Mamamia Out Loud: If Kanye West Offers To Dress You, Run.

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Mamma Mia Out Loud!

Hello, hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud. It's what women are actually talking

about on Friday, the 22nd of September. I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Mia Friedman and I'm Claire Stephens and on the show today. The Murdoch succession

has been settled with Kendall, sorry, I mean Lachlan, finally resting control from his

92-year-old dad and there's an unlikely parallel with our own less high-stakes lives. Plus,

does Kanye West weaponize fashion against the women in his life? And we wrap up our

best and worst of the week which include a troll trap, a fashion win and one giant milestone

for Mia.

In case you missed it, it has been a busy few days for actor Sophie Turner whose divorce

from Jonas' brother Joe Jonas has been dominating the news cycle. People probably saw the viral

image of Sophie Turner and Taylor Swift stepping out together, arms linked in New York earlier

in the week.

I don't know if everyone, do you think everyone saw it?

It was everywhere, absolutely everywhere and it was a power move if there ever was one

because Joe Jonas reportedly dumped Taylor Swift, they dated for a little bit, he dumped

her via a phone call in 2009, she's written songs about it, it's just part of the cultural

folklore. So Sophie Turner and Taylor Swift went to a restaurant and a bar and you just

know that Sophie gave Taylor all the gossip on Joe being a dirty, dirty dog.

Because they sat in a window, they sat in front of an open, not an open window but they

sat in front of a glass wall. So it was just hilarious. Holly, can you please decode the

subtext of which it is not tricky to do?

There is nothing more strategic than this dinner. They went to one of the most high-profile

restaurants in New York City which is run by two female power chefs, just side notes,

so perfect messaging. Then they went to a bar called Temple Bar which is also a very

cool celebrity magnet. So obviously Taylor and Sophie could have stayed home and ordered

takeout and drunk champagne to have this exchange of ideas around Joe Jonas and his awfulness

but they did not. The reason that they did it, the message they're sending obviously is that

Taylor is very much team Sophie and Jonas won't be happy about this because only in May this year

he was on Dax Shepards podcast and he said, I'm really cool with Taylor now, we're cool

or at least I hope we are because no one fucks with the Swifties, you know. So she has now

very much positioned the millions and millions of Swifties on team Sophie.

The comments on some of these photos were, be scared, Joe Jonas, be very, very afraid.

And they were kind of right because just today it's been announced that Sophie Turner has filed a

lawsuit against Joe Jonas requesting their two children be returned to England and in the

document seen by People magazine, Turner requested the immediate return of children wrongfully removed

or wrongfully retained asserting that Jonas' wrongful retention of their daughters began on

September 20. There's basically a storyline coming out that they were meant to move to England and

that was meant to be their forever home and Joe Jonas changed his mind on that. We're getting more

and more gossip about why the breakup happened. Apparently it's something to do with something

that Joe Jonas saw unlike the security camera of their home, but this is getting messier and messier

and Sophie Turner is taking the classy approach of staying silent but then going through the courts

whereas Joe Jonas is leaking all the stuff to media.

Whatever the opposite of quiet quitting is, that's what Rupert Murdoch has been doing

during his 70 year career as a media mogul. But at the age of 92, he's finally decided to lean out

and step down as chair of News Corporation and Fox News. And the new boss of the most influential

media company in the world is Lachlan Murdoch. No relation, just kidding. Lachlan Murdoch is the

eldest boy among Rupert's six children with three of his four ex-wives. And in a note to the tens

of thousands of staff around the world who work for him, Rupert said, for my entire professional

life, I've been engaged daily with news and ideas and that will not change. But the time is right

for me to take on different roles, knowing that we have truly talented teams and a passion

principled leader in Lachlan who will become sole chairman of both companies. Now Lachlan's 52

and for a couple of decades at least there has been a lot of jockeying between him

and his younger brother James and older sister Elizabeth over who would take over from their dad

and now we know. And even though not many of us can relate to what it must be like to have a father

who helped bring Donald Trump into power thanks to his Fox News Network, those of us whose parents

are thankfully still around might very well be familiar with the challenges of managing aging

parents who still think they're young. Holy, our parents are around the same age. Is it any of your

business if your parents want to cavort on yachts or behave like randy teenagers? Because I know

they do. I would say no, it is none of my business. But I love to imagine the conversations that went

on within the Murdoch family, particularly when Murdoch wanted to get married again earlier this

year. And that was very quickly kiboshed when there was an engagement announced and then quickly

withdrawn. And you can only imagine that all the children and maybe the grandchildren too

went and just said, no, no more. You're adding too much legal complexity. Our inheritances are

getting way too complicated here. You are not allowed. And you can only imagine trying to tell

