Mamamia Out Loud: The Influencer Who Really Hates Her European Holiday

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Mamma Mia Out Loud!

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud,

what women are actually talking about on Wednesday the 30th of August.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Claire Stevens.

And I'm Elfie Scott, filling in for Mia Freedman.

And on the show today,

can you evade the privacy of a celebrity who's no longer with us?

We're asking for Amy Winehouse.

Also, is anyone actually really enough?

Or can off, as the Barbie movie would say.

And if the answer's yes, are we really over romantic love?

And meet the Aussie influencer who's going viral for bitching about her European holiday.

Does she have a point?

But first, Claire Stevens.

In case you missed it,

there's an update with our least favorite Spanish football president.

On Monday's episode,

we spoke about how Spanish football Federation president Louis Rubiales

had been suspended by FIFA

after he kissed Spanish player Jenny Amoso without her consent.

Now his mother, Anheeles Bihar,

has locked herself in a church

and declared she's going on a hunger strike

until the inhumane and bloody persecution of her son is brought to an end.

From inside the church of the divine shepherdess in Matril, Spain,

she told the Spanish news agency that she would not eat

until star player Jenny Amoso tells the truth about what happened.

Mr. Rubiales' cousin described the hunger strike as logical and normal.

She could get sick, he said,

but she's his mother and mothers know

that when your son is being treated unfairly and is being attacked,

it's normal for a mother as faithful as she is to ask God for help.

Holly, how many times have you locked yourself in a church to protect your children?

Yeah, do you do that often?

It's big mother of son energy.

Very big mother of son energy here.

My precious little prince would never do anything wrong.

Of course he wouldn't.

And everyone needs to apologize to him.

The tide has well and truly turned on Rubiales

with Spain's football governing body asking him to resign on Monday

as prosecutors have now launched a sexual assault investigation.

And after a marathon meeting in Madrid that stretched until after 10 p.m. local time,

the Royal Spanish Football Federation that initially stood by him

have issued a statement demanding he quit

and saying his behavior was unacceptable and had seriously damaged the sport.

The man just needs to quit, OK?

He needs to quit?

It's so embarrassing.

And hundreds of people are taking to the streets to protest his refusal to quit.

Mum needs to get out of the church and have a meal.

I don't want to be flippant about this because, you know,

a hunger strike is a serious business,

but there might be a clue here in that if you do treat your son

like they are untouchable and they can do no wrong

and they're a king who deserves God's forgiveness at all times.

Maybe that's part of the problem.

It's been 12 years since Amy Winehouse died

and the singer's legacy is an extraordinary thing.

In her lifetime, she released two full albums, Frank

and the absolutely iconic Back to Black.

But you can hear her influence in absolutely everybody

from Adele to Billie Eilish to Sam Smith

and the appetite for stories and imagery and, you know,

anything about her, whether it's posters and pictures

or whether it's documentaries or books seems absolutely insatiable.

There have been, of course, documentaries,

lots of books and now there's a new one.

Winehouse's family have released a compilation of her handwritten lyrics,

poems, family portraits and journal entries

in a book called Amy Winehouse in Her Words.

Now, Winehouse's family are quite controversial.

Her estate, which was estimated to be worth about four million

when she died but doubtless would be worth a whole lot more now,

defaulted to them on her death,

something that her former husband, who's a very problematic figure too,

sued them over at the time.

Her father is a guy called Mitch.

He's a former London cab driver who wanted to be a singer himself

and he was a constant presence in Amy's life and career

and he's certainly been cast as something of a villain since her death

and has definitely been busy trying to keep that profile high.

A few years ago, he was involved in a failed bid to send a hologram of her out on tour

and he is involved in the upcoming biopic about her life

and clearly any new Winehouse related sales benefit the family directly.

On the other hand, the family also runs a foundation in Amy's memory

that helps young people and particularly women recovering from addiction.

It runs residential homes, for example, to give them a safe place to go

and they say that the profits from this book will all go to that foundation.

My question is, is it a cross-invasion of privacy to mine your kids' private diary entries for money,

wherever that money is going?

Claire Stevens.

