Maintenance Phase - October 26, 2021


Diet Book Deep Dive： Angela Lansbury's ＂Positive Moves＂

Rachel Hollis Part 2： Girl, Start Apologizing Is Being Fat Bad For You？

Episode Stats


Length

57 minutes

Words per minute

181.72

Word count

10,409

Sentence count

396

Harmful content

Misogyny

39

sentences flagged

Toxicity

89

sentences flagged

Hate speech

37

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 oh wait i have to actually talk into the microphone i was like why are the levels
00:00:13.300 so low then i'm like i'm not holding the microphone uh welcome to maintenance phase
00:00:19.080 the podcast that you can count on not to count calories oh okay i was trying to come with something
00:00:26.520 generic i'm sorry i mean it's fair i didn't tell you what the topic is today that's the thing
00:00:31.820 you've given me a difficult brief yeah you got you got nothing to go on and it fits look at that
00:00:37.240 it fits i am michael hobbs i am aubrey gordon if you would like to support the show you can do that
00:00:43.120 in two ways one you can join our patreon at patreon.com slash maintenance phase where we
00:00:48.760 have bonus episodes most recently mike and i did a lot of talking about fat suits you can also
00:00:55.460 support us on tpublic.com. And today, Mike, we're doing a surprise topic.
00:01:01.740 Yeah, tell me we were going to do something else, something involving downstairs parts.
00:01:06.300 We will still do the downstairs parts episode. Okay, good.
00:01:09.000 We've been going hard on problematic people. Today, we do have another problematic person
00:01:14.580 that we're going to talk about. But it's a complicated and not entirely problematic person.
00:01:20.400 It's a person who's like, trying to do good and succeeding some of the time and failing
00:01:26.080 some of the time.
00:01:27.340 Is it Oliver North?
00:01:29.480 What was it?
00:01:31.600 Which figure in geopolitics will we be discussing?
00:01:35.360 No, today we are doing a diet book deep dive.
00:01:38.860 It is called Positive Moves, My Personal Plan for Fitness and Wellbeing.
00:01:44.520 Okay.
00:01:45.080 It is written by one Dame Angela Lansbury.
00:01:48.160 Angela Lansbury has a diet book?
00:01:50.400 i'm so glad we did this on mike shouldn't it be called like breakfast she wrote
00:01:57.060 so it totally should be book came out in 1990 prior to that in 1988 she released a home vhs
00:02:07.700 of like fitness stuff of her fitness stuff and we are going to watch clips of angela lansbury's
00:02:13.760 home vhs i don't know if i'm ready for angela lansbury to be problematic
00:02:18.960 can't she just live in my head as like a sweet old lady i mean a lot of this is sweet old lady
00:02:26.360 content and in fact my framing for this episode is and this is a hot take angela lansbury is the
00:02:34.420 anti-goop okay so you can keep your angela lansbury all i want to do is dive in and show 0.90
00:02:41.580 you video clips of the most fucking 80s video you have ever seen in your life michael hobbs 0.99
00:02:48.460 Absolutely. If Corey Haim is not in this episode, I'm boycotting it. 0.99
00:02:51.860 Okay, so Angela Lansbury is a living legend. She turns 96 this month in October.
00:02:57.660 Oh, happy birthday.
00:02:58.560 You know her from like 70 million different things, including the Manchurian candidate.
00:03:05.080 She played Mame on Broadway.
00:03:07.460 She was in Murder, She Wrote. Of course, she was the voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast.
00:03:12.320 Oh, yeah.
00:03:12.860 So Angela Lansbury was born in London in 1925. Her mother was an actor from Belfast, Irish actor. Her dad is a real fascinating character that nobody gets into in super depth. His name is Edgar Lansbury. He is a wealthy timber magnate.
00:03:35.120 Okay.
00:03:35.900 Who was also a politician. And he's a member of the Communist Party.
00:03:41.040 So it's like red Angie? 0.95
00:03:43.160 Very confusing.
00:03:44.380 Wealthy family.
00:03:46.040 And then her dad is also in the communist party. 0.80
00:03:47.960 Like a huge commie.
00:03:49.400 Very tragically, her dad passed away when she was nine.
00:03:53.500 He died of stomach cancer.
00:03:56.440 And she has spoken in interviews about sort of like, that's when I turn to stories and characters sort of for comfort.
00:04:05.960 Was that she could step into other stories and not into the story where her dad dies.
00:04:10.360 Yeah.
00:04:11.040 Shortly thereafter, like within like a year, her mother gets engaged and then gets remarried.
00:04:17.660 Oh, okay.
00:04:18.060 This is around the age that Angela says she discovered her passion for what she calls
00:04:24.000 movement and exercise.
00:04:25.940 Okay.
00:04:26.440 And I've got a little quote from her from the Positive Moves book for you.
00:04:31.320 Wait, can I look up the cover of this book?
00:04:32.940 You can also turn on your camera and I'll show you.
00:04:35.680 Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:04:36.180 Do it, do it, do it.
00:04:37.840 Okay, here we go.
00:04:39.060 Oh, wow.
00:04:39.700 it looks like a romantic like a like a romance novel it's there's a lot of like cursive it has
00:04:45.080 the wedding invite font and then positive moves is in like a lawyer font and then it says my
00:04:51.440 personal plan for fitness and well-being and there's like she has kind of dead eyes in this
00:04:57.980 photograph it's her like staring at the camera and she looks like she hasn't blinked in years
00:05:03.540 it really looks like you know you could swap out this title and i'd be like oh is this
00:05:08.040 angela lansbury like does martha stewart yeah it seems it seems like the deranged wedding planner
00:05:13.940 who like murders everyone on like the day of the event wait can i show you the back because i feel
00:05:20.640 like the back is where you get the health and fitness part and you get a flavor for what health 0.97
00:05:24.660 and fitness means to angela lansbury and it makes me really happy oh fuck yes she's in like sweaters 0.92
00:05:31.720 and like jumpsuits the whole time this is good because she's like she's like gardening and like 1.00
00:05:36.860 going for a walk doing some stretches it's like doable stuff there's one part where she's like
00:05:41.800 having a cup of tea with her husband i thought it was leslie nielsen okay she does write about
00:05:47.820 sort of her initial relationship to quote-unquote movement and exercise practicing movement and
00:05:53.820 exercise would you like to read this quote yes she says the foundation of my attitude toward
00:06:00.460 what is now called fitness was laid many years ago by my mother when i was a very young child
00:06:05.200 she took me along with her when she joined a group of women who met once a week in Regions Park in
00:06:09.380 London to practice movement and exercise. The group was called the League of Health and Beauty.
00:06:14.960 There I was, an enthusiastic six-year-old, all dressed up in a little Greek tunic.
00:06:19.720 We would practice walking on the grass with velvet donut sorts of things on our heads.
00:06:24.820 My mother would tell me how to lower my shoulders, walk straight, and center myself in order to walk 0.82
00:06:29.520 properly and we would do classical greek dances out in the fresh air this sounds great she's doing
00:06:36.880 weird like pagan like satanic rituals like walking around in the grass i really like how quickly you
00:06:44.260 took this too it's a satanic ritual it's in the text aubrey it's in the text it's midsummer this
00:06:50.500 is midsummer i feel like a lot of the like moon juicy and goopy kind of stuff we see today is just
00:06:56.440 like work harder and be richer yeah i know i mean like just like be wealthy and this is all just
00:07:02.480 like go be in a park and do some dances wear something comfortable dude this is also because
