Everything Is Content - Nonsense Christmas, Nightbitch and Thirsting Over a Suspected Assassin

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Ho-ho-how is it less than two weeks to Christmas already?!On this most jolly Friday the 13th, join Beth, Ruchira and Oenone for a look at Sabrina Carpenter's Christmas special (now airing on Netflix). What were our fav bits and do we think SC could be ready to ascend to Mariah Carey levels of December Diva-hood? Also this week- a film about a harried mother who thinks she's turning into a dog. Adapted from the 2021 bestselling book of the same name, Nightbitch explores femininity, rage, marriage and parenting without a pack. We give our thoughts and share what the reviews are saying.Finally- one of the weirdest weeks online for a while. After the murder of a healthcare insurance CEO in New York, the internet is thirsting openly, unabashedly and without shame over his accused killer. Is this a symptom of the ongoing irony epidemic or are we just... missing the joke?Thank you as always for listening to Everything is Content. We'd loooove if you could share us with a mate, link us on your story or just tell a stranger about the pod at the bus stop. We want to keep making EIC for all eternity and this really helps us do that. Also, remember to follow us on Instagram and TikTok @everythingiscontentpod. See you over there! x---------NETFLIX - Black DovesPRIME - The Holdovers AMAZON - AcotarNETFLIX - Nonsense ChristmasNETFLIX - Christmas with YouPRIME - Your Christmas or Mine?THE GUARDIAN - Nightbitch reviewWATERSTONES - Nightbitch by Rachel YoderTHE GUARDIAN - Motherhood reviewKEN KLIPPENSTEIN - Exclusive: Luigi's Manifesto Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth I'm Richera and I'm Anoni and this is everything is content the podcast for pop culture discourse tv film books celebs memes tiktoks we're gathering the best stories deciphering the discourse and delivering only the hottest takes directly to you. With a dusting of candy cane shards in Santa's oversized content cookie. This week on the podcast, we're talking about Sabrina Carpenter's Nonsense Christmas, the mother-to-dog pipeline in new film Night Bitch,

and the wild social media response to a suspected assassin. Follow us on Instagram at everythingscontentpod and make sure you hit follow on your podcast player so you never miss an episode. Also, if you haven't already, listen to our new Everything in Conversation series where we talk to you about a different controversial topic

every single Wednesday. There are already six episodes out. Binge them immediately. Before we get into this episode, I need to know what have you both been loving this week? I have been loving black doves which is the new netflix thriller starring kira knightley so she basically plays a spy who has like managed to infiltrate the british government by marrying someone who's quite herp in the british government under a pseudonym like under a fake name and it also stars ben wishaw um what's the lady from happy valley's name sarah lancaster or did i just make that one up sarah lancashire that sounds about right kira knightley lives in this absolutely fuck off ginormous

massive house she's beautiful she's got two kids she's a spy something happens and she goes to get revenge someone is killed and it's just it's sexy everyone's really rich there's quite a lot of murder in it it's thrillery i've stayed at my friend's house the other day just for like a little break she's moved to High Wycombe so it's like a fun little sleepover in a grown-up house and we watched one of the really bad Christmas films we watched Christmas with you which starred Freddie Prinze Jr which is the worst film I've ever seen so then after that as like a palate cleanser we were like let's try this so I don't know if it's exceptional because in contrast to that really terrible Christmas movie or I genuinely just think it's so bingeable I want to watch an episode as soon as I get off 10 out of 10 recommend I've heard really good things about it people I know who've watched the series said the exact

same thing and they also said that Keira Knightley's wardrobe in it is great she just looks unbelievable like that's it's kind it is distracting but it's so interesting she plays quite a different character for her she's such a good actress and she's not on enough staff. I have to say. I will say the only thing that I have seen about this is, I think I saw one person being like, it's a bit of a stretch to make this dainty woman believable as a killer spy. But I feel like I can see it in her.

I think she's been like boiling away. Like I think she's got madness behind her eyes. I'm quite excited to watch this. She's really convincing. I didn't find any of it unconvincing she's because she's mature she's older as well there's a wisdom there she's really great as this character I think you guys should watch it I think I will one thing I was just going to ask you what was everyone's beef around Keira Knightley is it just that she's a mouth actor because there was like one specific irritation that people had

with her which obviously FYI I think all of that kind of shit is bullshit. But do you guys know this? She is a mouth actor, yeah. She does purse the lips and she does act from the mouth. But there's nothing wrong with that because it's really, really effective. I think she's excellent, mouth and otherwise. I don't mean that you said it. When I watch more episodes, I'll think about it.

It's definitely something I've noticed in her previous roles, but it's not something I've noticed as much in this series so maybe she's been made aware of that I just remember everyone hated her and we've spoken about this before with the Hathaway there was that era of people just absolutely despising her when she came to like the prominence of her fame I think she got too old as well for people to I think because she was a young actress and everyone's like she's young she's beautiful she's very slim and then she became an older woman still beautiful but like the same way that people say that Emma oh what's her name from Harry Potter Watson Emma Watson I

think she's been through a similar treatment and now I'm quite excited that she's doing this sort of out there role for her like a departure from the period stuff a departure from like the harried wife in this kind of feels like she's doing something quite exciting what have you been loving with Tara so I watched a film over the weekend called the holdovers somebody actually messaged us a few months ago to say that they thought that this was a really good example of a mid film that was a really good mid film we did an episode I think about a month ago now on how mid-brow films are actually really great films so things like Dead Poets Department and Holdovers is exactly that it's really Christmassy so it's a really good film to watch now if you want to be cozy and you want to get that kind of like Hogwarts-esque

rich school vibe and just lovely characters and almost like a emotional arc that isn't too challenging but is moving enough that you just feel really like coddled in a blanket it's very very nice I'd recommend watching it as well if you're not feeling too festive because now I feel really well and truly Christmassy that is so funny so I went to see that in the cinema last year when it came out but when I went to see it I don't know if I was hormonal I don't know if I was in an argument with my ex but we went to see the cinema together and I know if I was hormonal. I don't know if I was in an argument with my ex, but we went to sit in the cinema together and I just decided I hated the film completely.