Rupert Murdoch he's not allowed to do anything because he's probably not a boomer, is he? He's

too old to be a boomer. But the boomers, and I know we've got boomer listeners, I'm not about

to criticize any boomers quite the opposite. But they are a generation who is not going to go quietly

into being pushed around as elderly people. Because you know, when you're sort of on the

brink of this sandwich generation at time, it can feel like there's a very swift switch flipped

between you being the child and the person who does the looking after and the person that the

parents worry about and disapprove of, to there being this sort of switch flipped where suddenly

the child is disapproving and worrying about the parents and being like, they want to get married

again. They want to buy a house. They want to get a dog. They won't stop traveling. They won't

stop doing XYZ. And you're doing the concern trolling of them. I think that the baby boomers

were the ones that redefined what aging looked like. It's like they're wearing jeans. They're

dyeing their hair. They're not calling themselves grandma and grandpa. They're the first generation

to come up with different names for what grandma and grandpa might be. I think that's really

interesting. But at the same time, I think everyone tends to think that they're younger

than they are. But Claire, what happens when you're the adult child of someone who's not making

decisions that are in line with their actual age? Well, I think we're seeing the impact of longer

life expectancies and aging populations in our families, in that our parents or the parents

don't retire at the age that they retired at a generation ago, but also in our politics

and institutions. So obviously, that's the Rupert Murdoch example. But in America, it is so bizarre

to think that probably the two candidates for the next election are going to be Trump, who's 77,

and Biden, who's 80. That age has for so long been seen as the sunset of life. And instead,

these people are in the running to run one of the biggest superpowers in the world. And you've

got to think about how physical or mental limitations affect that. I mean, I know in my family,

it's not so much that I look at my parents and think about having to step in because they're

still working and healthy and that sort of thing. But looking at my pop, who is 96, looking at him

want to maintain his independence so badly and want to drive and want to go out for dinner and

want to be in the world and go for walks by himself and go and play golf. And you just can't.

It is so cruel, I think, having that. And I guess the way that our health has changed is that

people are reaching these ages and mentally, they're often quite there. But physically,

there are limitations. Well, it can be either because while we can feel young and we can all

have the access to the same pop culture and we can all wear jeans and you can get Botox and you

can have surgery so that you look younger from the outside, you can't do anything about cognitive

decline and you can't do anything about physical decline. And both of those things are built into

aging. There's nothing you can do to reverse them, really.

I think what we are seeing, you're completely right, cognitive decline,

but there's still the awareness. There's still the awareness. So for somebody like

Rupert Murdoch, you can see that there's still an awareness that he wants that power and control

and wants autonomy over his life. But I don't think there's necessarily

awareness of the cognitive decline or perhaps denial of it. And I'm not talking about Rupert

at all, but I'm talking about we've seen with some American politicians like Mitch McConnell

and there's another American senator called Diane Feinstein who's, I think, in her 90s.

And she's saying she's going to run for another four years and it's like,

it's a real problem because when you've got a completely geriatric ruling class,

what kind of decisions are they going to make? How are they able to understand even policy

around things like Facebook, around the internet, around global warming? Because they don't have

any, I mean global warming is slightly different, but they don't have lived experience of what it's

like to be on TikTok necessarily. I mean, maybe they do, but probably they don't.

That's tricky, right? Because although I feel the same way we've spoken on this show before about

Biden and Trump and that era of politician needing to really get out of the way,

there's also a tricky part there because as Claire mentioned, we do live in an aging population.

So I think it's like who gets to decide the perfect age for someone who represents a nation or

can make those decisions about a giant company? I mean, Rupert Murdoch obviously problematic

in lots of different ways. At 92, I'm sure that he still feels like nobody knows this business

like I do. Nobody knows how to play all these political levers like I do. Even my son who's 52,

he probably sees him as a young whippersnapper. Whereas if you're 20, 52 is ancient and they're

probably thinking, well, 52 year olds don't know about TikTok. And I think that until you're in

the seat, it's hard to judge it, isn't it? Because I just imagine and I have these feelings about

my own parents. And on one hand, you want to kind of coddle, well, not coddle, but have controlling

say in the way people live their lives as they get older. But on the other hand, infantilizing

elderly people is just terribly insulting because they have lived long lives and they deserve every

ounce of dignity until the very end. What about when they do something that as the adult child,

you're going to have to deal with the consequences of? For example, I've got a friend

whose elderly father lives in quite an isolated area in Tasmania. And he's, I think in his 80s,

and he likes these like mountain dogs, the enormous ones that are like 100 kilos.