00:07:06.940 this would have been like the 1930s in london right so this is back at a time when medical
00:07:10.920 treatment was like why don't you sit outside in a chair like three days fresh air at the seaside
00:07:17.880 i should say when her mom remarried she married um someone who's in the military so then world
00:07:24.020 war ii hits this person gets deployed and the reason that angela ends up leaving her fancy
00:07:31.260 pants high school in 1939 is that in 1940 her family relocates to the united states with a
00:07:38.360 larger group of evacuees at the beginning of the blitz oh wow so she and her family leave london
00:07:45.000 they settle in new york she's a person who has a great deal of wealth and privilege and she's also
00:07:50.180 a person who has what sounds like a legitimately hard childhood. Yeah. I can't imagine that like
00:07:56.400 wealthy British parents in the 1930s and 40s are going to be great for like processing a young
00:08:04.800 child's grief at the loss of her father. She's only met them like three times. I know how
00:08:09.340 parenting works. She files a formal request to have dinner together twice a year. So this like 1.00
00:08:16.360 style of parenting kind of shows up again when her mom goes on a tour again she's an actor so
00:08:25.160 she goes on tour and at the end of her tour she decides to move to los angeles oh she's got
00:08:32.020 british theater friends who are working in la and she thinks that they can help her break into film
00:08:38.300 Oh, yeah.
00:08:38.520 So in 1942, her mother moves to L.A. by herself and sends a telegram to a 16-year-old Angela Lansbury and says, quote, suggest you put the boys in school, close up apartment and come out to Los Angeles.
00:08:56.220 So it's like being broken up with by text, except the exact opposite.
00:08:59.140 it yeah basically like put find a school put your brothers in a boarding school break our lease
00:09:06.240 and move by yourself out to los angeles in 1942 be a deer take care of it see you soon wow so she
00:09:14.940 does it she moves out to la she lives with her mom for a bit and in 1944 just a couple years later
00:09:21.000 her mother is hosting a party in la and one of the attendees is a screenwriter that screenwriter
00:09:28.200 had just finished writing Gaslight, the actual film that gives us the term gaslighting.
00:09:33.780 Isn't it like a thing that like he keeps turning off all of the gas lights and she's like,
00:09:39.000 why are you doing that? And he's like, I'm not doing that.
00:09:41.320 Yeah. He's basically like engineering a physical environment to make this woman 1.00
00:09:45.220 think that she has lost her mind. 0.88
00:09:47.360 Right.
00:09:47.760 This is where the story starts kind of to seem apocryphal to me.
00:09:51.760 At this party, the screenwriter, she says, offers her a role in Gaslight. And I'm like,
00:09:57.900 but you're the screenwriter yeah you don't actually just get to do that also she's 17 0.94
00:10:02.960 yeah he was absolutely just like trying to have sex with her oh no i've never been to hollywood 0.94
00:10:07.760 and no one's ever tried to have sex with me so i'm not speaking from experience but that's what 0.91
00:10:11.540 it sounds like no one's ever tried to have sex with me so regardless she does get this part
00:10:18.900 okay and the movie gets sort of mixed reviews her performance is lifted up as like one of the
00:10:26.020 brightest spots in this movie right okay and she gets roles from there in national velvet she goes
00:10:32.880 on to the picture of dorian gray she gets a seven year contract with mgm this is the studio system
00:10:39.740 and in fact her performance in gaslight gets her an oscar nomination wait really yes first role on 0.82
00:10:48.120 film so she really hit the ground running she totally fucking did can i can i look up a picture 0.96
00:10:53.280 of her at this age absolutely i cannot imagine her as like a child honestly she looks so childish 0.96
00:10:59.500 as a child but also she looks like angela lansbury it's confusing okay i have a photo tell me what
00:11:04.340 you're seeing it's so she's so interesting looking because she doesn't have the like super skinny 0.98
00:11:10.740 look of most hollywood actresses even when she's like a very trim i guess 17 18 year old she has 1.00
00:11:19.540 like a really round face. She does have a round face. She has full cheeks. She doesn't look like 1.00
00:11:25.160 a fat person at all. She is definitely not fat. She has kind of the same build she has for the 1.00
00:11:30.960 rest of her life. Is it the case that she was kind of not doing sex potty roles? She was always seen 1.00
00:11:36.460 as somebody kind of like non-threateningly hot? She is someone who is consistently kept around. 0.99
00:11:42.240 She's described throughout her career as like a sort of towering figure in the world of character
00:11:46.640 actors that she's like never really all the way a lead she's never really the romantic interest
00:11:53.900 often she's always sort of like a really enjoyable b plot right and she talks about this in her book
00:12:00.860 she talks about she's like i'm not really a classic beauty i'm not really a blah blah blah
00:12:05.020 like all of that sort of stuff which i think out in the world at large i think if you saw
00:12:09.800 angela lansbury at this age out in the world you'd be like oh my god she's lovely yeah totally and
00:12:14.800 in the world of screen acting, I can see how that would get distorted real quickly. And like,
00:12:20.940 at one point, she dates someone who has just dated Joan Crawford. Okay. So like, that's the
00:12:25.780 kind of stuff that she's up against is she's like, I don't look like fucking Joan Crawford. 0.98
00:12:30.860 Right. She talks about her sort of movement practice as a way that she has learned to 0.94
00:12:35.860 embody the elegance of a more glamorous woman. That's the League of Health and Beauty that
00:12:41.320 she's in. That's fucking right. It's the League of Health and Beauty. These are like such good 1.00
00:12:45.020 role models because like 99.9% of people are not Hollywood conventionally attractive. Like we're
00:12:51.040 all attractive in our own way, right? And we're going to be attractive to some people and not
00:12:55.520 others. And like, that's the experience of like the vast majority of humanity. Like people who
00:13:00.540 are sort of universally considered conventionally attractive are such a small slice of people.
00:13:05.480 Totally. And I think it's also like easy to fall into the trap of like universal attractiveness.
00:13:10.560 like the idea that anyone is categorically the most attractive person right right this is also
00:13:17.860 how we get into weird ranking stuff it's how we get into describing people as like a seven or a
00:13:22.760 ten or a two or whatever yeah and it's not actually how human attraction works and you
00:13:28.020 should describe people according to like they give me a boner that's the way to talk about people
00:13:33.040 so i respectfully talk about people's appearance okay so from there i trust that folks sort of
00:13:40.640 know angela lansbury's career a little bit we're not going to do the full life story of angela
00:13:44.760 lansbury it did feel important to situate this conversation in terms of her like
00:13:48.840 upbringing because i think that comes up a lot so shall we dive in to the book and the video
00:13:56.160 the video the video okay so the year is 1988 Angela Lansbury is at the height of her murder
00:14:05.540 she wrote fame for folks who don't know murder she wrote Angela Lansbury plays a writer named
00:14:11.740 Jessica Fletcher who lives in a small town and solves murders and there's a murder every week
00:14:17.160 in this small town no joke I forgot about that and it was on the air for like like seven or eight
00:14:24.660 years i didn't write down the years it was on the air but like for it had a long run and people in 0.96
