A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - Gwen Stefani： From Feminist to Fascist

00:00:00.000 Hey, everyone. I just got my ashes and I'm ready for Lent.

00:00:03.080 It's going to be the most transformative Lent of our lives.

00:00:10.500 Check it out. God bless.

00:00:12.580 Do you guys know Lisa from Blackpink?

00:00:15.280 Yeah.

00:00:16.140 She has this song called Rockstar where one of the lyrics in the chorus is...

00:00:20.800 I'm going to do my best Lisa impression.

00:00:22.920 Lisa, can you teach me Japanese? I said, hi, hi.

00:00:25.860 little known fact she's actually recalling an interaction she had with Gwen Stefani

00:00:31.060 no I'm kidding I'm kidding oh my god I thought you were for real

00:00:37.360 I thought that was a real fun fact I just I just love the idea of Gwen Stefani being like Lisa

00:00:44.020 can you teach me Japanese okay 0.99

00:00:55.860 Hello, hello, and welcome back to A Bit Fruity. 0.96

00:00:59.680 The other day, I saw a tweet from a one Gwen Stefani that absolutely stopped me dead in my tracks.

00:01:08.960 Would one of you like to read this Gwen Stefani tweet?

00:01:11.420 Because I feel like it needs the feminine touch. 0.79

00:01:13.820 Wow.

00:01:14.540 At Jonathan Rumi, you are a powerful, inspirational human.

00:01:19.340 What an enlightening, intelligent, beautiful interview.

00:01:22.880 Thank you for being you, GX.

00:01:25.240 The interview in question was one between Jonathan Rumi, an actor known for his roles in various Christian TV shows and movies, and a one, Tucker Carlson.

00:01:38.680 I was perplexed. I was shaken. I was paralyzed.

00:01:44.580 Gwen Stefani, Gwen Stefani of I'm just a girl.

00:01:49.680 i've been you know you know that's right i'm sorry i've spent i've spent the last 48 hours

00:02:03.260 looking and listening to nothing except gwen stefani and so it's really just like her kind of

00:02:09.080 i'm just a girl like the way she really kind of curls around certain uh consonants is front and 0.65

00:02:15.600 center of my brain right now but this was gwen stefani of no doubt promoting tucker carlson of

00:02:21.040 the great replacement theory for the rest of the day there were but four words running through my 0.99

00:02:27.240 head this shit is bananas my day as i had planned it was over i needed to know everything i'd fallen 0.93

00:02:35.660 into a sweet escape that felt neither sweet sorry this whole episode is gonna be pause 0.99

00:02:43.820 i'm really i started writing the intro and i couldn't stop

00:02:49.600 i'd fallen into a sweet escape that felt neither sweet nor like an escape rather a rabbit hole

00:02:57.860 so i went to gwen's instagram now littered with advertisements for the hallow daily prayer app

00:03:04.320 advertisements on which thousands of commenters are saying things like what happened to gwen

00:03:09.200 Stefani and bring back Gwen. I went on TikTok to find a viral video of a gay man getting his

00:03:16.260 tattoo of Gwen Stefani's face removed. Where to? I found similar comments like Gwen Stefani would

00:03:23.160 hate Gwen Stefani. This feels like a recurring script in pop culture lately, especially for

00:03:28.700 people in and around my age group. Pop culture fixtures that we grew up alongside making as so

00:03:34.980 many have, the MAGA pivot. In today's episode, I wanted to come together, Taylor, Kat, me,

00:03:41.640 you the listener, to do what has become an unfortunate ritual lately, mourn a pop diva.

00:03:47.960 Specific to Gwen, I want to figure out where and why the pivot from punk rock princess to

00:03:53.000 Harajuku culture vulture to trad wife occurred and draw from it broader conclusions about

00:04:00.040 privilege, cultural appropriation, celebrity artifice, and whatever the hell is going on

00:04:05.380 with that prayer app. As usual lately, I am joined by two of my best friends,

00:04:12.120 Kat Tenbarge and Taylor Lorenz. Welcome back to the show.

00:04:16.260 Hi. Thanks for having us back again.

00:04:19.400 And before we get into the meat of the episode, if you would like more of the show and or to

00:04:24.460 support the show, we are over on Patreon with some bonus episodes. I recently did a bonus

00:04:29.580 with trans culture critic Fran Tirado about Amelia Perez and the disaster that has come 0.51

00:04:36.180 of representation politics. And I am doing some live shows this spring, which I would

00:04:43.260 love to see you at. I'm so excited. It'll be just like the podcast, but live. We are doing shows in

00:04:49.900 Toronto, Chicago, Philly, Brooklyn, Seattle, LA, and Portland this May and June. So if you're

00:04:57.660 interested in that, the link will be in the episode description. So before we get into the

00:05:03.800 chronology of Gwen's life and career and see how it shaped up to be what it is today, I want to

00:05:10.720 ask you guys, like, how are you feeling going into this? And what is the mood given, you know,

00:05:16.900 your personal and cultural relationship to Gwen Stefani? Well, when you texted us and were like,

00:05:23.280 have you guys seen what's going on with Gwen Stefani? I was like, no. And then as soon as we

00:05:29.100 started putting the pieces together, and as soon as we started like doing research on this,

00:05:34.020 I was just like, I should have really like it all makes so much more sense now. And I almost feel

00:05:38.540 silly for not realizing how transparent like the Gwen Stefani act has been. But I think a lot of

00:05:45.480 people are in the same boat. So I'm glad that we're gonna walk through it all. You know,

00:05:49.940 the Gwen Stefani thing was so wild to me because I haven't thought about her in years, but she was

00:05:54.980 such a part of my childhood, like as a millennial, like I think literally in like fifth grade,

00:06:00.660 I definitely did not have one of her CDs. Cause I was not allowed to listen to like that sort of

00:06:05.580 music, but she was like popular, you know, she was so cool. I just remember having like young

00:06:11.800 emotional relationships and like listening to her music and being obsessed. And she was so

00:06:18.800 beautiful and she had like the perfect washboard abs and like perfect hair and I mean now looking

00:06:25.040 back at some of her costumes there's deeply problematic but at the time she just seemed

00:06:29.780 so theatrical and cool and like emo and awesome. I remember there was a theme park in Cincinnati

00:06:35.760 where I grew up where in like the kids section they would always be playing The Sweet Escape

00:06:41.460 by Gwen Stefani. Oh my god Sweet Escape that was a song that I feel like my friends and I

00:06:46.640 would like blast in the car and the summers and like blasting it and like getting ice cream and

00:06:53.780 like it was such a that was such a good song truly one of the best pop hooks of the 2000s that

00:06:59.420 it's so instantly iconic and recognizable well gwen stefani was born in 1969 a few months after

00:07:12.100 Woodstock, notably, in Anaheim, a city in Orange County, California. And that's the end of our

00:07:19.340 episode. Thank you so much for joining. Taylor, as our resident Californian on the podcast,

00:07:26.400 would you like to describe maybe the political significance of Orange County, California?

00:07:31.200 Orange County, California is kind of weird because it's actually kind of a Republican stronghold,

00:07:35.260 like Huntington Beach and like so much of that area is mega.

00:07:40.700 Like now it's pro-Trump, but it's always been right-leaning.

00:07:43.880 A lot of big mega churches are down there, like Irvine.

00:07:47.540 Like it's very Christian. 0.90

00:07:49.720 It's very different than LA, even though it's right outside LA. 1.00

00:07:53.360 It's like a suburb of LA practically.

00:07:54.920 But like culturally, it's much closer to like the South or somewhere else.

00:08:00.240 Like it is this like sort of different pocket of culture within California.

00:08:04.540 at. Gwen's Italian American dad was a marketing executive for Yamaha motorcycles and would often

00:08:11.960 go on trips for business to Japan. Her mother was an Irish American homemaker. Gwen had an older

00:08:21.660 brother named Eric and two younger siblings. There's this great essay that I am going to

00:08:27.160 reference a number of times throughout this episode. It's from 2018 and it's by a writer

00:08:31.260 named ann helen peterson it's called the new gwen stefani is a lot like the old one i'm going to

00:08:36.800 link that essay in the episode description if you want to read it but ann wrote gwen had grown up in

00:08:41.200 a devoutly catholic home which over the years to come she would describe as the brady bunch family

00:08:46.760 church every sunday her mom got mad when she used the f word on stage but took solace in the fact

00:08:52.800 that she didn't have any tattoos or piercings her dad was thankful that stefani spent her teen years 0.76

00:08:58.640 playing piccolo in the school marching band. Her family had once taken a trip to the Vatican,

00:09:03.700 on which Stefani, then age 21, was forbidden to talk to boys. In a different interview,

00:09:09.800 Gwen said, we weren't rich, but we definitely had whatever we wanted.

00:09:12.960 That sounds like you're rich, by the way.

00:09:16.980 Yes, it does. So Gwen really enters the public imagination as the front member of No Doubt. 0.69

00:09:24.340 No Doubt was formed in 1986 as a ska band by Gwen's older brother, Eric, and his friend, John Spence.

00:09:32.780 Originally, Gwen Stefani, I keep wanting to call her Gwyneth Paltrow.

00:09:36.520 Jesus Christ.

00:09:39.600 Different episode. Let me know if you want it.

00:09:43.860 That is truly another episode. That is another six episodes.

00:09:47.300 Gwyneth, Jesus, Gwen Stefani.

