Everything Is Content - Are the Oscars nominations a feminist issue?

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

The timeline has been on fire with talk about this year’s Oscars nominations - so obviously, it’s time for Beth, Oenone and Ruchira to weigh in on the discourse. Does this prove the point of Barbie, or are we casting a white feminist lens over a wider issue? We also discuss TikTok Tradwives and Jack Rooke’s sitcom Big Boys. —BBC IPLAYER: The Traitorshttps://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0db9b2t/the-traitorsNOWTV: True Detectivehttps://www.nowtv.com/watch/true-detective/016fda5f94dee410VgnVCM1000000b43150a____ NEW YORK TIMES: Why Greta Gerwig was snubbed for a Best Director Nomination https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/23/movies/greta-gerwig-barbie-oscar-snub.html LOS ANGELES TIMES: Shocking Oscar snubs for ‘Barbie’s’ Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie just prove the movie’s pointhttps://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2024-01-23/barbie-oscar-snubs-greta-gerwig-margot-robbie-movie-point TIKTOK: Nara Smithhttps://www.tiktok.com/@naraazizasmith?lang=en THE CUT: Is Tradwife content dangerous or just stupid? https://www.thecut.com/2023/09/tradwife-content-influencers-conservative-ideology.html EDUCATED: Tara Westover https://www.waterstones.com/book/educated/tara-westover/9780099511021 CHANNEL 4: Big Boys https://www.channel4.com/programmes/big-boys METRO: I was scared of straight men until I walked into a random househttps://metro.co.uk/2024/01/15/like-big-boys-straight-mates-helped-come-gay-20106577/ ---Follow us on Instagram:@everythingiscontentpod @beth_mccoll @ruchira_sharma@oenone ---Everything Is Content is produced by Faye Lawrence for We Are GrapeMusic: James RichardsonPhotography: Rebecca Need-Meenar Artwork: Joe Gardner  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Beth's not my son, but Ruchira is. I'm Beth. I'm Ruchira. And I'm Anoni, and I am a faithful. Sounds kind of traitorish, I'm Richira and I'm Anoni and I am a faithful. Sounds kind of traitorish, I don't know. You are listening to Everything Is Content, the weekly pop culture podcast where we handpick you a beautiful bouquet of content to enjoy every single week. On the podcast today, we are discussing the story that everyone is discussing this week the oscars snub and also child wives we're on instagram follow us on at everything is content pod we continue to post the discussions from each episode on there so get over there if you want to chat to us also make sure to look in the description box of every episode we put links to everything we discussed down there

so what have you been loving this week the same thing as every week the traitors and rip because it's coming to an end oh it's so sad isn't it so if you're listening to the podcast today's the finale it's the final yeah if you're listening after friday the 26th just give up it's done um so we're gonna find out later today or everyone's gonna find out who whether the traitors have won whether the fables have been successful discerning enough my favorite thing i don't know this happened in the last series but it's when anyone that gets murdered immediately like they sit and they're like it's because they just thought i was too suspicious and like charlotte for example no one thought that she was good okay everyone has the same thing they come in and they're like well they just realize i'm too clever and i'm getting too close to the truth and

it's like no they always just murder someone that they think is either like the most random or the least going to come back to them so it just makes me laugh how much they're so certain i know and the funniest thing is they're like oh they have to you know they have to get a girl boss when she's on the up and it's like babe you were rubbish at this you were so shit they've got rid of you just to get rid of numbers and no names charlotte sorry charlotte but the same with the traitors as well they are like when they get good like paul got very cocky and now harry they got they like do one thing right and they're like i'm just the best i'm gonna just show you the ropes and it's like no no no this is your hubris i love your ham word it is your greek tragedy coming to the fore um i agree completely i do think also now it's a