00:14:30.080 this tiny fucking town just kept dropping like flies so she's obviously doing it the whole time 0.68
00:14:35.040 clearly you saw the dead eyes on the cover of her book come on so let's dive into positive moves i 0.99
00:14:41.560 mean here's my here's my case for the anti-goop and then we'll go through different aspects of
00:14:46.180 the anti-goop angela lansbury is a wealthy white woman as is gwyneth paltrow she's an actor as
00:14:53.000 is Gwyneth Paltrow whose mom is also an actor as is Gwyneth Paltrow's mom yeah she's talking
00:14:58.040 about health and wellness and somehow she manages to not be aggressively terrible okay this I think
00:15:05.820 is going to be kind of the meat of the episode if you're ready for it the filet of the neighborhood
00:15:09.720 step one for why she is the anti-goop she doesn't make any big claims about results okay she's not 0.98
00:15:17.040 telling you that you are going to drop 50 pounds. She's not telling you that you're going to get 0.98
00:15:23.320 shredded. She's not. And also like, why are you going to Angela Lansbury? Don't go to her for
00:15:29.400 shreds. She's not telling you that you're going to have the energy of a 20 year old. She just
00:15:33.260 consistently talks about like, hey, man, I'm in my 60s. And I would like to continue to have energy
00:15:39.880 to do the things that I like to do. Here are the ways that I do that. That's not bad. I should also
00:15:45.220 back up and say this is also the era of like jane fonda workouts and buns of steel all right this is
00:15:51.820 the beginning of the big wave of home video workouts the way that it presents to me is as
00:15:59.280 counter programming to just be like hey you don't have to wear like french cut shiny leotards
00:16:07.400 you don't have to again like get shredded you don't have to be like the hottest lady in the 0.98
00:16:13.100 string bikini on the beach in 1988. You just got to stretch and play with your grandkids and do
00:16:19.180 some gardening, man. Make some tea, hang out. I mean, I guess this also reveals the ways that
00:16:24.040 this is a marketing industry more than a health industry. Absolutely. Because under normal
00:16:30.260 circumstances, yeah, there would be lots of advice for people in different places in their lives and
00:16:35.020 for people with like different levels of ability, right? If we were actually trying to make the
00:16:38.440 population more healthy we wouldn't actually aim diet and exercise advice at semi-hot like 26 year
00:16:46.020 olds right right who wanted to lose their last 10 pounds or get their like last ab or whatever
00:16:51.040 it would be like okay you're you're someone who's in their 60s and you want to maintain
00:16:55.300 the ability to play with your grandkids here's some steps that you could take right like that
00:16:59.140 would be reasonable health advice but most of the health advice that we're getting is aimed at health
00:17:05.000 nuts and like people who spend money on this stuff yeah and i think i mean like i do want to
00:17:09.520 say like this is also clearly a marketing opportunity right oh yeah this is getting
00:17:13.500 marketed to the audience of murder she wrote so like angela lansbury might not have been
00:17:18.980 an old person at this time but the audience for murder she wrote was a lot of older people
00:17:23.560 yeah so she does have a built-in audience here there is money to be made it was kind of a
00:17:28.680 sensation amongst that set at the time which is really lovely to me it is marketing but it's less
00:17:36.580 of the weird skewed sort of moralizing marketing yeah that we have now and less of as you say like 0.79
00:17:45.220 25 year olds get ripped so you go on love island or what the fuck i don't even know i don't know 0.61
00:17:51.160 what 25 year olds are doing they're swiping on each other aubrey that's what they do 0.98
00:17:55.300 okay so you're ready for a clip let's do it in a moment i'm going to show you how i prepare
00:18:02.820 every morning by doing some gentle stretches you don't need any special equipment or any
00:18:08.800 sort of tricky outfit just something comfortable that you can move in once i've loosened up i then
00:18:14.760 do a longer series of movements that keep me flexible and hopefully graceful and feeling a
00:18:20.360 sense of freedom within my body. Altogether, the morning stretches and the movement routine
00:18:26.280 take a good 30 minutes to do. If you have the time, you can do them all at once. Or
00:18:32.320 you can do parts of the routines at different times of the day. The movements you will see
00:18:37.520 on this tape are very fluid and easy. So, let's begin. I have a little routine that
00:18:45.560 helps me to swing into action each morning. After I get out of the shower, I give myself
00:18:51.320 a mini massage with aloe lotion. By doing this massage every day, I am literally staying
00:18:57.960 in touch with my body. I can't help but be aware of whether or not I'm in shape. Once
00:19:04.220 you've really examined your body, you have faced the moment of truth. Of course, we're
00:19:10.160 all the product of our genetic heritage and certain things we cannot alter. But I do think
00:19:15.860 that self-acceptance is vital. Give yourself a break. There's something to like in everybody.
00:19:24.300 Look at her. Right? Angela Lansbury said fat acceptance now. So the reason I picked this clip
00:19:32.240 is that it feels like it is in a nutshell, all of the great stuff and a lot of the hard stuff
00:19:38.420 about this video like i like to do these stretches i do them in a 30 minute chunk look if you're
00:19:44.280 gonna do five minutes here or there that's fine too the thing is that you do them and you do as
00:19:48.220 much of them as you feel like and you adjust them until they work for you and you get in touch with
00:19:52.980 your body and you accept it but also you have a moment of truth where you face your body and again
00:19:59.480 like this is 1988 i know dude no one really at this point outside of some like radical fat
00:20:08.120 activists is really saying like there's something to like in everybody she is also showing a lot 0.96
00:20:14.460 of herself in this she is fully wearing a towel this is like a fucking only fans she's like pulling 0.95
00:20:22.020 up the towel she's rubbing on the lotion this is the erotic episode i thought it would be so 1.00
00:20:28.780 part of what i appreciate about this clip is that she's doing the like get in touch with your body 0.99
00:20:34.920 right there like there's some mindfulness in there she's very clear that she's not an expert
00:20:40.840 yeah that's actually like a kind of like celebrity health and wellness thing that i can sort of get
00:20:46.120 behind you know what it is she's like the bob ross oh she totally is she's like maybe there's
00:20:53.460 some lotion on this elbow happy little clouds because watching this just this like feeling of 0.89
00:20:59.640 warmth just like cascades over me i'm just like i'm in good hands this woman wants what's best
00:21:05.840 for me can i tell you within the first five minutes of watching this video i like without
00:21:11.800 even thinking about it i just got up and started doing neck rolls no way i was like okay i was
00:21:18.120 just like angela lansbury wants me to stand up and stand with my feet shoulder with the part so
00:21:23.340 I'll do that. So that's the one that I would say sort of makes her the anti goop is that she's like
00:21:28.800 not making big weird claims. She also does a good job. Another thing that makes her sort of the
00:21:35.400 anti goop is that she contextualizes her health and wellness practices. And she does that around 0.99
00:21:42.600 class in particular. Okay, she's talking about being sort of a working mom. And she throughout
00:21:49.040 this book, she talks about health and wellness is both sort of like, what can you physically do?