And then we came out and he loved it. And I was like, I really didn't enjoy that. Forgot about it. And then this year I've seen those people like tweeting about it again and being like, it was amazing. And then I actually messaged him being like, I'm so sorry I had so much beef with that film because it's clearly really good.

I think I was just in a really bad space when we went to see it and I just couldn't enjoy it. Because it is quite slow, isn't it? it yeah like not a bunch happens very quickly it is definitely slow I agree also that's so funny you said that because I think I remember you telling me about a year ago that you felt like that and my boyfriend watched it thought it was amazing and kept trying to convince me to watch it and I just had this massive resistance rubbish and only says yeah and like it was even before you said it I was like oh that's like a weird boys film I don't know why I had this feeling about it but I felt the exact same way you did it's a very isolating film I think it's beautiful and I hope you're saying this right is it Divine Joy Randolph or

Devine I think she won the Oscar for this this one actually Oscar she's so heartbreaking in it I did cry at this film I watched it it twice. I cried the first time. The second time I was a bit more heart warmed. I'm going to watch it for a third time this Christmas because I do think it has finally taken, it's fully taken its place as like in the Christmas rotation. And it's actually a Christmas film

unlike Ruchira's other Christmas books. It's time for another go. I'll watch it again. You've got to. What have you been loving, Beth? So what I am loving, and I don't think we've ever talked about this on this, and I can't believe it's taken me this long,

but I've been loving Akatar. Do either of you know what I mean when I say Akatar? What is Akatar? I know what it is. And you say what it is. Do you know what that stands for? All I know, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, it's fantasy smart?

Pretty much, yeah. I mean, listeners won't know, Ruchira's face was a mixture of incredulous but i think a bit intrigued it is fantasy smart so akasar is the first in a series of books and it stands for a court of thorns and roses and that's the first series of five it's like a best-selling series i was really really resistant to it it's by sarah j mass hugely globally successful like beloved and i will tell you roughly what it's about just give you a flavor it is set in this fantastical universe of i think

one place is called prithian and i don't actually know the because i'm reading it not listening to it so i don't know if i'm saying it incorrectly fans please correct me prithian or prithian and there's like a fairy realm and a human realm and the fairies and the humans are kind of enemies but they're supposed to be in peacetime and anyway a 19 year old called phara she kills by accident slash on purpose a fairy in a wolf's body and one of the fairy kings or the fairy lords comes over to the human realm and snatches her and is like for this crime you have to come and live in my house because otherwise i have to kill you it's in a treaty it all makes sense when you're reading it so she goes over there and they hate each other

and he's like a million years old and she's 19 and of course after a while she starts to get a little bit hot for daddy fairy and it's just problematic enough like the dynamics of it like young huntress elderly ancient gorgeous fairy fall in love it is it's so good it's like not quite heat clinic levels of smart which i guess disappointing for me but it's still spicy enough that you're a bit like oh hot under the collar while you're reading it. It is so, so readable. I'm now in the second one. I reckon I might have read all of these by the end of the year.

Like I'm single. I'm going to have some time off. Don't judge me. This is all over my Instagram. I see on people's stories the whole time. It's such a cult. And I'm really resistant as well because I don't know.

I kind of, I guess I was putting it in a Colleen Hoover kind of category, which as you know, I'm now like an apologist after reading Pandora's Sites as a sub stack but I have been tempted because I was such a fantasy fan in my youth alongside my musical theatre I used to read loads of like dragons witches fairies that was my bag so I know I'll like it this sounds so awful and it's that snobbery which I'm always trying to eradicate but my fear is that I'll start reading something like that and I will get hooked I will read all five books and then I won't read another Elizabeth Strout which is my new favorite author which is such a dumb way of thinking about

it because if you're enjoying reading you should just read you'll grease the wheels though that I is what I'll say will happen and it is well written so I didn't say this earlier it's actually well written it is leagues and leagues and leagues ahead of Colleen Hoover. So like I said, the first book was written almost 10 years ago. She's since been writing. People universally agree the first one is not her best, like in terms of pacing and world building. She rushes ahead to the romance part of it where she could pause perhaps.

But even with that in mind, I think it's really well-written. Some bits you're like, that is brilliant. That is like a really well-crafted fantasy world because that's what I want. Yes, I want them to be kind of long lingering looks. I want the tension. I want the sex. But I also do want a properly fleshed out world

where like I fully believe in the ancient myths. I fully believe in like the feuds and things like that. And with this, you do. She creates some really recognisable villains, monsters, monsters heroines but it also feels very fresh so I think it's very actually well written and you won't be feeling like you are just reading the back of a cereal box I'm just so not immersed in this world like come to us even the Akita I just was I've never heard that in my life but I've seen this book

everywhere on the tube influences constantly taking pictures with the like bright pink cover of the first book I believe it is like you said Anoni it feels like such a cult is everyone just reading horny literature and taking themselves away into tube toilets and like doing what they need to do like what is the level of this I do yeah I think you'd have to use a lot of imagination to achieve climax based on the book but it will get you a bit hot and heavy you're right it's weirdly an influencer book it's a lot of like influence fashion influence that i follow people that i wouldn't expect that don't normally talk about books are talking about these books because they're obviously just

such a hook well you've twisted my arm beth i want both of you in or i will not get off this call today i want i want a verbal agreement from richira that she will I will send you a copy in the post Ruchira I just want you to open and read the chapter I shan't I shan't open the parcel oh my god I mean you won't know what this means but we have such a Tamlin and Feyre dynamic going on right now I can't even tell you it's the ho ho we a special of all it's sabrina carpenter's nonsense christmas special she describes it as a musical comedy holiday special with celebrity guests and she does deliver on the celebrity guests she had tyler shania twain cara dele, Meg Stolter and Chapel Rowan to name a few. So it's kind of like a mixture of like Saturday Night Live meets all style karaoke night.

