some woman who is sitting

there twiddling her thumbs, waiting for Andy to put a ring on her finger when these are

two adults who I'm sure have talked about it.

Exactly.

I'm sure that they're on the same page.

And yet our impatience, it just says a lot about us, I think.

You mentioned marriage equality before, Mia.

And I think that in an era where we have marriage equality, we also have a very diverse range

of what relationships look like now.

We accept all kinds of different relationships.

People are opening up their relationships.

We see blended families.

We see, like, together apart families.

We see all these kind of things.

We are still so stubbornly obsessed with the idea that until a woman in particular has

a ring on her finger, she is in a status of waiting.

I just find it offensive.

Do you remember the most famous waiting person was Wadey Cady when there was that narrative

and that nickname for Kate Middleton?

And I remember at the time that incensed me, because I was very much like, who the hell

would want to marry into that family?

But that's always been the narrative, that she was somehow pathetic and lesser.

The narrative is not when's Beckhardt going to ask Andy Lee to marry her.

But also, Wadey Cady, that relationship had to culminate in marriage.

Like, there is no way that the heir to the throne is living in a de facto relationship

with his three children.

Like, that's just not ever going to happen.

But for many of us, the marriage, the ring is not a destination.

It is not a destination.

Like it's not that everything in the lead up to that happening is an audition.

For Kate, it probably was.

Like it literally was an audition.

But for most of us, our relationships are entirely valid, whether we've got rings on

our fingers or not.

If you want to make out loud part of your routine five days a week, we release segments

on Tuesdays and Thursdays just for Mamma Mia subscribers.

To get full access, follow the link in the show notes and a big thank you to all our

current subscribers.

Jesse, you've got a recommendation for us before we go.

I do.

It is a documentary that has dropped on Netflix and by partner.

I said to him last night, I said, we need to watch The Last of Us.

Holly keeps yelling about it.

My sister says it's great.

And he said, no, no, there's something else that's moved up our list.

And I thought, there's no such thing.

There's nothing that could be more urgent.

And he said, there's a new documentary about MH370.

And we looked at each other and went, that's what we'll be watching.

We have breaking news.

Malaysia Airlines confirms it has lost contact with a plane carrying 227 passengers.

It seems to have vanished into cement.

They are lying from the beginning.

They are lying to the whole world.

MH370 is not just an unsolved mass murder.

It's potentially an act of war.

How is it possible for an airline to disappear out of thin air?

Nobody knows the answer.

The question is who?

It is three episodes.

It's just a mini-series.

And it is on the 2014 disappearance of MH370.

That was a plane that disappeared with 239 people aboard.

A journalist in it says it is the only case in all of human history where you've got 239

people declared dead with not a trace of anything.

And then of course, you know, a trace did show up.

Where?

Remember off Perth?

I'm not up to this bit yet, but I'm pretty sure there was debris of the plane that showed

up on a beach.

I thought they could never find it.

I mean, it's just so tragic.

My daughter's been watching this and she's completely obsessed with it.

And you know, we can sort of joke about it's a documentary and how fascinating and weird.

But the families of those people, I mean, my God.

It's so sickening and the human element of it, the thing that gets me every time I look

at this story, is that there were several hours there where that plane was going in

the wrong direction.

And do you think, I really hope they didn't know, but they probably did.

They probably did know that it had gone off course, that it was going just south, but

it is really satisfying in terms of what it goes into.

It's got a great journalist.

It speaks to a lot of the families.

You know, you can feel like it sensationalizes it sometimes and it gets into all that stuff.

It does feel really human and respectful and I've really liked that.

But then it goes into the aviation elements and the Malaysian government and all of these

questions that popped up.

And what we often forget is that, you know, most of these passengers on this plane were

Chinese and it was meant to be going to Beijing and there were protests and stuff because

they were just so angry that they didn't have answers.

Were there Australians on the plane?

Yeah.

There were lots of Australians on the plane and so there would be people listening to

this who would be directly related.

So it does feel respectful, does it, Jesse?

Yes, yes.

And it interviews a woman whose husband died on the plane and the story of how she found

out is just so disgusting.

It's got to be what are your worst, worst, worst nightmare.

But then it's got this enormous mystery, which is how the hell does a plane go missing?

So that's on Netflix.

It's three parts.

It's really, really well done.

It is called MH370, the plane that disappeared and it's on Netflix.

If you're looking for something else to listen to, yesterday's subscriber segment, Jesse's

trying to decide how much time to take off on Matley.

Obviously, the out louders are like, as little time as possible, please, Jesse.

No, I'm sure they're not.

They all want the best for you, whatever you decide.

But anyway, in this episode, Mia and I tell Jesse exactly what we did with our various

Matleads.

If you are interested in such things, you will follow the link in the show notes to

that subscriber episode.

And what we do differently, because some of mine went well, some of mine were disastrous.

Oh, show, you've got so much wisdom to impart, Jesse.

So much wisdom, because a lot of people say I took three months and I regret it or I took

a year and I regret it.

And so hearing people's learnings has been very helpful.

Thank you, out louders.

The comment denominator is regret.

Yeah, as always, actually, an out louder stopped me yesterday with her beautiful little baby

penny.

An event we did.

So shout out to you.

Baby Penny is so cute.

She's the six months and she has to decide whether she's going back.

And she was asking me for my advice and I was like, well, I'm glad someone will listen to

my advice because I know Jesse's Stephen's not.

Anyway, shout out to that wonderful out louder and thank you all for listening.

This episode is produced by Emma Gillespie with audio production by Leah Porges, an assistant

production from Susanna Makin, and we will see you on Friday.

Bye.

Bye.

Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening.

If you love the show and want to support us as well, subscribing to Mamma Mia is the

very best way to do so.

There is a link in the episode description.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.