00:21:54.300 And what do you eat? But it's also about having a positive mental attitude. Okay. And she has this
00:21:59.740 section when she's talking about having a positive mental attitude, where she talks about the things
00:22:04.500 that allowed her to have a positive mental attitude. Okay, so I'm going to send you another
00:22:08.600 quote. Okay. So she says, of course, I was a working mother, but that label didn't carry with
00:22:14.360 it all the baggage that it does now. Nevertheless, I suppose I felt very much the way young
00:22:18.520 professional women do today. Part of me was dying to stay home with my children and part of me 0.69
00:22:23.240 enjoyed my work. There were times when the emotional stamina called for was almost more
00:22:27.300 than I could muster when I had to leave my children for months at a stretch. Although I
00:22:31.400 hated being away from my children, in those days women weren't saddled with the mantle of guilt
00:22:35.320 that they are now. For professional women, it was more accepted that they would hire people to help 0.99
00:22:39.440 them look after the children. That's what I did. I hired a lovely Scottish woman who took care of 1.00
00:22:43.920 what had to be done when i couldn't she comes twice a week she cleans the toilets
00:22:48.220 michael harriet tubman and i'm just like them wow angela i will not participate in the hollising
00:22:56.460 so i mean talk to me about this quote well she's she's literally talking about exact like word
00:23:08.460 forward the exact scenario that rachel hollis was talking about where she her work requires her to
00:23:14.120 be away from her children for a while and there is this sense of guilt for doing that right that
00:23:18.680 you have this work-life balancing that's really difficult in a capitalist society in contrast to
00:23:23.740 rachel hollis she explicitly admits she's like i was able to hire somebody to help me look after
00:23:29.340 my kids so that's what i did yeah as part of a class of professional women right so she's making
00:23:35.000 some level of class explicit here. She's making some level of access explicit here. She is not 1.00
00:23:43.120 making race explicit, like at all. So she has this story where she talks about a negotiation
00:23:50.420 with Universal Television about a role. And she says, I'm just going to read this quote out to
00:23:55.900 you. All I wanted was to work no more than 12 hours at a stretch. And if that meant it would
00:24:00.500 take us eight days to complete a show instead of seven, then that's how it had to be. When I
00:24:05.520 pointed out the problem, they realized that they were right in conceding to my demands, and they
00:24:09.600 were very generous and sweet about it. I had to take a stand and say, this doesn't work for me.
00:24:14.760 Let's find a solution that does. In my definition, being healthy involves taking charge of your life
00:24:20.160 and making sure that you have enough rest and that your stress isn't too great. I genuinely can't
00:24:25.980 read that without thinking about all of the folks of color in my life and particularly women of
00:24:31.240 color who've been like this doesn't work for me let's find something that does and then people
00:24:34.940 are like no get out of here yeah there is a lot of this that is like yes also you're angela
00:24:40.000 lansbury and she doesn't necessarily make that part explicit here that it's like about being 0.65
00:24:44.020 white it's about being wealthy and it's about being angela fucking lansbury yeah i mean if 0.99
00:24:47.960 you're the star of a tv show she could basically just say like i don't want to work wednesdays 0.98
00:24:52.920 anymore. And they would probably capitulate. It feels it feels very possible, right? Yeah. 1.00
00:24:58.400 There are times when she like loses the thread a little bit of the contextualization stuff. But I
00:25:03.800 think there are lots of times when she doesn't. Well, is she turning it into like bumper sticker
00:25:08.460 advice stuff? Not really. She's like, here's like, that's the extent what you just read that like,
00:25:15.540 in my definition, being healthy involves taking charge of your life and making sure that you have
00:25:18.780 enough rest and that your stress isn't too great. That's it. She's just like, this is my definition
00:25:22.940 for me. The end. Right. She's not trying to foist it. It doesn't feel like a foist to me.
00:25:28.960 Yeah. I mean, because on some level, it's sort of fine for people to say like, yeah,
00:25:32.780 I used to really struggle with watching my kids and then I hired someone and that worked for me.
00:25:36.320 That just seems like a true story. And she's not implying that that's everybody.
00:25:39.600 Yeah, totally. Okay. So thing three that I think makes Angela Lansbury the anti-goop.
00:25:45.000 I like it when episodes have little backbones.
00:25:47.620 She focuses on accessibility and she focuses on joyful movement throughout this entire video and
00:25:57.420 the book. Pretty much every stretch includes some suggested adjustments. She's like, hey,
00:26:03.920 if you can't bend over this far, try doing it to this level. If you can't bend over at all, 0.99
00:26:08.240 then skip this one and do other stretches. If you need a towel to grab your foot in this stretch,
00:26:14.060 use a towel that's what i do here's me doing this stretch with a towel not only are the
00:26:19.420 modifications present she's announcing them in almost every stretch and then she's often doing
00:26:25.520 the modified version this is like where i got tricked into going to hot yoga on a date oh no
00:26:30.760 without forewarning and the teacher like i introduced myself and was like i've never done
00:26:35.500 this before and then the teacher the whole class she was like and now lift your left leg mike do
00:26:41.520 it with the towel every single order she's like unless you're mike in which case here's the
00:26:47.620 adjustment i'm like you can just say the adjustment yeah just say the adjusted part you don't need to 0.90
00:26:51.780 fucking call me out jesus don't know what to do also what kind of nightmare date takes you to the 0.85
00:26:57.120 sweatiest thing on the planet i'm still mad and i i never saw him again not a coincidence i think 0.99
00:27:03.460 it was like a test that i did not pass so she focuses throughout and like very emphatically
00:27:10.920 on having a pretty forgiving attitude around food and exercise and aiming to get it right
00:27:17.240 most of the time, not all of the time.
00:27:21.180 She has this quote.
00:27:22.900 I'm going to send this one to you, too.
00:27:24.400 I like being Angela.
00:27:25.480 I'm a little character actor.
00:27:27.060 I really enjoy it.
00:27:28.240 Okay, she says, more is not necessarily always better.
00:27:31.900 I think 15 to 30 minutes of exercise a day is great.
00:27:35.340 If you do five minutes, if you do two minutes thinking of yourself, that in itself is beneficial.
00:27:39.760 In fact, if I don't feel like exercising one day, I don't.
00:27:42.920 The sun is still going to rise and set, and I know I'll get back to it in another day.
00:27:46.820 Self-reproach is dreadful, and I'm against moving if it hurts.
00:27:50.380 If it hurts, stop.
00:27:51.680 I love this.
00:27:53.420 Michael?
00:27:53.940 It's just like, you know what?
00:27:55.080 Forgive yourself.
00:27:56.160 Sometimes it's a tough day.
00:27:57.540 You don't have to do everything every single time.
00:28:00.040 Totally.
00:28:00.600 And listen, sometimes your days are real busy, and maybe you live a really busy life.
00:28:04.600 If you can do five minutes of walking around the block or joyful movement or what she calls
00:28:10.260 moving freely, go forth and do it.
00:28:13.920 And like, don't do anything that hurts you.
00:28:16.220 Yeah.
00:28:16.380 Try doing something instead of nothing.
