Mamamia Out Loud: My Boobs Are Having A Moment

You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast.

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,

what women are actually talking about on Friday, the 15th of September.

I'm Polly Wainwright.

I'm Mia Friedman.

And I'm Claire Stevens.

And before we get into the main show today,

I want to tell you about a special episode we're dropping tomorrow.

It's about the voice to Parliament.

So, a couple of weeks ago, we asked you for your questions, Out Louders.

We told you that Mia, Claire and I would seek out someone who knew way more about it than we do to answer them.

And we did do that.

Carly Williams is the ABC's National Indigenous Affairs Reporter,

and a Kwanda Mookah woman,

and someone who has spent months travelling Australia speaking to people on all sides of the debate.

And she came into the Mamma Mia Studios,

and the three of us asked her your most asked questions.

So, everything from, if not all First Nations people agree with the voice,

why should I vote yes,

to who exactly is going to be on this panel and how or they were chosen.

Now, this week in particular, this debate has turned pretty toxic.

And here at Out Loud, we want to keep things very respectful.

We want a model respectful disagreement,

particularly at a time when a lot of people involved in this are copying a lot of abuse.

Carly is so clear and informed in this episode.

Her answers to all your questions are balanced and interesting.

And we urge you all to listen and share with your friends

who want to better understand what we're all being asked to vote for in one month's time.

That episode is dropping in your feed tomorrow.

And on the show today, big boobs are back and they're everywhere,

but a woman's body is something that should be going in and out of fashion.

Also, the pandemic skipped.

Many of us have resumed our pre-COVID lives,

but what about the years we missed?

And we wrap up our best and worst of the week,

which include a groping on live TV, a traumatising chair,

and the speech that's gone viral.

But first...

In case you missed it, celebrities are for sale.

And some of them are coming at a bargain.

Celebrities like Lena Dunham and others are auctioning their time or memorabilia

or some quite bizarre experiences to help raise funds

for actors and people in Hollywood who are on strike.

One of the things you can buy is Lena Dunham to come and paint a mural in your home.

Oh!

There are currently 17 bids on eBay.

The cost is $3,000 so far.

It's an unspecified mural.

We don't know what it's going to be all of.

My problem with this is that none of it feels like enough money

to have any tangible impact on anything,

which is fair because I don't want any of it,

but Adam Scott walking my dog for $1,250.

Who's he?

He's the guy from Parks and Rec.

One weirdly affordable in a like, it would be a terrible financial decision,

but like some people could make it.

But I don't see how anyone's life is going to be changed by that amount of money.

If they're going to raise money, this seems like a really poor way to do it.

Every little bit helps and I'm worried about how bored Brad Pitt might be at the moment

and my veggie garden needs some pony poo laying.

I thought maybe he could come and do that.

That would be fun.

$50, I reckon $50.

That's fair, that's fair.

Guys, there's a new trend and it's not statement earrings or frilly skirts or sequins.

Big boobed ladies, take off your trench coats and open your curtains.

You're now allowed to leave the house.

Woohoo!

The fashion says big boobs are in.

I thought open your curtains was a euphemism for show us your tits.

No, you're actually allowed to open your curtains now.

In recent years, we started to see the rise of the mid-size influencer.

Basically women who are sizes 10 to 14 and shock horror wear fashionable clothes that look good.

There's also celebrities like Sidney Sweeney, who's voluptuous boobs on her tiny 26-year-old frame

mean people like you too are allowed to have breasts.

On TikTok, there's a boom in creators dressing for big boobs

and their videos are going viral with women saying they feel seen

and they've been waiting for a blueprint for how to look fashionable and chic with a big chest.

So I've created this account because I'm trying to find clothes that fit big busted women like me.

So all my bigger chested ladies, I've got some flattering outfit and stuff for you.

I'm back with another bra recommendation for my ladies with a larger chest.

I guess you could have a boob job, but what do you mean?

Clothes are becoming more focused on cleavage?

Yes, and we're getting more representation in fashion of diverse bodies

and that means we're getting more representation of people with big boobs.

I'm seeing suddenly all the beautiful people on Instagram and stuff.

It's very fashionable at the moment, boobs seem to be back.

It's good to have boobs, apparently, which is lucky because most of us do have boobs of some description.

But this kind of big boob in a very specific way, Braless, is ideal.

So like Braless, kind of a little bit to the side, but not too much to the side.

Definitely a bit of nipple action, low-cut singlet kind of thing going on is all over Instagram.

Yes, and it's like the bikinis that don't need to be super padded or structured

is like my boobs are going to sit somewhat like boobs.