00:09:49.700 the year after no doubt was formed john spence died by suicide and gwen's brother eric slotted

00:09:57.540 gwen in as the lead singer there's this interview that gwen stefani does in 2004 with vogue where

00:10:03.660 there are a lot of really insane quotes that i think are revealing of an attitude about what

00:10:08.900 it means to be a woman that she's had for basically her whole life including while she was in no doubt

00:10:13.440 in that interview she says i was very passive my brother did everything i was like i'm just the

00:10:19.280 sister. And then after that, I was Tony's girlfriend, describing a relationship she had

00:10:23.740 with a band member. And that was good enough for me. I never really had any ambitions or goals or

00:10:29.260 dreams. Listen, when I read that, I was just like, I was so mad because I was like, this is

00:10:35.140 just so performative. Like whenever a woman tries to say, I'm I have no inner life. Like I have no 1.00

00:10:43.560 ambitions. I have no hopes. I have no dreams. I have no goals. It's just not true. But it is

00:10:48.260 something where it's like very clearly you want people and men to have this idea of you that

00:10:55.560 you're very non-threatening and I think that it annoys me uh especially because it's like

00:11:01.620 Gwen Stefani here is creating a caricature of herself where she's dehumanizing herself like

00:11:07.400 she's basically saying I'm just a blank slate for you to project onto whatever your expectations of 0.62

00:11:13.260 me I can meet them which is like a fallacy and it's also something that only a very specific 1.00

00:11:19.360 kind of woman can get away with like for a woman to be considered a blank slate you have to conform 1.00

00:11:25.240 to uh basically all of the most privileged aspects of being a woman it only really works for her 1.00

00:11:31.600 because she was like a white conventionally attractive and therefore non-threatening 1.00

00:11:36.040 like type of woman who came from California who could just as easily be like edgy as well as the 1.00

00:11:41.960 girl next door like it's very easy for her to take on whatever role whatever the audience whatever

00:11:48.540 the person consuming her wants to see she can be that person but that in itself is a privilege

00:11:54.420 and by sitting there and being like and and lying because we also know that like she does obviously 0.98

00:11:59.880 like she's very clearly a very ambitious woman so it really pisses me off when women sit there

00:12:05.820 and are like i don't actually have ambitions you see this so frequently with like women in 0.63

00:12:10.460 conservative media they're like women should not have ambitions women should not want to work 0.61

00:12:15.480 women should not want to like own anything and it's like shut up you literally are like a

00:12:20.340 multi-millionaire who runs her own media company like you're literally Gwen Stefani like don't 1.00

00:12:25.100 tell me that you have no dreams or goals. Trad wife Gwen Stefani. It's ridiculous. 0.99

00:12:33.940 So no doubt they have sort of a following within California but nothing national certainly nothing 0.76

00:12:40.240 international. Nobody really knows who they are on the world stage yet. And then in 1990,

00:12:46.800 No Doubt is signed by Jimmy Iovine, who is the co-founder of Interscope Records. Some years later

00:12:53.880 in 1995, No Doubt would release their smash hit album, Tragic Kingdom, of which you are most

00:13:00.740 definitely familiar with, if not by name, then with the songs like Don't Speak, Spiderwebs,

00:13:05.620 just a girl gwen stefani really takes on this you know feminist punk rock image she kind of 0.98

00:13:14.160 becomes the image of those things in the latter half of the 90s taylor as the i feel like kat 1.00

00:13:20.840 and i are both like gen z millennial cusps but as the old one as the old hag of a bit fruity

00:13:30.820 well we were talking on the phone last night and you were kind of describing like what gwen stefani 1.00

00:13:40.540 meant to you as a middle schooler during this time she was just so cool and so independent and

00:13:45.460 i think also the lyrics like obviously i'm just a girl had been out for a while but like

00:13:49.080 it was so pervasive and it was it felt like this like independent anthem because she first of all

00:13:55.040 she's the lead singer of this like cool band. Right. And at the time, so much of the pop music

00:14:03.220 landscape, at least during my like tween and then later teen years was, it was like the Britney

00:14:08.100 Spears era. It was the Christina Aguilera era. Like it was all about these, like this sort of

00:14:12.320 like hyper feminine, like pop star women, single acts. And then on the male side, you had like

00:14:17.740 blink one 82, like Oasis was kind of like, I don't know, just like all these like male kind

00:14:23.340 of like bands that I feel like guys were into and like they would listen to it like the warped tour

00:14:28.780 or whatever and so like Gwen was this like kind of like gateway into that like more male world or

00:14:34.080 like she just see she actually seemed to be like challenging gender norms in a way I liked that 1.00

00:14:40.200 she had this sort of alternative version of femininity in my perception because she wasn't 1.00

00:14:44.900 just like I'm a jean in a bottle or whatever which obviously like you know Christina's amazing we love 0.92

00:14:50.140 her we love her and they were forced to like now we know so much about sort of like the way that 0.93

00:14:54.180 the pop industry commodifies women but i think like at the time it's she seemed rebellious like 1.00

00:14:58.940 she would wear these like low slung like big pants and like pool tops and had the chopsticks 1.00

00:15:04.200 in her hair which we can get into but like i remember i actually went to soho when in middle

00:15:10.220 school and there was this big i can't remember the name it was like this big asian market i think

00:15:15.060 it's still there oh pearl river market right yeah yeah yeah yeah it's just like soho chinatown i

00:15:19.860 would always go to canal street to buy knockoff i think i was trying to get like a knockoff kate

00:15:24.000 spade bag on canal street and like we're walking around and i remember my friend bought like a

00:15:29.920 like one of those like fake kimono type tops because it was like in because i think like

00:15:35.260 gwen was wearing it at the time or it was like definitely part of that like late 90s early 2000s

00:15:39.880 style which now reads as crazy cultural appropriation but at the time seemed like

00:15:45.380 alt and cool and she seemed alt and cool. She really took on this sort of feminist image that 0.99

00:15:51.620 you know you read early interviews with her and it definitely seems like she wanted to take the 1.00

00:15:56.980 mantle that had been handed over by like you know a Courtney Love type and make it softer. I think

00:16:02.960 Gwen's image has always been attempting to hold two truths at once which is on one hand this sort 1.00

00:16:08.220 of like creatively adventurous feminist type irreverent creative soul with this like aspiring 1.00

00:16:15.300 trad wife. And again, from that 2004 cover interview that she did, she was describing 0.84

00:16:21.060 when Jimmy Iovine signed her to Interscope. Here's the quote, Kat, I feel like you're gonna

00:16:26.020 love to hate this. But she said, Jimmy took me aside and said, Gwen, you're going to be a huge

00:16:32.280 star in six years. I was like, first of all, who the hell are you? And second of all, I'm not going 0.92

00:16:38.800 to be in this band six years from now. I'm going to be having 14 children and be married. Then

00:16:44.380 practically to the day Don't Speak was number one around the world. It's pretty spooky. We always

00:16:49.840 laugh about that. It's really funny because it's like, like you were saying, Taylor, just listening

00:16:54.880 to Gwen Stefani's biggest songs, you would think that she was, if not feminist, just simply an

00:17:01.580 alternative. Like she presents this idea in her music and she did this throughout various eras 0.93

00:17:07.240 of her career where she would kind of nod to the fact of like misogyny and like how she's considered

00:17:12.660 as a woman also very similar to what pink does i feel like in a lot of her music at around this

00:17:17.880 time like they're presented as like a thing that you can still consume but that prevent presents

00:17:22.660 like a very slightly alternative view of womanhood and it's ironic that that's what she presented in

00:17:28.720 her music but that at the exact same time she was saying like literally i want to be a trad wife i

00:17:34.540 want to be like 25 years old with 14 children on a farm and i also think it's very interesting

00:17:40.840 the fact that like Disneyland has played such an important role like symbolically throughout her

00:17:47.360 life because she grew up in Anaheim and she was part of like the Anaheim youth who would spend so

00:17:53.640 much time at Disneyland which as unfortunately a Disney adult someone who reads a lot of

00:17:58.060 unfortunately as someone who reads a lot of books about Disney history I think it's really

00:18:03.220 interesting that she grew up in this community that was like very affluent and had like the

00:18:08.820 resources to spend a lot of time at Disneyland which don't get me wrong at the time I think it

00:18:13.160 costs like $15 to go there but still you know Tragic Kingdom they use Disney as like a symbol

00:18:20.180 and sort of are like rebelling against it and how they posture it but at the same time like

00:18:25.020 she has spent her whole life frequently going to Disney today she's known as a celeb who is

00:18:29.860 frequently like spotted at Disney she takes her kids there and the juxtaposition of like Disney

00:18:34.840 as the ultimate symbol of American capitalism,

00:18:37.740 the ultimate symbol of being consumer-friendly,

00:18:40.660 consumer-safe, non-threatening.

00:18:43.380 Like, I just think it makes a lot of sense

00:18:45.160 that in the same way in her music and in her persona,

00:18:48.960 she's combining these two things.

00:18:50.440 And, like, that makes sense to me

00:18:51.940 that that's part of her aesthetic.

00:18:53.720 Do you guys know about the 1995

00:18:55.160 Roe vs. Wade anniversary show appearance?

00:18:58.820 Okay.

00:18:59.800 So this is something that is written about in that 2018 essay.