00:28:18.620 Right.
00:28:18.960 If you're doing something, try doing a little more.
00:28:21.360 And if you don't do all of that, don't beat yourself up.
00:28:24.260 Get back to it when you can. 0.98
00:28:25.500 And it's also none of this like tough love bullshit. 0.99
00:28:27.840 Yeah. 0.99
00:28:28.380 Tomorrow you have to do it even harder.
00:28:30.660 Get up earlier.
00:28:31.720 Meet your goals.
00:28:32.720 It's sort of starting from like, eh, here's some tips, but also like, sometimes you're
00:28:38.840 not going to want to do these.
00:28:40.320 Totally.
00:28:40.880 It's fine.
00:28:41.680 Would you like to see some of her moving freely?
00:28:45.060 Yeah.
00:28:45.600 Yes.
00:28:48.920 Now I'd like you to come along with me and enjoy just moving freely.
00:28:58.720 Oh my God. 0.99
00:29:00.140 it's like it's like parkour for old people she's just like vibing 0.96
00:29:06.840 oh now she's like kind of doing a macarena thing just like waving her arms around and
00:29:15.920 sort of swaying back and forth when i was a child i watched fred astaire eleanor powell
00:29:21.520 jim gerard is all the great movie dancers the impression they made on me was so indelible that
00:29:27.040 I found my body could literally translate what I remembered about them into movement.
00:29:32.140 You can picture someone graceful in your mind's eye, then feel yourself moving as they do.
00:29:41.320 Try to move easily as I am, and don't worry about getting it just right.
00:29:47.600 There's no wrong way to do these movements.
00:29:50.140 Just feel free and loose and easy and light and hopefully graceful.
00:29:57.040 Oh, my God.
00:30:05.300 When I first began dancing as a child,
00:30:08.020 the Isadora Duncan school of Greek dancing was all the rage,
00:30:11.840 and we would prance around wearing those funny little tunics.
00:30:15.940 But I appreciate now that gracefulness
00:30:18.100 was the most important element of that dancing,
00:30:21.180 and graceful movements have continued to interest me.
00:30:24.560 oh in the 60s i rocked with the best of them but as i grew into myself i went back for the
00:30:31.300 movements that helped me to have good posture and move as if i didn't have a hurting joint
00:30:36.760 in my body which isn't always true i mostly that when i left so long because i wanted to include 0.72
00:30:46.260 in the 60s i rocked with the best i know i was like angela i was dropping acid i fucked a lot
00:30:52.960 of dudes like whoa angela slow down that was honestly i i could have kept watching that for 0.56
00:30:59.380 like 10 more minutes that was like so lovely so mike mike oh god i have to stop giggling
00:31:06.920 i this is almost the whole video like we're
00:31:11.800 we're pulling out clips of it like sorry there are whole sections that are just like
00:31:24.040 angela lansbury laying on the ground in her living room with her knees bent doing hip thrusts yes
00:31:31.800 and like leg lifts and whatever and it's just that synth score and it's so relaxing and wholesome
00:31:40.500 and wonderful it's so great it's obviously vangelis i love it so much the vibes are good
00:31:46.460 also she's wearing like a great outfit she's wearing like a peach full like a jumpsuit
00:31:53.080 but it's like a really flowy loose jumpsuit like i swear to god i have seen like 21 year olds at
00:32:00.060 music festivals in denmark wearing this yeah in like 2011 this could easily be like the coolest
00:32:05.920 people on the planet wearing this totally so comfortable and great it looks fantastic it's
00:32:11.760 like she's slow dancing with herself it really is which is like so lovely it's not choreographed
00:32:17.240 it's clear that the moves that she's doing aren't like i'll do this and then i'll do that or like
00:32:21.840 she's practiced this it's just like arm up arm down other arm up and she yeah she looks really
00:32:27.880 comfortable and really graceful like honestly it would make me so happy to see somebody doing this
00:32:33.280 in like a park right you're like oh they're just like super like doing their thing and they look
00:32:37.260 really blissed out while i was watching this for research for this show i was like maybe i should 0.90
00:32:43.320 start doing this like i know this sounds great i know maybe i need to just do some fucking free
00:32:48.080 moving so the next thing that i would say uh that i think makes this the anti-goop is that her view 0.54
00:32:56.020 of health is like legitimately pretty holistic yeah she has little bits and pieces of what i 0.68
00:33:02.820 would now characterize as mindfulness. She talks about the importance of accepting yourself and
00:33:08.100 your body. She talks about the importance of a positive mindset, which sometimes gets her into
00:33:14.540 trouble. And most of the time she contextualizes pretty well. She talks about the importance of
00:33:19.760 naps, any wellness guru who tells people to do less immediately behind, right? I'm like kind
00:33:26.440 of here for it. She has a whole section at one point where I was like, you're really revealing
00:33:30.440 the target audience for this video angela where she talks about the importance of puttering for
00:33:36.120 your health she's like in defense of puttering and she's like there have been studies that it's
00:33:44.980 important to putter and i was like i could try to fact check this i don't feel compelled to try
00:33:51.040 and fact check angela lansbury saying it's good for you to putter around the house we measured
00:33:55.760 puttering versus doddering and we decided one was superior so if you thought that the 1.00
00:34:05.880 self-massage with aloe lotion was a little sensual for your oh my god get the fuck ready 1.00
00:34:12.360 because she also talks about the importance of like senior sexual health hell yeah it's 0.99
00:34:17.980 fucking fantastic and we're about to watch the video clip of a fucking lifetime michael hobbs 0.97
00:34:23.060 like i don't want to oversell this but i don't think i can give it to me now all right done 0.99
00:34:27.460 this is her porn hub what have you done i'm i'm telling you pull up the clip and then see what it
00:34:33.520 is oh jesus now i know 0.51
00:34:37.800 i think femininity and sexuality go hand in hand it used to be thought that women lose interest
00:34:52.340 in sex after menopause but now we know that just isn't true obviously both you and your partner
00:34:59.640 are different than you were 30 years ago but if you can accept the inevitable physical and other
00:35:05.360 changes you can keep romance in your life I believe it's important for a woman to try and
00:35:12.400 maintain a certain sense of mystery about herself and I think that can continue to any age it's so
00:35:21.480 easy to give up or to get lazy it's worth it to continue to present yourself as a woman of
00:35:28.220 loveliness and dignity a woman who feels good and knows she's looking her best
00:35:34.980 she'll continue to attract attention as a feminine sexual person 1.00
00:35:40.100 the right kind of attention doesn't have to stop unless you want it to 0.99
00:35:45.120 hell yeah michael would you describe to the listeners what you just physically saw i mean 0.96
00:35:53.620 it looks like something from fucking cinemax 1992 it's angela lansbury in a bubble bath 0.93
00:36:01.280 and like sensuously rubbing herself and like she pulls her leg out and then she sort of 0.88
00:36:07.100 deliciously puts it back into the water it's hot and i feel like it's always useful to have a 0.97
00:36:13.740 reminder that like people fuck and there's no particular reason why like people who like 0.99
00:36:20.400 fucking would stop liking that yeah when they get older and like listen you and your partner are 0.99
00:36:25.760 going to be different now than they were 30 years ago she says at one point yeah and i'm like yeah 0.99
00:36:30.640 actually that's like an adjustment worth talking about yeah i do think she sort of loses the thread
