Mamamia Out Loud: The Gwyneth Paltrow Debate You’ve Been Waiting For

You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast.

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

On Friday, we called our show, We Just Went Full Vag.

Yes.

Right?

Correct.

I know it might have been a little bit much for some people,

but that's what we called our show because we call our show what we're talking about, right?

Now that I say that again, it does actually sound quite rude.

Well, it's an accurate representation of what we spoke about.

We don't like to mislead.

We don't like to...

You know, I'm in a group chat with some journalist friends and they've all got wall clays and I don't.

And I don't know why when I'm putting out into the world such gold class journalism as We Just Went Full Vag.

Yeah.

I know, right?

But the thing is, is our lovely and esteemed friends Apple podcast obviously felt we'd gone too far

because if you listen to Out Loud and Apple in your podcast app, they censored the Vag.

They put a little star in the Vag for us, which we hadn't put any stars in our Vag.

They bedazzled our Vag.

Just so you know, we did not feel that Vag needed a little asterix.

We thought that our listeners could confront and sit comfortably with the word Vag.

Perhaps there are better terms that our listeners could let us know that would not get our censored.

I wonder if they would have censored Paine.

Like the word Paine.

Hello and welcome to Mama Mia Out Loud.

It's what women are talking about on Monday, the 20th of March.

My name is Holly Wainwright.

My name is Mia Friedman.

And I'm Jesse Stevens.

You can sense the excitement in my voice.

It's because we have been dying to talk about it.

Busting to talk about it.

You know what it is.

It's the new storm around Gwyneth Paltrow.

And yes, we are going to unpack.

Plus, has Instagram and TikToks get ready with me craze gone a bit far when we're doing

Get Ready With Me Nan's Funeral content?

Or is this just glorious vulnerability?

But first...

Over the weekend, there were some pretty shocking scenes in Victoria.

Let's start at the beginning because it's one of those stories that if you just read the news

headlines around today, it's like, who is what and where and how did they get involved?

And I feel you.

So back at the beginning.

There's a woman named Kelly J.

Keane Mitchell.

And she's a British...

She's got too many names.

She might just put that out there.

I was looking for a way to condense it.

And Keane Mitchell is what we're going to have to do.

She is a prominent British anti-trans activist.

She is the founder of a group called Standing for Women.

Her website reads, 2023 is the year of the turf.

So a reminder that a turf is a trans exclusionary radical feminist.

So essentially, she believes that the term woman refers only to adult human females.

And without protecting that word, women lose all of their rights.

That's her basic argument.

Anyway, what's she doing in Australia?

Well, she's doing a speaking tour, which has been wheeled out all over the country.

She's gone to pretty much every state.

And while she describes herself as a feminist, there's some important context.

Just a few months ago, a bunch of gender critical feminists

gathered to support Keane Mitchell at sort of a rally type thing in the UK, right?

And one of those feminists who got up and spoke alongside Keane Mitchell,

quoted Adolf Hitler, a line from Mein Kampf.

And it was a really anti-trans message.

Literally quoted Adolf Hitler.

Hitler not a fan of the trans.

No, no.

And so they have found friends or the Jews or anyone with disabilities.

Yep.

So the ties between her and Nazism, and this will become important, aren't altogether new.

She's been on podcasts where the interviewer has been someone known for supporting a white ethno state.

And she has made videos with known neo-Nazis.

That brings us to Saturday.

So Keane Mitchell spoke to the crowd. She was joined by Liberal MP Moira Deeming and Catherine Dives,

who we spoke about, oh, it could have been a year ago or so.

She's an outspoken anti-trans advocate.

She was trying to go for Tony Abbott's old seat and oust Zali Stegel, who was an independent.

That's right.

And so Scott Morrison put her in.

It was a captain's pick.

And her whole platform really was that she claimed that she didn't want any trans people in women's sport.

And that's pretty much all she had to say.

And that scuttled the chances, not just of her, but a lot of people said in progressive seats,

it affected the Liberal Party vote because it took up a lot of oxygen and it was a terrible look.

It was a terrible look and it was a way trans people were really used in Australia.

I'm not going to say for the first time, but probably in the most prominent way as a political football that made everyone quite uncomfortable.

So they're standing there and about 30 men, all of them were men, from the National Socialist Movement,

marched and they performed the Nazi salute.

They also held signs calling transgender people unspeakably offensive names.

I have a question.

So there were the Nazis, but then the people who were not the Nazis because the Liberal politician

had said that she condemned the Nazis and blamed the police, but imagine waking up in the morning and saying,

I know what I'm going to do.

I'm going to go to a protest so that trans people have less rights or so that anyone has less rights.

So you're saying that even before the Nazis got there, it was pretty appalling in terms of signs that were.

Yes, yes, it was, but I think the Nazis escalated it.