Yes, my first instinct around this and there are extracts of it going around,

I think The Guardian published a few and it's all these handwritten notes

and there are notes about her eating disorder.

There are song lyrics that she clearly never intended for anyone to see.

Everywhere.

At the same time, I have to say, I remember going to the British Library

when I was in London and they had a bunch of documents like the Beatles drafts

of how they wrote their music and it's absolutely, you cannot argue it's not fascinating to look at

and as a historical artifact, it has meaning.

There is something about the broader context of this story that makes me so uncomfortable.

Her family have been capitalising on her since she was alive.

The people around her were not looking out for her when she was unwell

and we have seen this so much in pop music that the people around a celebrity

do not care about their well-being, they do not get them the appropriate help

because doing so would mean a financial sacrifice for the people around them

and to see that even in death, it is the money that she can bring for her family

that seems to be her value, it makes me feel safe.

I think the foundation is a little bit of an arm to then justify the huge amount of wealth

that they are getting from the documentaries, from all the media surrounding

Amy Winehouse that goes on and on and on.

I feel like posthumously publishing somebody's diaries when they were not well is problematic as.

What do you think, Elfie?

I totally agree, it makes me feel really sick.

I think the headlines that have come out of this diary being published are really grotesque as well.

I think that all of the media grabbing on to certain narratives that they're seeing in those diaries

and extrapolating on evidence from her childhood and things like that is just so gross.

I don't think there's anything to be gained from it as well.

I would argue that if they're trying to raise money for the foundation,

they could have found an alternative route, they could have done interviews with people who were close to Amy.

Things like that, things that felt more genuine and more conscientious,

but this is such a grotesque invasion of privacy.

I swear to God, if anybody published my diaries from when I was depressed and having eating disorders,

I will haunt the fuck out of you, I will come back, it will be like the shining, I will ruin your life.

I hope that's what Amy is going to do.

My counter argument to that, because you're right, ethically it's questionable,

but on the other hand, 12 years since her death, Amy Winehouse is an iconic dead person.

There is absolute fascination here in the same way that there is for Marilyn Monroe

and all the dead 1960s rock stars that when I was a teenager, I was obsessed with,

like Jim Morrison and Janice Joplin and they all died of Jimi Hendrix, they all died of drug overdoses,

they all had tragic stories.

Everybody who's ever known them all capitalized on it.

There are a million biographies written by I was once Jim Morrison's doorman.

I once looked after Janice Joplin's cat.

Marilyn Monroe, I remember being one of those teenagers who was obsessed with her

and I read all the books and the photographs in those books.

When you look at it from a distance, you're like, how invasive?

There were pictures of her dead body taken illegally in a mortuary.

Oh my God.

Definitely diary entries, every quote she'd ever said from any time.

But I also think that the fascination with very special people, creative geniuses, is very normal.

There is an argument here that it keeps her legacy alive and that if everybody who's obsessed with Amy Winehouse

wants to know more about Amy Winehouse, Amy Winehouse wanted to be famous from a very young age.

She went to a stage school, it was her entire motivation, ambition.

She always said so throughout all her interviews.

This is clearly what's in these diaries.

Could you argue that of course this is almost like public record now?

I think it strips her of her humanity and I think that outweighs...

Don't you think that's a ship that sailed?

Well, I think that outweighs...

Doesn't it maybe increase her humanity because you get to see the inner workings of somebody?

But I think without her consent, it just cannot be seen to be a positive thing.

I think this raises a bigger question.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

The idea of generally making money off someone else or even the idea in families of inheritance and that kind of thing.

To have all these people around her and even when she was alive that she had a dollar figure attached to her

meant that people didn't treat her as a human being and didn't do the best thing by her.

I think that's a separate argument.

I think it's very simplistic to look at somebody who's struggling massively with mental illness and addiction

as she was and all of the forces around her and just point at the family and go it was their fault.

She had a whole industry built around her, managers.

She had a husband who was very invested in keeping her addicted to the things that he was addicted to

and that relationship was abusive.

Her parents will say in response to those things of like, oh, she went out on stage when she shouldn't.

They'll say, well, try and stop her.

You know, she wanted to do that and she's a grown-up and she could do it.