00:36:35.620 a couple of times where she's like the right kind of attention doesn't have to stop if you don't
00:36:39.920 want it to and i'm like okay that's not entirely realistic and also the right kind of attention
00:36:45.760 feels like an extremely weird phrase to hear in a me too era but i think overwhelmingly i'm just 0.97
00:36:53.320 like look at fucking angela lansbury talking about fucking yeah i know taking a bubble bath 0.99
00:36:58.240 with a bunch of like pillar candles around her next to an open window i want her husband's head 1.00
00:37:03.500 to come out of the bubbles so bad tell me what he does Angela so the next thing that makes her 1.00
00:37:13.980 the anti-goop is that her meals are fucking meals oh okay if you'll recall the last time 0.98
00:37:19.720 we did a diet book deep dive was with Ed McMahon Mr. McMahon his daily meal plans were banana 0.99
00:37:26.620 pants literally literally banana pants was one of the meals and like a manhattan here is angela
00:37:34.280 lansbury's uh this is titled a typical day's menu breakfast quarter of a cantaloupe and a banana
00:37:40.700 11 a.m a big red apple or an orange or a cup of strawberries lunch a chopped vegetable salad with
00:37:47.960 two tablespoons of vinaigrette a piece of whole wheat toast with one ounce of low-fat cheese like
00:37:53.240 Jarlsberg or camembert or feta. At four o'clock, she has a cup of tea and an oatmeal cookie or a
00:37:59.540 homemade blueberry muffin. And then for dinner, she has five ounces of broiled swordfish or chicken
00:38:05.500 or turkey, microwave steamed broccoli and Brussels sprouts, a slice of whole grain bread with
00:38:10.920 strawberry jam for dessert or a half a cup of tofu ice cream or a piece of fruit. I mean,
00:38:15.940 that honestly seems a little like sparse to me. But also it has less of a like, I need energy to
00:38:22.680 grope waitresses all night. Pick one or the other. Yeah, I mean, I think there are times when it 0.99
00:38:31.440 feels like a little bit sparse, but she's very clear in talking about all of this that she's
00:38:35.940 like, hey, so the quantities of these things don't matter. Yeah, you should eat until you're
00:38:41.340 full. You should eat foods that you like to eat. And she says at one point, she aims to eat like
00:38:46.320 this and stay on track about 80% of the time. You know, she does have one story where she's like,
00:38:51.920 when I was playing Mame on Broadway, I wanted to take part in cast celebrations,
00:38:57.820 but I didn't want to feel like garbage the next day. So I would like go to the cast celebrations,
00:39:02.660 I would have one or two drinks, and then I would go to bed early because I know if I don't get
00:39:06.240 rest, I don't feel good. Oh, dude, that's like such a Michael Hobbs move. It's so good. It's
00:39:10.100 so good. And I'm like, yeah, man, she's talking about sleeping as part of your health routine.
00:39:14.400 Also leaving parties early, a radical act of self care. There is one place where she loses
00:39:19.360 the thread oh here comes the problematic stuff here comes the cancellation this is the problematic
00:39:23.960 part but it's like also a kinder gentler problematic i mean by the centers of this
00:39:29.040 show jesus christ as long as she's not doing like colonial nightmare racism it's probably
00:39:36.540 yes probably okay we're gonna watch a little bit more these are all sorry i keep sending you like
00:39:41.600 the same link at different points send me send me the cancel stuff
00:39:46.160 i'm comfortable at the weight i am now but i haven't always been a few years ago after the
00:39:54.240 first season of murder she wrote i got quite sedentary and overweight worse still i kind of
00:40:00.460 sunk into my expanded body and i said to myself well this is the way i am
00:40:05.780 well it didn't take me long to decide no i didn't want to stay in that state
00:40:14.880 I want to look good and have a sense of pride in myself.
00:40:18.540 I lost the 15 pounds in about three to four months and I've kept it off.
00:40:24.680 So you can tell I'm not on a diet.
00:40:27.140 Most diets simply don't work for me because I work up such an appetite doing what I do.
00:40:33.960 Then there's a whole section.
00:40:35.460 This is where she really comes for you, Mike, where she talks about like how fun it is to
00:40:40.640 ride a bike and everyone should ride bikes because it's really fun to ride bikes.
00:40:43.900 let's not talk about the problematic stuff she's fine so talk to me about responses to the to the
00:40:50.880 weight loss portion i mean it's quite bad to be like i gained 15 pounds and like even worse i
00:40:56.000 like felt okay about it yeah totally i wanted to get my pride and my sense of self back and i wanted
00:41:01.600 to look better and feel better about myself it's this stuff that is like sort of omnipresent and
00:41:08.820 insidious in that way, right? The thing that I do appreciate about this is that she's like,
00:41:13.620 I lost 15 pounds in four months. Yeah, I noticed that too. Yeah. Like she didn't really talk about
00:41:19.580 how she was eating after she gained the 15 pounds, but it doesn't sound like she did anything like
00:41:23.800 that drastic. I mean, the story is that she gained a bunch of weight when she was playing
00:41:29.140 mame on Broadway. The way that she tells the story of losing it is that she's like, 0.57
00:41:34.520 I stopped going out to eat so much and I started walking around New York City more.
00:41:38.340 that sort of thing seems fine to me it's just like she was like i was out of my routine my body
00:41:42.920 changed in a way that showed that i was out of my routine so i got back in my routine the stuff that
00:41:47.700 stays with me the most is the ways in which she just very seamlessly is like accepting being
00:41:54.200 fatter means that you don't have a sense of pride in yourself and how you look what's staying with
00:42:00.240 me is mostly the mom jeans honestly the mom jeans epic mom jeans she looks great she does have these
00:42:06.820 sort of moments throughout the book where she'll be like you know my mother was a lovely lady but
00:42:11.640 she was awfully pear-shaped okay she is an actor and a character actor and a woman who's been
00:42:18.320 making a career out of being seen for the last however many decades right so i'm also like i get
00:42:25.500 that that wouldn't be totally unpacked for her yeah it was also like this is a book that was
00:42:29.280 written like 30 years ago almost for younger people i feel like people do not know like how
00:42:34.580 bad this stuff was in the 80s and the 90s it was horrific the government was telling you to eat
00:42:39.580 zero grams of fat yeah yep it's a really low bar and honestly if she was doing the same thing in 0.98
00:42:46.440 2021 i probably would go harder on her yes i agree in 1988 like this counted as like the wokest shit 0.94
00:42:53.980 imaginable like 1988 was like oh she only said like one fat phobic thing yeah totally and it's 0.98
00:43:00.860 like not like fuck fat people yeah it's just like oh i don't love the way that i look at this size 0.95
00:43:06.440 and i wanted to have pride in myself like again it's like totally insidious but also like definitely 0.99
00:43:11.560 not the worst version of that thing yeah part of why i thought that was like really interesting is
00:43:17.400 that that is sort of like a line of thinking that is very much still present today and is the way
00:43:23.500 that many people will talk about weight loss in like fat or body positive spaces tell me tell me
00:43:29.440 more about that. What do you mean? Um, I think mostly like people will do this thing where they
00:43:34.000 are willing to come along with a conversation about the dignity of fat people and treating