It's festive. It's camp. It's full of Sabrina's signature innuendos. And I love the set. It was really nostalgic. It kind of weirdly felt a bit like an English pub at Christmas. There was loads of velvet, multicolored lights, Christmas trees. The outfits were like Cher levels of glam and sultry. Tyler literally was like,

she was just basically wearing a bow. She was wrapped up like a present, this big red bow, which I thought was unbelievable. Sabrina and Chapel wore almost like sexy Disney princess outfits. And I personally loved it. I thought it was a feast. I wouldn't normally go in for like a musical special. It's not something I'd watch traditionally, but I think she really nailed it. And Rebecca Nicholson for The Guardian called it an exceptionally good gift, awarding it four stars, and said it's a spirited attempt

to drag the sometimes fusty Christmas special into the modern age. And it's mostly been met with rapturous applause, although there were some users on X actually that didn't like Chapel and it's mostly been met with rapturous applause although there were some uses on x actually that didn't like chapel and sabrina's voices together didn't like their harmonizing which i thought was quite sacrilegious boo hiss boo i loved it i thought it was fun i agree i felt like it was modern it made me realize how rich the girly pop stars are in this era we are absolutely drowning in talent I'd love to know

what you girls made of it I thought it was so beautifully camp I loved the nostalgic vibe of her just being like this I don't know there's like innuendos and like running up the stairs and like putting the star on and just like all of it was so ridiculous and ludicrous and calling back to a time where it feels like housewives making these little like wink wink comments on tv it was so fun and I think I am a huge Sabrina fan but even I didn't see the added element of charm that she has to pull something like this off until I watched the special and she really is just like charm in excess isn't she so true we obviously spoke about serena carpenter an entire episode a few weeks ago we did all come out of it being like what we

love her and i think more so after this i haven't seen as much of a showcase of someone's personality that like really jives with but also builds on the branding they've had so far we are really feasting with the pop girlies because they aren't just incredibly talented which of course they are i mean she had tyler on she had chapel on and herself we are also feasting on their personalities like it's not just an aesthetic bit she's never lascivious but she is raunchy she toes those lines really well and obviously i watched till the end and then wanted to watch it again like there's a little bit of bloopers at the end where she's so charming, even if things are going wrong. It's a feast for the eyes, the ears. Well, I think that's probably it, but still, that's enough.

Also, these pop girlies, they've obviously had careers that they've been building for years. They've kind of all gone catastrophically famous this year, and yet immediately already they are cementing their level of stardom. Like Tyler, when she was singing, I was thinking, oh my God, we are witnessing the beginning of this ginormous career that all of these women are going to have.

It was so strong. I don't always find SNL that funny. Sometimes like American humor isn't for me. So I wasn't like laugh out louding at all of it, but it was really solid and really good. And it was pretty much an all-female cast. And I just think it's such an impressive feat. It was 50 minutes, which is quite a sweet amount of time. It's kind of perfect. It wasn't too long, but it held my attention the whole way through. I loved all of the cameos.

And I just thought, how often do we get to see that? It was just basically women, young women coming into their stardom. Obviously, then we had these cameos from Shania Twain. I just thought, wow, they're really stealing the stage. They're not just guesting on someone else's like James Corden's Christmas special live they've literally just taken a format or Sabrina has and made it her own thing and I just thought god that is pretty impressive actually when you think about really how green they are in their careers in terms of how far they're going to go you know what's interesting as well how do you pull something like this off be so physically attractive be so like calling back to all the bombshells that were for the boys but make it feel so for the

girls she often with the image she puts out the jokes she makes the kind of like narrative it feels really for the girls it doesn't alienate women women aren't pissed off at her it feels like really bubbly and fun and inclusive and you know women get a hard rep publicly but she's still being super sexy but it feels for us yeah it's a celebration of femininity but it's also like you can observe me you can want to be like me we can do that or you can just like feast on what I'm doing it's like it's just so joyful exactly that it's for the girlies and if the boys want to watch it as well that's fine but it felt very much for the female gaze yeah I don't know what it is I know that we examined that bit in the special that we did

it did feel like for the girls I felt really weirdly proud of them and I loved that they were singing live I love that all of them were dueting I love the outfits that it just felt really special to me in a way that I guess this is our generation of pop stars I know they're younger than us but it just feels like we're really watching them come up whereas any other pop star we maybe were kind of too young for the beginning or I don't know it just feels like this is the spot when we're in our 60s they'll still be going strong and they'll be like our Shania Twain the pop girlies are very smart to try and get in on the Christmas market. And obviously, she came up with Nonsense Christmas, the album last year, which she played some of the songs on, which is a great album, actually. I've been listening to it since I watched this special,

but it is just genius. Maybe it's watching Mariah Carey, someone who goes platinum every other year because of her Christmas album. If you want longevity, if you want to keep making money, be part of the Christmas scene. I think people call it like Mariah Carey's infinite money glitch. The fact that every single year her Christmas album and All I Want For Christmas Is You will go to the top of the charts. It will just churn her out some more money. Not to be like they're being super shrewd, but it is really shrewd to try and get in on the Christmas market and to be like here i am i could be one of the christmas gullies and actually for the first time in forever i feel

like sabrina carpenter could be not a contender because there's room for everyone but she could be gen z slash millennials mariah carey she could still stay in this point for the next 40 years doing a little nonsense christmas she could be making the money she'd be topping the charts I see this for her do you think she's close to achieving diva status I don't know if we'll ever have a diva again I really don't know if the market is primed for a diva in the way that Mariah Carey was diva really sold whereas now I think we demand more like woman of the people which is a shame because I love a diva well I think Chapel gets pitched as a diva because she does her kind of like telling off paparazzi she sets her boundaries but then she's also love a diva. Well, I think Chapel gets pitched as a diva because she does her kind of like telling off paparazzi, she sets her boundaries. But then she's also not a diva because she's in that queer space. And she's like, I guess diva is really specifically sort of like

heteronormative fag hag. Can we say that anymore? I don't know, actually. Should we just ask the audience? Can we say that? Yeah. I think you're quoting. It's that really specific type of woman. I agree with you, Beth, because it makes people unlikable now I think we want our famous people to be within reach because of the bridging of the gap of social media which brings us closer because of parasocial relationships we want to be able to touch them we want to feel like if we met them in the street they'd say hi I don't know yeah maybe a diva is something that we can't have anymore can I ask you a question that I haven't prepped you for and you might kill me yes i want to say top five christmas songs starting from five gorgeous okay so and this is going to be in no particular order which i can finesse the order later but i just have to get these off okay fairy tale of new york is by the pokes it has to be a top five has