I think one of the things for us to realize, though, is Kelly J. Keen-Minshull's business model is.

So her tour is called Let Women Speak, and her business model is that she does it always in a public place,

like a speaker's corner kind of vibe and invites people to come and say these anti-trans things.

And the whole idea, her whole thing is that protesters will then come and try and stop the women from speaking.

Hence making the content.

So she is on a world tour right now doing this, and it's being turned into a documentary that she will distribute for free.

This is her whole thing.

She's not on a speaking tour in the conventional sense of it where she's like inside a venue and you're paying money.

It's like she goes to public places and she wants protesters to come because then she can say the women are being silenced.

That's such important context.

Exactly.

And this is what I started seeing last night is that I see Dave's who, by the way, I did not follow on Twitter.

She just popped up, has come out and said that all they wanted to do was speak out about the lives and experiences of women.

She said, we are being blamed for the hatred and violence of those on the extreme right and the extreme left, including masked men doing the hitless salute.

She added Nazis gatecrashed peaceful women's rights rally aided by the police aggressive threatening and enraged anti women trans activists protest us women punished smeared as hateful and aligned with the Nazis.

So basically they are now positioning themselves as double victims like the Nazis won't let us speak the trans people won't let us speak.

It's really hard for women.

It looks like MP deeming will actually be expelled for her ties to the Nazis after what happened this weekend.

It's not fair to say she had ties to the Nazis because the Nazis when I can't believe we're just saying Nazis the Nazis were not invited.

I don't mean to laugh.

It's a terrible thing.

But like this is this is exactly my point and I really want to nut this out because I was conflicted last night and as I've learned more, my opinion has changed.

You go to a protest for one thing with one message, right, whether or not we agree with that message is irrelevant, but you go for one message.

And then the Nazis show up.

Are you in bed with the Nazis and are you therefore conflated with everything bad the Nazis have done and are you endorsing and are you endorsing the Nazis because you share a particular political point.

And is it important that when you go to a protest, right, we've been to protest, we've been to climate protests, indigenous rights protests, women's protests, women's protests and we've looked around.

And you go, I don't know if you two have had this experience, but you go with these my people and generally go, yeah, these are my people.

I generally agree with the Venn diagram.

If you find yourself at a protest and the person next to you is a Nazi, is it time to look in the mirror and go, I don't think that I'm where I intended to be.

Holly 100% yes, I think it's disingenuous of the people who are at that protest saying we didn't want the Nazis to come.

This has nothing to do with us.

If your core beliefs align with the Nazis core beliefs.

And as you just said, Mia, I can't believe we're throwing around the Nazis as if this is a legitimate movement in Australia at the moment.

But certainly those people who turned up to the protest on Saturday are becoming more and more familiar sites.

Well, they're not that familiar because they're gutless enough to cover their faces.

If you're a Nazi and you believe in Nazi things and death to Jews and trans people and pretty much everyone who's not of the Aryan race show your face.

Well, 100% but they don't because they are abhorrent and I would very much argue that if you turn up to a protest and anti-trans protest and the Nazis are there, you should very much be looking in the mirror and go, this is what I'm arguing about.

These are the people in bed with me.

Now, I think one of the things we have to consider today is there are people waking up in Melbourne looking at these headlines on Sunday who are like, my very identity and existence was the cause of a Nazi influenced rally in the city I live in on Saturday.

That is so upsetting and distressing.

Can I also say how distressing and upsetting it is for Jewish people to see Nazis on the street of Melbourne in Australia?

Like there are descendants of Holocaust survivors.

I'm one.

There are Holocaust survivors living in Australia, living in Melbourne.

I noticed that some news broadcasts blocked it out because Victoria is actually the only state where the Nazi symbol is illegal publicly showing the Nazi symbol is actually illegal.

It's not the same in other states, but what they discovered on the weekend was giving a Nazi salute. That's not technically illegal yet.

And I noticed that a lot of the broadcasts blurted out and New South Wales also banned the Nazi flag and symbols, no doubt, because they were on the rise.

I would like to know if Kelly J. Keane Mitchell's whole business model is to basically attract people to shout her down so that she can say that women are being silenced on this issue.

And lots of people are playing into those hands, by the way, by doing that.

And now you've got Nazis in the mix.

And I'm sure this wouldn't have been the first time because she has been associated with the far right.

As you explained several times, Jesse, and she's obviously comfortable enough with it that she's still going.

Then I want to know if the Nazis are going to be in her documentary.

I want to know if she's comfortable with all these people who are calling themselves allies of her cause when she is painting herself as a victim who is being silenced.

She's not a victim being silenced.

That's the thing I found most uncomfortable about not only what happened, but the responses of these women, right?

Is that in all their commentary, the Catherine Deveses, the MP, they were the victims.

And I thought, no, no, the people who are really scared and distressed today are trans people.