00:19:03.920 but basically in 1995 as no doubt is exploding in fame with their album tragic kingdom they're

00:19:10.680 asked to perform at a roe versus wade anniversary show where gwen gets on stage and says quote if i

00:19:17.320 got pregnant right now i wouldn't get an abortion but isn't it cool that nobody can tell me what i

00:19:22.260 can and can't do and the and the the organizers of the show were like we did not know that she

00:19:32.240 was going to say that. I think it's so interesting how she's always actually been consistent with her

00:19:37.460 conservative values. But I guess maybe because the conservative movement didn't have the same

00:19:43.080 sort of like cultural capital and power, it was so not perceived. Like she's doing these things

00:19:50.560 that like now today, imagine that on Twitter, you know, we would immediately sort of contextualize 0.80

00:19:56.200 her differently. But I think also just the media climate was so different. And the media climate

00:20:00.720 was so misogynistic back then she could maintain that like hyper feminist independent image 1.00

00:20:06.300 despite her repeatedly saying all of this stuff that makes it clear that that's not who she is

00:20:11.980 so what this reminds me of is how in this I feel like cultural period where it's like post-Roe

00:20:19.580 um well Rose still exists at this time and like within like the popular discourse around abortion

00:20:26.140 you see this weird sort of thing emerge where it's like in twilight the whole end of the twilight

00:20:33.120 series is about how like bella swan wants the choice to not have an abortion essentially and

00:20:39.380 like the word abortion does not appear in the twilight series but this was a conversation at

00:20:43.480 the time was like why would you have a narrative that's so focused on a woman who like wants to

00:20:49.940 choose to keep her kid and not like have an abortion and Gwen Stefani saying this at this

00:20:55.900 like abortion centered event I'm like she's literally she's doing like the Stephanie Meyer

00:21:00.660 Bella Swan thing I am so appreciative of the breadth of your references you're just like

00:21:05.480 Gwen Stefani is Disney Gwen Stefani is Bella Swan it's so aspirational cultural appropriation is

00:21:15.240 obviously a huge through line in Gwen Stefani's entire career and it starts really early with

00:21:21.120 Gwen Stefani if you recall during the no doubt era wearing a bindi yes which is if you're

00:21:27.400 unfamiliar it's a jewelry or a mark often a red dot worn by a lot of South Asian women specifically

00:21:34.180 in India as usually a spiritual symbol evoking the concept of the third eye and Gwen started

00:21:41.760 wearing this you can see it like in all of her music videos and photo shoots and performances

00:21:46.020 Gwen who again Irish American mom Italian American dad she was in a relationship with her bandmate

00:21:53.280 Tony in no doubt who was Indian and whose mother wore a bindi so Gwen Stefani would go to their

00:22:00.320 house for you know family gatherings and she was like I'm just trying to imagine like Gwen like 0.89

00:22:05.520 being like i love that you know like can i get one of those and then she did she just like she

00:22:12.860 went to like claire's or something and she bought some stick-on jewels and she started wearing a

00:22:16.540 bindi yeah this was so part of her aesthetic back then also like i mean it's interesting how she was

00:22:23.680 always tied in with like asian cultures you know and i don't remember any discourse around it i

00:22:29.840 feel like they sold those bindis i mean people replicated that like that was a accessory yeah

00:22:35.080 I feel like any pushback in the 90s and early 2000s to cultural appropriation was like there

00:22:42.280 since there was no Twitter there was not a way to communicate it to the masses really quickly

00:22:46.940 in the way that discourse around cultural appropriation would later evolve and I feel

00:22:51.260 like people who did speak out early on about it were oftentimes just like really easily dismissed

00:22:57.200 where would they even speak out to totally like there's barely a mechanism to do it one of I feel

00:23:03.360 like the hallmarks when we're talking about cultural appropriation, because people always

00:23:06.360 love to say, oh, well, you know, appreciation versus appropriation. What's the difference?

00:23:10.660 Meow, meow. But I feel like one of the hallmarks of cultural appropriation is the relative

00:23:15.640 political power of the cultures which are being borrowed and which are borrowing. And in this

00:23:21.180 case, it's, you know, a well-to-do white woman in America borrowing from cultures that outside of

00:23:28.280 like, you know, aesthetic costume value are not celebrated and are often, you know, denigrated 0.97

00:23:34.520 and discriminated against in American culture. It's about, you know, this white woman ultimately

00:23:38.620 being able to profit and then discard accessories and looks from these cultures. And Gwen really 0.99

00:23:45.500 does that a lot throughout her career. Anne Helen Peterson wrote, no matter how much Stefani

00:23:50.520 borrowed from other people and cultures to create her look, it was framed as uniquely hers. When

00:23:55.520 Madonna showed up with her hands, I thought this was crazy. When Madonna showed up with her hands

00:23:59.820 hennaed at an MTV Music Video Awards in 1998, Entertainment Weekly suggested she was cribbing 0.98

00:24:06.160 Stefani's look. Stefani's response was, quote, I was a little shocked by that, but whatever.

00:24:12.480 I'm sure there are things I nicked off of her from the 80s. Zero self-reflection. Which is also a

00:24:17.920 through line. Also, didn't Gwyneth Paltrow, sorry to bring it back to her, but didn't she say she

00:24:22.040 invented yoga or like she popularized yoga so I feel like this is a kind of like a thing that 1.00

00:24:28.560 white women celebrities especially in like the lifestyle or like cultural trendsetting space

00:24:33.300 are like that was my thing and it's like it's literally not at all and it's just like to such

00:24:39.560 an offensive degree when we talk about Gwen Stefani and cultural appropriation we often

00:24:43.860 relegate it to things like the bindi and the way that she would seriously mooch off of Japanese

00:24:51.140 and Harajuku culture which we are about to talk about but when I was outlining this episode and 0.64

00:24:55.560 I was looking at really just like the through line of who Gwen Stefani is and perhaps always been

00:25:00.100 I think it's helpful maybe and you you tell me what you think but I feel like it could be helpful

00:25:04.880 to make sense of her sort of like feminist punk rock era as another cultural costume and maybe

00:25:12.900 the one that resonates with people the most because that's the one where she entered public

00:25:17.280 imagination yeah it is so funny because i don't even know that it's something that she embraced

00:25:23.280 as much as like it was sort of put on her maybe by like the public and by the music industry and

00:25:29.360 sort of trying to position herself as different and just like again being the front woman of this

00:25:33.460 band at a time when that was seen as like sort of subversive and like you said she's like sort of

00:25:38.160 alternative and cool but it doesn't seem like she ever embraced it herself it's funny like you said

00:25:44.900 that it's everyone's first impression

00:25:46.640 and first impressions are always our lasting impression

00:25:49.480 because it's how we're introduced to this artist.

00:25:52.100 And often it's very hard for artists

00:25:53.460 to like evolve past, you know,

00:25:55.080 what they're originally known for.

00:25:56.480 But it's just kind of funny

00:25:57.420 because it doesn't even sound like it was something

00:25:59.060 that she really embraced.

00:26:01.120 From that Vogue 2004 interview, Gwen said,

00:26:04.340 the scene that I grew up in with female artists

00:26:06.520 like Bikini Kill and Hole

00:26:08.060 and all these more punk rock girls, 0.85

00:26:10.560 I always had the pressure of, 1.00

00:26:12.520 you've got to be a feminist 1.00

00:26:13.440 and you've got to hate guys and you've got to cuss and be tough. And I was never like that. 0.94

00:26:19.080 I grew up like a Catholic good girl. That always kind of scared me, the pressure of having to be

00:26:24.020 so cool or like, fuck you to the world. But I kind of got over that and realized that, yes, 0.99

00:26:28.980 I love to dress up and I love to wear makeup and be myself. I like being a girl. I like having a

00:26:34.640 door open for me. I like all the traditional stuff and I won't deny it. So it's like basically in

00:26:39.580 order to sell herself as countercultural rather than do something authentic because authentically

00:26:44.480 she is not countercultural at all so in order to market herself and sell herself the clearest path

00:26:50.800 for her to do that was to just steal from another culture and we'll get into it more but I think the 0.52

00:26:56.580 way that she presents Japanese culture in itself is so deeply problematic it's like she's trying 0.56

00:27:02.700 to create edge where there is none so she's going about it by just pilfering from Japanese culture

00:27:08.220 I also obviously like it just the way that she perceives feminism is so warped and just the 1.00

00:27:15.880 pick me type attitude of like I'm not like those other female artists I like to have the door open 1.00

00:27:21.620 for me and that's why I'm not a real feminist like it's bizarre I would just like to take a quick

00:27:28.280 break from the show to thank factor for sponsoring this episode and making this podcast possible I

00:27:35.180 have personally just felt life kicking into high gear lately between ever evolving personal

00:27:40.980 responsibilities and new work stuff like these live podcast shows which I am so excited for

00:27:46.600 but it does reach a point like there is a great chance that the podcast episode you are listening

00:27:52.140 to or watching right now was edited at four in the morning which is to say I am looking lately

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00:28:26.080 preferences to choose from my go-to is protein plus i know i know the twink gym rat i'm just

00:28:35.920 kidding which has all sorts of delicious protein rich meals that i first of all cannot cook because

00:28:42.380 i have not invested the time into learning how to cook them and second of all honestly just don't

00:28:46.780 have the desire to make the time for because for me if i have an extra hour in the late afternoon

00:28:51.600 to either cook or nap.

00:28:53.780 I am so sorry, Gordon Ramsay,

00:28:56.140 but the lights are going out.

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00:29:17.660 Thank you so much to Factor.