And he's got two of these enormous dogs. He just bought a new puppy, like a new one of them.

And like, he's too old to have these dogs. And if they pull him over and he breaks a hip,

that's going to be on her. But then to your point, Holly, what right does she have to say

how he's going to have to live his life? I've had this with older people in my life, not my

parents, but in laws and that kind of thing where you look at them and you want to micromanage

their life, you want to tell them how to eat, you want to tell them how to exercise, you want to

tell them what health appointments to go to, you seriously want to start living their life for them.

And I guess the question is, if you start thinking you can do that for people over a

certain age, it's a bit of a slippery slope to, well, what right do we have to impose on

anyone's life if we think that they're not handling it properly, if we don't think they're

mentally capable of making decisions? It's true. And I also would love to imagine all of us,

me in particular, but all of us, when we're that age and how we would react to people trying to

tell us like, no, you're not allowed to do that thing anymore, we would all tell them to get stuffed

because we feel we have the right to live our life the way we want to live our life to the end.

And if I'm going to go out being smothered by giant mountain dogs on a mountain in Tasmania,

isn't that my call? It is a difficult and sensitive thing to try and close that gap. It's a little

bit like at the other end of life, a child who thinks they're capable of doing something and

you know that they're not or you know that if it goes wrong, you're going to have to pick up the

pieces or the consequences for them could be quite dire. So it's like that gap between what

they think they're capable of and what they are capable of. And unfortunately, you often don't

know that gap until you've fallen in it or until they've fallen in it.

There's a really funny quote from Rupert Murdoch that came out with this announcement and he said,

I will be watching our broadcast with a critical eye, reading our newspapers and websites and

books with much interest and reaching out to you with thoughts, ideas and advice. When I visit

your countries and companies, you can expect to see me in the office late on a Friday afternoon.

That was sent to like all everybody's part of the empire and it sounds like chaos and I love it.

When do clothes stop being clothes and become instruments of control? Kanye West may or may

not be married to an Australian woman called Bianca Sensori. They've been together all year,

sometimes wearing wedding rings, but as far as we know, they've never actually filed the paperwork

to make a marriage official. Now, we don't know a lot about Sensori, which is part of this story,

but what we do know is that she is Australian as discussed. She is an architect, aged somewhere

in her late 20s. She was working for Kanye and some of her old friends say that the way that came

about is that he slid into her DMs while she was still a student at Melbourne Uni in 2020

and she quit study to go and work for him, although that's not confirmed. What we definitely do know

is what she looks like because for the past few months, she and Kanye have been on a very

visible tour of Europe. This week, they had an impromptu photo shoot in the middle of one of

Florence's busiest shopping streets. She was wearing what has become entirely typical of her

Kanye era clothes and all of Kanye's girlfriend's clothes, a sort of tonal nude look that's basically

underwear and tights in a sort of bony, beige-y color and he was wearing what's his new uniform,

which is all black with his face entirely covered. And then he got her to pose on her own and with

tourists and onlookers. He sort of moved her around and positioned her and took pictures and then

the tourists took pictures and the paparazzi took pictures and this is just a few weeks after they

were almost arrested for doing similar things but with a rather more x-rated bent in another very

public location, a gondola in Venice. Why are we talking about this? Well, the imagery around this

relationship is troubling but it's also kind of familiar. When Kanye was married to Kim Kardashian,

he famously entirely overhauled her wardrobe. Kanye is coming over today with his stylist

and he's giving me a full cloning makeover. Here he was going through and saying throw that out,

wear this, wear that and she spoke a lot about how he had redefined her aesthetic and dressed her

according to his tastes. Her girlfriend before her, Amber Rose, again very visibly marketed as

very tight clothes, boo, bum, kind of covered up but not covered up. And then more recently Julia