I would never repeat what I saw on some of the signs there, but I didn't know that people even thought that anymore.

And as you say me, are Holocaust survivors like Jewish people in Australia right now?

They're the two minorities that are feeling like their fundamental human rights are under attack.

And the other thing that I thought I went and kind of looked for it.

These women were not quick to denounce the Nazis.

The leader, this keen minchal, could have released a statement.

She could have got all those women together and put together a really clear statement that said we're horrified that they came.

They did not represent what we think and they didn't do that.

It was only when the real anger started bubbling that they all went, Nazis, what?

We didn't even notice they were there.

And keen minchal knows exactly what she's doing.

This whole thing is content for her, her whole model, because she could be writing thoughtful essays about this.

She could be doing all kinds of things and no one would be paying any attention.

If you're making your model, your content model conflict, its confrontation,

its being provocative to the point where I know I'm going to attract people who are going to disagree with me

and then I'm going to point at those people and say, you're trying to silence me.

I just urge everybody to be very cautious when people keep telling you that they're not allowed to say things

and they're being silenced to do a little bit of digging about why you're even hearing them say that.

It was hard because there was so much derision and making fun.

There was this incredibly vitriolic reaction to it at first, which I was like, wow, this is really striking and nerve.

Another day, another hungry celebrity.

Gwyneth Paltrow was a guest on a wellness podcast last week.

And we learnt so much that we probably didn't want to know from her appearance on this podcast with her doctor.

I wish you could see me making air quotes. Will Cole called the art of being well.

Now, I should say straight up, Jesse, Holly and I have gone the distance for you out louders.

We have all listened to the entire podcast because there's a lot of commentary and often there can be commentary

that just picks up on a quote that's taken out of context.

So we wanted to have a proper meaty conversation.

Well, a bone broth type conversation about this topic, but we wanted to do it from an informed point of view.

So we have all actually listened to it.

We discovered that Gwyneth has used ozone therapy rectally.

Unclear what that means.

Is that that's just your old fashioned butthole sunning, isn't it?

I think it could be.

I think Mama Mia wrote about it years ago putting Uranus in the sun to absorb ozone.

Yeah, we wouldn't want to skin cancer on the butthole hard to find.

But the part that's been taken and gone viral is what she said here about what she eats in a day.

In keeping with my Will Cole prescribed regimen, you know, I eat dinner early in the evening.

I try to eat at six or six thirty.

So I'm really done eating by seven.

And then I do a nice intermittent fast until I usually eat something about twelve in the morning.

I'll have some things that won't spike my blood sugar, right?

So I have coffee.

For me, it's important because, as you know, I have trouble with methylation.

So I'm not my body is not a natural detoxer.

I'm not good at it.

I exercise in the morning.

And I do one hour of movement.

So I'll either take a walk or I'll do Pilates or I'll do my Tracy Anderson.

And then I get in the sauna.

I dry brush and I get in the sauna.

And then for lunch, I have something I really like having a soup for lunch.

In fact, we have one, a new soup at Goop Kitchen, which is like this green soup that I warm up.

It comes cold.

So it kind of retains all its vibrancy.

But I really like soup for lunch.

I have bone broth for lunch a lot of the days.

And then for dinner, I try to eat, you know, according to Paleo.

So lots of vegetables.

We live in California, so there are farmers markets all over, which is such a blessing.

Like all the vegetables, things that are in season and from local farms.

She did that entire interview with an IV drip inserted into her hand.

I think Dr. Will Cole also had an IV drip in his hand.

I love how they're all Paleo eat like the cavemen until they have an IV in their hand.

I know.

I don't think there were a lot of IV vitamine drips going on in the cave.

And I don't know how many cavemen and women, you know, had ozone therapy rectally.

Anyway.

We're worried about methylation.

Yes, methylation, a lot about methylation.

Vitamins, you might think traditionally come from food, but because Gwyneth hardly consumes any,

many dietitians have come out and nutritionists and experts and eating disorder experts

and have basically said in all seriousness, this is someone with chronically disordered eating.

This is a person who is starving themselves.

There is actually no food in this diet.

She said things like she thinks it's important to not take the joy out of eating and she loves food.

Things like chili, lemon juice and herbs are all part of the joy that she has.

You know, for some of us, it might be pizza or hot cross buns.

You know, we listened to the whole thing.

She talked a lot about all the things she wasn't allowed.

She's talked about inflammation.

She's talked about it for a long time.

I have a question.

She's the same age as you and I, Holly.

She's 50 years old.

She's physically active.

She consumes mostly soup, bone broth and vegetables.

She also spends, I think, 18 hours of the day fasting.

And an hour exercising.

She also sometimes has celery juice with lemon or simply lemon water in the morning and one coffee.

Has she just monetized her eating disorder?