crusade of like the righteous traitor and i don't want to name names but if you're watching at this point like you've seen it but like now it's kind of a battle within the traitors all in the name of our sweet diane do you think anyone would ever be asked to be a traitor and not do it because i think the temptation is too high molly molly would say no right i think again in series one they did choose one she said no and then she was murdered immediately so if people are saying yes it's under the threat of being murdered that's what i think but i also think giving that opportunity you're like a probably think it's gonna be safer and b you'd want to know wouldn't you why they did it and what who it was who the traitors are i just couldn't lie for death like i just couldn't do it

and i feel like i would just have a meltdown the minute i got the letter and went straight to knowing who you know knowing the truth and like lifting the veil so i don't know if i could do it but also at the same time like are you really yeah like you said are you gonna say no my thing is i'd hate people to think that i was like an evil person so i wouldn't want to be a traitor because i'm so obsessed with people loving me that's not the show for you then no exactly so like if you're on the show i think at that point that there's always going to be a traitor because I'm so obsessed with people loving me that's not the show for you there no exactly so like if you're on the show I think at that point that there's always going to be a possibility you could have been a traitor so you have to kind of take it because there's no guarantee that you would have been a faithful the whole way through and you get more airtime

and also I just think I would look rubbish I think I look rubbish in the cloaks chic I think you'd look chic I hate it like long hood no no it would wash me out um so that's the only reason I would say no fantasy i wonder if you could ask for a different color and just be like i love the cloak i love the design but can we can we give a hot pink okay so traitors really excited rop life is not gonna be worth living no after the final episode no so if you are missing murder post traitors i actually have a really good tv rec for everyone it's true detective season four are you guys watching it no is this the bbc one no it's now tv now tv yeah i think it's hbo slash now tv jodie foster's in it and fiona shaw so the first series

years ago basically got a lot of traction it was incredible it had matthew mcconaughey yes and it had woody harrison as two detective cops kind of just spending so much time together kind of just prophesying about life and solving this kind of cultish satanic worship murder really really gruesome stuff but amazing the two seasons after that massively disappointed fans and there's kind of been this air about uh what's gonna happen with series four will they be able to get the magic back there's been two episodes out that i've watched and they are really really good really good set in alaska kind of a powerhouse of female talent in it and it's just so good it's breathtaking are those the detectives the lady detectives yes callie reese rice stars as the person alongside

jodie foster and i think she's going to be a massive talent after this she is so good she's so captivating exactly like you said female detectives kind of cold set in this like snowy Alaskan backdrop also about Native Americans and this kind of seemingly cult serial killer who is killing very specific women and bringing the politics into that and also the like icy setting and i don't know it's just it's so good it sounds really spooky it is really spooky it's kind of supernatural as well which i really love where it's like is is there an explanation for this is this supernatural is it you know mythological what's really going on here it's it's really good okay i've got some finally i'll watch that and i'll kind of like fill the traitor's hole so this week discourse around the 2024 oscars has just lit the timeline on fire let's get into it christopher nolan's oppenheimer has the most nominations with 13 overall poor things which

we loved and spoke about last week has has 11 nominations. The big shock, unsurprisingly to anyone listening to this, I'm sure, was that neither Margot Robbie or Greta Gerwig was nominated for Barbie. And it sparked a huge discussion about whether they should have been nominated and whether the fact that Ryan Gosling, who got his nomination over Greta or Margot is a feminist issue. Where do we stand on Barbie? What do we think? I know we've seen so much discourse around this. I'm exhausted. It's been a couple of days of this.