00:43:37.840 fat people better, but they are totally unprepared to let go of their own insecurities about their
00:43:42.980 own body. And so what they will do is go, I'm just not comfortable in my body as it is. You
00:43:49.060 look amazing. Whether or not you feel like that's a lie, it reads as a lie. Yeah. It reads as,
00:43:56.440 Oh, I just realized you're just here.
00:43:58.980 Right.
00:43:59.160 So like, I think there are these ways in which people sort of like strive to figure out how
00:44:03.380 to talk about their own body image and their own comfort in their own skin and all of that
00:44:08.460 sort of stuff and think that they can do it in this kind of clinical way that doesn't
00:44:12.500 connect to how they see and treat other fat people.
00:44:16.140 But they also don't ask fat people for feedback on that.
00:44:18.960 How have you been dealing with people?
00:44:20.540 Like, I'm sure you have friends that are trying to lose like the COVID-19 or like,
00:44:25.200 i really want to get back in shape now that the pandemic's over whatever like have you been having
00:44:28.500 those conversations and like how does it feel feels horrible yeah it feels horrible my friends
00:44:34.240 for the most part are not talking to me about it which i frankly appreciate yeah every once in a
00:44:38.760 i'll be like get a report back that they talked to like another friend of ours about it and i'm
00:44:42.480 like good job yeah not me i'm not the guy so that's thing one and then you know the other stuff
00:44:48.680 it's just really hard i feel like i muddle through yeah i have an expectation of myself
00:44:53.340 as someone who is, uh, you know, has written about this stuff and thought about this stuff
00:44:57.580 and research this stuff extensively that I'll like have an out, you know, to be like, here's
00:45:03.100 how to do it. And on some things I do. And on this thing, I really don't, I don't really know
00:45:07.560 how to navigate these conversations. And it just fucking sucks to sit there for like, 0.98
00:45:12.320 it always starts out as a quick conversation. Like, I just need to talk about this thing for 0.99
00:45:15.800 five minutes. And then it turns into two hours and it's two hours of talking, hearing somebody
00:45:19.680 talk about like how many Weight Watchers points is in something and how no one will ever love 0.97
00:45:24.280 them at this size that is fucking half my size. And you know what I mean? Like it just feels 0.97
00:45:29.760 shitty and I don't want to take away their space to process that. But I also know that they don't
00:45:36.020 go into that conversation wanting to hurt me. Would you, I mean, tell me if this is like a
00:45:40.600 super offensive metaphor. Sure. Tell me, would you analogize it to something of like, you know,
00:45:44.640 you're somebody who earns like $500,000 a year. You're like a super high powered lawyer. And
00:45:48.960 then you're like having some like money problems, like your new job might only pay you like $450,000
00:45:53.860 a year. And the idea is that like maybe your friend who like drives a bus is like not the
00:45:58.860 person to talk to about that. Yeah, totally. Oh my god, I might have to sell like one of my Teslas.
00:46:03.600 It's the kind of talking that you do when you're not thinking about your audience.
00:46:06.800 Right. And I think like a thing that we don't really grapple with in our social interactions
00:46:11.780 is like, you genuinely don't know who you know that has an eating disorder. You might actually
00:46:16.940 actively be not just making that person feel bad in the moment, but causing their mental and
00:46:22.600 physical health harm, totally unintentionally. That's why the consent part is so important.
00:46:28.580 I mean, I definitely have like, I have people in my life currently who are on Weight Watchers,
00:46:34.280 and I don't interrupt their process. Right? If they ask me what I think about it,
00:46:39.640 which has happened, I will tell them. Maybe it's like a subtle pact that it's like,
00:46:45.080 you don't tell me about your diet and i won't tell you that your diet fucking sucks and it's 0.98
00:46:50.160 kind of a ceasefire it's a loaded challenging thing and i think it's a thing i don't know 0.99
00:46:56.820 anybody who's like my system is this and it works great and it retains the strength of our
00:47:01.900 relationship i don't know anybody who has sort of the perfect silver bullet for all that stuff
00:47:06.800 i mean i think one of the accusations that you hear lobbed against shows like ours and fat
00:47:12.180 activists is like they don't even let anyone like lose weight like you can't even tell them like i'm
00:47:17.240 trying to lose weight after the holidays or whatever and i don't think that's the thing i
00:47:21.900 think it's like don't just don't tell me about it and like maybe maybe don't bring that up with like
00:47:27.380 every random like work acquaintance mike i'm gonna bring in the zeitgeist in a way that might make
00:47:32.920 you very unhappy which is to say i genuinely think that when it comes to weight loss like
00:47:39.960 our cultural template for talking about weight loss is talk about it all the time to anyone who
00:47:45.580 will listen and they should congratulate you totally and if they don't you have a right to
00:47:49.860 be upset yeah it's sort of our default setting it is in that way this is where it gets too 0.95
00:47:54.700 zeitgeisty i might ask you to cut this later we're all the fucking kidney donor lady from bad 0.98
00:47:59.920 i thought you were gonna go to adele again i zagged on you 0.98
00:48:08.420 but do you know what i'm saying we're all like why didn't you congratulate me i'm writing you
00:48:14.200 a private dm why didn't you congratulate me i'm doing a good job why didn't you come on everybody
00:48:18.020 talk about this good thing that i did i just think it's this kind of thing where like we are all
00:48:23.220 desperate for validation around this thing. And when we don't get the very specific kind of
00:48:30.200 constant uninterrupted validation that we expect, we become kind of fucking dicks about it. And we 0.99
00:48:38.060 don't really have a template for still holding a person in high regard, but opting out of that
00:48:44.080 specific exchange, which is what I would like to do. I also think even if like you don't get it,
00:48:50.600 I also think that, like, your friends, especially close friends, are allowed to have, like, weird things.
00:48:55.920 Yeah.
00:48:56.440 Like, that's a pretty small thing to ask, ultimately.
00:48:59.480 Yes.
00:49:00.120 There are a million places in society where you can talk about the 15 pounds you really want to lose.
00:49:04.840 Like, there's so many places where it's acceptable to talk about that.
00:49:08.220 The idea of one person being like, I'm just not somebody that wants to really do this with you, that seems pretty fine.
00:49:15.740 Yeah, I also think, like, oh, my God, I have so many thoughts.
00:49:19.160 One is, I do think that there is a little bit of a magnet effect with fat people.
00:49:25.960 When I know people who pursue weight loss, it really does feel like they are gunning for my
00:49:31.780 approval. Oh, as a fat person to be like, you're not like me, you did it. You did the thing I can't
00:49:39.260 do. Really? It's bananas. And it feels horrible. That's awful. Yeah, it's horrible. And they don't
00:49:47.620 necessarily like they're not consciously they're not like hatching a plan to do this they're just
00:49:53.020 like oh i really want to talk to you about this thing it seems organic to them it feels unbiased
00:49:57.680 it feels natural and i will say i really do think i have had disproportionately way more conversations
00:50:05.580 about friends negative body image than my thinner friends have with the same people what do you
00:50:10.460 think that what do you think that is what's the mechanism behind that i'm sort of okay i'm gonna