So I sometimes think it's a really simple thing to point at people's families and go, they should have this, they should have that.

It's so complicated loving someone who's deeply addicted to something.

But we know like her dad, for example, we know he was dodgy in the final years of her life.

He definitely he was on the payroll and this is always a problem.

When family is on the payroll, it's always a problem.

And a lot of famous people will do it because they think, at least I've got the people around me I trust.

I mean, we could all point to Britney Spears in this exact moment.

So at some point in their lives, they'll go, I'm surrounded by sharks who all want something from me.

At least I can trust dad.

And that's always going to be a problem.

And in the last years of her life, when I worked in magazines, it's true.

People were doing deals with Mitch Winehouse.

But then on the other hand, he had her interest at heart as much as any of the other people did.

So it's really complicated.

I also wonder if I would want my family to be looked after.

Do you know what I mean?

That's the thing I don't think I agree with.

I think once you start thinking of the money that can be made from another individual,

that stops normal social relationships and normal decision making.

Totally.

But you're still being seen as a product.

100% agree.

It's really ugly.

But you also hear a lot of famous people saying, I made my first million.

I bought my mama house.

Like this is a very normal human thing to do.

I was watching on that smartlist documentary.

Sean Hayes talking about it.

First, Will and Grace Paycheck.

First thing you did.

I never wanted my mom to worry about money again.

It's such a human thing to want to look after your family.

So I get that it's icky, but I also wonder if 12 years after a very public figure's death,

and the interest is there and everybody is obsessed with her.

If it's that different from those Beatles doodles that you're talking about.

But the Beatles weren't like severely mentally troubled people.

I don't know.

I mean, it just can't be compared in the same way.

And I think the public interest in her now, like you say that it's normalized to think

about celebrities in this way.

I don't think that means that it should be insulated from interrogation.

I think that we have to interrogate how that has been normalized.

I think we have to interrogate the way that we treated Amy Winehouse as a public while

she was alive and how she's being treated in death too.

I don't want to die.

You go back to her.

I go back to her.

I go back to her.

So Freddie acknowledges that, yes, he is waiting into the Barbie discourse three weeks too late,

but the post is much more than a movie review.

Basically, what Debora draws out in this post is the focus on individualistic narratives

in mainstream movies like Barbie.

Stories that focus exclusively on the value of the self.

So in Barbie, he uses the example of how Barbie goes on this journey to try and forge out

her own identity and Ken has to do the same thing.

He speaks about how kids movies have had to move on from the plot line that lives were

fulfilled by romantic love and everybody just had to find their prints to reach the end

of their successful storyline.

And the story that has ultimately replaced that is inherently individualistic and reflects

the broader failures of our culture on both ends of the political spectrum to seriously

embrace community and collectivism.

He calls it the cult of self-worship.

Debora says the cult is reinforced by therapeutic language by terms like manifesting,

which honestly makes me sick to my stomach and self-care.

He says that the connections that will save us don't have to be romantic,

but they still have to be connections with other people.

Claire, what do you make of this?

Are we all too obsessed with ourselves and what's the way out of hyperindividualism?

I read this and thought it was so profound because it is something I have been thinking

for years and years and years and have never been able to put words around.

But it's this individualism, the fact that it exists on both sides of politics.

Exactly right.

We had a conversation earlier this week on Out Loud about self-help and self-help being

incredibly individualistic and how that feels wrong when a lot of the problems that we're

encountering can be solved on a community or a collectivist scale.

And instead, it's completely up to us as individuals to solve problems that are social.

But I do think the Barbie movie is an interesting example to use because there actually kind

of was a community element to it, especially...

He's wrong.

I disagree about Barbie.

I think the thing about Ken is correct, but I think the Barbie movie is an interesting

example because Barbie found herself by finding a community of women.

Exactly.

But there was something about that kind of speech towards the end of the movie where

Barbie is sitting down with Ken and saying, you need to find who you are, you don't exist

in relation to me, that I thought, yes, we do this to people all the time, that it's all

about finding who you are and self-discovery.

And we almost have this romantic idea in our heads that people are going to go on this

lone journey and find out who they are, what they care about, what they really want.