00:29:19.180 And now let's get back to the show. 0.99

00:29:21.600 something really interesting about this point in her career when she's transitioning out of

00:29:26.540 no doubt and transitioning into herself as a solo act i've been listening to the song what

00:29:32.200 you waiting for a lot recently and i watched the music video multiple times we can't play it but

00:29:37.960 uh i'll sing because i know that's what everyone wants what you're waiting what you're waiting

00:29:42.400 what you're waiting what you're waiting what you're waiting all right that was really good

00:29:47.640 so in this song and specifically i think the music video is really really interesting because

00:29:57.240 one of the things that stuck out to me about the lyrics in the song is there's a power she's like

00:30:01.520 i know it's so messed up how our society all thinks about women like that's the implication

00:30:06.360 and so listening to it i was like is this like a feminist anthem slay and then i went and watched

00:30:12.320 the music video and I was like this is racist because in the music video yes the the plot of

00:30:19.000 the extended music video is that Gwen is preparing to launch her solo career and she does not know

00:30:25.900 what type of song to write she doesn't know what type of aesthetic to have she doesn't know what

00:30:30.120 to do or sing about and she's like yikes the pressure is really like ticking down because I

00:30:35.280 have this huge record deal and I need to come up with something that's going to define my solo era

00:30:39.940 so I need to get some inspiration and in the music video she like goes to a doctor's office

00:30:44.580 and like takes this pill then has this fantasy where she's doing like an Alice in Wonderland

00:30:50.220 scene but all of the people are Japanese in the background of the scene like all the different

00:30:55.880 characters besides her are Japanese people and this is like a very marked entrance I think into

00:31:01.740 this era where she particularly appropriates from Japanese culture and it's literally presented to

00:31:08.080 the audience as like Gwen didn't know what to do so she took inspiration from Japanese culture

00:31:13.880 and is going to make millions of dollars off of it like that is literally the narrative

00:31:18.900 that underlines the entrance of her solo career you know like you mentioned Kat I don't think

00:31:24.060 that she sees women of color as equal to her like even in that video that you're talking about when 0.70

00:31:29.420 I was just re-watching it it ends and she's just sort of like performing in this room in front of

00:31:34.800 this group of like four women of color where they're sort of like passively staring at her

00:31:40.000 and she's like this beautiful butterfly you know that's emerged and is superior or something can

00:31:46.480 now like fly out of the wonderland it's like she views asian women and asian people as very one

00:31:52.800 dimensional but by taking from them it's like she views herself as more of a three four dimensional

00:31:58.340 person. So as we've been getting at in 2004, Gwen goes solo with the release of her solo

00:32:06.960 debut, Love Angel Music Baby or Lamb. This album has all of the hits, Hollaback Girl,

00:32:17.560 Bubble Pop Electric, Rich Girl, What You Waiting For? And the entire concept for the album was

00:32:23.160 based on harajuku harajuku it's an area in shibuya japan which is known for its youth fashion

00:32:32.460 culture harajuku as a style it's very colorful it's lots of layering vibrant colors maximalism

00:32:40.160 more is more it has a huge influence on fashion today like even on tiktok she says of this album

00:32:47.320 that her dad who again was that yamaha motorcycles executive that he would come back from business

00:32:52.960 trips from Japan when she was a child and he would tell her stories of the street performers

00:32:57.220 there and then when she could finally travel on her own she says she went to Harajuku in 1996

00:33:03.320 when she was on tour with no doubt and she became fixated and so part of a huge part of perhaps the

00:33:11.900 part of the album rollout the album imagery the tours the promo was her Harajuku girls the Harajuku

00:33:22.060 Girls were four Japanese and Japanese American backup dancers that Gwen Stefani hired to promote 0.54

00:33:30.560 the Love Angel Music Baby album. This is like not new. Like I'm basically just describing this

00:33:36.280 because I always like to give context for what I'm talking about. And also there are some listeners

00:33:40.360 of this podcast who are either too old or too young to remember the Harajuku Girl era. These

00:33:45.940 four women, they were with Gwen everywhere. They were at her performances. They were in her music

00:33:53.580 videos. They were at her like red carpets where they famously would not speak. They were instructed

00:34:02.160 to be totally silent and just stand there. Gwen also would sometimes introduce them as her,

00:34:07.800 and I thought this was crazy, imaginary friends. She named these four women who are, 0.99

00:34:14.000 just reminder real women love angel music and baby there's this one lyric from rich girl the

00:34:21.720 song if i was a rich girl which i think i think encapsulates her concept of these women and of

00:34:32.080 the album at large really well she says i'd get me four harajuku girls to inspire me and they'd

00:34:38.780 come to my rescue i had addressed them wicked i'd give them names love angel music baby hurry up

00:34:47.240 and come and save me i mean this is dark well i just think it's like it's shocking how she had

00:34:53.620 these women dress so she has these quote-unquote harajuku girls dressed up as like sort of a parody

00:34:59.480 of like geisha women where they have their faces often like where they're wearing like very like 0.98

00:35:05.440 white makeup they have the red circles painted on their cheeks they have the little narrow lipstick 0.84

00:35:11.100 of just sort of like just the middle of your mouth colored the high eyebrows the thin eyebrows like

00:35:16.080 it's just it's such a parody of I think what a lot of people in the west view as Japanese culture

00:35:23.100 or sort of traditional Japanese aesthetics. One of like the harms of what Gwen Stefani did

00:35:28.920 with her portrayal of Harajuku girls and Japanese culture is that because she had such a huge

00:35:35.420 platform in popular culture, her portrayal of Japanese people and of Japanese women in particular

00:35:41.980 is the most widespread portrayal that a lot of her listeners and people in her audience received.

00:35:49.060 So for example, as like a white tween girl growing up in suburban Ohio, I was not exposed

00:35:56.440 to authentic, respectful portrayals of Japanese culture that were made by Japanese people,

00:36:02.340 as much as I was exposed to what Gwen Stefani was doing and how Gwen Stefani was portraying

00:36:07.560 Japanese people. That was what I had the most exposure to. And so even though like I didn't

00:36:13.560 walk away from it having a worse view of Japanese people, the view that I had was this Americanized

00:36:19.420 appropriative version. And it wasn't until I was much older that I actually learned more about

00:36:25.640 Japanese culture from Japanese people. I think about the artist Rina Sawayama who talks about

00:36:31.640 this and makes art about this and about being like a Japanese British woman and about how Japanese

00:36:38.180 people are portrayed as a stereotype and about how that is so difficult to navigate. And I think that

00:36:43.840 the way that Gwen had the Harajuku girls stand behind her silently and the way that they were 0.75

00:36:49.400 objectified and the way that ultimately they were sexualized because they were supposed to be like

00:36:55.780 really cute girls who were playing into this album image that was ultimately sexy. And that

00:37:02.120 in particular is really damaging to Asian women. Japanese women and Asian women are already 1.00

00:37:09.500 infantilized and sexualized, particularly in the Western image of their culture. And so I think 0.99

00:37:16.360 that Gwen Stefani 100 million percent not only does she contribute to this but if you just look

00:37:22.280 at how massive this cultural impact was I think it's like it's a part of her history that she

00:37:28.040 has never apologized for or owned up to and it's she should she has to um the harm has not been

00:37:35.720 undone it has not even been acknowledged I think also I mean like Kat you mentioned her impact on

00:37:42.400 suburban America and women's fashion was wide. This is a woman who, especially back then,

00:37:50.400 was considered this trendsetter, this style icon. She was so ahead of her time. And I think that

00:37:57.020 you saw this ripple effect too, where you just had a lot of other suburban white American girls

00:38:02.100 cosplaying Japanese people or their perceptions of Japanese people, right? It was going to get 1.00

00:38:08.080 the like kimono style top from delia's or whatever i saw this when we're talking about

00:38:13.880 this episode that gwen stefani debuted a harajuku mini line for kids for target yes again it just

00:38:20.700 shows like she was just commodifying this other culture that she had really no connection to

00:38:26.540 and then selling it to the masses in america very successfully well she had kids lines but she had

00:38:32.240 an adult line she had a fragrance line called harajuku lovers where there were five different

00:38:37.400 fragrances one for each of the women and one for her i think forbes estimated that between 2007 and

00:38:43.700 2008 between the merchandise and the tour i believe she made 27 million dollars wow it's also i think

00:38:52.280 you know looking at what harajuku is like right now everything that i've read about it talks about

00:38:57.980 how harajuku in particular has become so commercial since the time when gwen stefani first went to

00:39:04.300 harajuku versus now there's like massive over tourism in japan generally speaking um i just

00:39:12.200 did an article about this for wired looking at how like tiktok has influenced people in particular

00:39:16.860 to like go to japan and it's led to massive over tourism so harajuku today it's incredibly crowded

00:39:23.540 and the people who are there are oftentimes western tourists looking to capture some of

00:39:29.480 what Gwen Stefani was talking about in like her early aughts music um but the culture that she

00:39:35.880 was stealing from is now actually eroding and disappearing in part because Harajuku has been

00:39:43.220 taken over by American corporate brands like if you go to Harajuku today there's like a Nike store

00:39:48.940 there's like all of these like American brands that have taken this very valuable space and part

00:39:55.080 of like, why American tourists want to go there has to do with the fact that Gwen Stefani popularized

00:40:01.400 Harajuku to such an extent. Something that you'll hear come up a lot when people talk specifically

00:40:06.860 about Gwen Stefani and the Harajuku era was this idea that, you know, conversations around cultural

00:40:12.700 appropriation were not in 2004 what they are today. And I think that's a complicated idea,

00:40:18.540 because while it's true that cultural appropriation, the conversations about it were

00:40:22.980 not like buzzy the way that they are today. There were especially Asian women at the time who were

00:40:29.600 very vocal about the fact that they were not okay with what Gwen Stefani was doing.

00:40:34.960 And I was reading some essays from those women, and I wanted to quote them. So in 2005,

00:40:40.680 this journalist named Mihi An in a salon article called Gwenihana wrote,

00:40:45.860 She's even named them Love, Angel, Music, and Baby after her album and new clothing line.

00:40:51.620 The renaming of four adults led one poster on a message board to Muse.

00:40:56.640 I didn't think it was legal to own human pets, but I guess so if you have the money for it.