It feels like what should have been like the Oscars circus has been the Barbie circus. I've not read like much praise. I've not been like, I've not gotten excited for the nominations of the films I really loved or the actors who are finally getting their flowers. It has felt like everything is just like a vacuum for the Barbie discourse completely I think everyone is using this conversation as a means to pat themselves on the back on how smart they are for thinking that oh my god you know Greta Gerwig's literally written a film about these dolls in the patriarchy and look what's happened a man's come out on top but I feel like that's so reductive and as someone that loved the Barbie film and was devastated that we

didn't have this podcast up and running when the film came out because I wanted to do like a deep dive special on it I also don't believe that it's an Oscar film to me Oscar worthy films to me are sort of like the height of art and that's not to say that a film that's pink and pretty and about dolls can't be something that wins those kind of academy awards for me it just doesn't fit i'm not surprised that it didn't win an oscar i'm a bit surprised he got one i think he was very good in it but i was a bit like but it wasn't i wouldn't say it's like the best acting i've ever seen and maybe then i get worried saying this i'm like oh my god is it my internalized misogyny but then i i do think that I would never

have thought that Barbie would be nominated for an Oscar so I'm really surprised when people like oh my god Greta Gerwig snubbed no we we loved it but I agree I don't think and as Sean Faye put on her Instagram Barbie's a children's film the fact that people are also saying like the Academy has missed the point Barbie was not a subtle film yeah they will whack you over the head like this film's about patriarchy they They say about a thousand times. They understand what the film was about and they have chosen not to nominate. And a lot of women are in the academy. Like it's not just like a long table of old white men.

Like it is a group effort. They've chosen not to nominate Gressa in a year where there were so many, I think, great films. She was nominated, I think, as a writer or producer. So best screenplay. So what are we angry about? Really that she didn't get the slot. All the people that are saying they should have been nominated need to tell me exactly who they think who is nominated yeah deserves it less especially in that leading actress because

that category is tight it's just like it's just sucking the air out of the room so much like lily gladstone from flowers of a flower moon this is the first time that a native american woman has got a nomination for best actress. The whole timeline has been talking about Barbie and it's just like, you're missing the point. You're missing the point by calling this a feminist issue

when you're not upholding or celebrating this massive milestone for a woman who's not a white woman. I think it's funny because it kind of is giving Barbie, this is such a simplified take on feminism. It's like, oh oh super successful white man overtakes super successful white women in a very whitewashed archaic award system and it's so basic

and so simple that everyone feels like get behind it say their piece it's it's very um low stakes so many people have made this point but the uproar and the ferrari and the feminist voices especially online coming forward to talk about this who previously perhaps haven't spoken about world issues happening in the middle east it is a bit like okay this is where you want to put your energy it's just not even interesting to me really it just got so meta when people were doing memes about how um you know in hillary clinton's us if she had won this would never have happened barbie would have got best picture blah blah blah hillary clinton tweeted greta she had won this would never have happened barbie would have got best picture blah blah blah hillary clinton tweeted greta and margo while it can sting to win the box office but not

take home the gold your millions of fans love you you're both so more than enough hashtag hillary barbie hideous she needs to let it go yeah she needs to let it go i think at that point you know that you've lost and the whole time has lost the plot. There was an article in the New York Times by Carl Buchanan titled, why was Greta Gerwig snubbed for a best director nomination? Right at the end of the piece,

it says, she's now the first filmmaker in history to have her three first solo features, Lady Bird, Little Women and Barbie nominated for best picture. That's still a feat in and of itself. It's really funny. I think because the movie is so, the premise is so as you said beth loud and in your face about feminism

everyone's got cross about it but it's like if this was a film of a similar ilk without the feminist setting tone but like same vibes we wouldn't be expecting it to get a barbie nominate a barbie nomination an oscar nomination it's like it's just so it's like just because it's got this really in your face feminist messaging doesn't mean you give it an award that is like the epitome of like Sheryl Sandberg lean in pink fanny hat feminism I just I feel like everyone's lost their mind over this and I don't really understand so there was an LA Times op-ed by Mary McNamara that said if only Barbie had done little more time as a sex worker or barely survived becoming the next victim in a mass murder plot or stood accused of shoving kent out of the