Fox who he had like a month-long fling with, she said he gifted her an entire hotel suite of clothes

and now Sensori. They all seem to undergo exactly the same transformation, perhaps not quite as

performatively as this. Is this a very clear example of clothes being used as a weapon of

control, Mia? I find this one of the most disturbing things I've watched play out in

the sort of celebrity world for a really, really long time. I actually find it quite

distressing and the still pictures are one thing but if you've watched any video of it,

the way he touches her and arranges her like a mannequin, he's completely covered giving him

complete anonymity and she's completely exposed and fetishized and it's all done publicly,

not to find a point on it. What happened on that gondola was that she was giving him oral sex and

some people couples get off on that like whatever, maybe she was into it. I've never seen anyone

look so unhappy but again maybe she doesn't, we don't know how she feels. But this idea of

coercive control through clothes and the objectification of a woman and you know when I

went back and looked at some of the quotes from Amber Rose and Kim Kardashian and Julia Foxx and

these women who've been through this transformation, I would say any man who tells you what to wear

or even suggests what you wear, run and similarly any man that tells you what not to wear, run

because that is a man who does not see you as an independent entity with your own free will

but someone whose appearance reflects on him. I feel like the idea of Kanye dressing a woman

got a bit glorified during the Kim Kardashian era that it was this idea that he was some

fashion forward genius and she was his muse and he completely thought that how she dressed was

trashy and he was going to turn her into this fashion forward icon and there probably are a

lot of people who think that's exactly what happened that she became a fashion icon during

that time. And she did and she refers to you know he did make her over in that sense. She was

considered tacky, she would wear these tight bandage dresses, very reality TV, you know she

ended up on the cover of Vogue and all of those things so he did help her execute that and now

she has her own fashion label which is worth billions of dollars in skims. What was also

creepy is that she would refer to it as a collab. Her appearance she said is that I'm interested in

the collab with Kanye and it's like oh. But that idea that you've pointed out may

run if there is a man who tells you how to dress. It really has in the last few years we've seen

it emerge as a tactic of abuse and I'm not saying that that is what Kanye is doing, we do not know

but we do know that in abusive relationships that is one of the hallmark features. So just like

financial abuse can actually be a precursor to physical abuse in a lot of cases of intimate

partner violence when you break it down the woman will say he told me what I could and couldn't wear.

In this case I look at her and I feel like it's humiliating, I feel like it's humiliation,

that example of her on the street in Florence and she is standing so publicly and you can see

everything's exposed, her boobs are exposed, her bum's exposed, she might as well be naked

and it is as though she is a complete object and it actually made me think I can sometimes

bristle about the fashion industry and the idea of fashion as something we all take seriously,

a bit like Anne Hathaway and the Devil Wears Prada. But I think that it's because sometimes I do

get this visceral reaction that it is based on the objectification of women and women almost

being mannequins and often you know a lot of male designers turning women into something that they

find like a piece of art and the thing that makes this a little bit more scary I think is that

unlike Kim Kardashian and unlike Julia Fox and unlike Amber Rose we know so little about Bianca

Sensori and she does not have her own voice in this so even when Kanye was making over Kim

Kardashian she had a reality show, she had her Instagram, she had her multiple businesses,

she had a lot of power separate to him. We knew what she thought whereas with Bianca

she does not have an avenue in which to address the stuff. I think she looks like a hostage,

I'm going to say it, I think she looks like a hostage. I agree with you Mia mostly on this

because I'm very uncomfortable with these pictures, the Venice ones really upset me a lot and I spoke

about it on the show mostly because my teenage daughter loves Kanye, listens to Kanye all the

time. Kanye is on in my car and in my house almost constantly and I hate the idea of her

seeing these images and thinking there's anything aspirational about them mostly because as you've

already mentioned Mia, Sensori looks so miserable nearly all the time but there's also a bit of

me that doesn't really like projecting onto these women so I wonder if we're patronizing Sensori

by thinking that she's a victim in this. So for example Julia Fox has said explicitly that she

used that affair with Kanye for hustle, for fame, for clothes, for currency right to basically

parlay her career somewhere else. Sensori might be doing exactly the same I mean we are looking at

her and saying she's a puppet, maybe she isn't. I mean I'm not saying that I necessarily believe

that but it's a possibility. The reason that it's hard to believe is for all the reasons you've

spelled out is that anyone who's had a controlling relationship can recognize that idea particularly

if you're being treated as a trophy. The idea of a trophy wife is as old as time right that a guy

will hitch his wagon to a woman who's beautiful and then he wants her to look a certain way to

project his image of power. Rich men do this all the time when they trade their wife in for a younger

model. There's a guy I used to know in my life who dated a young woman, paid for her to get surgery

to get you know bigger boobs because that's what he wanted and then was intensely jealous.