And I think we've all been tricked into thinking that's a thing when at the most basic level,

humans are social creatures.

We need other people to discover ourselves.

We have been fed this idea, the kind of new age romantic comedy is that it's about somebody

who doesn't need anybody in the end, right?

It used to be about finding love and that was problematic in its own way.

But now it's about, I don't need anyone.

I can just stand on my own and I'm enough just me.

No one is enough.

No one is enough.

That point that absolutely no one is enough is so clever and speaks to something that we

are not talking about as a society.

I believe 100% that no one is enough.

Hanging this on Barbie was misled.

It's entirely misled because the thing about this is that if Barbie had been made even three years ago,

the way that movie would have ended was Barbie and Ken being together and in love, right?

That's the way that every single movie that any of us grew up watching ended, right?

It's 100% right that no one is enough and that people need connections to be happy.

We all know that.

It's all I see when I look around at the minute.

Critter happiness is the number of successful connections you have with other people.

We all know that.

But what is really worth on picking and I'm really glad that culture is on picking it

is the idea that the place to find that is in romantic love because it's not true.

The irony here is they've given that storyline to Ken that he has to realize that actually he's enough without romantic love.

When we all know that it's women who are constantly told that if they are single,

whether that's because they've never found romantic love or whether that's because they have found romantic love,

but for a myriad of reasons it hasn't worked out that they are losers,

that they are sad losers who will never be happy because the only path to happiness is that you are part of a couple.

I'm bloody delighted that we're blowing that up because standing where I stand in my life,

so many women's lives I know have been, if not ruined, seriously dented by the fairy tale

that they've been fed since birth that you find yourself a man in the heteronormative version of this story

and everything will be okay and it's not because they do push themselves down

and they might become dependent on them in all kinds of ways that are unhealthy.

At the far end of the scale there's abuse, but even at the other end of the scale it's just this idea

that I have to literally erase myself to be in a happy relationship.

Personally, I'm really enjoying seeing storylines that are saying,

no, actually the secrets to happiness are connections, but they're ones with your friends

and your family and your community and a partner if that works for you,

but romantic love does not need saving.

Every movie, every book, every song worth listening to is about romantic love.

Do you think more broadly we are focusing far too much on the individual as a solution to their own problems?

Of course I do and I agree with everything you've said about the cult of self, right?

But I also know why we need to do it for women because women have to be independent.

We have been brought up to be entirely dependent on the men around us.

This is why I am enough, resonates so much with women and that they are searching for that.

That's why.

I totally agree with you, Holly.

I think it's such a valid point, but I think it's kind of like that galaxy brain meme.

I think it goes being in a relationship at the bottom, self-actualization in the middle,

but then everybody's got to take the next step upwards to the actual big galaxy brain

that's exploding in the charts of light to say,

I in myself am fine.

I'm enough.

I can be neutral about myself.

What really matters is community and I think that that's the top level that we all have to get to.

What I find interesting about what you say, Holly, is you're completely, completely right that romantic love can let people down.

In a big way.

Can let people down and can derail their lives.

I do think the interesting counterpart to that is that young women like Gen Z and Gen Y are some of the loneliest people in society.

So we're being fed the narrative, you're enough, you're enough, you're enough.

You don't need anyone.

And I think that that's expanding into you really don't need anyone.

Yeah.

And so we're lonely and we're not lonely because we're not in relationships.

We're lonely because we are not seeking friendship and community in the same way that we used to and the way that we need to for our own well-being.

I will go back to my broken record.

That is because we've all been faked out about what connection is.

Am I sitting at home on my phone connecting with a million people?

That is what loneliness looks like, right?

Connection doesn't happen through a screen.

And that's really what's screwing us all up.

And I'll go back to my argument that I've been having it feels like every day on the show for a couple of weeks now, which is that technology and the billionaires who run the world have screwed us, right?

They've screwed us in that way.

I think that actually there being a narrative for women that romantic love isn't everything is a direct result of feminism.

We are told and taught and it's right that we have other choices than just to hitch our wagon to the dude and change our names and become part of his life and his property and that that will solve everything happily ever after.