00:41:02.180 Stefani fawns over Harajuku's style and her lyrics, but her appropriation of this subculture

00:41:07.140 makes about as much sense as The Gap selling anarchy t-shirts. She swallowed a subversive

00:41:12.620 youth culture in Japan and barfed up another image of submissive, giggling Asian women. 1.00

00:41:18.400 While aping a style that's supposed to be about individuality and personal expression, 1.00

00:41:23.080 Stefani ends up being the only one who stands out.

00:41:26.000 Another really scathing article was actually from comedian Margaret Cho,

00:41:30.780 who on her blog in 2005 wrote,

00:41:33.140 I want to like the Harajuku girls, and I want to think that they're great, but I'm not sure if I can. 0.56

00:41:38.000 I mean, racial stereotypes are really cute sometimes,

00:41:40.680 and I don't want to bum everyone out by pointing out the minstrel show.

00:41:44.220 I think it is totally acceptable to enjoy the Harajuku girls,

00:41:47.380 because there are not that many other Asian people out there in the media, really.

00:41:50.960 So we have to take whatever we can get.

00:41:52.920 At least it is a measure of visibility, which is much better than invisibility. 0.82

00:41:57.460 I am so sick of not existing that I would settle for following any white person around with an umbrella 0.67

00:42:02.380 just so I could say I was there. 0.59

00:42:04.360 Even though to me, a Japanese schoolgirl uniform is kind of like blackface, 0.97

00:42:08.560 I'm just in acceptance over it because something is better than nothing. 1.00

00:42:12.640 An ugly picture is better than a blank space. 1.00

00:42:15.040 and it means that one day we will have another display at the Museum of Asian Invisibility 0.88

00:42:20.160 that groups of children will crowd around in disbelief because once upon a time we weren't

00:42:25.460 there. Wow. That like took my breath away because it's so sad. I'll link that too in the episode

00:42:31.080 description. I'll link both of those essays and not to just like knock your socks off but Gwen

00:42:36.020 Stefani responded to this Margaret Cho essay. We're actually we're going to get into a few of

00:42:40.960 Gwen Stefani's responses to these types of criticisms over the years. And the first of

00:42:45.760 those responses comes in 2007 to Margaret Cho in an interview that Gwen Stefani did in Entertainment

00:42:50.560 Weekly. She said, and I am so sorry to be reading this, Margaret didn't do her research. The truth

00:42:56.320 is that I basically was saying how great that culture is. It pisses me off that Cho would not

00:43:01.060 do the research then talk out like that. It's just so embarrassing for her. The Harujuku Girls

00:43:06.160 is an art project.

00:43:07.380 It's fun.

00:43:08.640 What an abhorrent response. 1.00

00:43:11.220 Margaret Cho doesn't need to do research on being Asian. 1.00

00:43:15.060 So Gwen should be doing her research 1.00

00:43:17.260 and frankly has expressed no interest

00:43:19.940 in actually researching this issue

00:43:21.540 or learning about the nuances of these cultures.

00:43:25.160 And I think that that sort of response

00:43:27.880 and that dismissiveness

00:43:28.840 and her continued insistence on doubling down, 0.55

00:43:31.860 it just shows that she has no interest

00:43:34.820 in self-reflection

00:43:36.060 and she fundamentally has no respect for these cultures because here is a incredibly prominent

00:43:42.000 asian woman telling you educating doing the actual work to educate you and writing so thoughtfully

00:43:48.780 and and in such a beautiful and nuanced way and i mean her reaction is to just dismiss it it's

00:43:54.760 wild yeah i think her response is honestly evil because it's like if you didn't read margaret's

00:44:01.340 piece and you only read Gwen's response which is like two sentences and much easier to digest

00:44:06.820 you would walk away with like it's basically like disinformation because she's like oh she

00:44:11.580 just doesn't get that I my intent is not negative and it's like that's not the question on the table

00:44:17.760 intent doesn't matter if the end result is harmful and I also don't think that Gwen went into this

00:44:24.580 with good intent like even if the argument is like I appreciate the culture I it's not true

00:44:30.080 You don't appreciate the culture.

00:44:31.600 She fetishizes it in order to commercialize it and sell it back to people for profit. 1.00

00:44:36.740 Exactly. 0.99

00:44:37.460 It's the exact opposite of appreciation.

00:44:39.400 It's exploitation.

00:44:40.700 Seven years later in 2014, Time Magazine did an interview with Gwen Stefani where they

00:44:45.280 once again asked her if she regretted how she went about the Harajuku era, to which

00:44:49.360 she said, no, there's always going to be two sides to everything.

00:44:53.560 For me, everything that I did with the Harajuku girls was a pure compliment and being a fan.

00:44:58.360 You can't be a fan of somebody else or another culture?

00:45:01.520 Of course you can.

00:45:02.580 Of course you can celebrate other cultures.

00:45:04.640 That's what Japanese culture and American culture have done.

00:45:07.840 It's like I say in the song Harajuku Girls. 1.00

00:45:10.060 It's a ping pong match.

00:45:11.720 We do something American.

00:45:13.200 They take it and flip it and make it so Japanese and so cool.

00:45:16.620 And we take it back and go, whoa, that's so cool.

00:45:20.300 That's so beautiful.

00:45:21.600 It's a beautiful thing in the world, how our cultures come together.

00:45:24.160 I don't feel like I did anything but share that love.

00:45:26.780 you can look at it from a negative point of view if you want to but get off my cloud get off her

00:45:31.700 cloud get off her cloud i love that i started this episode with like talking about tucker carlson and

00:45:38.080 the prayer app which we are going to get to that shortly but i wanted to go through the entirety

00:45:43.280 of her career to demonstrate something that i think is really well encapsulated in quotes like

00:45:47.640 this which is that like i think she's always been conservative yeah i think she's always been

00:45:51.600 conservative like i think she's you know like honestly like always been kind of a white

00:45:56.260 supremacist and has worn various costumes to artistic critical acclaim and made a ton of

00:46:03.060 money doing that kind of thing but it's never been out of respect and it makes sense that

00:46:07.360 ultimately like the return to form is this trad wife selling prayer wrap subscriptions i also

00:46:12.500 think her use of the word fan is really interesting because i think she's using it interchangeably

00:46:17.420 with the word consumer which is to say that like the only way you can interact or engage with

00:46:22.520 Japanese people and their culture is to, in her case, profit from it, but otherwise to buy it.

00:46:28.980 And I just think that it all kind of links back to this idea where one pillar of her conservatism 0.97

00:46:34.460 is just the desire to profit and consume. And I think that that in particular is so harmful when

00:46:41.820 you look at cultures through the lens of consumption and capitalism only, because it's

00:46:46.480 exactly what she's doing. She's erasing the foundation and the vast majority of Japanese 1.00

00:46:51.140 culture to distill it down to this thing that you can literally go to target and buy for your 1.00

00:46:55.560 children. And now that conservatism and her specific brand of conservatism and trad wife 0.99

00:47:01.080 culture is becoming more culturally dominant. And there is like a, a way to profit off that 1.00

00:47:07.060 she's able to lean further into who she always has been and just further her profit. It's sort

00:47:13.400 of like, Oh, okay. Well, I, I bided my time, you know, dipping my toes into all these other

00:47:18.040 cultures, doing all these other things to kind of profit, like you mentioned, Kat. But now she

00:47:22.140 doesn't have to pretend. She can shill her prayer app. She can be who she always has been, but more

00:47:27.900 openly, and not suffer any sort of financial setback for it. Because if the perception of

00:47:33.940 her was as this trad wife, sort of like anti-feminist back a decade ago, she wouldn't 1.00

00:47:39.360 have been able to make the money that she was making. And of course, she's telling us who she 1.00

00:47:43.740 is, obviously through these interviews, but I think also the marketing teams around her and

00:47:48.400 how they're able to position her and her business team, which, you know, she runs, they can do the

00:47:53.160 prayer app deal, right? Like they can do these things now where it's like, all right, this is

00:47:57.600 mainstream now. And guess what? She's always been around. You know, every single time she's given

00:48:02.620 the opportunity to apologize or reconsider the Harajuku era, she always goes into this diatribe

00:48:09.560 about like, but cultural diffusion is so amazing. Again, like never acknowledging the varying

00:48:15.400 degrees of power and the flow of power that cultural appropriation entails. But it's

00:48:20.660 particularly egregious when you consider something that was unearthed on Twitter about a year and a

00:48:25.860 half ago by this account called Tokyo Fashion. They brought to light this legal document where

00:48:30.380 Gwyneth Paltrow's legal team actually tried to... Not Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt. Fuck! 1.00

00:48:34.580 where Gwen Stefani's legal team actually tried to trademark the word Harajuku in America under 0.99

00:48:45.800 her brand and the trademark examiner was like Harajuku is a place you can't trademark that

00:48:51.300 and they were like but the only reason anybody knows it in America is because of Gwen Stefani

00:48:56.300 which is just like if you're actually interested in like organic vibrant cultural exchanges why

00:49:01.800 are you trying to trademark harajuku it gives the whole game away like like you said matt this is

00:49:07.320 white supremacy in action like if you're basically insinuating that gwen stefani is the only reason

00:49:12.420 you're saying that she's the only reason people know what harajuku is you've just given the whole

00:49:16.440 game away in a trademark application like that's so on the nose it's it's a clear and direct desire

00:49:23.360 to profit off of an entire place that is not yours that does not belong to you but you believe that

00:49:30.100 it should and to control the consumption of that culture and to ensure that you always profit from

00:49:37.600 consumption of that culture it just goes back to like her earliest days you know when she had that

00:49:42.780 feud with madonna right where it's like well i'm the one that mainstreamed indian culture so you

00:49:47.440 know she should be thanking me people should be buying my line of bindis or whatever because she