Holly Wainwright, because what I also heard a lot of speaking through this,

and this is why it's good we listened to the whole thing,

is her talking about all the vitamin supplements that she takes that Goop sells

and all the powders and the meals that Goop makes and sells that she has.

And if you want a copy of Will Cole's book,

there's a link in the show notes of their podcast episodes.

So there's lots to buy after that episode.

There is.

Has she lost you from the fan base?

The sound you can hear is me flexing my knuckles like, okay, can I defend this?

No, I don't want to defend this.

I'm not in any way defending this.

I think that clearly what Gwyneth spelled out there is dangerous,

undernourishment, all the things everyone's saying.

However, right, I do have a however,

because I think before we pick up more stones to throw at her,

which is all anyone's been doing for days,

there are a few things that are worth considering, right?

Not a defense in any way, but worth adding to the pot.

One of them is that in some ways,

I think that we should be kind of thankful that Gwyneth just showed us

something that we all know, but we forget all the time, right?

Which is that movie stars and properly wealthy privileged people

live on an entirely different planet to the rest of us, right?

I didn't even understand most of what they were talking about.

And I know you're going to talk more about this in a minute, Jesse.

Will Cole is a fringe character, but that podcast is huge.

That's why Gwyneth Paltrow was on it.

His books are huge, his business is huge.

So this is a world that most of us do not understand at all,

but this very small percentage of people, like they live and breathe it.

That's why they didn't explain.

You know, when they were talking about,

she was saying some of the things I like to have in my IV,

she was going, there's this fringe one called bloody, bloody, bloody,

and he's just going, yep, yep.

And the rest of us are all like,

I don't even understand the words you're saying.

That is a really good reminder that while we're beating ourselves up

about whether or not we should have a piece of peanut butter toast

or some hot chips or whatever it is,

or like looking at our labels in the supermarket,

we don't live on this planet with these people.

Comparing ourselves to them is ridiculous.

That level of obsession, the privilege of time.

Most ordinary people do not have a gut doctor,

an endocrinologist, a sexual wellness coach,

four different kinds of psychs, someone who trains your nutrition

and does your meal plans for you.

Most of us don't live in that world,

and I think sometimes it's good to be reminded

of just how obsessive and ridiculous this world is.

The rest of us are comparing ourselves with.

Until they're trying to sell us something,

which is what both of the people on this podcast are trying to do,

and then it becomes very exidious.

Nakedly.

Yes.

So, I think you're absolutely right about Gwyneth Paltrow,

and I think we can confidently say that's not a healthy diet.

Bone broth isn't a meal.

I mean, all the things we've heard.

I think she's had disordered eating for 20 years,

and she's made a quarter of a billion dollars off it,

and it's the second part of that sentence that bothers me,

and the first part actually just makes me really, really sad,

because what I saw was someone who is not in a good place

and doesn't have the self-awareness that that is not a healthy

or a good way for someone to eat.

That's what's so interesting, isn't it?

So, you know, Holly and I are from the generation

that remembers the celebrity interview,

where celebrities would go through this charade

of sitting down with a journalist to be interviewed

and ordering a burger and fries, right?

I would prefer this model.

I don't disagree.

However, it's the monetization of disordered eating

that makes me feel ill.

And if you look, I went on Google Trends

because I knew what I would find,

which is that bone broth searches have gone through the roof.

So, you can say, or at least we know we're not

in their playing field,

there are people all over the world

that are now making bone broth.

That's okay, though.

It's not.

No, it is okay.

Like, there's nothing wrong with bone broth.

It's just there's something wrong with bone broth

if that's all you're eating.

And that's what I think Gwyneth Pato is saying.

It's like she laid out,

and we know how contagious disordered eating is.

Yeah.

You know, a lot of women can do the maths.

She gave a recipe for an eating disorder.

Exactly.

Women can do the maths on calories.

And now it is under the guise of wellness,

which is obviously problematic.

Who is this guy, Jesse?

This Will Cole guy.

So, Dr. Will Cole, I went deep on him,

and he's a quack.

Like...

Is he a doctor?

Because she's come out and said,

before I go to you,

I just want to say what she's said, right?

Yep.

So, she's come out and responded,

and she's said,

this is a person I've been working with for over two years now

to deal with some chronic stuff,

she explained,

and she was describing it as a conversation with my doctor.

She says she's been experiencing post-COVID symptoms,

and the way it manifests for me

is very high levels of inflammation over time.

So, I've been working with Dr. Cole

to really focus on foods that aren't inflammatory.

If Gwyneth Paltrow had a cold,

or she had thrush,

or she had a sore neck,

she couldn't go to this man,

because he cannot diagnose her with anything.

In most American states,

he cannot even administer a blood test.

What kind of a doctor is he?

He went and did a degree in functional medicine.

What does that mean?

So, he's a functional medicine practitioner.

It's basically alternative medicine.

So, natural medicine, doctor of chiropractic.

