Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast. Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Monday the 16th of March. I'm Holly Wainwright. And I'm Claire Stephens. And I'm Amelia Lester. And the reason I sound a bit scattered is because I'm very excited. Regular Outlouders will know I'm a big Oscars fan. I used to work in celebrity magazines.
This was like the biggest day of the year. I love my movies. I love my stars. I am amped. And today we're going to give you all the gossip. We're going to give you all the things that grabbed our attention, the frocks we loved. We're not running through like blow by blow everything that happened and whether or not it should have done. We're just going to give you what grabbed our attention.
And there will be a few spoilers in here too.
plus the Louis Theroux documentary everyone's talking about and our quite stringent attempts to find a few glimmers of hope within it.
And I want to talk about reply-only friends. Maybe you are one of them.
But first, in case you missed it, in Batshit Theories of the Week, in case you missed it, there's a whole thing going on about if you put a picture of Timothee Chalamet, we'll talk more about our Chalamet later, next to a picture of Henry Cavill. Do we all know who he is? Handsome British movie star.
Henry Cavill, British.
He's British, isn't he? Movie star. Who you find more attractive says more about you than your taste goes this theory. Let me just explain and then we'll unpack why it may or may indeed be nonsense. In the interest of bursting my bubble, I follow a magazine called Evie on Instagram. We've talked about Evie on this show. It's like in America, it's like the conservative Cosmo.
So it's kind of sells itself as like a woman's lifestyle site, magazine, whatever. But it's all very like how to please your husband. Don't be promiscuous.
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Chapter 2: What were the standout moments from the Oscars this year?
Get married quickly. All that kind of stuff, right? They've had this post up about Chalamet and Cavill that says, in the latest internet discourse, some women on X, this is on Twitter, are claiming Henry Cavill isn't that attractive. But there may actually be scientific explanation for why some women say they prefer Timothee Chalamet instead.
Research suggests that women on hormonal birth control tend to be more drawn to men with softer, more feminine features. Coincidence, asks Evie, because they're just asking questions, Amelia. This has been jumped on by lots of conservative commentators.
Lauren Chen sent a tweet completely viral and then Elon Musk, of course, shared it where she said, thinking Timothee Chalamet is more attractive than Henry Cavill is what happens when you've been on birth control for 10 years.
Elon Musk actually reposted it with the bullseye emoji and I just want to know who does he think he looks like? Does he think he looks like Henry Cavill?
And also we know he doesn't approve of birth control because he has 20 million children. But I'm not a scientist but Claire Stevens certainly is. Oh, definitely. Is it true that being on the pill or indeed HRT when it comes to it is going to make you fancy Charlemagne more than Cavill?
No, and this is an example of misinformation on the internet, which we'll probably get to in a later segment. It is so frustrating to look at this. It's wrong on so many levels. I'll start with the scientific level and then we'll move to logic. What if you find both of them attractive? Yeah. What does that say about the state of your hormones? I think you're a ho.
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Chapter 3: What is the concept of 'reply-only' friendships?
Evie magazine would certainly say I was a ho. And Elon Musk would say you're a ho. So that was based on a 2012 study, what Evie magazine was citing.
Chapter 4: How do societal norms affect perceptions of friendships?
That's quite a long time ago. 2012. And there was another big study in 2008. You won't believe it, but there's been studies since. And you won't believe it, but the studies since have actually showed that that was a complete failure. nonsense. Fabrication.
So study in 2019 found no evidence that women using oral contraceptives had weaker preferences for male facial masculinity than did women not using oral contraceptives. And then in 2025, that was just last year, you may remember, there was a randomized controlled trial that was like a double blind study. That is the golden standard of any kind of scientific research.
So it meant that they randomly assigned some women to be on the pill, randomly assigned some women to be on placebo, and then they did this experiment. No statistically significant effect of oral contraceptives on preferences for facial masculinity.
I hope none of those women were hoping to not get pregnant while they were gazing at these pictures.
I know, right? It's like, oh, sorry, we didn't think about that ethical consideration. But the fact that an article can be written that acts like it's citing scientific research and then ignores the last 14 years of that scientific research is so infuriating. So there's that aspect. But then there's the logic.
So that AV Magazine article tries to argue at the end that the big problem here, the worry for women, is that what's going to happen is you're going to be on hormonal birth control and then you're going to marry someone And then you're going to go off that birth control.
You'll marry Timmy Charlemagne. And you'll want Henry Cavill.
And it's like, you know what else might actually affect what women get tied to for their entire lives? Having a baby with that man, hence birth control. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, before birth control, women, the freedom that birth control has offered women It outweighs that even. To choose a mate. Yes, even if that were true.