dream house's top window certainly millions of barbie fans are currently wishing they could push someone perhaps a member or two of the film academy out of a very high window oh my god are they well like what do they mean do they mean all of these films weren't as good as barbie they genuinely do believe that these films like poor things i assume that's reference to poor things i assume that's reference to anatomy of the fall these films are not as deserving as i think so like find a place because this film was the pinkest i think so and i think they're suggesting that something like poor things or a film that you know is more abstract and political is maybe more obvious than a Barbie that's what this seems to be suggesting to me. It's like Stan brain because I feel like everyone

is behaving as though like this is like Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez like the way that the stat these are grown adults behaving as though they're teenagers with a fave. Do you know what I think it is and this is something which I think people are thinking about more recently but it's this thing of people not wanting to critique very popular characters so like Greta Gerwig is this woman that everyone holds up and really celebrates and she is kind of untouchable Margot Robbie as well it's like the princess and this comment I'm about to make could be really wrong so I'm just going to workshop it but it's almost like they are these pretty little white blonde girls and we must protect them from this ill-fated lack of nomination.

When it's like, actually, they both did an absolutely stellar job. I don't think the film was Oscar worthy. I fucking love the film. I think it's great for you. I think the amount of money it made was astounding, blah, blah, blah. But there is something about like everyone babying them and coddling them and being like outraged. I think there's loads of issues with awards. I think there's massive issues with only white people getting nominated or only men getting nominated i

definitely think that there's sexism racism and every kind of other ism within these things for me the oscars used to be a thing where i'd hear a nomination i'd be like i'd never watch that film but because it's got this amazing award i'll go and see it everyone's already seen barbie like you say it made its money it has won and won and been nominated for every award going. It's got eight nominations. It's got eight nominations for this. That's not nothing. It's the fourth most nominated film

for the Oscars. So I think at that point, give your head a wobble, make the same noise for Danielle Brooks, make it for Lily Gladstone. Yes, Danielle Brooks. If you're coming from a feminist perspective, go, okay, well,

these are where we have, where we need to put our support. Let it go. Yeah. And I do think it is so telling that this is the one that so many people are backing calling it the feminist issue when you know celine song of past lives is the snub to me for best director because i thought that film was amazing but literally right as you said beth right at the beginning this has just been a vacuum and it's like i don't know i think it is telling i don't think this i don't think you are being feminist by arguing for barbie i think dare i say it's just a vacuum and it's like I don't know I think it is telling I don't think this I don't think you are being feminist by arguing for Barbie I think dare I say it's just being very revealing

about what feminism you pick and choose and that is white feminism oh so smart I think that's so true I mean I'm now like clamoring to go and watch all of these films that I wouldn't have or I haven't seen um and I just kind of want to the b word to just like wink out of existence I might have to mute it I was gonna say can we bury it but is that really harsh we bury our Barbies in the backyard I used to do that um anyway back on point I actually have some data to bring into the podcast because yes this is a pop culture podcast but we also like to do science around pop culture um so we asked our listeners whether they agreed that Barbiebie was a snub or not and

60 said yes 60 thought it was snubbed 40 said no okay i was quite surprised by yeah i don't know whether i am surprised judging from the timeline i wonder though if there's that thing of people doing a bit what i was doing where you're worried about saying the wrong thing. And people want to be part of the feminist cause. And we want to support women. And we want to see women doing well. So they're like, yeah, it was snubbed, but maybe not actually fully committed to that belief. So there's a comment from Georgie,

who says that she loved the Barbie movie, loved it for its aesthetic study on womanhood and the feeling of girl power. But I also don't think it was particularly groundbreaking as a standalone watch, which I think echoes what we're saying. If you take it out of its own noise and its own echo chamber,

a really entertaining watch, but up against those like big hitters, it just doesn't hold its own. Yeah, I agree. What else did people say? We have Laura who says the whole discourse feels a bit icky because America was nominated too and people seem to be forgetting that.