So, you can be called a doctor.

Like, my aunt is a doctor of French, right?

Yes.

But she shouldn't be telling you what to eat.

No, exactly.

And this is like, there are alternative therapies,

which I think there's a place for them.

I love a massage.

Acupuncture, great, yes.

Yeah.

So, the first person you go to,

if you're like, I think I have a chest infection, right?

And this is from his own website.

He says that he's in no way qualified

to practice medicine or diagnose or treat diseases.

So, he must be used in conjunction with a doctor.

Or not.

Or not.

Gwyneth would have 25 doctors.

But the way she's talking about it,

she's like, this was a conversation between me and my doctor.

Well, that's misleading,

because that's almost suggesting he's your GP,

and he isn't.

Exactly.

And the thing that I struggle with...

Because that's what I took away from that,

which is that it's a conversation between me and my doctor.

Now, I could have a conversation with my aunt about the family

and say, that was a conversation with my doctor.

Yeah.

But it was not a conversation with my doctor.

The way I'd understand it.

You could write me a script.

They criticised traditional medicine,

which actually warrants criticism at times,

as does the way we are socialised to eat in Western society.

People who yell at her like,

eat a hamburger, eat this.

I'm like, well, that's not great either.

So, I get that.

And traditional medicine and what Will Cole will say

is that for every ailment they find,

they have to find a drug.

And pharmaceutical companies warrant criticism.

Love that.

Absolutely true.

The lack of self-awareness from the corners of the internet

where Will Cole and Gwyneth Paltrow come from,

is that everything you hear them complain about health-wise,

they're also selling a product.

So, whether it's a supplement or a vitamin or a book or a course,

they're also manipulating us.

They're not this holy grail answer to illness in Western society.

And so, I just looked at it and went,

these are two grifters who are manipulating me.

I agree with you to a point about that, right?

I think that the other thing that I would put in this pot

is there will be people listening to this show

who also struggled with long COVID symptoms

and also were advised by medical practitioners

to look at the inflammation in their diet.

That is not some weird and wacky out there thing.

There are a lot of people who would be listening to this show

who have modified their diets,

who have chosen to exclude certain kinds of foods

and feel better for it, right?

I think that one of the things that we do a disservice about,

if we just blanketly shout about how the Gwyneths of the world are evil,

is the fact that women will tell you that their wellness,

as in their feeling well or not,

has been dismissed by the medical institution forever, right?

And so, it is not in the least bit surprising

that a lot of people and a lot of women in particular,

but not only, are looking at things like supplements.

In Australia, the supplement industry is worth something like $1.6 billion.

You can look into any chemist and you will see an entire wall of supplements.

I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that all of that is quackery, right?

A lot of women have found lots of non-traditional medicines

and different ways of eating and supplements to be very, very helpful.

One of the things I think is interesting,

because what we're watching here,

Gwyneth and Will, Dr. Will, are extremists, right?

And as you correctly point out, Jesse,

extremist trying to sell us something, but what's interesting

is that the Gwyneth factor is she lives in this very extreme world

where she gets to focus on how she feels for four hours a day.

She will tell you things that people thought were crazy once,

now a very mainstream and all that stuff.

Here's what she says about that, because it's really interesting.

She's so self-important.

Going back to Goop, when there is something that's controversial,

I guess, in the public space, let's just say around the health side of things.

We talked about on Goop podcast about detoxes.

Any time we talk about detoxes, it's controversial.

Do you know by this point this is probably going to irritate some people,

or are you still surprised sometimes?

The real truth is I don't think about it.

We as a team are in pursuit of finding information

and creating spaces for people to ponder things

that might make their lives better.

Some of the things might turn out to be not as impactful

or efficacious or might not be right for certain people,

but I've seen now over the almost 15 years of running this business

that because I truly believe that our hearts are in the right direction,

and our North Star is very true.

We are doing this for the betterment of women and men too, of course.

Because we're in integrity, I feel like we can talk about something

that's controversial at the time.

It's uncanny how six months later, 18 months later, or five years later,

the world is understanding the point of view

and creating business lines around what we talked about

over many years ago, and I just keep the intention really straight,

and then come what may.

She's not wrong about that.

Back to the wall of supplements in your local chemist shop.

She is not wrong about that.

The women point is very pertinent

because every ad you hear in this podcast is specifically targeted at women,

and it had a lot of ads.

I reckon I listened to about 10.

And every single one was for women.

It's breaking more products that you needed to buy.

To be honest, there were products in there that I've also heard advertised on Dax Shepard.

They're deeply mainstream things, things like greens powders that you put in your drink.

All of that stuff is very mainstream now.

One of the things I think is we talked a while ago on this show

about the whole longevity craze and how it's something that all the tech billionaires

are trying to jump on to make a lot of money out of.

There are dudes out there who also don't eat any food all day

and just have some powder and do 20.