to be top five it's my number one oh yeah i just think it is just chef's kiss brings me back to a place in time gorgeous i like 2000 miles by pretenders which i just think is very sweet when i worked in a shop many many years ago at christmas we used to play this and it made me feel very christmassy river by jenny mitchell one of my one true loves i love her and in my favorite show alie mcbeal robert downey jr does a cover of this which sounds ridiculous but that was also one of my favorites i think it's called do you see what i see which is obviously like a kind of hymn or something i don't know but sung by destiny's child and then number one oh holy night by beloved mariah carey oh god and also justin bieber's whole christmas album but that's we'll discuss that another time what's yours for sure okay so my disclaimer is for years and years of my life I used to find Christmas songs really depressing and I know that is so grinchy of me

but that's my truth but in the last like honestly even two years I've come on board so I really like Jingle Bell Rock I really like It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas and Santa Tell Me by Ariana Grande which I feel like it I feel like is not as high up as some of the ones you mentioned, Beth, but still makes me feel happy. Lovely. So good. So I have to agree about Fairy Tale of New York.

It's my number one. Absolute number one. Number two, Driving Home for Christmas. I just, I can't get enough of it. And if you actually are driving home for Christmas on Christmas Eve, it's really quite special. Number three would be, so Lily Allen hates this cover apparently,

but I love her cover of Somewhere Only We Know by Keane that was on the John Lewis advert. Then it's going to have to be really obvious, but Mariah Carey, All I Want for Christmas. I mean. Oh, those little jingle bells at the beginning actually do just classic classic that's falling five it's just the whole Michael Bublé Christmas album again so basic but what

do you think about his like gender swapping the Santa baby though that's just not cool Santa body oh he's probably the only man that I'll be like fine you are fully straight I just I'm sure we've spoken on this before but I just think straightness is a myth but Michael Bublé is one of those men where you're like fine it may be true such a good album though he's got the money glitch as well I think he and Mariah have got that industry on lock I just think there's maybe potential for some of the young pop girlies and boys and everyone else to maybe get on in it I think it's time well because Ariana Grande is someone that's had great success with her Christmas song. Who else has come in

in the last, like, post-Mariah, post-Bublé? Who have we had that's... Sia? No, she's not really post. Yeah, Sia. No, Sia is. What's hers again?

Please, Mr. Snowman or whatever it's called. Yeah, hers is very good. I think Ariana has done great work in that space and now Sabrina. Do you know what else would you... There needs to be a Christmas film and we thought, we toyed with talking about has done great work in that space and now Sabrina do you know what else would you and I there needs

to be a Christmas film and we we thought we toyed with talking about the new Lindsay Lohan movie but I actually did watch it last night guys with Grace and oh hell is it bad we couldn't finish it what is it about there's such a specific thing about Christmas films the holiday is to me just I can never get I have to watch every year obviously you have the classics like Love Actually whatever when are we going to get the new one like how has it been long enough for there to be there needs to be rom-com British actors who would you have as your dream cast for like a new Christmas film I can see the panic in mine and Richie's eyes because we've not been prepped for this okay do you know sorry it's just coming to me it's just I just certainly want to talk about it do you know what there was a film there was with um it seems like

otis butterman or something no that's not a name but he was in sex education oh yes otis butterfield yeah and he is as a butter a's about a couple of years from him yes sorry yes you're right that is his name and he was in a quite a fun concept where he and his girlfriend accidentally switched homes for Christmas which look it's not upon the level of the holiday but I think it approached that he's got a real charm to him because he is just very charming and kind of an unassuming way who would be my ideal cast though I think Paul Mescal obviously shock I can't see him in a Christmas film oh my god they should reprise daisy edgar jones and paul meskel for a christmas film set in london they meet in a pub if their careers don't go well they will i can't imagine either of them doing comedy together because they've been in

such serious roles and because they were in such a serious series together yes they can do rom but what about the comp but is the holiday that funny yes yes i'd say so fine it's not crazy funny i think i owe adabiri for romantic lead but i don't know who could do it with her that's my question oh god well another irish person i guess paul muskell yeah paul did anyone just hear anoni commending no what did she say behind the scenes she just whispered that's such a good question she just whispered to herself i can imagine doing like a press job to herself sorry that was such a good question i just need to hold space for that for a minute grace and i were watching this lindsey lohan film last night and we were like she's actually such a good actor like why is she these scripts and i watched another so the funniest things i stay with my

friend yards like when i'm a really good friend to me when onto netflix her whole algorithm is every single shit and she's watched them all so So I was like, we were talking about Hot Frosty. She's like, yeah, I've watched that. She watched every single one. God knows why. She's like, no, they're all terrible. No disrespect, but I'm sure they know when they're making them that they're bad. Do they not?

They know we'll watch them anyway. I think that is the sell. People say this about rom-coms, that they're a little bit too dark now or gritty or trying to do a message that we've lost the art maybe we've lost the art i hate to say it of an amazing christmas film richard carter's needs to come out of retirement i guess he's brought back a animated family friendly christmas film and last year he came out with genie i think it was but i i just didn't love it i thought it was quite meh i think we're gonna have to do it girls we're gonna have to write it okay we'll do a christmas

album and then we'll write the film and we'll star in it because we then we can get whoever we want to snog guys dev patel and i had a very that's a great shout chills i think it has to be one of the skins boys i think we had such a good run and they're all in there like early to mid 30s now so they're ideal to step into the hugon role dev. Actually, I'm flushing a little bit. Dev Patel. There was that Amelia Clarke one with the really fit guy from Crazy Rich Asians. Crazy Rich Asians. Yes. Oh, he's great. And that film's not great. Farquhar's his name. No, but it was. That's one of the less worst ones I've seen in recent years. Yeah, it's quite a high concept. And I sort of, you know, didn't see the twist coming, which I guess is a good thing but now she's a face actor she does a lot of eyebrow work if kira knightley works her mouth amelia clark she works those brows who's a nose actor is there a nose