So that's America Ferreira, who was nominated for Supporting Actress. Actually, that's a very good point. In the whole discourse of the film, I think to be forgetting that so that's america ferreira who was nominated for supporting actress actually that that's a very good point in in the whole discourse of the film i think we are forgetting that they've got a supporting actress nomination for a lead in the film i'm not going to comment on this because i was quite surprised about this not that i don't think america ferreira is excellent i agree but i feel like her role in the film didn't really it seemed to be a deliverer of messages but i just i maybe i just didn't watch her acting close enough what do you guys think no i agree and especially compared to uh the women she's up against and you know danielle brooks and i just realized we haven't spoken about this but may december that is a snub you know really absent from the nominations and natalie portman julianne

moore really should have got best supporting actress nominations, in my opinion. So no disrespect, but I am really surprised that America is on that list when they aren't. I think everyone's got really hepped up in one of the comments is this, with the idea that this is the actual plot of Barbie. And so people feel like vindicated. It feels like a story. It feels prophetic.

It's like this woman made this whole film about no matter how hard she tries, a woman, men always come out on top it's become law yeah so let's get into that because i think that's the sticky bit of this entire conversation people are saying that this is a sign that barbie was right because the response to it has almost proven that the film is right which i'm so confused about because the oscars haven't acknowledged that this film is right which I'm so confused about because the Oscars haven't acknowledged that this film is the best film of the year why is that why is that a sign that the film is like prophetic I don't get it is patriarchy real because men can get awards too also him Ryan Gosling kind of doubling down and being like this movie wouldn't exist without Margot that's the

same with every film every actor that comes into a movie that hasn't written the movie and hasn't directed the movie is merely playing a part within a film that has been created and directed by someone that one else they don't get their award and go oh well this film wouldn't even have existed without whoever directed it and whoever wrote it because that's not what you're getting an award for I feel sad for him because he's he should be enjoying this is a huge moment in his career he should be like at home with a Colin Caspiller cake and instead he's like oh I've got to handle this like correctly I've got to like make this statement and I just don't think he would have done that otherwise had the ferrari not kind of uh to stick my foot out which isn't a friend also um have no basis for this information which i'm gonna just lie about

i get the feeling that he feels quite proud of himself with that little statement he put out but people are patting on the back that's what i mean and he is definitely patting himself on the back as well and i don't doubt he's got a ginormous call in the caterpillar but if a woman had done it eat the cake darling i'm just so confused why do people think that the oscars their job is to you know change society the job of the oscars is to give people a film nomination and to give people a film give people a bloody good film no give them a little man a little gold man if they have done a good film that's it you're quite right do you think we sound like boomers yeah a little bit so this definitely isn't the last time we talk about the oscars it's

going to be held on the 10th of march so tune in then so speaking of white feminism this kind of tangentially relates um i'm going to be talking to you girls about trad wives do you know what they are i do i know in my head like i've got an image of one but i would like to hear more yes okay so trad wives are a movement that have kind of popped up on social media and are really taking over they're kind of like 1950s style stylized women genuinely dressing up like they're from the 1950s wearing little pennies doing their hair and makeup in the morning serving their husbands in every sense of the word not working which is something we'll

circle back to because that's not technically true and there's something about it that I actually do find quite alluring you watch them you think god maybe it would be quite nice to just have kids and sit in the house and bake cookies that's brainwashing girlies and boys i've really lost my mind anyway so we've spoken briefly about like the the mormon utah girls when we spoke about the stanley cups and this week a tiktok from a user nara smith of her making cinnamon rolls went viral yes you guys have seen this yes okay so she looks absolutely stunning she's got a gorgeous dress on her nails are done her hair's done her makeup is perfect she is making these cinnamon rolls so casually but also so perfectly in a way that is quite enraging but also very relaxing

and this created a huge amount of like discussion i saw it mostly on x and people just saying she's 22 years old she has three kids she's 22 she's 22 and she kind of like serves her husband she professes that she loves it she's also a model and so is her husband actually she's mormon right she's mormon I think she converted she married and so he is yeah so she's 22 he's 25 he was raised as a mormon in like the ut the Utah Mormon Latter-day Saints community. And I think she met him and then converted to Mormonism when they married in 2020. He's had a wife before, right? I think this is his second marriage.