But they don't attract the same level as vitriol as a woman doing it.

But Holly, let's be really clear about what Gwyneth Paltrow's selling.

It's not inner health.

It's being skinny.

Let's just call it out.

I don't necessarily agree with that.

I 100% do.

So in the early 2000s, diet became a dirty word, right?

So you weren't allowed to say you're on a diet.

Women were still restricting what they ate

because we're trying to conform to a beauty standard that is unrealistic

for most women's bodies naturally.

But words like diet became replaced by things like vegan, paleo, gluten free, detox, cleanse,

all of those kinds of words.

People are vegan for lots of different reasons.

People are gluten free for medical reasons.

I understand that.

But I also have a close friend who's an eating disorders counsellor

and she says that it can be a gateway to disordered eating

and it is always a red flag for her.

I reckon that there was one word in this podcast that summarized

my whole problem with this will-call world.

And that word was actually autonomy.

And Gwyneth Paltrow used it a number of times.

And it speaks...

What was the context that she used it?

Remind me, because that stood out to me as well.

Yes, she used the word autonomy and she basically said that health is our own project.

It's something we ought to take on and we have the power to make ourselves healthy.

There's an element and nugget of that that might be true.

But it spoke to how elitist this project is and how the will-calls

and the Gwyneth Paltrow's of the world are not looking at health

as something that is structural, as something that is social,

as something that some people can afford and some people can't,

where some people get sick and it is not their fault, Gwyneth.

Like, that really bothered me because it's this neoliberal sort of idea

that came about in the early 2000s, which is that your health is your responsibility

and anything that goes wrong with it is your fault.

And she spoke about obesity in a way that was as though, you know,

it was a health condition along with anything else.

And again, it's this idea that, well, that's your fault.

And I'm Gwyneth Paltrow and I have my bone broth.

See, I agree with everything you just said,

but my issue is that this is a much, much bigger issue than Gwyneth Paltrow.

Because again, there are lots of people who will be listening to this,

who when they stopped eating more processed food

or they made certain adjustments to their diets, they started to feel better.

I don't think we do anyone a service by pretending that some of that stuff isn't true.

Gwyneth Paltrow is not the only person in the universe saying that.

In fact, one of the things that's kind of hilarious about Gwyneth

is she herself is a fake gateway because if you actually go to Goop,

which clearly I do all the time because I'm totally suckered into it,

she is selling as many vibrators as she is supplements these days.

It's basically a sex shop with some expensive supplements on the front page.

It's a business, as she kept saying.

It's a business, business, business.

She uses this extreme stuff that she throws out there,

gets all the storm going, everybody starts shouting about it to pull people in.

And when you go there, it's really not that different from what you would see.

But it represents the idea that health is something rich people can buy

and poor people can go to hell.

But skininess, can we just keep coming back to the skinny?

Well, but I don't necessarily buy into that

because I think that a lot of the things that women will spend money on

is not necessarily all about skininess.

It's about feeling better.

Like, how many women do you know?

And in fact, one of Gwyneth's supplements is called this,

who are like, I feel tired all the time.

That is the number one thing that women talk about.

Like, I feel tired all the time.

I feel sluggish. I feel this. I feel that.

And a lot of the time when women have gone to the doctor with that kind of stuff,

they get dismissed.

Perimenopause symptoms, they get dismissed.

All kinds of things they get dismissed.

They want someone to present them with some things that might help them.

Now, I'm not suggesting for a minute that that someone should be Gwyneth Paltrow

and Dr. Will, but I'm saying I understand where it comes from.

Like, I understand it and there's like any successful business

they're answering a certain need

and they're only one of a million people who are doing that.

Out Louders, what do you think? Tell us.

It's already happening in the Out Louders Facebook group

and on our Instagram page.

Get in there. Tell us what you think.

I just also have to say, remember on Friday we talked about orgasms

and I was all like, get some joy in your life, guys.

Remember?

That's exactly what we all thought, right?

Watching that Gwyneth interview.

It's like, find some joy.

I'm just so happy that the outcome was positive.

Everywhere I go, people come up to me and say,

thank you so much for...

Love to be at Out Louds!

Love that.

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we release segments on Tuesdays and Thursdays

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and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.

Get ready with me for bed on hair wash, though.

Sometimes it's specifically about the makeup or the clothes.

Sometimes it's not.

Like the makeup and the clothes is by the by.

It's just a kind of vehicle.

Well, look, I think we might have reached in the Get Ready With Me world peak 2023

with the latest round that I've just read about on the internet

that feature women getting ready for very serious things.

I found Get Ready With Me, Nan's funeral.

Dad's funeral.

Mum's funeral.

Get ready with me to go to my granddad's funeral.

I wasn't going to post this video because part of me feels like it's a bit weird

to post like a Get Ready With Me for a funeral.