00:49:52.820 sees herself as the one bringing these like exotic cultures to American suburbia and she kind of did

00:50:01.160 do that right like but the problem is is that that's bad this trademark thing really gives it's

00:50:07.020 like the jig is up you can really see just how explicit it is and so I think we have to also

00:50:13.480 recognize that she knows what she's doing and I think maybe she's in denial because she has these

00:50:17.620 fundamentally conservative believes but it's very transparent what's happening quick break from the

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00:51:50.080 Blueland and get 15% off your first order, you can head over to blueland.com slash fruity. That's

00:51:57.060 blueland.com slash fruity. Now let's get back to the episode. Gwen Stefani is given yet another

00:52:06.540 opportunity in 2023, another nine years after the Time magazine interview from 2014, to atone

00:52:14.640 for the Harajuku era. She does this interview with Allure magazine, the beauty magazine,

00:52:20.320 with a journalist named Jessa Marie Kalur, who is a Filipina-American journalist who asked her 0.69

00:52:27.480 about the Harajuku girls. This is one of the craziest things I have ever read. Here's an

00:52:32.740 excerpt from that interview. As an adult, Gwen was able to travel to Harajuku to see the Harajuku

00:52:37.340 girls herself. I said, my God, I'm Japanese and I didn't know it. As those words seem to hang in

00:52:43.800 the air between us, Gwen continued, I am, you know. During our interview, Stefani asserted twice

00:52:50.200 that she was Japanese and once that she was, quote, a little bit of an Orange County girl

00:52:55.220 and a little bit of a Japanese girl and a little bit of an English girl. I mean,

00:52:59.760 what this reminds me a lot of the white lotus episode that just came out with that man who

00:53:05.600 was like clearly having some like trans identity thoughts and was like and i was wondering to

00:53:09.940 myself am i an asian girl like that was literally gwen stefani in 2004 yes and it's so egregious

00:53:16.420 and i think it just really reinforces the fact that like to gwen stefani identity is so one

00:53:23.280 dimensional, because for her, she can afford for identity to be one dimensional. In reality,

00:53:29.940 Gwen Stefani is just a woman from Orange County. She's not a woman from the UK, and she is

00:53:35.500 certainly not a Japanese woman. And it is so easy for her as a white woman from Orange County, 0.61

00:53:41.160 who is very rich and very famous, not really threatened by much and perceived as non-threatening

00:53:46.800 to others, it's very easy for her to say, oh my god, I'm Japanese. She carries none of the baggage

00:53:53.700 or the stigma or the experiences of racism that come along with being a person of color in America.

00:54:01.340 And so it's incredibly offensive for her to say this. The fact that she's speaking to an Asian

00:54:05.560 woman, the journalist who she's speaking to, and the fact that she's saying this. And the journalist

00:54:09.980 is clearly writing out, like, these words hang in the air between us. And then she just says it

00:54:16.060 again. Gwen Stefani has, on one hand, the lack of self-awareness to conduct herself responsibly 0.99

00:54:24.220 and respectfully in this conversation, but she has enough awareness to know that what she is doing

00:54:30.520 reinforces what she's profited from and what she has benefited from all of these years. I really

00:54:36.740 think her behavior in these interviews and in response to Japanese women and Asian women is so

00:54:42.280 egregious because i really think that she is intentionally doing this like she knows exactly

00:54:47.500 what she's doing she knows she can get away with it that's why she keeps doing it every five years

00:54:52.360 it's like gwen stefani have you changed have you evolved will you apologize and each time she's

00:54:57.780 like absolutely not why would i do that i don't have to like there's no consequence for her

00:55:04.000 behavior so she just relishes in it yeah jessa writes later in that piece in her own voice

00:55:09.920 Between March 2020 and March 2022, there were 11,467 reported hate incidents against Asians

00:55:17.260 across the United States, 917 of them toward Japanese people. Stefani has often spoken up

00:55:23.780 about her deep love and appreciation for Japanese culture, but to Allure's knowledge,

00:55:28.500 she has not publicly expressed outrage or made any statements of support during this cycle of

00:55:33.320 anti-Asian hate. Japanese culture for her is only one thing. It's the thing that is

00:55:39.400 attractive to her and that she can profit from but hate crimes against Japanese people and hate

00:55:44.600 crimes against Asian people that's not part of what Gwen Stefani loves about Japanese culture

00:55:49.480 that's not the thing that made her think I'm Japanese it's because of the one-dimensional

00:55:54.440 nature of what being Japanese means to Gwen Stefani and I also think that it's no surprise

00:56:00.060 that she's zeroed in on the Harajuku fashion culture because what she's not including is sort

00:56:06.340 of what the culture that she appreciates about Japan is like the actual culture and history of

00:56:12.080 Japan because that would require her to actually be invested in what Japan is as a country what

00:56:18.240 the history of it is as a place and what its people have experienced that would be difficult

00:56:23.380 that would be nuanced that would not be palatable to the average American consumer uh and so when

00:56:29.140 people ask Gwen Stefani if she's sorry or if she feels regret for anything that she's done

00:56:35.440 why would she she's just sat here and profited from all of it like I think a lot of people and

00:56:41.080 I think even myself included as Gwen Stefani has been in the background of my life have just given

00:56:47.060 her kind of a benefit of the doubt that she has evolved along the way and I think this is a benefit

00:56:52.580 of the doubt that is particularly given to white women even when they have done absolutely nothing 0.74

00:56:57.640 to deserve it and in fact have done the exact opposite and so I think it's really important

00:57:03.120 not to view Gwen Stefani as like someone who was culturally progressive or politically progressive

00:57:09.920 before and has had this sort of like de-evolution because she has been this person all along

00:57:16.040 and to act as if there is a marked difference between the Gwen Stefani of two decades ago and

00:57:21.720 Gwen Stefani of today is dishonest it imagines that she's a better person than she actually is

00:57:28.940 the fact that people do give Gwen Stefani the benefit of the doubt the fact that people don't

00:57:34.320 view her as problematic as she actually is gets to the heart of why she's been able to get away 0.97

00:57:40.000 with this and why this is so appealing for her it's so appealing for so many white celebrity

00:57:45.020 women to put on cultures and then drop them once the baggage becomes too heavy I would love to say 1.00

00:57:52.640 that this is the end of the gwen stefani cultural appropriation timeline but unfortunately dear

00:57:59.280 listener i cannot say that are you familiar with the 2012 no doubt comeback album no i'm not no

00:58:07.880 most people aren't so in 2012 no doubt puts out a comeback album called push and shove one of the

00:58:16.560 Singles from which is called Looking Hot.

00:58:19.380 Looking Hot is a song that, first of all, isn't good, which is fine.

00:58:23.960 Bad music is just bad music.

00:58:25.480 But it's also, as so much of popular music was in 2012, it's not really about anything.

00:58:30.640 And I mention that only to say that they could have made this music video anything.

00:58:35.920 And yet they chose to make it about cowboys and Indians.

00:58:39.700 after backlash it was swiftly removed from like its official release on like vivo or whoever was

00:58:47.440 putting out music videos at the time but the video still exists online and it's exactly what

00:58:52.720 you think it is it's just it's like i almost said gwyneth paltrow again jesus christ i'm gonna need

00:58:57.100 to get like electric shocks but it's like gwen stefani wearing like you know a native american

00:59:01.380 headdress and like cowboy and indian it's it's crazy that every time gwen stefani has had a new

00:59:08.500 project like has any culture has any minority culture gone through gwen stefani's career

00:59:13.660 unscathed i don't know that alone like speaks to kind of this like thing about white mediocrity

00:59:19.620 because it's like we're getting to the point where we're like we're now reaching peak gwen

00:59:23.920 stefani in terms of like her current evolution and who she currently is but had we known that

00:59:29.380 that was gwen stefani at the beginning she would never have become the global superstar that she 0.98

00:59:34.140 is today like the real Gwen Stefani if you strip it back to just her is not successful enough like 0.95

00:59:41.160 it's not the successful Gwen Stefani that we all know and love in order to reach these career 0.86

00:59:46.460 heights she has to put on a costume because just Gwen Stefani doesn't sell Gwen Stefani only sells 1.00

00:59:53.920 when she's like stealing from someone else and using that as what is marketable about her and 0.89

00:59:59.560 I also that's why I know that she knows what she's doing that's why I know that she's known

01:00:03.360 all along that this is all so offensive and she keeps doing it anyways because it's been called

01:00:08.100 out to her over and over again repeatedly and she keeps doing that because i think she's kind of a

01:00:12.700 one trick pony but the trick is like trying on these different costumes and cultures

01:00:16.980 and we now fast forward just a little bit more to 2015 where she goes through a divorce from

01:00:24.380 gavin rossdale with whom she had three children and later that year she romantically links up

01:00:31.080 with a one um blake shelton the singing in this episode is like so amazing

01:00:40.840 yeah i like to imagine i don't know i wish i had like a monitor in their house to hear what it's

01:00:46.820 like hey blake did you make the coffee this morning i love i'm sorry i this is kind of a

01:00:55.640 Gwen roast but I really do love like her voice she just she's Gwen Stefani has such a singular

01:01:01.980 voice not even like a singing voice but like how she sounds when she speaks again it's the way she

01:01:06.560 like really curls around the consonants it's like hey Blake like I feel like it's so Southern

01:01:14.320 California yeah it's a hundred percent but so Blake Shelton is this country star and if you

01:01:22.940 recall from the time when they first get together and i think still a big part of their image is

01:01:29.360 this like gwen stefani and blake shelton what could they possibly have in common like alternative

01:01:35.780 feminist rock chick with this like hillbilly country guy but i think you the listener can

01:01:41.600 already get a sense for what i'm about to say which has been such a theme of this episode is

01:01:44.860 like they have everything in common yeah and the voice has brought so much evil onto our

01:01:50.720 like revisiting this era like this 2015 era for her when she released the album that was like

01:01:59.040 why do you have to go make me like you and also the other one um make me like you make me like you

01:02:07.240 or no that's the same one she had to do it i don't remember what they are but like so this 0.87

01:02:14.460 era she was like trying to like do like a musical comeback as well and she was not

01:02:19.180 appropriating cultures like as far as i'm aware i haven't watched the music videos so you know

01:02:24.840 from the from the lyrics alone can i name three songs off the album i am not an authority on who

01:02:31.800 has ever listened to any music but i will tell you that no i cannot and i think that that kind

01:02:37.620 of also gives the game away which is like once you lose all of the personas that gwen stefani

01:02:44.060 has put on the end result does not sell nearly as well as when she's doing cultural appropriation

01:02:51.260 like that's the version of her that was so commercially successful and now that she's

01:02:55.880 older and even with all of the cultural clout and capital that she's accumulated over the years

01:03:01.280 her return to music was not a big success I won't say it was like a total flop and when I was

01:03:07.700 listening to the lead singles I was like I think it's fun I like the beat but they weren't hits

01:03:12.620 They weren't culture-defining.