actor anywhere nostril oh he's a nostril gal there's definitely some people flapping i'm gonna think on that one I'm flapping those oh yeah yeah flapping that okay Night Bitch came out last week in the UK and all of us have been absolutely itching to talk about it for months because we were lucky enough to see it humble Humblebrag. Night Bitch is a 2024 American black comedy film written and directed by Marielle Heller, based on the 2021 novel by Rachel Yonder, also starring beloved Amy Adams, who we adore. It's a magical realism style satirical story about a woman's frustrations about losing her former life as, I guess guess a cosmopolitan artist and kind of being reduced to a suburban stay-at-home mom and feeling the frustrations of that pivot. She's trying to please everyone in her life at her own expense and she almost relinquishes the shackles of expectations,

physically becoming a dog at night time and just acting upon true animalistic impulses. Peter Bradshaw gave it two stars saying, While Adams delivers what could be the performance of her career, Marielle Heller's film shrinks away from properly funny or scary exploration of motherhood and midlife crisis. I want to know, what did you girls think of the film? Did you agree with it? I know, Beth, you mentioned before we went in that you've read the book,

so I would love to hear a comparison as well from you. First of all, could I just ask who Peter Bradshaw is and if he is a mother? Because if he's not, who is he to say that this film shrinks away from properly funny or scary exploration of motherhood and midlife crisis? As someone who isn't a mother and who's someone who flip-flops between the desires to be a mother and have children, I found it actually like a waking nightmare, this movie. It really cemented all of my fears about motherhood. Ruchira and I went to a screening together and I mean, it just, it terrified me. I thought it was incredible. I know that other people, I feel like maybe you might have different opinions, but there was a scene right at the

beginning where she bumps into a friend who's taken over her role as her maternity cover in her old job. And the woman asks her, oh my my god what's it like being a mom and she basically goes it's awful I don't feel like myself my body is disgusting I hate my life blah blah and then it is a freeze frame and stops goes back in time and goes to what she actually says and she goes it's great thank you for asking oh my god it's amazing that is always my biggest fear about motherhood is that it's like a pyramid scheme where moms are actually having an awful time of it, but they don't want you to know because they want you to also become a mother and so say something really saccharine and sweet and endearing. I have other thoughts on it, but my initial reaction is just to Peter Bradshaw, if you're not a mum, get your

hands off those stars. Such a good point. And I have avoided reading too much criticism because a lot of it was of maybe that flavour. And like you say, Richard, I have read the book and I have avoided reading too much criticism because a lot of it was of maybe that flavor and like you say Richard I have read the book and I've really enjoyed the book came out in 2021 it's one of my favorite books of that year because it explored a sort of brutal primitive rage in motherhood which I hadn't read about at the time I didn't know enough mothers to know that this was going on hadn't read perhaps enough literature of that time of life the film does take some artistic license and there's a bit of a departure some parts of it do feel silly i will say of the film where the book didn't have that tone but i really enjoyed

it i really enjoyed like i say that feeling of feralness and the way we will get on to talking about amy adams i'm. She was perfect casting. It really does just happen in her face and in her mannerisms, that concealed and cloaked rage and frustration that this is where her life is. So interesting actually to hear you say, and only it really cemented those feelings. For me, I mean, it did because I don't really want to be a mother, but it felt quite celebratory of motherhood in a way that I think people won't be expecting having seen maybe just the trailer or read a you know a bit of the book which I would love to hear maybe we'll talk about that later as well but it felt actually by the end I think it

comes through it and becomes quite a celebration of motherhood but quite like a clear-eyed it actually will make you lose your mind but for some people this is so worth it but if this feels horrible if that opening sequence for example which people have seen it well now i'm talking about it's a really repetitive sequence where she's making breakfast she's answering the same inane questions she is stuck in this cyclical hell if you can recognize that and then you get through to the end you kind of think okay but there is perhaps freedom from drudgery all of that to say i did like it a lot have some reservations but I do think a lot of people should see this film so I liked bits and pieces of it I really

loved Amy Adams I mean I love her in near to everything that I've seen her in if not 100% of everything I've seen her in I really like that scene that you mentioned Beth of the repetitive nature the monotoned responses the repetition constantly drilling into you that her life has just become a series of repeated actions day in day out and I also agree that I feel like the ending was quite optimistic so despite the premise you'd imagine going into it watching that first scene that this is a really depressing look at motherhood don't get me wrong I was horrified by it same as you and Oni I think by the end it really did feel like there was a positive outcome from it and that she hadn't ruined her life or anything like that if anything

there was joy to be had the point was to remove that kind of enforced structure that you feel like you have to be binary stay at home mom dad going off to work and you can't escape rigidity so i think it was like almost i guess a dispelling of the myths that you have to have life one way I don't want to ruin the ending but there is like one element to it based on the relationship between her and her husband that I found intensely frustrating and I wish it had been more subversive in showing a different route for their relationship that was the thing that really disappointed me I guess because it leads you to believe that they're going in a direction in terms of will they stay stay together? Will they not stay together? And I'm not going to say what happens, but the choice they made was not the choice that felt natural to me. Having watched the

entirety of the film, I was super surprised by it and felt quite frustrated. I agree with both of you. Amy Adams was so incredible. I think what I found so fascinating about the film was motherhood is such a thorny topic to get into. But what I think really is really interesting, like the allegory of her literally turning into these wolves and that being kind of the thing of motherhood, there's such a story to be told about what a woman can be and often to explore the kind of limits of our physicality and our mental capacity is through motherhood. This, on the one hand, as you both have said, is an incredible, not necessarily joyous, but realistic look at just how gargantuan a task of being a mother is. But it also is, in some ways, turning motherhood into a means of being most deified, like you're

a god, you become something bigger than a human. And as much as that wasn't seen as a positive thing, I do sometimes think that's this danger in making parallels between women who are mothers becoming greater than those that aren't. And I don't think that that is what the film or the book was trying to do. But that is something that we read about and see so much in culture and in literature. It's like once you become a mother, you are now even more than you were. And I think that's kind of can be dangerous territory in a world where lots of women choose not to be mothers or can't be mothers. it doesn't serve mothers to say that you're going to become superhuman because as we see in the film she is left without a village or I guess in the case of the film without a pack to run with because we say well a baby's born and you must know

instinctively you become a mother then which if you talk to any woman who's had a child or anyone who's had a child they go it wasn't like that i didn't know what i was doing i was really alone in it i it did not click into place i actually needed the support and i think it's a really easy way of us to culturally and socially to kind of get out of jail in terms of helping mothers properly so i think it's quite dangerous rhetoric and at the moment i'm reading a book by sheila hetty rereading actually i should say called motherhood i don't know if either of you have read much Sheila Hetty or read that book in particular, but it is wonderful. And that's a book about not having children. And I think reading