Like anytime they were out in public and anyone would look at her boobs he'd be like

you're such a slut why you where have you got like that kind of dynamic at different degrees

women recognize it and it sets something visceral in us. I wouldn't agree with you Mia that a man

should never express opinions about what you wear because sometimes it's fun and I know guys with

great taste who buy their partners really nice clothes and there's nothing controlling about

it and they're like thank you thank you for buying me an expensive silk shirt that I couldn't afford.

That might be nice it's certainly not true in my relationship by the way.

I'm gonna let you finish but I just want to say I think the reason that I bristle at it is because

I've had that used against me like in a relationship with someone saying why are you wearing that

bright color you're just trying to attract men and I also saw it in a very close friend

who suddenly started dressing very differently. It was an immediate red flag to me she was in a

newish relationship and I'd known her for a really long time and it turned out that yeah

she also was in an emotionally abusive relationship with someone who was telling her what to wear.

That's why we bristle at it but that doesn't necessarily mean it's always true if you look

at Kim Kardashian no one could accuse her of being a voiceless puppet she's a billionaire a

business woman right and maybe that collab as we were just talking about was something that she

actively participated in and wanted. I don't think that change is always a red flag however

all that to say I'm not defending what we're looking at in this imagery I find it really

disturbing for all the reasons we have I just kind of would love to know what she thinks.

And control is a spectrum like I know that I've had partners yeah we all do I've had partners

and I've just been like I'm going to buy you some clothes for your birthday because I really

fucking hate the clothes that you're wearing and it's not about what they want or what makes

them feel good it's about how we want them to look now that doesn't always have to be insidious

and it doesn't always have to be bad but I think that the Kanye thing is just so extreme I find

incredibly apocalyptic distressing these images of him covered with his head black and her almost

naked and he thinks it's art he's always had a very twisted view of how women should look and

and about women full stop he's well known to watch a lot of porn and he likes his

partners to look porny. I don't know if this is a valid way to feel but I have felt it for a very

long time as a woman that when there is a woman like that in public and right now I'm looking

at an image which we'll put on our Instagram of her wearing what looks to be just nude stockings

you can see her boobs looks like little bike shorts covering that area but she's essentially

for all intents and purposes naked in public and I've always wondered whether images of women like

that do harm for all of us because if we get used to seeing women like that and and we get

used to somebody with the power of Kanye West saying this is how women should be then when I'm

walking down the street oh you're singing my song girlfriend when I'm walking down the street

there's something about looking at that image that makes me feel self-conscious as a woman

that I'm thinking is that how someone like Kanye West sees me but I disagree with that

because I could be in a bar and there's a woman next to me and nude active wear that doesn't

look that far from what she looks like and also what makes that imagery so sexual and this is

just a fact because of the beauty standards that were all around us is the type of body it's on

you could argue there are parts of my body that are like that and therefore I feel more sexualized

when I'm not trying to be sexualized or objectified but that's what I mean I'm talking about our

judgment I'm not talking about her wearing that what I mean is if I'm in a bar and there's a woman

next to me who's wearing nude active wear and she's chosen to wear it I'm a hundred percent

supportive of that choice it's not the clothes themselves it's the controlling part right

the other thing that's interesting about Kanye is you said Mia he thinks it's art because

it is porny but it's also deeply strange like there are many more conventional ways of attracting

male gazey kind of dressing as I said before the traditional more trophy wifey thing would be

miniskirts and boob tubes and high heels and it's deeply strange this aesthetic and attention

thinking really really peculiar about it I feel like the conversation should be like wow it's

amazing to see how heavily influenced Kim was by if you want to make mum Mia out loud part of

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it's Friday which means we are wrapping up our best and worst of the week I'm going to go first

because I'm the boss of this segment and I'm impatient my worst and I hate this being my worst

because it makes me feel sick and I wish none of us ever had to think about it is the way that the

reality of our warming planet cannot be ignored and that it pierces through our day to day lives

in a way that feels so overwhelming and leaves us feeling so helpless so this week El Niño was

officially declared which means a summer with more heat and less rainfall and last time that

happened we had one of the worst bushfire seasons in recent memory and I experienced it first hand

we were down the south coast I got stuck for a few days with no electricity of course there were