He had a baby with a woman. It was quite controversial because I think he was maybe 17, 18, had a baby with a woman who's seven-ish years older than he. So she's a stepmom now. Nara's a stepmom to his first child. That's a real brood at 22 when a stepmom to his first child that's a real brood at 22 when i think of what i was doing at 22 like she's really selling that traditional life so we i actually i have a thing on my instagram called let's talk about where me and

my followers could choose a subject and we will discuss it and tribe wives was one of the topics that came up because i think for a lot of people they will just randomly appear on your timeline you kind of get sucked in but what's so interesting about this whole phenomenon is they're actually making loads of money on Instagram. So they're basically influencers, but they're influencing people to not work. So half of their shtick is like, I don't work a job.

I just serve my husband. But it's all kind of actually a lie because they are working. So like creating content all day. I don't know if it's to do with like the rise of populism or like the fact that we're having this big pendulum swim back from like the lefty leaning liberal world and suddenly we are getting pushed basically like 1950s propaganda that women should wake up in the morning do their hair make their husband's breakfast make the bed look after the kids make bread from scratch I'm

sorry one of the videos from Nara Smith's account was my baby woke up and they really wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So I set to making the bread and then like five hours later, she's made bread from scratch. She's made her own peanut butter. Your child asked for breakfast, like go and fricking get them a bit of Kingsmill toast

and some Pat Crunchy, some jam and make them a bloody sandwich woman. But you like this content, I know. You quite like watching this. I do, I do. But but it does i like watching it because i just think it's so ridiculous you know it's absurd i first of all the dress she had on i couldn't even run up to like a nice dinner without getting something on it let alone baking a whole cake yeah oh my god i think this trend has been happening for a while i even think it happens with like tablescaping which i do like making things look really pretty on instagram or kind of like

being in the home domesticity domesticities become kind of chic again yeah and lots of influences Alan Molly May Bambi's literally just turned one having babies at a very young age getting married very young it's kind of a thing that's come back so I think there are lots of teenage girls out there who are thinking like actually I want to be married with a baby by the time I'm 21 and I want to post it on Instagram I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that but I do worry is that we need the facts because I think all of these women we're talking about are hyper wealthy and they make money from basically propagating this idea and spreading it whereas if you are a young woman and feminism hasn't quite reached you

hasn't quite infiltrated your world yet and you don't know why actually it was actually quite terrible that women were housewives without their own bank accounts and without a safe exit from a bad marriage you might think god that looks great yeah the world of work is not very appealing to young people the economy is in the fucking garbage i completely see why that's a that's a really really desirable image it's a really desirable fantasy but it is i think has its inherent dangers which is why I would like to talk about this because I don't want it to be seen like this is 22 year old woman who I'm tearing down because she's living a different life than me but I would like

to discuss why selling an idea that isn't like baked in reality like you can't do this without a lot of money or without a stable income if you marry a man and he is your sole provider that comes with a lot of like inherent dangers i think nara smith is a model so she's got yeah i assume you know her own separate wealth and she's selling an ideology that just isn't replicable yeah to the masses obviously financially economically we're in the gutter and all of this content just coming up and kind of seeming really alluring where you could just be like you know I relinquish control over my career I relinquish control over my finances I'm just going to be a kept woman that bit is kind of alluring because

it is really stressful it's really difficult the cost of living crisis is scary the next five years who knows what's going to happen for a lot of people especially you know we're all freelance here it's it's stressful so i get that i really wonder about this stuff i've really been grappling with trad wife stuff who is the content for is it for men or is it for women because with this video i saw a lot of the responses were honestly gross men just retweeting it being like oh i'd get her pregnant in a heartbeat or i like dream woman blah blah blah and i think a lot of the trad wives stuff is kind of baity for you know that like right wing um red pilled andrew tate kind of guy that's like i want a woman who's never slept with anyone i want basically a mormon woman yeah with women i don't really know of anyone who has been