alongside Night Bitch, which is a film about having children and that decision, really interesting kind of interplay with those two, because in both it's art and it is a real active decision to become the mother or the not mother it's not automatic it's like you have the choice i will become a mother or not the choice but you know the reality i won't become a mother some people do choose it some people it's made for them and in both cases you're served that up and you have to make something of it it's not that the world to make something of it it's not that the world will make something of it it's that you have to either by study or by kind of brute force in the case of night bitch make this the best decision that you've made and i'm just watching that and

then reading this book i'm just kind of startled by the bullshit that we are fed of what it feels like to either have a baby or not have a baby it's like whichever you choose whichever you decide it will feel good it'll be the right thing for you and often you do it and it doesn't feel like the right thing in night bitch she's obviously like rearing against it she's so underserved and she's got like a quote-unquote good husband he's frustrating her she imagines slapping around the face she thinks she's turning into a dog or maybe she is she is frustrated every day she wants to you know kill maim eat become same sometimes when you don't have a kid and i really would recommend motherhood the book not the life choice to anyone who watched this or will

watch this and thinks a bit like oh my god this has opened up an internal can of worms because it really does pose a question actively rather than just saying make a decision enjoy your life it's like no make the decision and then live in the decision make something of it and yeah so I just feel like watching this forced me again confronted me like so many other things to think about the decision capital D. I feel like as women we're I mean this was such a concept in sex in the city it was concept even pre-sex in the city I think around the 80s when women started being like powerhouses at work and all of that kind of stuff and joining the workforce in huge numbers. But this concept of having it all, at least for me, I think I've always kind of been circling around that dilemma of how do you have it all? How do you excel at work in a way that feels fulfilling to you or create something that is

meaningful for you and you get purpose from that? how do you create a private family life or a relationship that fulfills me as well at the same time and then you know social life family all of the other things it feels like the trio dilemma and like something's always going wrong at every juncture all three can never be perfect at the same time I spoke to a friend about this the other day. She was saying that work was going exceptionally, dating was going horrifically, friends were exceptional as well. And we were just talking about how it always feels like one of them is wrong. And even in this film, it feels like that's kind of the central dilemma. She has an amazing child that she loves. Her relationship technically good you know she has a husband who is nice home is great they have a lovely house but she feels completely unfulfilled and if she

goes back into work then she spends less time with a child her relationship suffers it's just the impossibility of feeling like all three can be going well at the exact same time it feels like spinning plates and one of them has to just crash and fall the way it's presented this film is relatable because it's not like she is a white lotus level rich she's super middle class there is the financial aspect of one of them has to be at work they can't afford to have a nanny and both of them go to work there is a slight level of financial implication about their dynamic but they're definitely a working class it's not a case of they're both struggling to make ends meet a lot of middle class people watching this film it speaks to a dilemma that we will likely be in rather than

anything that's exceptionally financially unstable or completely unrelatable for us as well i totally agree with the having it all thing i think that that's so pertinent. I think what it also just reinforced to me is it's so good to be a dad and it's really fucking hard to be a mom. Her central dynamic is so much about her creativity and so much of motherhood is draining on all fronts. And it's just by nature, if you breastfeed and if you're the birth giving parent, that it's going to be more taxing on your body and on your mind and we've read all of the statistics about how a pregnancy is the same as like running a marathon every day and that some of those things can't be helped but it's on top of that the mental and emotional labor that the woman goes through and then the kind of loss of sense of self and the way that your body changes and it's just the gargantuan task that goes so much farther beyond

and then the extra layers if you're someone who your career is something that you identify as part of your personhood and your creativity is so central to you, you lose all of those things. And a man, more often than not, and it bores me how much I talk in gender binaries, because I really don't think I think like this day to day. And then whenever we talk about something, it just comes up so much. But more often than not, the man does get to have a beautiful, gorgeous child and carry on going to work and have his loving relationship with his partner. So I don't know. I think I agree with you guys that there is an element of joyousness to it.

But I did take away from it a kind of like depressing truth, which is that there is so much compromise when it comes to long-term love, relationships that include children. And for some people, it's worth it. But watching films like this just reinforces this idea to me that I don't know if I have that level of compromise in me and that I will be satiated enough. But it's that age-old thing of like, you can never explain the joy of having a child

until you have one, which makes us childless people always so confused. And so while I love film films like this I almost don't want to consume them because it terrifies me to be honest it did just make me feel really stressed on behalf of mothers and I think I text you both because I went to see it separately from you earlier and only was like well I went to see it with Ruchira I was invited I just don't live in London and so I went to see it alone and i was like immediately i've got to talk to someone about this so i think i messaged you both just to say my thoughts initially which was really like to seem to

reject this message at points and then i think men will hate this and i'm still really curious to find out from men whether they did hate this whether this did read as a horror for them because the male character in it is not unsympathetic and it's like he goes to work he does shoulder the financial burden but i think it's only much later in the film where he kind of really takes on board what she's shouldering and how difficult it is to be a solo parent how difficult it is to spend all of that time to have you know the elements of your life completely obliterated and and rachel yoda the author of the book this is based on talks and interviews she's like it's a complete loss of identity you aren't going to work anymore you're not creating anymore and she goes from being like cosmopolitan artist like really promising career

to she can't create anymore because it's not financially viable it just seems so like spirit killing and a lot of the horror i mean it's not horror at all really especially if you contrast it with something like the substance but there's some real body horror elements a few bits in this film i was like this is hard to keep my eyes on the screen i did want to look away there are some bits which are gross i guess but only gross because it's to do with the transformation of a body and i think again we've talked about this in our halloween episode how primed the female experience is for being a part of body horror whether it's breastfeeding birth pregnancy menopause all of these things are so primed towards horror body horror and it's not a