As a big-boobed woman myself, whose boobs are particularly big at the moment because I'm pregnant,

I like it more in fashion, Clancy.

But you've always had big boobs, Clare.

Yes, but I'd like it on the record that women's bodies as fashion trends is fucked up and I don't like it.

And I can't eliminate my boobs whenever Hailey Bieber or Kendall Jenner are having a moment,

just like most women can't magically grow boobs when we've decided that we like them.

When I saw this story on news.com.au about big boobs being a trend,

my first instinct was when the fashion industry talks about big boobs,

what they mean is big boobs on a tiny frame and a narrow back and boobs that sit high and don't spill out

and they don't go into the armpit and preferably-

They don't come round your back.

No, and preferably on someone in their 20s.

Not real women with actual big boobs or boobs that are breastfeeding or boobs on bigger frames

that are in proportion and also come with the other features of big boobs like a broader back and a tummy.

The thing about fashion's idea of big boobs is that they're not actually big boobs.

Emily Radajkowski does not actually have large breasts according to the population norm and neither does Sidney Sweeney.

They have big boobs in proportion to their tiny frames.

Mia, now that big boobs are in, will you be walking around with your tits out?

Obviously, I'm different to you.

I think you've got big boobs too and I feel like you've always had big boobs.

No, I don't think-

I don't have a sense of your boobs, to be honest.

I don't think neither of you-

Okay, I used to have small boobs and I've now got very big boobs.

So my boobs grew in Perry, they grew in my 40s and that was not in the brochure.

So when I was younger, I had really small boobs like I was really like, when will my boobs grow?

And all my friends had bigger boobs in high school and I had little small ones.

And then after I had kids, I sort of lost about half a cup size with each child

and probably after my third child, they were about a C maybe.

And now they're a double D, definitely.

But I'm really uncomfortable with them.

I don't like them.

I don't feel like myself with them.

I don't know how to dress them.

I needed to buy all new bras for them.

We were talking in the office the other day about how many bras you have.

And it was a very interesting conversation because some people have like three.

A lot of people have like three or four and I'm like, what?

I've got like about 30.

But do you actually rotate between those 30?

No, and also I've had to buy all new bras over the last few years

because my boobs have been growing and growing.

And I remember a few years ago, I was down at Bondi Markets

where all the beautiful people go and I was like, oh my goodness,

I can't believe how many young women like teenagers have had boob jobs.

And then I realized that's just what perky boobs look like.

Oh, yes.

Like they just sit.

It's funny because it is terrible, as you say, Claire,

that bodies parts go in and out of fashion.

But it's very real.

If you cast your mind back to the mid-nordies,

think about like posh spice in the mid-nordies, Victoria Beckham.

And she had a very specific kind of boob job that looked like she had two handballs

and they just kind of popped them in the top of her singlet.

And they were very round and high.

And then everybody got that boob job.

And so the likes of posh spice decided it wasn't cool.

And so she went and got them out.

And now the boob job, if people are getting them, does not look like that.

It's more natural.

It's not round at the top.

So it's a real thing, this fashion business about what kind of boob is in fashion,

which is unfortunate for most of us.

But I wanted to know who's decided boobs are back.

And I found out, unsurprisingly, it's fashion.

So I saw from last year, which obviously is we're catching up now as real people.

Harper's Bazaar wrote this story about how breasts are having a renaissance.

After years of the BBL, like the big bum and the focus on the back,

it makes sense that now designers are putting their emphasis on the top.

Fashion is cyclical after all.

So fashion is just moving around our body and pointing at bits of it and going,

out, in, in, out, out, in, in, out.

So are people now just going to get their bums taken out and put on their front?

I think yes, because I think that what happens when we always see this in fashion

is that when everybody's doing a thing, it's not cool anymore.

Reference posh spices boob job of the noughties.

And so the big bum is probably about to become very uncool,

which again is unfortunate for those women who, miracle of miracles,

were allowed to feel okay about the fact that they had a bit of fat on their bum

because most people do.

And I have a prediction that very soon that will be like flat butts only.

I think what's really insidious about this is that it used to be sexist

and misogynistic calling different body parts in and out,

like big bums, small bums, big boobs, small boobs.

Now that you can surgically modify pretty much anything,

you can have weight loss injections to be a certain size,

you can get your boobs done, you can get a bigger bum,

you can get implants.

I was reading the other day about a woman who got extensions in her legs

so that she would be taller.

It's not just that women are feeling bad about themselves

because they don't conform to this new beauty standard

that someone's just decided is going to be the new thing.

They're actually modifying their bodies.