00:50:15.680 say a thing that's like, I'm out on a limb. Okay. I think there are a lot of factors in sort of why
00:50:21.160 that's a phenomenon that I've noticed. And I think probably one of the bigger ones is that part of
00:50:27.440 losing weight is becoming a formerly fat person and separating yourself from fat people and being
00:50:34.300 seen as not one of those people. I think that's the root of a lot of the anti-fatness that we see
00:50:40.160 from people who've lost a lot of weight, right? And I think it's some of this too, which is like,
00:50:45.060 I need your specific noticing that I'm different from you now and I'm doing that intentionally
00:50:52.360 and again like I don't think this is ever anything that they would say to me but like
00:50:57.520 the vibe is definitely like I'm better than you now yeah right and that's the thing that 0.60
00:51:03.340 fucking sucks about it is I'm like this is totally earnest you are really going through a thing you 0.81
00:51:08.680 are genuinely feeling all of your feelings and part of that is you haven't really checked in 0.99
00:51:14.480 with yourself about like, wait a minute, why do I want to have this conversation? Why do I want to
00:51:18.200 have it with this specific person? What am I getting out of this in particular that I couldn't
00:51:22.120 get out of affirming myself or going to a different person? Why does this need to be a social
00:51:28.100 interaction? And why does it particularly need to be a social interaction with someone who is 0.92
00:51:31.640 more marginalized than me in this way or on this front?
00:51:35.740 The fact that it feels that way to you is also like extremely relevant.
00:51:39.480 Yeah, totally.
00:51:40.620 Right?
00:51:40.880 Like, the idea that somebody is having this effect on their fat friends by doing this,
00:51:46.340 like, people should consider the possibility that, like, yeah, your fat friend, like, really 0.99
00:51:49.780 fucking hates hearing you talk about this. 0.99
00:51:51.860 Yeah, totally. 1.00
00:51:52.680 And some fat people don't, right?
00:51:54.840 Yeah. 0.95
00:51:54.960 Like, some fat people are fine with it.
00:51:56.680 A lot of fat people have a real hard time with it. 0.82
00:51:59.460 Yeah.
00:52:00.140 You know, part of the ways that we think about fat people, and particularly fat women, is
00:52:04.460 in these roles of servitude, right?
00:52:06.680 Right. 1.00
00:52:06.900 and of sort of this like emotional midwifery that fat people are expected to do which is like
00:52:12.720 we aren't here we're like npcs right right we're like npcs we're like just hanging out
00:52:20.740 and we're just here to like move the plot along and you are the plot and we are a prop to move
00:52:25.440 the plot along it is i think the ways in which lots of people have been trained to engage with
00:52:30.280 fat people and particularly with their friends they're there to help you pick out an outfit for
00:52:34.600 you're big night out but if they have a problem they can't come to you and if they have a boundary
00:52:38.820 they can't come to you right like it's a it's a real imbalance and it's hard to talk about 0.67
00:52:43.880 in a way that doesn't either blow up or make everybody feel like shit but also the alternative 0.99
00:52:49.920 is then just your fat friend feels like shit all the time there's also the the normalized yes like 0.99
00:52:56.120 little jokes at the christmas party of like i gotta lose 15 pounds like in a way that like 0.99
00:53:01.240 everyone kind of glances at the fat person out of the corner of their eye yes absolutely this
00:53:06.660 has happened to me as a person who was less fat than the fattest person in the room i was talking
00:53:11.480 to someone at a group event about weight loss and they pointed to a person who was fatter than me 0.91
00:53:16.080 and said well at least we're not that fat oh fuck right and that is a person who i believe to their 0.93
00:53:23.120 core thinks of themselves as an equitable thoughtful kind person yeah i think in many many 0.98
00:53:29.600 ways they are, that was a brutal thing to do. And I think there are some folks who think I just
00:53:35.320 think it in my head. And that's not great. But it doesn't show up in my behavior. I'm like,
00:53:38.800 our brains are not that sophisticated, everybody. Yeah, it is really difficult to disentangle our
00:53:44.600 motives from for weight loss, from our attitudes toward fat people. Yeah. And I think it makes it
00:53:51.580 really hard as a fat person to intervene and be like, you're kind of talking about me when you're
00:53:56.200 talking about this stuff right yeah i will say what most fat people that i have talked to about
00:54:00.880 this and myself are looking for is just like just an opt-out option would be great i don't think
00:54:07.880 that's the end goal but i think it would be a really great starting point yeah i mean i don't
00:54:12.780 like to give advice on the show but i would say next time like in the break room or something if
00:54:16.940 somebody brings this stuff up i would say start doing some freestyle movement wave your wave
00:54:22.340 your arms around just jockey back and forth in your jumpsuit okay so i just want to round us out
00:54:27.260 there's one more quote from uh angela lansbury about sort of like body image and aging and
00:54:33.040 dieting stuff that seems worth talking about angela angela took us on a journey this is her
00:54:38.080 last thing of sort of like losing the thread around weight stuff uh these days i'm not wild
00:54:43.960 about the way my arms look in short sleeves i have terrific muscles in my arms from gardening
00:54:49.380 but there are areas of loose skin that are just genetic.
00:54:51.900 After a certain age, it's more becoming for a woman 1.00
00:54:53.960 to have a little extra on her upper arms 1.00
00:54:55.820 and have a well-rounded face 1.00
00:54:57.500 rather than a face that's scrawny and gaunt from dieting
00:55:00.900 that has lost its skin tone.
00:55:03.240 I have friends who live in fear of their scales,
00:55:05.680 as if those inanimate measuring devices
00:55:07.480 had some sort of power to affect the quality of their lives.
00:55:10.860 Let's keep some perspective and remember
00:55:12.520 that the goal is to be healthy and attractive.
00:55:15.460 She was so close.
00:55:16.480 She really had it.
00:55:17.280 She really had it until the end.
00:55:18.980 She's like, you know, all you have to be is like healthy and move in ways that make you joyful. 0.99
00:55:22.920 And then she's like, also, I'm really paying attention to your face and it looks kind of fucked. 0.99
00:55:26.500 It's wild to me that she's like, you shouldn't diet because you look worse when you diet is like an extremely fucking hot take, Angela. 0.99
00:55:35.560 I think it would be hard to say, like, the goal is to be attractive. 0.96
00:55:40.680 Yeah.
00:55:41.400 You're not sort of supposed to admit that that's what it's about, even though that's absolutely what it's about.
00:55:46.960 No question. 0.97
00:55:47.480 But everything has to be wrapped up in all this fake shit about, like, health and, like, moisture. 0.99
00:55:52.960 Yeah, she said the quiet part loud, which I think is, like, kind of not the cardinal sin. 0.98
00:55:58.960 Do you know what I mean?
00:55:59.400 The cardinal sin is the quiet part being there, not the quiet part being explicit.
00:56:04.460 Some people have skinny faces.
00:56:06.040 I don't know.
00:56:06.620 It's fine.
00:56:07.560 It's fine.
00:56:08.800 You know what?
00:56:09.800 Angela, you found what works for you.
00:56:12.860 Go make yourself a salad sandwich.
00:56:15.600 Let people be afraid of their scales.
00:56:16.940 let them work through their own feelings on their own time yeah but if they're considering
00:56:21.680 moving to a small town where somebody gets murdered every week stop them
00:56:46.940 Thank you.