And when women didn't have choices or had fewer choices, that didn't play out that way.

There were so many women who are unrealized in all kinds of areas and frustrated about lives they wish they'd led and don't have the independence to do it.

So, of course, you're absolutely right that connection is crucial, but I don't think that we need to worry about people not wanting romantic love.

I think people are still wanting it as much as they have.

No, no, and I agree with that.

I think also the narrative around friendship and the narrative around connection has been poisoned and we talk so much about toxic friendships and boundaries and I don't want to do that thing.

But don't we also fetishize girl gangs and girl weekends away and girl squad and brunch?

Don't we also fetishize friendship?

But we also talk a lot about the problems with it and the things we don't want to do.

That's because nothing's perfect.

And we're about protecting the way we've sort of been built.

Like, yes, it's the Internet, but it's also our built environment that we are so obsessed with living quite an individualist life with our own boundaries where we never have to be uncomfortable.

And that's not what true connection looks like.

Just going back to the Barbie movie, I do think that there is something to be said for where it leaves Ken.

Because Ken does get told, you're enough.

I am enough.

I don't know what he's meant to do.

He's meant to be with the other Ken's.

But that's not super clear because what we saw was when the Ken's are together, they're a little bit naughty and get into trouble.

What I took away from that because it's funny, I watched it with my son.

As that storyline developed, the Ken's, the evil Ken's, the MRA Ken's, you were like, oh, if this is going to be left, that just has to be inverted and the Ken's are forgotten.

That's not great.

But that's not how I felt it was left.

I felt it was left that we are moving to a more co-ed model of Barbie left.

I just think Ken needs to know.

He's not enough on his own.

He needs people, and that's okay.

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And Australian influencer and only fan star, Mikaela Tester, is going through something really difficult, and it's a holiday in Europe that she's kind of a little bit over.

Posting to her 2.4 million TikTok followers.

How did she get that many TikTok followers?

Especially with this kind of content.

She's exposed the not so glamorous side of the European summer holiday.

She says, if you're not in Europe this summer and you're really sad about it, don't be, please.

It is not all it's cracked up to be.

It like takes the entire day just to like walk to a location that you want to go to.

And I just feel like there is a lot of things like influences come to these locations and make them look so amazing and so pretty and so photogenic and so amazing.

But half of it's like edited and filtered and just not real.

In that particular TikTok, she talks about walking down the wrong pathway for 50 minutes and finding it had a gate on it so she couldn't get through and how she saw a cat that had been run over, which honestly is very sad.

I laughed out loud when I saw this story in the news and then went and had a look at her TikTok because she's then done another TikTok about being in Barcelona.

If you're going to travel Europe, take my advice and skip Barcelona.

I've lived here for three months and I stand in peace every single day.

This place stinks and it's horrible.

So just don't.

Barcelona has nothing to offer.

Just so you know.

Firstly, all I want is to be in Europe and I can't afford it and I am so jealous.

So I am looking at her.

Mate, you were in Europe last summer.

I know.

But still I'd like to go every year.

Secondly, I'm really sick of people being in Europe and complaining about it.

And it's interesting because, Holly, you had a point a few weeks ago on the show where you were like,

people have these amazing lives and they're whinging about it.

And I was like, shut up.

It's important that they can.

But I have seen so many people I know who are in Europe, who are in absolute paradise and then come on Instagram stories being like,

it's actually really hot.

Oh, God.

And I don't.

I have no sympathy because it's still heaven.

When you're in Europe, you're obviously still alive.

You get thirsty and your legs get tired and sometimes you have a bad day.

Yes.

But I think we become so used to flattening human experiences into images that we're like,

I didn't expect to need to pee while looking at that view.

This is really complicated.

My Europe holiday last year was easily the best two months of my life.

So uncomplicated.

But there is a part of what Michaela Tester says that I think is useful.

But before I get to that, Elfie, what do you think about the European holiday winch?

Oh my God.

Please shut up.

Shut up.

Oh my God.

Stop whinging.

You need to shut up.

Stop whinging songs.

I know.

Oh my God.

I just, I can't deal with this.

I just think she must have the most bizarre unrealistic concept of what the world is like in her head.