They're actually spending tens of thousands of dollars in risking their lives.

Like BBLs are one of the most dangerous operations you can have.

Even if you don't have terrible complications,

you have to like lie on your front for three weeks.

So these things are massively disruptive to women's lives economically

and logistically and physically.

I feel like the stakes of this have become even higher

in the last few years because literally anybody can have any kind of body now.

It's not just, oh, well, that's a shame.

I wasn't born with big boobs or a big bum.

Well, the elite can sort of end up with whatever body they like.

It's also not just the elite.

It's not just rich people.

People of all different demographics are prioritising this.

They're getting loans.

They're doing it instead of other things.

Yes, but the elite usually lead the charge.

For example, the Kardashians got their bums out a little while ago

and so they've gone back to the skinny look.

They got their bums out.

They got their bums removed.

That's such a specific phrase that would have meant something very different.

They got their bums removed is what you're saying.

They did. They got their bums removed.

But I think what this does, this whole idea of body parts coming in and out of fashion,

it gives us an illusion of body confidence or an illusion of like,

hey, celebrate your body, but that's not actually what it is.

So, for example, when I first saw Sydney Sweeney on kind of the scene

and it's all her and her beauty, she just, oh, she's so gorgeous

and she wears the most amazing tops and her boobs are spilling out

but her arms are stick thin and I looked at it and I went,

oh, amazing.

I've got a bit of a blueprint for how to dress with boobs.

That's handy.

And I did the same thing looking at all the influences on TikTok

and thinking, okay, this is helpful because I don't know how to dress for boobs.

I've never known how to dress for boobs.

But then you go, no, none of this is about my boobs.

No.

We're not talking about boobs made of boob.

We're talking about boob job big boobs.

It's a different genre of boob.

It's a different genre of boob.

No shade.

But it's just different.

Or very young boob.

Yeah.

We're celebrating big boobs.

No, we're not.

If big boobs come with all the other things big,

we're still demonising it because it's still the same bullshit

dressed up in a different way.

My group chat has been inundated in the past 24 hours

with an article from New York magazine from The Cut

called The Pandemic Skip.

And I absolutely loved it because it really articulated something

that I've been thinking about quite a lot lately.

It talks about how depending on what age you were in 2020,

the kind of three years that you essentially missed

or where life was put on hold have had really long-term effects

on a lot of people.

There are some ages that are more affected by it than others.

And I've certainly noticed that with my own children

and other people's children.

Because there's a certain age that kind of like your life doesn't

really change from say age five to age eight, right?

Like you're at home with your parents.

But teachers and schools and lots of people,

parents have noted that, for example,

the kids that were just starting high school,

so the kids that were sort of just teething puberty

around 12, 13 in 2020, they were really badly affected.

At a lot of girls' schools,

year nine can be a really difficult year just regularly.

And the girls that were in year nine in 2020 were really affected

and boys at different ages and kids that were leaving school.

And then it happens at other times too.

And the CUT explored this concept and talked about women

who entered the pandemic in their late 20s,

only to suddenly realise they're in their early 30s.

And perhaps a time that they would have spent travelling

and being a bit reckless and a bit carefree.

They lost that chance because suddenly it's three years later

and their biological clocks ticking.

I turned 50 during the pandemic in 2021.

And I keep forgetting how old I am

because I went to a sad little park with three friends

that were in my LGA.

It was the saddest thing you've ever seen with my dog,

my pandemic puppy.

I never celebrated.

We never had a big party.

You know, all of these kind of milestones.

Claire, do you feel like you experienced a pandemic skip?

How old were you in 2020 when it hit?

So in 2020, I was 29.

Yes. And then I turned 30 at the end.

What I found really interesting about this article

was it said that studies show that stressful experiences

tend to make it feel unclear how much time is passing.

And I recently found a journal from 2020 that I'd written in

and it's really scary.

Does it just say shit?

Yeah, well, no, it was just before.

It was just before the pandemic hit.

So it was like, these are my goals.

This is what I'd like to do.

And I'm like, oh, honey, we're in the exact same spot.

But the author of that article in the cut says,

my skip carried me through what would have been

my last couple of years of socially permissible carelessness.

And that's what I missed out on.

Had the pandemic not happened,

I think I may have had children earlier

because I would have done the things earlier

to signify the end of an era.

I think I would have traveled and maybe moved overseas.

Now it's weird.

I'm a couple of years off being geriatric in pregnancy terms.

And I'm only just starting a family,

which is something I had always wanted.

And I am hearing so many women in their 30s grapple with that

kind of this tension of, hold on,

having a family is something I had always wanted,

but I don't feel like I'm ready

because I missed out on that really important developmental period.