The thing is, it's such a real thing that unfortunately

we'll probably all have to go to a funeral at some point in our life.

And at first I was like, um, this must be satire, right?

Then I watched them, not satire.

Then I saw Get Ready With Me turning myself into prison

as in handing myself in today.

I'd be interested in watching that actually.

Get ready with me and let's talk about my fentanyl use.

That was another one I watched today.

Get ready with me before my ex comes by to pick up his stuff.

Then I saw a story in a publication called DaysDigital.com.

It was by Laura Malloy where she was saying that this is kind of a logical place

where confessional videos have ended up.

Like the Getting Ready With You is kind of irrelevant,

but that the way that we live on TikTok in those places now,

the fact that someone is giving you foundation tips at the same time

as talking about their dad's death is not that weird.

It's just part of the glorious relatability

or whatever of the world we live in now.

I was shocked.

Am I way behind?

Jesse Stevens.

I hate it.

I must say I've always felt like the line when it comes to content creation,

the line very clearly for me sits at funeral.

And I think that funeral about,

it must have been like seven years ago,

the discussion became about Facebook photos from funerals, right?

Like people going and taking selfies or pictures of families and uploading them.

And I went, I don't know, it just didn't sit right.

And now you've got this and it just makes me think.

It's almost like everything we do is in the name of content

and can it be created into content?

It doesn't sit well.

There's also something, and I know you've both done get ready with me

and it's about makeup and blah, blah, blah.

But when you're talking about something as serious as death of a loved one,

the triviality of your concealer just seems really at odds with that.

And it almost looks like you're putting the two things together.

So I'm talking about grief and like my nan's dead and how sad it is for my family.

Oh, this shade is tan or whatever.

It's just a disjointed. I don't like it. I don't like it.

Mia, am I mad?

I love it.

I knew you would.

I love it for so many reasons.

And they're not just ones of self-justification

because I do something called Instababble a few times a week

where I just have a chat on Instagram while I put my makeup on.

And I also do what I like to think of as fashion babble, which is like a get ready with me.

The thing about a funeral and getting ready for a funeral,

you got to wear something, right?

And every time I go to a funeral, I'm like, shit.

So I'm also very interested in the thought process of what someone thinks about

when they go to a funeral.

But a funeral isn't about what you're wearing and it's not about what you look like.

And in making that video, are you suggesting that that matters?

The principle of Mamma Mia has always been we are agnostic about content, right?

So you can want to look at a red carpet photo.

You can want to talk about whether Gwyneth Paltrow is being irresponsible with her diet plan

and you can talk about Nazis.

And being interested in the fashion doesn't make you stupid.

Being interested in the Nazis doesn't necessarily make you smart.

It's just like, just information, right?

There's no hierarchy of what matters and what doesn't

because it can all kind of matter.

And just because you are devastated about a funeral

doesn't mean you don't also have to put some makeup on and find something to wear.

That is appropriate.

That is whether appropriate.

Is it going to be okay for the cemetery?

Am I showing too much?

That's the stuff that every woman goes through when she has to go to a funeral.

I uploaded a picture and I was like,

outfit of the day going to a funeral and it was like black with a blazer.

But the internet is narcissistic.

You've just made content about your nursery.

That's narcissistic.

We used to do all these things in private and now we don't.

Now we make it into content.

And what it does is that it peels the curtain back on everyone's life

instead of just seeing the finished product,

which is someone always perfectly dressed, got their makeup on.

It's basically behind the scenes into women's lives.

I'd question you and I'd challenge you on this idea

of just because women are doing it, are we going to diss it

because it seems superficial and silly.

I mean, doing your makeup and what you wear,

I mean, this is my own value system.

But is anything sacred?

You don't have to do it and you don't have to watch it.

But if someone either wants to do it

or has an audience who wants to see them do it,

if you went to prison, you would not do it, let's get ready with me.

No, I'd have other things on my mind.

I would watch the shit out of that because I'm like, what do you wear to prison?

I think about these things all the time.

Holly.

I did one about getting ready to go to the gynecologist.

I like the two very clear teams here.

I'm siding with Jessie in terms of when it's something really serious.

And in fact, I watched one this morning

that was a young woman getting ready for her dad's funeral, right?

Her tone of it was really jarring.

And of course, she was getting heaps of negative comments.

So she's there doing it live, getting ready.

And her tone was very like, oh, and I'm putting on my highlighter and all these people were coming at her like,

you don't even seem sad, blah, blah, blah.

And that was awful because she then went back and amended her caption.

I saw her later saying, you guys were all right.

The grief really hit me afterwards.

And I really felt for her because when she did that makeup tutorial,

she was probably, it was a distraction.

It was something to do with taking her somewhere else.

And also she was not connected in that moment to what she was really there for.

And then everybody kind of bullied her into having to be like, oh, God, yeah, shit.