She must really look at the photographs of people on yachts on Instagram and think like,

that is the reality.

Like she feels untethered.

Do you exclusively exist on Pinterest and Instagram?

Because like if you do, you're going to have problems.

You are going to step in peace.

I step in peace in Sydney all the time.

Are you kidding me?

But like that's just the world and just take it as it is.

It frustrates me a little bit as well as somebody who is Southeast Asian and I went to Southeast Asia a lot as a kid and people are complaining about Europe.

But like it just feels like people don't understand what it's like to be in an underdeveloped place in the world where maybe they don't have the same infrastructure that you do in your very fancy apartment in an inner city in Australia.

Grow up about the world honestly.

How are you going to experience another culture if you're obsessed with the toilets being different?

Like that's what you notice.

And that's the joy of traveling too.

Like yes, sometimes you have to squat to take a shit.

Like sorry.

That's just part of it.

It's part of the joy.

Please see my earlier comment.

Screens have ruined the world.

This idea.

I don't know where it came from really that everything is 100% awesome all the time.

Everything.

Yeah.

It's like nothing is 100% awesome all the time.

Absolutely nothing in the world.

Also people in Europe look at Australia and think it's paradise guys.

Let's just be clear about that.

So it's also really hilarious that it's like oh my God.

But I think it's so insufferable.

I just cannot cope because I spent a large part of my 20s

and even my early 30s traveling for extended periods

and so did lots of people.

I know we were backpacking, right?

It wasn't really holidays.

It was, you know, you go and you work somewhere and you do whatever.

And sometimes it was lonely.

In fact, often, often it was lonely.

But it was seen as that was a ride of passage.

That was kind of the point, right?

You go off.

You experience other things in the world if you are lucky enough to do so.

Because, of course, the glaring elephant in the room

is that the vast majority of people in the world

don't have the resources to see things that aren't at the end of their road.

But anyway.

We should have like a privilege horn or something.

Like Carrie's insufferable podcast on there.

That needs to be said.

But also you go off.

You see things in the world.

Some of it is awesome.

Some of it is not.

Some of it looks exactly like Instagram.

But usually if you just turn in the other direction,

there's something that does not.

And this is part of turning you into a person

who understands how the world works.

And maybe sometimes it's lonely to be away from your friends and family.

And maybe sometimes it's bloody great to be away from your friends and family.

This is life.

When did we stop thinking that life was a textured mosaic of different experiences?

The one thing I did take away from Makayla Tester's content,

which I don't think she gets this,

but I'm applying this idea to her.

There is the idea that, you know,

especially with mental health issues that wherever you go, there you are.

And I remember.

It's very good saying that.

Yes.

I remember years and years ago, I was not in a good place.

So I booked a holiday and my partner and I went to Fiji.

And we were in objectively one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.

The water was crystal clear, this gorgeous resort.

And I got there and I could not enjoy it.

And it was like I couldn't touch it.

It was like I was behind a pane of glass.

It was really expensive because often if you go to one of those kind of remote areas,

they're like 50 or a pasta and you've got no alternative.

Sylvia Plath writes about this in the bell josh talks about it doesn't matter

if she was in a cafe in Paris or at a market in Bangkok.

You are kind of in this bell jar filled with your own sour air.

And I have definitely felt that at different points in my life.

And sometimes the pain can be even more acute because you're aware of A,

the money you're spending and B, how much you should be enjoying it.

I know Jesse had a holiday with that.

We went to Europe.

I bloody loved it.

And she was dealing with her own stuff and we'd be somewhere beautiful.

And she would say, I can't feel it.

I can't feel it.

I don't know if that's what Mikaela Tester is talking about.

I think that's an incredibly generous read because everything you just said is really profound and important.

But we don't need to make everything profound and important.

This woman is just whinging about treading in piss.

And the fact that in European cities you have to walk places.

Come on, Claire.

I was so fascinated by this because I am my happiest when I am traveling.

I love the abandonment of all structure, of all expectations.

I'm on a plane.

I'm on a ferry.

I don't know where I'm going, but I'm going with it.

And I love going to places I've never been.

That's a real happy family.

I think challenged by things as well sometimes too.