01:03:14.620 And it would have never, if Gwen Stefani had come out swinging with the type of music she started making around the 2010s alongside Blake Shelton,

01:03:21.600 it would have never established her as a superstar, that feminist punk music and then this sort of like Harajuku-inspired look made her.

01:03:29.920 What is also really interesting about the voice era, Gwen Stefani, is that it reflects like the voicification.

01:03:36.740 I think I'm the first person to say that.

01:03:39.200 The voicification.

01:03:40.560 of our culture I think like what Gwen has sort of retreated into at this point in her career

01:03:48.960 which sets her up so beautifully for what she's doing now is she's retreated into like it's not

01:03:55.100 really a retreat it's the same thing what's happening in suburban America right now like

01:03:58.640 what will get the suburban American listeners to appreciate me Gwen Stefani and so she goes for

01:04:05.640 this route that is very comfortable like it's the opposite of being edgy it's stuff that's like

01:04:11.180 palatable in a different way it's stuff that like isn't going to cause a conversation about

01:04:17.080 cultural appropriation because now that in this period of time in the 2010s and in the 2020s

01:04:22.140 those conversations are now happening like social media is now a thing if Gwen were to try to do

01:04:27.300 like a Harajuku rebirth it would cause a lot of issues for her and so I think she knows that and

01:04:33.140 so she is kind of retreating into like this more openly conformist sort of career model and at the

01:04:40.000 time that she gets the divorce and she's already co-hosting with Blake Shelton it makes so much

01:04:44.020 sense for her in terms of like you look at how conservatism has had this cultural swing in

01:04:50.560 relevancy which is what I feel like we talk about on this podcast over and over again it's like you

01:04:54.900 can track politics in America through the careers of these like white celebrity women and with

01:05:00.560 When Stefani, it's like, okay, now what's going to be profitable, what's going to be 0.80

01:05:03.980 popular, what's going to be successful?

01:05:05.640 It's like cookie cutter, TJ Maxx shopping, white suburban America, I'm going to marry

01:05:12.440 a country star.

01:05:13.500 And I think that her relationship with Blake Sheldon actually makes so much sense because

01:05:18.560 she's always just riding the wave of what is mainstream and what is popular.

01:05:22.560 And people don't want to admit it because we have taste.

01:05:25.640 But like, what's popular?

01:05:27.420 we on the a bit fruity podcast we like to think we like to think we have at least gay taste

01:05:36.600 but but like the voice is like one of the most popular tv shows in america

01:05:42.420 and blake shelton is one of the most popular people in america the voice draws more viewers

01:05:48.780 than rupaul's drag race i wouldn't know it's not it's not on my radar but when i go back to ohio

01:05:55.140 to like see my parents they have it on their TiVo well this kind of brings us to Gwen Stefani

01:06:03.720 today and I would like to talk about hallow the prayer app a little bit I know you've been waiting

01:06:09.100 for it and you've been sitting very patiently my dear listener Kat have you seen the advertisements

01:06:14.220 I have now because I sent them to you but we're gonna pretend that you haven't yet so that we can

01:06:18.780 all be on the same page I think this is insane okay here it is hey everyone I just got my ashes

01:06:28.720 and I'm ready for Lent this year I'll be doing Hallow's 40-day Lent prayer challenge it's gonna

01:06:35.480 be incredible check it out God bless looking to grow closer to God this Lent I'd love to invite

01:06:41.600 you to join me in praying every day leading up to Easter on the Hallow app I love this app and I use

01:06:48.280 it every day. You'll join millions of Christians around the world, including the incredible

01:06:52.960 Mark Wahlberg, Jonathan Rumi, Father Mike Schmitz, and so many more in meditating on Jesus's way to

01:07:00.720 the cross. It's going to be the most transformative Lent of our lives. This season has always been my

01:07:06.920 favorite time of the year. It's a season that we get to celebrate the birth of our Lord. This year,

01:07:12.240 I'm excited to share that I've partnered with this amazing prayer meditation and music app

01:07:16.780 called hallow on their 25 day prayer challenge leading up to christmas called advent pray 25

01:07:23.580 join me and millions of other christians around the world as we celebrate together

01:07:27.820 the truth that god so loved the world that he gave us his only son

01:07:32.660 i the first time i saw this i thought i was hallucinating

01:07:37.620 what exactly is the hallow app well i'm glad you asked it is a daily prayer and meditation app that

01:07:45.380 you have to pay for which i've always just found it interesting when like things that are supposedly

01:07:51.980 purely about like religion and faith and god are also like and here's your monthly subscription but

01:07:57.300 you know never mind that it has raised tens of millions of dollars in investment funding and

01:08:03.520 is backed notably by gay right-wing activist and billionaire peter teal and jd vance our vice

01:08:12.140 president our vice president it has a number of celebrity faces including racist hate crime

01:08:18.520 committer and sometimes actor mark walberg one of its spokespeople is jim caviezel the q anon

01:08:25.080 activist and actor from sound of freedom the prayer app is so interesting to me because it

01:08:29.800 really does get back to her roots like we're seeing the real gwen stefani here she's finally

01:08:35.200 emerged back as her like catholic trad self my biggest thought about this is like religious 0.56

01:08:41.780 people are really good targets for scams because religious people have already trained themselves

01:08:48.660 to submit authority on what they do with their money what they do with their time to people who 0.68

01:08:54.740 are they view as authorities in their church or their religion and so religious people are really

01:08:58.880 easy to scam for money and that's kind of like a defining factor of religion but when you see stuff 0.64

01:09:03.660 like this it's just so transparent in a way that it hasn't been in the past because of like the

01:09:09.220 emergence of digital technology because obviously you can just pray you know you don't need to buy

01:09:14.420 an app to pray you can just do that that's what people have been doing since the invention of

01:09:20.040 prayer you can like take out your bible and you can read it and you can pray and so the fact that

01:09:25.780 they've invented a new thing like they've invented a new spiritual need for people to have and that

01:09:31.720 itself I would argue is also sacrilegious it is ridiculous and people in Gwen's comments like

01:09:38.160 called this out were like why are you profiting from like spiritual spirituality and prayer

01:09:43.340 uh that's unethical and and counterintuitive to to religion but I think in reality it makes a lot

01:09:50.140 of sense because I think that a lot of religion in reality actually is about sort of financially

01:09:55.000 exploiting people and I also think that like the fact that this is run by Peter Thiel and has

01:10:01.180 investment from teal and jd vance like that's not surprising at all either because if you look at

01:10:06.240 everything that's wrong with modern society and you're like who's the who has a hand in everything

01:10:11.920 that's wrong with modern society as we know it it's peter teal yes i i love peter teal lashings

01:10:22.040 on this podcast it's like my favorite peter teal and sam altman because i hate billionaires and i 0.91

01:10:27.420 really hate gay billionaires because i feel like i have something in common with them and that 0.80

01:10:30.560 is embarrassing I also think that like in terms of the celebrities who promote this app and like 0.99

01:10:37.400 the fact that you have these right-leaning celebrities like you have these very overtly

01:10:41.360 conservative people but then you also have people like Gwen Stefani who still is considered someone

01:10:45.600 in liberal America I also think it's probably really easy to get liberal celebrities to like

01:10:51.620 switch sides because so much of what they have like preached over the years has always been

01:10:58.200 at the end of the day like capitalist and so it's not so much like they were really strongly

01:11:03.640 believing in social progress as much as they were really strongly believing in whatever

01:11:08.580 the mainstream majority would like and therefore financially support them so now that that's

01:11:14.480 switched like there's there's nothing to hold them back from like switching over to literally

01:11:19.640 trump's administration because they were always kind of doing this they were always kind of just

01:11:25.080 looking for things that they could sponsor that fell in line with like the biggest possible

01:11:30.700 paying audience. Vice did a write-up about the Hello Prayer app where they shed some really

01:11:36.460 interesting insights. Here's one quote from that article. The app features voices known for their

01:11:40.860 conservative stances towards sexual and reproductive health rights. Lila Rose delivers

01:11:45.820 prayers on the app, who is a president and founder of Live Action, an anti-abortion advocacy group

01:11:51.300 with a significant social media presence,

01:11:53.580 which has recently been protesting outside drugstores

01:11:56.340 that disperse abortion pills.