Before I went there.

The other thing I feel like has been stunted.

Financially, I'm not in the mindset that I think

maybe I expected to be or would have been at

kind of approaching 33.

I'm still acting like I have no responsibilities

or no real future to think about

because I didn't get that period to be a bit more frivolous

and travel and spend on clothes or whatever

because we were spending on nothing.

Hol, you are unusual in that you made big life changes.

When everyone else was kind of on hold,

you made one of the biggest life changes you could make.

I don't feel like I did experience a skip at all actually.

I think that I experienced plenty of all the things that we all did.

It didn't impede me in terms of like I still wrote a book

and I still, we just kept going and we all kept going.

Like let's remember that we were inside,

but we all kept going.

We kept working, we kept on with our lives.

The thing that I felt when I read this story

is definitely people around me did.

So my son, he tells me all the time

that he has no pre-pandemic memories.

And he's 11 now and he would have been 8 or so when that started

and he seems really young for his age to me.

I mean, there are other reasons for that

and I think that the first steps of independence

kind of didn't happen.

And the other way that I really see the skip is in my parents

because I think that the years that I didn't see them

because they were on the other side of the world

and our borders were closed,

hopefully they'll never listen to this

because they'd hate me to hear me say it,

but they aged a lot in that time.

I see them once a year and we always spend a month or so together

and it's always been a really glorious time in lots of ways

because we have a holiday basically

and we get to spend time

and over the years that they've come to visit me,

we travel somewhere, we go somewhere, we do a thing

and I feel like we came out of that skip

and they're much older.

They seem much older even though it was only a few years.

And I think a lot of baby boomers really suffered

because I know with my own parents

they lost a few really good years of travel

because they travel usually with their friends

and thankfully my parents have been well

but a lot of their friends haven't been well

and now can't do that kind of travel anymore

because it's a different life stage.

So there were a lot of people on the cusp

and what you said about your son is interesting, Holly

because in this article it talked about how kids around that age

when they came back to school

they were still like not mature,

they were like punching each other

as though they were much little children

except they were like 13 or 14.

It's that social skills and age that people are grappling with.

The only thing is, and it might be predictable that I say this,

sort of early 30s wins that like,

oh, I missed the last few years of my independence.

I would say come on.

Like you had from 20 to 29 player to have fun and party on

and do whatever like this is an illustration of I have a plan

and my plan was interrupted.

My plan was I'm going to have this overseas holiday

and I'm going to save this much money

and I'm going to get pregnant at exactly 28 and a half

and what the pandemic taught us all is that plans to be lulled at.

Yes, but one thing I would point to is a lot of women

who might have been late 20s, early 30s and single

and thinking, okay, amazing, I'm going to have some more time

to be my single self came out of the pandemic

which was a ridiculously difficult time to meet anyone or date

and they've come out incredibly lonely.

Yes, and been at an age where the stakes feel higher in dating

and so I do think that that's something to be really considered

and taken seriously.

In terms of kids, I know that there's really interesting research

on the younger kids who were sort of just entering school

and the social skills that therefore didn't happen.

Kids who were like five.

Yes, the kind of socialization that didn't happen.

The other kids that, you know, and I had two of them in my own house

it was a really difficult time to be a teenager

because it's the age where you need to be pulling away.

Like toddlers and little kids couldn't have been more stoked

to have mum and dad home all day.

Teenagers, it was incredibly unnatural

and against their development to be locked up at home.

They were meant to be pushing boundaries

and being more independent

and it's the time that your friends replace family

as the people you're most close to

and all of that was stunted.

Even take the pandemic out of it.

We've seen an extension and prolongment of adolescence

for a long time, right?

Like we've talked about the kid-olds, you know,

and how even my generation, Generation X

we were the ones who started having babies later.

We wanted the freedom years for longer, all those things.

It's been a social trend for quite a long time

like the age that people are having babies at

all that stuff keeps edging up, edging up.

And this has definitely added to that, right?

Because as you say, if you take three years out of 18 to 22

or 25 to 28,

you are definitely going to want to come out of that

and still do all those things.

When we were doing our Mamma Mia up front,

we just did a big study of Australian women

and one of the things that came out of it is that

even though we're dealing with all these other issues now

like the cost of living crisis,

women are like, I am still going to do that stuff.

They've got a fire in their bellies about

I want to travel, I want to make memories,

I want to reprioritise experiences

because it was taken from us from that time.

So it's also interesting that

people are still going to do those things

and push responsibility a bit later.

As I was reading this article, one, it pointed out

that it's not really a fair experiment

because there was no control group.