really sucked into it in a different way to you and Oni and similar to me where it's like, I really want to make cinnamon buns, but also I don't give a shit. So I'm not actually going to do it. You're so right, Ruchira. It's always got this really strong right wing agenda, which is not, it's quite covert at the beginning. Like you don't necessarily know that because some people, when we were talking about it on Instagram, were saying like, oh, but it sounds quite nice. I'm a stay at home mom. And I was like, no like no no this isn't a stay-at-home mom this is you're serving your husband this is like my body is for my husband's pleasure I will cook for him I will look good for him it's like this is archaic this is not you know I'm on maternity leave and

I'm gonna get into baking and there was some articles about how this kind of it does go into that Red Bull movement how actually is got really quite scary undertones how it kind of is pushing people towards like trumpism and that kind of ideology and yeah i definitely think it's it's a weird space to be in when you think of mormonism i think especially like in the uk you think like i kind of got it confused with like the amish for a while i was like oh it's a really kind of ancient thing and actually like it's got like the Utah Mormonism like it's very popular very powerful like it's quite confusing because we're in the UK so we don't really have that like restorationist Christianity movement so like the reason we talked about it in conjunction with the

Stanley Cups is because they use them because they can't have certain drinks they can't um refrigerate their coffees they can't drink coffee actually sorry they can't they drink a lot of like sodas because they can't drink coffee so they're like drinking them out of their fun cups and so like i think watching it you go god i'm being sold a religious movement that i don't really know anything about through the comfort of my own like iphone screen have you guys read educated by tara westover i don't think so okay so it came out in 2018 and it's a memoir and it's basically about her overcoming her survivalist Mormon family in order to like go to college and explore the world and stuff and it was a really big hit when it came out because it was she it was unbelievable to me

to read it because like you said we live in the UK we don't really have as much access to these stories we're not used to seeing people um living like this and she ended up going to Cambridge uni and it's just it's literally like being reborn again in the literal sense in that she's becoming accustomed to the world and she's like a foal that's just been born that doesn't know how to walk like nothing makes sense to her she doesn't have any concept of like the world and the way that we've been taught about it yeah to me the fact that the people that have been brought up in that way are now also the same people selling us this like lifestyle but because it looks so polished and modern with the stanley cups and the gorgeous apartment that's that is quite terrifying if you like kind of marry those two things together so i think the tiktok algorithm

really rewards this kind of content it all fits into you know the various aesthetics and various trends that we have fitting into boxes having organizers for everything having labels and having your life in order that girl waking up at 5am and your life is just picture perfect i think that's why we've got here although that being said sorry quick heart back to mob wives now that the clean girl aesthetic has gone yeah the clean girl look is also tied into the compartmentalizing and the tupperware and so it'd be interesting to see if mob white infiltrates that and suddenly everyone's got ashtrays all over the house smoking fags and having one night stands up yes it turns the faux simplicity like the fake simplicity and the like the completely contrived simplicity on its head because can you do that with like a full

long red nail i'd say yes I think she does have long nails actually which was also part of the like the discourse yeah I've never made cinema buns in my life me neither they look quite dry actually the ones that she made not straight shots I did want to eat her peanut butter though can we talk about big big boys please okay so just one big boys actually it is my favorite show it's called big boys it's a sitcom by comedian jack rourke in its second series which i think has just started airing or it's like it's all out on channel four but you can still watch on tv it is the most brilliant beautiful i've got so many adjectives about this show and i i will just gush about this so i need to know if you guys have seen it i haven't so i hadn't and then i watched it on your recommendation and immediately was hurt i'm so upset that i hadn't watched it