That was that was bad, right?

So I didn't like that.

But and I do recognize that we're celebrating this glorious vulnerability.

But the only issue there is you are very authentic in your get-readies with me and everything.

Mia and not everybody is.

Some of it is deeply performative.

And I would argue that maybe it shows us behind the scenes on other women's lives,

or maybe it puts extra pressure on us that even in our darkest moments,

even in our most vulnerable moments,

what we should really be worrying about are likes and comments.

Yes, yes.

And are we conflating the trivial things,

which surely we can all agree as fun as it is to put your makeup on or put an outfit together.

It's not meaningful.

I don't think that I disagree.

I think it's very meaningful, like in all seriousness, I think it's very really.

Yeah, I think it is.

To me, it's about self-expression.

It's about creating joy for myself.

It's about creativity.

It's about so many different things.

So at a funeral, it's about honouring someone respecting like we say so much with our clothes.

When we have a constant stream of content and we're flicking and flicking and flicking and grief or death

or world news is put alongside a pair of pants that fit really well.

But it always is now, Jesse, in real life.

I know, but I don't know if that's good for us.

I think it makes it really difficult to work out what matters,

what is meaningful and what the stuff of life is really about.

That there might be some things that are sacred and deeply affecting

and then some things that are trivial.

That's very true.

So social media and the algorithm does flatten everything to be foundation, death, birth,

mental breakdown, all of those kinds of things.

It does flatten everything.

Everything looks the same as you go through it.

Yeah, and I wonder if that format kind of conflates it to when for anyone who has been to a funeral of someone

that they're really close to, as I know all three of us have,

you don't slowly, I don't know about you,

but you don't slowly do your makeup and you're certainly not thinking about highlighter.

I can't remember what I wore to any of those funerals because...

For some people, it's armour. For some people, it's dressing for respect.

For some people, it's a moment of contemplation and putting your makeup on is a part of self-care.

People have complicated feelings about that.

I take what you say, Holly, though, is that I know that when I'm sometimes really upset or anxious,

I'll make content because it takes you out of the moment.

It's a way to put a buffer between you and the moment.

But I think if we're talking about a world and an algorithm that is constantly demanding that we turn everything into content,

I think that's your point, Jesse.

But you don't have to obey. You do if it's your business and your job,

but for the average person, you don't have to obey the algorithm's demands.

You get to choose and I think we all draw our line of privacy, right?

Privacy means something a bit different to everybody.

I did think when I was watching these, I thought,

how would I feel if that was my mum's funeral and I saw people's content about getting ready to do that?

But I don't think it's any really upset about that.

There's a thing on TikTok, it was a thing a while ago,

where people would tell these terrible stories while they were dancing and pointing to words that would come up, right?

And I was watching one and it was like,

and then my mum was in a plane and then it flew into the Twin Towers and then they're doing a little dance.

And then another one is like, my baby died.

And like, I found that extraordinarily jarring.

So I get what you're saying.

I don't know what to make of it.

Like, I don't even know how to process this stuff.

Before we go, I've got a quick recommendation and it's a book.

Now, I don't read heaps and heaps of crime and mystery,

but like anybody, I love a bit of Jane Harper.

I've just finished a book taken by Dinahka Mackenzie and full disclosure,

the reason I read this book is because I was going to do an event with her

and I wanted to know what I was talking about, right?

Because it's not my normal genre.

And the book's called Taken and it is great.

It is particularly great if you love that kind of crime writing,

but the thing that's different about it and refreshing is,

Dinahka's hero is a detective, as these things always are,

but she's a female detective called Kate Miles.

She has just come back from maternity leave.

She is not white.

It's set in a small town.

Every time she goes to interview, you know, suspects and things,

people are always a bit shocked to see that it's her,

a female, a brown female who is questioning her

and she has this kind of context in it.

But also, and a brilliant depiction,

as you get to play along with this mystery, which is grim,

Taken is about a baby that goes missing.

So full disclosure about that too.

Set in this small town that's very beautifully kind of illustrated.

But the other thing that's so relatable for women,

I think, is that her character has just come back from maternity leave

because this is the second of two books

and in the first one she was heavily pregnant,

is dealing with all of that pressure.

Like imagine trying to solve a case of a missing child

while you're also wrestling with your milk coming in and pumping

and how you think you're being seen at home when you're never there

and what your boss thinks of you

and trying to prove yourself in this male world.

I found it really interesting.

So I am recommending it, especially to anyone who loves a bit of crime,

a bit of mystery, Taken by Dinnika Mackenzie.

She is quite the big deal and quite the interesting voice.

So that is my Reco this week.

Thank you for listening to today's show.

We will be back in your ears tomorrow as we always are.

This episode was produced by Emma Gillespie

with Audio Production by Leah Porges

and Assistant Production from Susanna Macon.

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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.

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