So I don't actually know if I would have done

all those things had COVID not happened

or if that is just the phase of life that I'm in

and you never really feel your age.

You never really feel like you're ready

for what the next life stage is.

So I think there's that point.

But as I was reading this,

I was really struck by obviously

the things we lost because of the pandemic,

the missed social milestones that affected

all different age groups for all different reasons.

But I also didn't want to dismiss what we gained

and I don't want to sound tone deaf

because people lost their lives to COVID

and people are still getting it and dying

and people are suffering with the debilitating consequences

of long COVID and people lost jobs

and we're going to feel the aftershocks

of the pandemic for a very, very long time.

But I do think we gained a thirst for joy

and really living that wasn't necessarily there before.

And I think we recalibrated our values

and people looked at their careers and their lifestyles

and they prioritized happiness and peace

rather than the capitalist race.

Like, Holly, do you think you would have done your move?

I want to challenge you there before we ask Holly

because that idea of we discovered,

what did you say the first part about joy

and thirst for doing things?

Yeah.

I disagree.

I feel like my social battery has never recovered

from the change that was made to it during COVID.

I feel like I've never regained my interest

in big social activities.

I think that's fair that social batteries

feel like they're taking a while to get back to where they were.

However, I think the world was in, like,

culturally quite a nihilistic time.

Like, it was coming off the back of Trump.

It was coming off a really dark time

where we were all like,

the world's so shit, everything's so shit.

And I feel like coming off the back of COVID,

we are looking for joy.

That's interesting.

And we're looking for glimmers.

I wish that was true.

You're right, in lots of ways.

That's what I was trying to get at before.

And I said a lot of women have told us

that they want to live life now.

You know, they're grabbing opportunities and experiences.

And in terms of us, no,

we'd been talking about moving to the country forever,

but the pandemic has shifted working

as it has for lots of people.

And I know that we could talk for 14 hours about

whether that's a good thing or a bad thing,

and whether that shift is permanent or temporary.

And how not everybody got that privilege.

There's no question that it changed a lot of lives in that way.

And I can be guilty of nostalgia

that I swore I would never have.

I swore, after that first lockdown in particular,

when I was stuck in a small unit

with two kids homeschooling,

trying to work a son who's got, you know, behavioral issues,

all of that stuff, I remember writing a story,

I will never miss this time.

And it's true, I don't miss that time.

The second wave of that,

and I think we all got a bit more used to it as it went on,

was a really intense family time

that was really special and it's gone.

And so I'm not nostalgic about it

because as you very well articulated Claire,

there are people in my life who's life

has been deeply impacted by long COVID

and they will never want to say anything positive about it.

It's just changed us in lots of ways.

Out loud as we asked you

how the three years of the pandemic affected you

if you had a pandemic skip,

here are some of your answers.

I genuinely tell people I'm 29, forgetting I'm actually 34.

And I met my partner about nine months

before the pandemic really kicked off

and I feel like we've really missed out on the fun and travelling.

And now we need to think about having kids

and kind of getting into the next stage of our lives,

which makes me feel a little bit sad.

I do feel like I missed out a little bit

on like any career progression

because I think we were so scared at that time

with like, we can't move jobs

and there was so much uncertainty

with people getting laid off and made redundant

and so I really felt like stuck in my job

and I think that set me back in my career.

While I of course feel like I have missed out

on a lot in those three years during the pandemic,

for me, I really believe that my grandparents

that have maybe lost or sacrificed the most,

my grandmother in particular,

she was driving before the pandemic

and during those three years,

I just have seen her age significantly.

It made me really sad to see her isolated during that time

and now she's in her early 90s

and I just feel like those three years

could have been better spent for her

and it's just sad to see her towards the end of her life

miss out on three vital years with her family.

It's Friday, so that means it's time to wrap up

our best and worst of the week.

I'm going to go first today,

so I'm going to start with my worst, which is AI related.

I've been trying to have smart conversations with my kids

about AI because kids know a lot more about it than we do

and my children just want to use it

to do all their schoolwork for them,

which I think is quite typical

because I think it's really important

to be able to do all of that

to do all their schoolwork for them,

which I think is quite typical.

But also quite clever.

It is very clever and I'm not in any way

blanketly suggesting that that's bad.

So what I'm doing, because I'm not like,

the sky is falling, the sky is falling.

I'm more like, let's test its limitations

because you might want to get AI to do your homework for you

but you're still going to have to go and check

that AI did your homework.

Right, Matilda, my daughter is a Snapchat girl

and she was testing the Snap AI bot

and we gave it a challenge

of write a paragraph in the voice of a 13-year-old girl

about the Holocaust

because she is talking and working on that at school.