Yeah.

Like you say, I think it's really important for self development.

It is.

If you can do it and it's a remarkable privilege, mate.

So she just needs to shut up.

Yeah.

So her message, you know, if you want to be in Europe and you're not like, please don't be upset by it.

Go away.

You have to walk places.

Go away.

All I want in my life is to be able to travel as much as possible.

And if I had the money, it is all I would do.

You've got a recommendation before we go, Claire Stevens.

I do.

So Holly's favourite thing is when me or Jessie discover something really late.

So I'm pretty sure.

When Jessie discovered Mad Men and then she discovered Breaking Bad.

And she was like, guys, there's this show Breaking Bad.

I'm like, oh my God.

Oh my God.

Because Holly's always quite an early adopter.

Well, that's not really true.

I think I'm a middle adopter.

No.

Like you talked about Hamilton.

We were like, yeah, Holly.

And then a few months later, we were like, oh my God.

I like to dismiss me.

They're like, whatever, Holly, that's very holly.com.

And then they get around to it and they go, oh, it's quite good.

I'm like, yes, I do have taste.

Well, I am a total basic bitch.

And when I was watching the Logies, I noticed that this show kept winning awards.

And it looked very funny.

It was called Fisk with Kitty Flanagan, who I love.

And I thought, how did I miss this?

I then this weekend, I was babysitting Luna and I laid on the couch and watched almost

the whole first season of Fisk.

It was released in 2021.

And then there's season two that was released in 2022.

You can stream it on ABC, I view, but it's also on Netflix.

And it is laugh out loud fun.

It is just my exact sense of humor.

So the idea is Kitty Flanagan plays Helen Tudor Fisk and her life has fallen apart.

And she takes a job in a small suburban firm specializing in wills and probate,

assuming that because the clients are dead, she won't have to deal with people.

And she doesn't really want to deal with people.

What ensues is just such a hilarious workplace comedy.

So do I have to set all this up myself at the library?

No, George will go with you.

I'd rather be out on the court with you guys.

I'll even play Wing Defence.

Wing Defence, you're better than that.

Come on, mate.

It's a Copeland Shire mix, Nepal.

Groover Rouge, defending champions.

Why can't George play?

Over 50s league.

Yeah, couldn't he get in as like an old soul?

Don't joke about that, Helen.

I'm really passionate about netball.

Sorry, mate.

It's reminiscent of something like The Office or Parks and Rec.

If you watch Utopia, you will absolutely love this.

I had to look at the credits and who wrote it and who produced it

and she's done bloody everything.

But there are parts where the humor is just so fresh that I was just crying.

It's great.

The other thing that's great about it is it's easy.

For me, there's a niche of content and I see the out louders asking for this sometimes

that you're like, I just want to watch something that makes me happy.

Yeah.

Shows like Schitt's Creek kind of used to fill that gap.

You know, if you're just like 20 minutes of like happiness and Fisk is that it's clever,

it's funny, but it's also like, it's just easy.

Yeah.

It's like it's not demanding too much of you, but at the same time, it's not dumb.

You know what I mean?

It's like, it's that sweet spot.

So it stars Kitty Flanagan, Julia Zamiro.

And every famous Australian in the world.

Every famous Australian.

Marty Sheargold, Aaron Chen, but then yeah, it's got cameos from every famous Aussie.

It's so good.

Please watch it.

And then I just need people to talk to about it.

If you're looking for something else to listen to on yesterday's subscriber episode, Holly,

Mia and Claire dished out some advice for our listeners who wrote in their dilemmas,

which included deciding if a listener is selfish for not wanting to spend their salary on baby

showers and wedding gifts.

Plus, they help another listener figure out if she should tell her friend to leave her

partner.

A link to that episode will be in the show notes.

Thank you for listening to us on Australia's number one news.

And pop culture show.

This episode was produced by Emily Gazillas.

The assistant producer is Tali Blackman with audio production from Lea Porges.

We'll see you tomorrow.

Bye.

Shout out to any mum, Mia subscribers listening.

If you love the show and want to support us, subscribing to mum, Mia is the best way to

do so.

There's a link in the episode description.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.