Australians who lost their lives Australians who lost their homes and the amount of wildlife we lost

was just unprecedented the amount of flora and fauna that were impacted by that season is something

that experts have said will take generations to come back I know I know does this get better

there's evidence that we're getting these double or triple runs of El Niños or La Niñas since

industrialization so it really is connected to a warming planet and that they're going to become

more and more common so one of the ways it kind of pierced my delusion that everything's okay and

the world is going to be fine was that in Sydney this week we've had a haze of smoke from the back

burning which is good back burning is good yes we're engaged in bushfire prevention that's great

everyone's thinking ahead but it's this stark reminder of what's at risk and it was this visceral

I had this visceral reaction to remembering that summer where the air was smoky and we were in masks

before COVID and it wasn't because of back burning it was because of terrible bushfires

close enough to Sydney that you got little bits of ash in your drink if you were sitting at an

outside bar I'm just despairing and you hear stories all the time that kind of pierced that

bubble that we've created for ourselves I don't know what to do about it and it makes me feel

really sad we've had this heatwave these last few days in New South Wales and other parts of the

country and it's so interesting and it would almost be funny if it was not so scary that people

don't know how to talk about it they're like oh it's lovely to have a bit of heat and then they go

but it's also really terrifying let's talk about something else yes talking about the weather isn't

like a live topic anymore no it's way way too loaded my best of the week I have finally six

months into pregnancy found some good maternity clothing so there is a brand I found out on the

iconic called ripe maternity and I ordered a few things and I didn't know out loud if I don't

order things online because will it get delivered I'm too chaotic I don't know it's too stressful I

won't return it if it doesn't fit so I'll just have it sitting in my wardrobe but this stuff was

absolutely great like shorts with just this really elastic waistband and t-shirts that are long enough

to cover your bump and tops that have like that little bit like over your boobs so that when it

comes to feeding you can just lift it up put a baby on very practical very clever I have just found

my life completely changed in the last few weeks by having a few items that actually fit you look

very comfortable so that is great thank you holly what's your worst of the week I'm also a bit sorry

that I'm bringing this is my worst but I'm doing so to make a point go on cheer me up people who

are seeing headlines around this morning about a certain has been washed up I'm just going there

I'm not prettying this up at all once maybe vaguely relevant sports commentator called Sam Neumann

I know in Melbourne in particular he's still a big name he still manages to court a lot of

headlines and today he is on various news sites because he has said something really offensive

about welcome to country he said that acknowledgements of country at the AFL Grand Final which is

coming up soon should be booed or slow clapped the reason this is my worst is not necessarily

because he said that although that is an abhorrent thing to say it's because he says things like this

and he's done it before he says horrendously sexist things he says horrendously racist things

basically to lob a little hand grenade of offence at people who will get offended who will write

stories about it who'll put his name on their news sites and everybody can get together and agree

that he's an awful human he is an awful human I'm just going to say so but also we're being trolled

he is a troll he is a professional troll and as Mia said when we were talking about it in

the meeting today I have to credit her with this term we are living in his troll world

if we jump to be offended by every little thing he says so I'm not saying we shouldn't be offended

because how can you not be offended by the shit comes out of his mouth it feels like we fall into

the trap of validating him as someone whose opinion matters matters exactly and look here we are doing

it but then because the other side of the argument is the standard you walk past is a standard you

accept so you have to condemn it but oh my sense is that a lot of the debate that's happened around

the voice has given people like him license to say ridiculous things like this and have it considered

a valid opinion I agree with you about that very much and so I understand about the standard you

walk past and I also think if you don't call out this kind of language is abhorrent that's a privilege

like it's a it's a privileged position to be able to go just ignore it but the thing is is he is

literally trying to just win himself some relevancy he is literally just trying to get people to

listen to his podcast so that people who employ him and pay him money still think he has an audience

and has some relevancy and he doesn't he is a dinosaur and I would like the world a lot better

without thinking that his opinion mattered at all so that's my worst this week is what he said but

also us all falling into the trap as I'm doing right now of validating it with comment my best

though is a good man story which I think we all need this week there haven't been that many good men

stories floating around I was talking last week when we were talking about the traits we most

deplore in ourselves I was saying that I can be quite selfish and one of the ways that manifests

is I'm often focused on my work what I'm doing at the moment I'm riding whatever I don't do a lot

of say for example school volunteering but Brent does which is why our family gets off the hook