What it wrote was,

OMG, the Holocaust was really, really bad

and a lot of people got hurt.

I know, right?

That's a slight understatement, isn't it?

It's my worst because I'm like, really?

That's the best that the great minds of AI could come up with

for what a 13-year-old might want to understand about that.

I had my suspicions that is it a little bit politically tweaked.

It was good in that I could use it to say to her,

you know that that is not what you would ever dream of

writing in an essay about the Holocaust

or anything else, right?

She clearly did.

Then she was testing, it was saying,

write a paragraph in the voice of a 70-year-old

and it would say things like,

oh, dearie, would you like a cup of tea?

And to talk about that, like,

you can't even about the stereotypes within this technology.

It is so scary.

So my worst is the overlords who are coming for us

at this point are very, very stupid

and it's keeping me up at night.

My best is Brent's terrible taste in furniture.

My friends on my socials last week on Instagram

I shared a picture of, so Brent needed a new office chair.

He works from home most of the time.

The place that he works is in a corner of our living room.

So it's a common space that we all have to look at.

He's usually there alone, obviously, most of the day,

so he's got a desk there.

And he went out to buy a chair and he came back

with the worst office chair you've ever seen.

It's the kind of chair that a 13-year-old boy

would choose to be his gamer chair.

It's got, like, red racer stripes.

It's on wheels, obviously.

It looks like an angry face. It's huge.

It's terrible. And I took a picture of it

and I put it on my Instagram and I was like,

Brent's choice of chair, what am I going to do about this?

And the thing is, the reason it's my best

is the validation that flowed my way.

I have never had a bigger reaction on social media, I don't think.

Many, many women flooding in and going,

no, and basically bullying my life partner

for his terrible taste.

And I was like, this is what social media was invented for.

Did he take it back? No, he didn't.

And this is the really interesting thing

about all of this discourse and I'm trying to unpick it

is that a lot of women said to me,

I would not let my husband bring that in the house.

And I was like, well, I'm not the boss of him.

That's one of the things

that I have learned about a relationship.

Sorry, common space.

Yeah, but who's to say that my taste is dominant

in our common space and his is not?

In Brent's defense, you get an entire shed

for your work, you get your private space

and poor Brent needs to do his work

in a corner of your living room

and then we're policing his chair.

Holly, what was his defense?

Does he actually like it?

It's cheap.

It was the cheapest.

This is always Brent's defenses.

He goes, this was the cheapest one in the shop.

So I chose it and also he genuinely sees

not one thing wrong with it.

And I think what's really interesting is the difference

of opinions in my social DMs that were like,

send it back or learn to live with it

or maybe you could put a nice throw over the top of it.

Maybe you could throw it into a charity bin.

It was the cheapest check as no one else wanted it, mate.

That's why, that's the thing we have to learn.

Clare Stevens.

So my worst is the speech given at the National Press Club

by Senator Jacinta Napa-Jimpa Price

and she is the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs.

She is a leading no campaigner

and she's been a really prominent voice

in the debate around the voice referendum.

Here's a bit of what she said.

Can I ask you please,

do you believe the history of colonisation continues

to have an impact on some Indigenous Australians?

No, I'll be honest with you.

No, I don't think so.

Positive impact, absolutely.

I mean, now we've got running water,

we've got readily available food.

I mean, everything that my grandfather had

when he was growing up, Aboriginal Australians,

many of us have the same opportunities

as all other Australians.

And it's going viral is on all my social media platforms.

I've got so many friends sending it to me

and asking what they meant to think about it

because there seems to be so much support

and when she was in the National Press Club

and she made a claim that there have been

no ongoing negative effects on Indigenous Australians

because of colonisation,

she got a cheer from the Nationals,

which is a party that in that room

would have been a whole lot of white people

cheering at what she said.

Now, Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Linda Burney,

has come out and said she's incredibly offended

by what Just Interpriced has said

and that it is factually incorrect.

The reason it's my worst is because this is where I think

public debate has gotten to in Australia,

where that's not the question.

Whether colonisation has had impacts on Indigenous Australians

is not the question.

We are decades past that conversation.

It shouldn't even be part of the debate

and yet what we seem to do is drag it back to that place

and therefore we're not arguing about the very simple question

that we're all being asked to answer

and so it begs the question,

sorry, are we just erasing all of this work we've done

and all of these Indigenous Australians who have come out

and told us about the impact that colonisation had on them,

not just what they've told us,

but what decades and decades and decades of research has shown

about life expectancy, about health outcomes,

about domestic violence, about all sorts of issues.