The other thing that doesn't make sense is that at the beginning of that article they write that it's easy to watch a James Dean movie and wonder why there aren't men like that anymore. We sat in a cinema a few weeks ago and watched women salivate over Jacob Elordi. Oh, no, bless him. Who's pretty bloody similar. There's Adam Driver. There's Paul Meskel.
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Chapter 5: What theories are presented about preferences influenced by hormonal birth control?
No. Who did not have his moustache. I think there were some gasps of dismay in the office when he showed up on the red carpet clean shaven. No one's ever seen him without a moustache before.
That's what you just heard me do.
The moustache made its way onto Leo's face.
Yes.
Crawled across the red carpet, climbed up his leg, slapped it on his face. I quite liked Don Leo. I thought it was a little bit sexy.
I did not. I like clean-shaven Pedro. He was in white Chanel. He had this big silk and feather brooch on. And what I love about him is that he always looks so well moisturised.
Yeah, you're right. I thought the boys, though, did you notice a lot of them were either all in white, like Chalamet, like full, full white, or all in black, so like black tie, black shirt. Yes, that's true. But I think our Jacob. Me too. Classic three-piece suit with the waistcoat. I mean, I know it's hard to look bad when you're 17 feet tall.
Yeah.
And he took his mum. He did.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of the Oscars fashion choices this year?
She looked so cool. She was wearing a shirt and tie. Holly, what did you say about shirts and ties?
I said I think that every, like, civilian who goes to the Oscars, and there are a lot of them because they're writers and they're directors and they just don't look like movie stars, should wear a shirt and tie. Because most women look freaking awesome in a suit. And then you don't have to worry about the fact you've got to stand next to bloody Rose Byrne in a dress. She was great.
And it was great that she was the first woman to win that. And she thanked all the other women on the circuit. And it's like slowly, slowly. Because did you see what Chloe Zhao was wearing? She's the director of Hamnet. And she wore a full black gothic outfit with like a veil to the ground and all this draping and like, you know, women never used to even get nominated for those awards.
And she is absolutely the most talented, smart, interesting woman. I've listened to lots of interviews with her. And she just turns up like... We're wearing this today. Everybody's sure.
We're wearing that today. I've got golden in my head at one best song and I'm not even mad about it because who doesn't love that song?
I know. I mean, it felt like Sinners probably should have won that. But at the same time, if you're talking about scale, every five-year-old in the world has sung that song.
Nothing else for a year. Apparently the attendees got wristbands that flashed during the performance. I'm just trying to figure out how I can get one for my five-year-old.
The ones in the front row have these like wavy things and there's a very awkward cut to Gwyneth. Gwyneth is wearing her very classic white sheath and she's like got her little ā Wavy thing.
Okay, was Gwyneth like talking to Jen Aniston about what to wear because it really was giving Aniston.
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Chapter 7: How do the hosts feel about the jokes made during the Oscars ceremony?
I'm like, oh, that would be great. You know what I mean? I think there are levels of friendship that this isn't true for, but that in general constant contact is not my definition of friendship. So I don't think therefore that's why this doesn't ā like reply only friends don't upset me so much because I'm kind of like ā Well, who's got time to be messaging every day?
That's interesting. It sparked something in me that I have one friend who is in Atlanta but is not anywhere near where I am living right now. In fact, she's not in Australia. And she texted me this morning, are we still doing underwire bras? And if you'd scrolled up in our conversation, we probably spoke two weeks ago about something completely different.
That kind of friendship where you can just go straight in with the random remark is how you keep a friendship alive over many years and across big distances.
And you and me had a really good chat about that because the problem with the constant contact stuff is that sometimes you've got lots to talk about with somebody, you know, so you might be in a period of high engagement, but then you might not. And to me, that doesn't mean that friendship is dying or in danger or anything. It's just, it's just a life thing. But the reach out is crucial.
And you made the point in that conversation, which I thought is really true, that how are you is the worst question. Oh, it's. And I know I'm guilty of it often, right, because I'll suddenly think, I haven't talked to Betty in months and I've got two minutes while I'm not doing anything.
It's actually even worse if they're going through something and if I'm going through something and I get the, how are you?
Yes, so I'll be like, hey, Betty, how are you? And like what kind of a question is that? And you guys talked about different openers and I think you're right. Like my friendships that have a lot of energy, even if we don't see each other very often, You just can kick off with any message.
But my concern with us putting too many rules around how regular contact has to be and all those things is that we're always on the lookout for a slight. You know what I mean? So if somebody reaches out to me and is like, did you see Chalamet's ridiculous moustache at the Oscars? And if I start off with, well, where have you been?
Haven't heard from you in six months. Then that's not... No, that's not nice either. I think it's about calibrating your check-ins to a mutually agreed level. So, for instance, if that friend who texted me about the underwire bras had texted me this morning, how are you? Yes, you're right. I don't have time to respond to this. But to the underwire bras, I stopped everything.
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