right because everybody needs somebody to do that stuff and people are always amazed that a man will

be on the PNC or turn up at a fundraising event but Brent will do that on Saturday we had a fundraising

event for our local school our primary school of Billy goes that was an outdoor thing and Brent

manned the sausage sizzle and then he got talked into by the sponsors of the event being the person

to get in a ridiculous bear costume and walk around the fundraiser having his picture taken

with small children now it was 32 degrees oh my god Brent was like sure I'll do that and then

what happened was so funny this is why it's my best so he was told by the two women who were

working for this organization they said we're gonna be your minders and walk around with you

and Brent was like that seems strange why would I need a minder like I'm a big guy in a bear suit

they said no you don't understand what the kids will be like and so cut to Brent walking around

32 degree heat in a bear suit like waving smiling at people and the kids just mobbing him grabbing

his legs not nastily but like hugging him and trying to get all over him and these two women

trying to push them away Brent falling over on his ass in the bear suit in the middle of this event

can't get up like oh my god he's a grown man lying on this on the floor it's like a bear suit

while small children just like leap on him oh my god he didn't anticipate how much

video of this does it exist is that video I think I saw a photo funny I've got photos it was so

funny and he took it in such good humor of course and the kids weren't being monsters

they were just excited but but Tilda nearly died of embarrassment it was just heaven so my best of

the week was Brent being a bear I love it couldn't get up off the floor with this picture that's

just a good whole can you put photos of that in the newsletter so if you are not signed up for the

Outladder's newsletter please do there's a link in the show notes it's where we give you links to

all our recommendations all the behind the scenes things that happen with the show it's free just

sign up by the link and you can see baren baren a bright costume my best and worst are the same

thing this week like many people my daughter is finishing her final year of school and this is my

second go-round at child finishing school I've still got one more to go it's been one of those times

that I love where it's happy and sad all at once and all the emotions I gravitate towards

big emotions anyway so I've been crying I've been laughing I've been feeling nostalgic

if I had to think about the most beautiful moment the happiest moment was yesterday it was the final

assembly and they all left to that song do you remember the 21st of September because it was

the 21st of September got schools a genius no that's genius who ever put that together

or maybe the school did I don't know but how clever is that oh yeah dancing in September anyway

so just the exuberance and I just was thinking about that feeling of I never have to be in a

lesson I mean they've still got their final exams but my schooling is finished and all of those years

where it just feels like it'll never end and even for parents but it feels like a real milestone

and one that's a bit of sweet but mostly just really sweet is it a sad the second time I didn't

think it was for my son I was sad for the whole year for my daughter I thought I was fine and then

I got really sad right at the last minute and so I've sort of cried for the last week and then

yesterday I was interviewing Hamish Blake about fatherhood and his daughter started school this

year and mine finished and I'd just been crying all morning and so I just saw him and it was like

we had such a lovely conversation it's going to be on no filter in a week or so yeah I've just

been thinking about parenting a lot so that's my best and worst I have a quick recommendation

it is for a show that a lot of people may have watched but you may have watched it

forgotten about it need to watch it again or you may have missed it so it's Parks and Rec on Stan

how many drinks of alcohol do you consume a week one that's it one drink one shelf do you exercise

yes love making and woodworking do you have any history of mental illness in your family

I have an uncle who does yoga allergies cowardice and weak-willed men and hazelnuts sexual history

epic and private ah it's iconic I love this show I need lightness as I have mentioned the climate

and so I have retreated to my happy place so Parks and Rec is a mockumentary that revolves

around the parks department of Pawnee a fictional town in Indiana and it is led by Leslie Nope greatest

character of all time played by Amy Poehler and it goes for seven seasons and it's so ridiculously

soothing I laugh out loud in every single episode it launched the careers of people like Chris Pratt

Aubrey Plaza it's got Adam Scott who I find endlessly hilarious if you love workplace

comedies like we've been talking about Fisk a little bit you have to go and either re-watch

or watch Parks and Rec for the first time because it is just brilliant and if you want some pot in

your ear we had an emergency meeting and talked about the direction of the show you can listen to

that if you're a subscriber or you want to become one buy the link in the show notes we had a fight

let's be honest we had a fight thank you for listening to us on Australia's number one news

and pop culture show this episode was produced by Emma Lingazillas the assistant producer is

Tali Blackman with audio production by Leah Porges bye see you next week 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

you

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