I'm absolutely in a spot of despair.

I can't see how this debate is going to unravel

in the next few weeks.

There's weeks and weeks.

In a way that does not brutally hurt Indigenous Australians.

Now Jacinta Nampajimpa Price is herself an Indigenous woman.

She grew up in Alice Springs.

She was the mayor of Alice Springs

and so obviously her voice as a First Nations woman carries

a lot of weight and obviously she is completely entitled

to share her views on this debate.

And not all Indigenous people think the same way,

just like any other group of people.

The other thing is I look at her perspective

and think this is the great thing about a voice

that the voice will have be made up of many, many voices,

one of which could be Senator Price's.

I feel like this week in particular has been a new low

for this debate and I'm going to reiterate what we said

at the beginning of the show.

Listen to the episode that we recorded

with Carly Williams because it is the most clear-eyed, calm,

rational.

You don't have to get caught up in the hate around this debate.

You're not being asked to do that.

Don't be played.

Listen to the facts.

Make your decision that way.

My best for this week.

So yesterday, September 14 was RUOK Day.

And RUOK Day, I always find a little bit tricky

because I'm not sure when you say you're not OK,

we talk about the question,

and then when you say you're not OK,

there's not kind of a clear blueprint

of what anyone's meant to do.

If you say that you're not OK,

we don't really model those conversations very well.

I feel like this year something changed

and we've gotten a lot better at it.

And something I'm proud of that is my best for the week

is that we dropped an episode of

But Are You Happy with Brittany Hockley,

who you might know from she co-hosts Life Uncut.

She's a media personality.

And she has the sort of life that just looks incredible.

She's currently in Bloody Mayor Cut.

She's somewhere in Europe with her absolutely beautiful boyfriend.

And she has a very glamorous life

and the sort of life you'd look at and think,

she's got everything that's a prerequisite to make you happy.

I had this conversation with her a few weeks ago

and the very final question of the podcast is always,

But Are You Happy?

And her answer was essentially no.

No, I'm not.

I checked out completely and I didn't even.

I couldn't go to work.

I couldn't go online.

I couldn't do anything.

I didn't leave my house.

At one point Laura and my friends had to come over

because I thought I'd done something to myself.

Yeah.

And the response to that has been so strong.

And I was messaging her last night

and both of us have had so many messages about that episode

and how much it meant to people.

And what I loved about it was that there was a real tone of hope

in what she said, which was basically,

I have more sad days than happy days.

I'm not happy right now,

but I want some things to change

and I think I'm on the right path basically.

And I think that honesty is so, so incredibly valuable.

So I hope people feel comfortable to have those conversations.

Because that's what depression and anxiety is.

Exactly.

Exactly.

We'll link to that episode in the show notes.

And if you are having a tough time,

remember to call Lifeline

or have a look at the Beyond Blue website.

My worst is, well, I've started watching Morning Wars.

It's the season three.

It's a show on Apple TV with Reese Witherspoon

and Jennifer Aniston.

I mean, I quite liked season one.

Season two was a bit,

season three I'm already struggling with.

But I wanted to just note that my worst,

I don't want to get too caught up in talking about women's appearances,

but nobody looks like a person.

The women, sorry.

The women on this show don't look like people.

And we've had a lot of years to get used to women having cosmetic surgery

and if that's what you want to do,

more power to you.

And I've had Botox.

It's no shade there.

But what I recently learned is that A-list celebrities,

and I don't know if this is the case with Jennifer Aniston

and Reese Witherspoon.

I don't know the names of any particular celebrities,

but famous women particularly have written into their contracts

that they will have like a makeup artist in the editing room

and that every frame of their face will be retouched.

And there are also these AI de-aging filters.

So for example, it's not just women.

Harrison Ford, when they did the latest Indiana Jones,

they used a de-aging filter because he's, I think, 80.

And it was like a young Indiana Jones.

So my point is that we are all being just so gaslit

because when you're looking at it in the same way

if you look at an Instagram picture that's been face-tuned,

you're not aware.

Like there's no disclaimer.

You're not aware that you're not looking at a human person.

It just is how our beauty standards,

and we were talking about those with boobs earlier,

are being recalibrated.

So what hope do any of us have when we look in the mirror

or when we look down in the shower

and we see an unfiltered, un-AI'd,

un-airbrushed body or face,

I just think it's going to continue to be a big shock.

I watch movies now and I'm like,

that's not what anyone looks like.

But that's what I mean.

It's happening. I don't mean in steals.

I mean in movies and TV shows.

Yeah, it's like moving images.