traditionally male experience so i do wonder how this film will read to dads watching it especially as the passive villain of this film for a lot of it is the dad who just does not get at the husband who just can't quite grasp it who says these stupid things and she wants to batter him it's it's i think it's a really i think there's a lot of nuance to the film i do hope people will watch it so this monday after a five-day manhunt 26 year old luigi manjoni was arrested and charged with the murder of healthcare insurance ceo brian thompson last week manjoni's lawyer has said he's pleading not guilty to those offenses i haven't seen any evidence that he's the shooter since the arrest there has been so much speculation about Luigi himself. Using his

name and digital footprint, thousands of people online have tried to guess or prove his motives, his personal beliefs, his health, his sexuality, his relationship status. The New York Times has reported that Luigi was carrying, when caught, his own handwritten manifesto, which has since been published by Ken Klippenstein on Substack. Luigi's Twitter seems to have been found, along with his Instagram and what looks like his Goodreads account. If it is his, he has read and favourably reviewed a book by Theodore John Kaczynski, e.g. Ted Kaczynski, e.g. the Unabomber, the American mathematician and domestic terrorist who murdered three people and injured 23 others in a male bombing campaign designed to protest

advanced technology and the destruction of the natural world. In his supposed review, Luigi wrote, when all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it's not terrorism, it's war and revolution. He also gave the Lorax by Dr. Seuss five stars. This is just one of several fairly bonkers things to come out of Mangione's arrest and the release of his name. People are combing the internet for more information about him, for clues, for selfies and videos,

which they are then using to make and sell merch. Fan cams have been created using footage of him after his arrest and of him entering court for his extradition hearing of his mugshot of cctv footage of old social media photos there is already fan fiction about him and a twitter account called at luigi crave has gained over 50 000 followers despite only tweeting 46 times 45 of those tweets about luigi the general consensus online is this man is hot, he has committed a righteous crime against a wildly exploitative system and we are now his legion

of fans. So it's been a particularly weird week online which I know is most weeks but this week really really bizarre and it may be hard to fully understand the scope of that unless you are as I am as all three of us are chronically online. But we're going to try and unpack it a bit here on this episode. And we're not going to get into the weeds discussing the healthcare and health insurance systems in America. I think there are better people more equipped to do that, nor talk about his manifesto or the righteousness or otherwise of the crime. But rather, I just want to talk about what it looks like in this digital landscape in this modern world when a crime and an accused criminal go viral ostensibly for being quite sexy. So this

news story has been racing along for the last week plus. I'd like to know from you both what have been the wilder things that you have seen in the online reporting of this? So the lookalike competition I think it was like three days after news had broken of this news story that was the thing that I found really weird. I guess how quickly he was memed it was almost immediately. Richira you said something really good in the group when we were talking about discussing this, because obviously it can be a bit of a thorny issue is criminal proceedings and murder is not something that we should ever talk about in a light breath. And you said everyone's been really emotionally dissociative.

And I was like, God, you're so right, because I had been sitting there liking these tweets, you know, that GIF or video of Beyonce tapping with the pen the stylus pen like happily tapping that was me just and it was like god I've actually completely dissociated from like the cold hard facts of what's happening no matter where you sit on this fence people are kind of seeing it as like a Robin Hood doing bad for doing good kind of thing and it's like the perfect convergence of online sleuthing which we've seen with so many normal people getting so into true crime that they're taking genuine current criminal proceedings and becoming detectives. That's like one element of it. Like people are matching up pictures of the

picture of the shooter and then pictures of him being like the eyebrows are different and the smile's different. Then people are doing memes. And then the fact that he's hot, just thirsting on the internet, it takes people to absolutely crazy wild places. We've seen people thirsting over Stalin in the past. People are ready to go wherever they think there is a hot piece of ass. While it seems weird to joke about it, I think there will be, to go back to the episode on the PhD, there will be a PhD thesis about what makes someone the internet's boyfriend because that is currently

what he is it's it's a do you know what it's kind of it's symptomatic of where we are people are looking for a hero people are rightly angry in the world people are poor people are struggling and he's kind of yeah like an anti-hero anti-villain that people finally think they can cling to which in a fictional land in the world of movies and tv is fine but because of this space between reality and the internet if this was in the cold hard light of day and the person that was killed was your friend's dad or someone that you knew and you know that's not that far. I'm sure that someone's dad works in health insurance, whatever, you'd have a different view. I think what's really interesting is,

I guess that it's kind of parasocial. It's just this, the distance we have between what's real and what's not real and the land that we live in on the internet. What is that doing to our brains? Have you guys noticed an uptick in the amount of 9-11 jokes online? And I saw somebody tweet about it a few months ago and they were saying they were finding it really jarring somebody else had replied to

them and said it is just like the natural convergence of how the Overton window has shifted in how provocative our jokes have become and we've spoken about this before where previously about five years ago everyone was talking about how everything is so pc so pc and in some ways it is but i also think online lexicon is the most provocative it's ever been in my memory and also the fact that enough time has passed from 9-11 that it feels so detached from young people online a lot of people aka gen z were you know born post 9-11 so it's not in their living memory so I guess it kind of shifts the relatability relativity of that moment in history to them much like you said that people create fandoms over Stalin it's not in their lifetime so it's very easy to depersonalize disassociate emotionally from the severity of figures like that but it is interesting that

this is like a live situation and apart from the hoton from, I want to say like eight years ago, and I can't even remember what he did, but this like very attractive guy whose mugshot went viral. I can't really think of a live situation where the internet has thirsted in such an aggressive way and made this person out to be a heartthrob. It is quite wild. And I understand politically why people are needing a hero. I mean, you know, healthcare in the US is absolutely fucked. Like you said, Anoni, like I said in the group, I am finding the amount of emotional disassociation online really quite a lot. And I can't really, I don't know, I'm just finding it all very strange and very confusing and very jarring, honestly. I think that does speak to you being a well-rounded person because as you were speaking

I was like well we had a hotfellan Daniel Khalif who escaped from I can't remember what I think it's a prison in London in I want to say autumn of last year autumn 2023 and because he was a bit dishy people also were doing the memes about him. It wasn't quite to this level. And I think because it was an escape, people were attaching a sort of funny great escape narrative to it. Whereas this is perhaps a little bit closer to the bone. What I will say, as someone who is very online, we do do this about the big events. There are big days on Twitter, big weeks on Twitter.