before but i'm so glad that i've got all of it to watch jack rick is one of these people that randomly i've always followed him on twitter but never interacted with any of his work don't really know why I followed him but just have always been aware of him you had a sense I can't believe it I just don't know why I didn't I feel upset that I wasn't pushed to show yeah I do think that because I followed him as well and I thought wow this guy's really funny but like never saw so he's a comedian who's done I think a lot of Edinburgh fringe. And I think big boys actually is the adaptation of the show that he had at Edinburgh. And so like was a standup comedian has done stuff before,

but this is like a really like a big show, really super popular. I think it was BAFTA nominated the first series at least. And then this show has come out to like so much applause and rightly so. So it's, it is semi autobiographical. Dylan Llewellyn from Derry Girls yeah plays Jack so this kind of curly haired fresher at university we have John Pointing as yes I can see you gushing Ruchira so John Pointing from I think we talked about in episode

four I want to say it was quite it was like a few weeks ago this the show smothered which he stars in as like the romantic lead he's back oh he's in this as well as danny the like lads lad to jack's like kind of more vulnerable gay fresher so it's like two best friends who like find this common ground university and they just oh they just explode on the screen like it is so heartwarming it's also really it's very very funny genuinely laugh out loud I think what I loved about it so much is it's so true to that freshest experience and there's this woman that is like the whole what's she called like the um she's the student liaison yeah like student liaison officer or something her character is my favorite she really makes me me laugh. She's so perfectly written because you just know exactly who she is.

And I think that there's sometimes British television can portray things in a slightly like Americanized way or like you don't necessarily recognize what you're watching, but this is the university. It's so UK. I really believe it, yeah.

Like he has a fish named after his favorite journalist, Alison Hammond. There are so many, like I would say it's really nostalgic. Yes. If you were, I mean, for anyone who like lives in the UK,

but like if you were a fresher from like 2011 to 2014, everything there is like goosebumps. The music, the references. So, so funny that I couldn't quite believe it. Like it's a show about grief. And for a show about grief,

which literally starts with the main character talking about the death of his dad, you do not expect to like die laughing the way that you do. Wow. I think it's so nice to see like male leads exploring mental health, grief, like sexuality, like family relationships.

It was so refreshing. I think also it's done in a really non-hacky way where the central character Jack when at the beginning he doesn't necessarily straight away say that he's gay and then the minute that that's revealed it's just welcomed by John Poynting's character what's his name Danny in such a nice way where he's just so chill with it he's immediately trying to like wingman him and you're like I really love seeing that representation because I think that feels more true and sometimes I'm really fed up of seeing the trauma of

yeah gay and LGBTQIA people exploited for trauma porn I guess agreed there was a Metro article um which was about this um by Adam Miller it's a first person piece um and it basically says that he has this kind of similar relationship with with his best friend at university and like his best friend helped him having this relationship like helped him come out like his his friend like asked do you want me there when you come out to your parents oh why is this making me tear up yeah and I think it represents something that is really real and yet it's aspirational but like these friendships exist and like it was just so nice I am shouting from the rooftops Ruchira you're gonna love it you are John Poynting's number one wife if I'm sobbing and you know messaging on the whatsapp group you have to reply straight away it is a

it's a real tearjerker so i know you've just started so strap in you will be teary i was trying to like watch a bit for the podcast so i had you know need to make a really small window with it on and then you have your emails up and then i just had to expand the screen and then i was like no i have to turn it off because i couldn't stop watching it no yeah i mean there's i think there's like eight episodes or like six episodes per series so it's like you know you're hungry for more you could easily do this I think I did it like in an evening and like afternoon yeah because they're not long episodes either no oh it's delightful it's very feel good it's very real I would say very real on the grief stuff as like a certified nan kid

that a lot of the grandma stuff made me really emotional a lot of the family relationships like it's really great it's so good that's my analysis it's so good so good if you want to watch it which i'm sure you do you can watch all episodes now on channel four we'll be back this time next week in the meantime make sure you're subscribed and leave us a review if you enjoyed the podcast and don't forget to follow us on instagram if you haven't already we're at everything is content pod thanks for listening