Yeah, moving images.

Because I used to always think,

at least with a moving image,

you have lighting and whatever,

but it's still some version of reality.

Absolutely not.

So that's my worst.

This is going to sound weird,

but my best is a Spanish journalist

who got groped on live TV this week.

Her name's Issa Bellardo,

and she was reporting live about a robbery.

So she was in the street

when this random stranger just walked up to her

and groped her bottom.

And the journalist said to the man politely,

one second, we're live, sorry.

And as this happened,

the male news anchor interrupted the live cross

to say, Issa, forgive me for interrupting.

The sound is bad,

but did he just touch your bottom?

And Issa awkwardly sort of said, yes.

And so then the news anchor said,

I just can't understand it.

Can you please put that man in front of me, please?

And then he said, that stupid guy,

put the stupid guy in front of me, please.

And then she confronts him on live TV.

And she says, as much as you want to ask

what channel we are from,

do you really have to touch my bottom?

I'm doing a live show and I'm at work.

The guy denied the allegations, but it was on camera.

And she reinforces, yes, you did.

And he apologizes while still denying it.

And then she says, can you please just let me work.

And then he ruffles her hair before walking off.

And then he approached her a few moments later,

but staff at the TV station called the police

and the suspect was arrested and charged.

And what I love about this is that we've seen,

you know, Spain is having a really big reckoning moment

around me too and how women are treated by men in public,

but presumably also in private.

After the World Cup soccer official,

Luis Robiales situation,

he's since resigned.

Now people are calling it out.

And the reason that it's my best is because

for a really, really long time,

that was just what happened to women.

I was a waiter and I used to just grab,

I grabbed all the time and there wasn't even a word for that.

And it was so unremarkable.

You wouldn't even tell anyone or say anything.

And now it's being called out and people are being arrested

and there are consequences.

And it's like we're recalibrating what's okay.

And I think that's great.

I think it's like galvanized individual women to be like,

hold on a second.

But also men, like it's the male anchor that said,

she was just going to let it go if she was trying to be professional.

But it was the guy that said, hang on a second.

Get him on.

Yeah.

I've got a recommendation before we go.

It's a TV show that has been going for a long time,

but I have only just discovered it.

This is another in my cannon of things you want to watch

when you don't want to think too hard.

You know how Mia said on Wednesday that she likes watching

below deck to soothe herself?

I've found a new soothing show

because I also feel the need for some soothing at the minute.

And it's a show called Somebody Feed Phil.

I am Phil.

Beautiful lady.

Phil.

Food is the great connector, isn't it?

I'm like Oprah.

You get a shrimp and you get a shrimp.

I find a new place.

You and everybody's eating.

And sometimes miracles happen.

Does anyone watch this?

I've never heard of it.

Oh my God.

So it's a show on Netflix and it is a food travel show

hosted by this guy called Phil Rosenthal

who is an American Jewish comedian who invented

and this is a blast from the past.

Everybody loves Raymond back in the day.

And he's like a middle-aged guy

and he's a New York Jewish guy and he's funny.

But he is lovely.

Like the premise of this show is that he goes around the world

and around America and he goes to a city

and he eats all the food and everything he eats, he loves.

He is positive.

He is respectful.

He is like eating this amazing beautiful crab omelet

in a street market in Bangkok

and he can't believe the woman who made it for him

made it for him and he's just like,

and this is a cult show, right?

Because three different people

from very different corners of my life

have said to me recently,

do you watch somebody feed Phil?

And I'm like, no.

And they said, oh, it's changed how I travel.

It's changed where I go when I travel.

It's my happy show.

And last week I needed something like that,

something to make me feel better.

Put it on, started watching.

Now, you know when you're like,

I wish I could take three days out of my life

and just lie in bed and watch something?

It's this.

If you're looking for something else to listen to,

on yesterday's Subscribe episode,

we talked about where Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis

went wrong in their apology.

Well, in their character references

for fellow actor Danny Masterson,

who has been convicted on two counts of rape.

So where they went wrong in providing character references

to the court for him,

for the judge to consider in sentencing.

And then where they went wrong in their piece-to-camera

apology that has since gone viral.

So we talked about this PR expert

who went step-by-step through everything they need to do

in order to get their reputation back.

And we added our own perspectives.

We became PR experts for the episode, didn't we?

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

And to become a Mamma Mia subscriber if you're not already,

support us. We'd love it.

Thank you for listening to Australia's number one

news and pop culture show.

This episode was produced by Emmeline Gazillus.

The assistant producer is Tali Blackman

with audio production from Lea Porges.

We'll see you next week.

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.