This has been one of them. It was the same when it was the Titanic sub, which was in the process of being lost, the submersible. That was a big one because it was a big ongoing news story and people could chan up memes. Same when Henry Kissinger died, same when Trump had COVID, same when Queen Elizabeth died. It's often these quite sad or quite grisly or quite dark news stories that because they're breaking because everyone else is talking about them there's real possibility of virality and kind of being a part of something and the rapid fire tweets my entire timeline talked about nothing else but this and i think because this is the biggest news story everyone else is talking about it there's almost like you can actually make your online fortune by commenting on it by jumping on other

people's memes there is something there in how we've incentivized talking about incentivized virality almost incentivized being a little bit close to the bone and being a little bit provocative no actually a lot provocative there is a lot to be said for that in terms of getting points on the internet that I do think a lot of us don't think about it. Whichever side you fall on, this is potentially a very sad case on either side. Sad for anyone who is on the side of law and order. Sad for anyone who's on the side of taking down these big companies because you can imagine it's desperation and needing to be a revolutionary. Either way, it's a really heavy thing to have been almost hijacked by discussions about how fuckable a man in handcuffs is.

And I really am not trying to be judgmental of people that are getting swept up in this and having a bit of fun with it. But actually, when you do step back and take your position, Ruchira, it's actually kind of wild to think this is where we are in our discussions and in our discourse and in our kind of relating and humanity towards someone lying dead on the street. It's a little bit jarring. It is jarring, but I was going to bring up about the Queen and the Gospel because the thread running through is it's getting lost and it's really tragic there is an empathy gap when people are killed due to war or or when they're viewed as statistics or when it's down to paperwork whereas when it's like an individual death of a named person you know it's sometimes easier to find empathy and so on the internet there's this like over correction to point that out and whilst it is a point it's not always as clean cut as suggesting that.

But it's that eat the rich thing where that's right, that's so complicated because it's real life. But the kind of schadenfreude, I don't even know if schadenfreude is the right term to use for this situation. But with the submassable, I remember even in that it was icky because I was following that on tenterhooks, but the internet was doing the same thing. And with Queen Elizabeth, if you weren't on Twitter, God, you would have been absolutely horrified because I was following that on tenterhooks, but the internet was doing the same thing. And with Queen Elizabeth, if you weren't on Twitter, God, you would have been absolutely horrified because I was having my family sending really sweet pictures of Paddington and saying they were crying. And then you'd log onto Twitter and people were posting the most horrendous things.

So it is part of the lexicon, the language, but people must feel in some ways it's a form of resistance or individual fight back against these systems but it doesn't make it right just because it's righteous so one thing i did see about this which i did think was quite funny because it was maybe not a joke about the jokes but it was so memeified it was and we've mentioned before at medium-sized meech um tweet he was tweeting in the style of a sex in the city conversation which is kind of a well-trodden meme on Twitter of like each of the women of the show reacting to this um and he says Miranda says they found the UHC shooter his name is Luigi Mangione and he's hot and then Charlotte says I don't think we should be calling murderers hot Samantha says honey I need that man in my

Gioni and Carrie says Big is moving to Paris And I think his tweet on the surface looks perhaps like it's just about this. It's just a joke about this, but it's like a meme based on a meme based on a 20 plus year old television show, which has kind of fallen back into favour. And a lot of it is almost laughing at how ridiculous this all is. And we are in an irony epidemic. Ethel Kane described it as that when she was talking about how she can't put out any sincere work because everyone will make a joke of it. And she posted this on Tumblr, which is deliciously millennial. I'm sure we've talked about this in an episode, but I cannot recall when, but I'm sure we've gone into how nothing is taken seriously anymore. And it is just this, there's nothing that is safe from this kind of reaction. I can't work out if

it is a force for evil, whether it's kind of harmless, whether it is a symptom of this baffling online time we're living in. But I really grapple with this because like you and I, I was favoriting, I wasn't participating, but I was laughing along at some of them. And then I would get this moment where I went, am I just one of these commenters online that is trying to grapple for relevance grapple for you know a stake in this so that I have something to say am I being really heartless I don't know at all like it just feels like we can't take this seriously if we have to resort to being thirsty and we've not even touched on and maybe listeners can give us their thoughts on like pretty politics

at play and like you know the beauty element and like would we do this if he was didn't look like this it feels like a mess I have to say I am then still scrolling I'm looking for the next bit of content because everything is flipping content I was literally just about to say it's pretty privileged like this is the whole thing it is also the outrageous amount of pictures that we're getting of him I have never seen normally get one mugshot there has been endless streams of photographs of this man I do think it is the pretty privilege I do think there's a reason we get distracted by beauty and god have we talked about beauty a million times in this podcast and it's no different in this

scenario I think you're so right if he was less attractive if if the story was less compelling I think it's because from the moment it happened it does feel a bit like a film so it is just the perfect fodder for online content it feels very 4chan to me like if you inserted an incel killer here and looked at those forums like four years ago I feel like that's the kind of vibe we're now seeing in the more like mainstream arenas yeah and I can definitely appreciate people's discomfort with that because it is thirsting upon like it is centering all on the politics and the attractiveness, which is just so symptomatic of where we are. We are a really vain culture. I think there's a lot to say for restructuring

society and actually discussing quite level-headedly why someone would commit a crime like this. I'm sure we'll get more as the trial proceeds, but right now it is very base and it is perhaps quite disappointing at times. Thank you so much for listening this week. And thank you to everyone who listened to this week's episode of Everything in Conversation, which came out on Wednesday and was all about the allegations towards Greg Wallace. It felt like a really necessary conversation to have and we got so many amazing messages from you all that we used in the episode this is all happening on instagram by the way at everything is content pod so if you want to be involved at all please get over there and follow

us immediately we're also on tiktok at the same handle and just a little reminder that we are a very small team making this twice a week out of pure love so if you enjoy the podcast it helps us so much when you give us a rating or a view on your podcast app we read them all and we love everyone who's taken time to do this and don't forget word of mouth spread those mouths girls and boys tell your friends and i just wanted to say that please share us with men we might be you know a super girly pop podcast but we have proof that men listen to us too so please share us with men we might be you know a super girly pop podcast but we have proof that men listen to us too so please share us on to your ex your future male compadre your male teacher whoever your dad your dad's friends thank you so much and see you next week

you