01:11:58.500 Her prayers on the app are mainly focused on the Virgin Mary,

01:12:01.940 as well as a litany for life,

01:12:03.960 which she says, quote,

01:12:05.460 helps us to respect human life from the moment of conception

01:12:08.560 to the moment of natural death.

01:12:11.640 This makes me so mad.

01:12:14.680 Live action is one of my number one enemies.

01:12:17.600 They don't know that I exist,

01:12:19.140 but to me, they're one of my number one enemies.

01:12:21.300 This is so crazy. I did not realize there was a live action tie in with this app. But live action is super, super notorious if you are in the abortion rights space whatsoever. They're like one of the biggest arms of anti-abortion propaganda, especially in the social media age.

01:12:37.140 And the whole Gwen Stefani pivot to marrying Blake Shelton and being like a Southern belle and being like a religious Southern-esque woman, like country woman, and specifically also having lived in Orange County.

01:12:53.720 Do you know who Cole and Savannah LeBrant are?

01:12:57.280 No.

01:12:58.100 Okay.

01:12:59.720 But wait, can I guess who they are?

01:13:01.680 Are they like an influencer couple?

01:13:03.300 Yes.

01:13:03.920 Cole and Savannah, that gives influencer couple.

01:13:05.920 Yes, and they go by Cole and Sav. They were Cole and Sav, and now they're the LeBrant fam.

01:13:12.440 Okay.

01:13:15.240 I'm going to keep this brief, but I know there's going to be at least one person listening to this who is, like, cheering right now. 0.58

01:13:22.380 The LeBrants command a really big audience of people who are skeptical and people who are haters. 0.65

01:13:28.360 savannah labrant lives the life that gwen stefani said she wanted to live when she was a teenager

01:13:35.180 in no doubt she's the girl who like got married and it started having all of these kids and was

01:13:40.780 like religious and savannah labrant is from orange county and when she and cole got together they

01:13:46.040 lived in orange county but along with some other influencers like a small trickle of conservative

01:13:51.160 influencers and like super religious influencers over the past like five years they moved to

01:13:56.900 tennessee and they have worked with live action and so that's why i'm like oh it's all coming

01:14:04.540 together wow i'm i'm looking at a photograph of this family and they look like like ai generated

01:14:10.360 yes yes a hundred percent sorry continue it's just like there's a cultural movement happening

01:14:17.520 right now that involves like a few things anti-abortion stances christianity loosely defined

01:14:27.160 like christianity without any of the like standards right right christianity without

01:14:32.960 any of the teachings of christianity but more of just like the idea of like american white

01:14:37.520 nationals christianity that's come to light the aesthetics of christianity the bigotry and white

01:14:42.500 supremacy inherent to it the um anti-abortion stance and then like the celebrity influencer 0.99

01:14:48.760 lifestyle brand all of these things and fifth thing Peter Thiel and always Peter Thiel fuck 0.79

01:14:55.420 Peter Thiel these are like all coming together and creating this really big thing that I think

01:14:59.820 a lot of people aren't picking up on in popular culture which is ultimately like the erosion of

01:15:04.160 women's rights Peter Thiel is also heavily invested in fertility tracking apps so between

01:15:11.380 the fertility tracking apps and the anti-abortion prayer app that Gwen Stefani is promoting on

01:15:16.080 Instagram, you have this movement that's ultimately like the intention of all of this

01:15:21.100 is to get young white women pregnant and popping out kids and have them be conservative and have

01:15:28.380 them be religious. And like, that's what this is all about. Like Gwen Stefani is officially a part 0.74

01:15:34.200 of like the modern fascist project in america a rare moment on the a bit fruity podcast where 0.97

01:15:42.880 i'm actually rendered speechless i just have to pause and say direct to camera like this sucks

01:15:47.700 this sucks like i loved gwen stefani's early stuff yep and now she's like yeah she's she's just 0.93

01:15:55.300 doing modern fascism's work on on instagram it's it's sad what is happening to our country 0.96

01:16:02.320 it is sad and also i just you know these types of people are always in my comments and messages

01:16:08.660 about how i'm like grooming children or whatever the hallow prayer app has a section of prayers

01:16:15.220 targeted towards what they label as littles which are three to seven year olds yeah yeah

01:16:22.900 a three-year-old shouldn't even have an app well i mean but you know what like it's like they know

01:16:29.140 that those kids are watching Cocomelon.

01:16:31.220 So it's like, they're past the point

01:16:33.160 of being like, should children be on

01:16:34.700 technology? They know it's happening, so of course

01:16:37.280 they're going to take advantage of that.

01:16:39.340 Of course they're going to. It's the same

01:16:41.380 people. It's the Republicans.

01:16:43.200 I mean, Democrats too, but Republicans are like,

01:16:45.120 we gotta get kids off these phones.

01:16:47.460 No. You want them on

01:16:49.100 the Hallow app for three years old.

01:16:51.320 You want them at age three

01:16:53.120 to be listening to virginity prayers

01:16:55.340 on their phone. 0.99

01:16:56.800 It's ridiculous.

01:16:57.700 And we made it on the journey right back up to where we began at the Tucker Carlson promo tweet on Gwen Stefani's Twitter account.

01:17:06.300 And while a week or two ago when I first saw that tweet, nothing made sense, going through this entire journey in my head allowed it, unfortunately, to make a lot of sense.

01:17:17.640 And I don't yet know at the time of this recording what I'm going to title this episode, but a note that I made here, which seems fitting for a title, is this is the most honest Gwen's ever been.

01:17:29.400 I feel like when I read all of those comments, especially on Gwen Stefani's hallow prayer app, Instagram advertisements, and on the TikToks where people are like, the old Gwen Stefani would hate the new Gwen Stefani. And what happened to the Gwen Stefani I grew up with? I'm like, not to sound like a broken record this episode, but this is, I think, the clearest picture of a Gwen Stefani we have ever had.

01:17:53.360 We talk a lot on this podcast about people's radicalization to the right. We talk a lot about the various radicalization pipelines that different people go down for different reasons, whether that be financially motivated or spiritually motivated. And we try to bridge empathy with all of those different pipelines to understand how they happen and ultimately raise awareness that less people go down them.

01:18:15.180 But I think with Gwen Stefani, as with Kim Kardashian, who we talked about a month or two ago, I think this is less of a pipeline to radicalization and more like a return to form.

01:18:24.860 I think the Kim Kardashian comparison is so perfect because I really think that we're seeing the veil lifted on all of these people where these Kim Kardashian, Gwen Stefani, these people were never feminist icons.

01:18:38.780 They were never who the people that we sort of perceived them as 10 years ago, 20 years ago.

01:18:43.760 But now they can lean into that conservative ideology. They can pose with a Tesla robot. They can have their prayer app. They can basically just be who they really are, again, at a time when authenticity is rewarded and people are looking for authenticity more than anything else from these influencers and celebrities.

01:19:02.920 But I think it's so funny to see the parallels and to see kind of like all of these celebrities, especially women that were held up as these feminist icons, just go completely mask off.

01:19:14.320 And it's really been since I think like Trump's ascendance that we've seen that where they feel like they can go mask off because, again, there is now this alternative profit structure to support them.

01:19:24.400 There's an alternative economy on the right that will ensure that they continue to profit and continue to make their millions and so they don't have to play pretend anymore.

01:19:34.380 It can be easy, especially as white people, to fall into this pattern of thinking where we're like, these conservative celebrities who I used to love have been taken from me, they've changed, they're not the same person that I grew up loving.

01:19:50.240 And I can empathize with that because it's comforting to imagine that Gwen Stefani was not always someone with fascist leanings and has been radicalized by some unseen force.

01:20:00.360 But it's so important to critically examine what in the past led us here.

01:20:05.420 And we've literally walked through all the steps that showed us that this person who we see now was always the person who is Gwen Stefani.

01:20:13.500 Like, she's always been this person.

01:20:15.180 And so I think it's like really important not to overlook that, because the way that we avoid having people become outwardly fascist is that we extinguish things like, oh, cultural appropriation. We start with like the problematic patterns of behavior and the refusal to apologize for them and the refusal to feel bad about them. Because if we don't stop that, if we don't hold people accountable for that, then we end up here.

01:20:40.240 Gwen Stefani, in the event that you're listening to this episode, I would like to round out this conversation with just two words to you.

01:20:49.380 Don't speak.

01:20:51.380 I know what you're thinking and I don't need a reason.

01:20:56.040 Don't tell because it hurts.

01:20:59.260 You've mastered her vocally.

01:21:02.320 It's incredible to watch.

01:21:04.220 The listener is currently disagreeing.

01:21:07.900 The comments.

01:21:10.240 The comments, in fact, he had not mastered her vocals.

01:21:17.280 Kat and Taylor, thank you so much as always for going down the not so sweet escape with me.

01:21:24.960 Thanks so much for having us.

01:21:26.480 If you would like to follow more of Kat and Taylor's work, they are both doing incredible

01:21:33.160 independent journalism and their newsletters, podcasts, etc. All of their work will be linked

01:21:38.540 in the episode description thank you so much for joining us for the morning of yet another pop

01:21:45.420 diva i hope we don't have to keep making these again if you would like to come experience the

01:21:49.740 podcast live with perhaps some special guests perhaps some special guests that were on this

01:21:54.940 very episode who knows you can grab tickets now at the link in the episode description to the tour

01:22:02.400 i am so excited for it i really am the internet can feel so strange and dissociative and disembodied

01:22:10.540 sometimes so i can't wait to hang out with you all in person if your city is not on one of the

01:22:17.040 tour dates listed there is a place in the tour website for you to submit your city if you want

01:22:22.780 me to come hang out so feel free to do that as well i love you so much and until next time stay fruity

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - March 21, 2025

Gwen Stefani： From Feminist to Fascist

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