Look to God, Not Monica
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Listeners, here we are, 2024. Hey, ladies! Hey, ladies! Wow. New year, new us. And the chaos has arrived. I'm Sam Sanders. And I'm Zach Stafford. And you are listening to Vibe Check. Vibe Check.

The bar is in hell.

Anywho, listeners, listeners, listeners. You might have heard our episode in the feed last week. That was the first episode in this new year that you heard. But we taped that in late November. This is actually our first time getting together in the new year. And Zach, it's so good to see you. I missed you much. I know. We're seeing each other so much this week. We were together

in person, which we'll talk about in a segment. My year has begun because Sam Sanders is in my ear. He's on my screen. He's sitting next to me at a bar. We're back. It's like we're finally back. But the Beyonce of this Destiny's Child is not with us this week. Saeed is in Vermont.

We'll hear from him a bit later on from Vermont. But this episode will be just me and Sister Zach. But listeners, don't worry. It's going to be good. Got a lot of good stuff to talk about. The Golden Globes happened Sunday. They were bad, but also good for the bottom line. We'll discuss what this means for the rest of the awards season. Also, and I got to thank Zach for this, you've made me a real Housewives of Salt Lake City devotee.

And there's so much drama to discuss. We're going to get to that as well. Shakespearean levels of palace intrigue that say a lot about the state of reality TV. It's good stuff. Yes, it does. And I'm so glad you've joined this bandwagon because Sister Jones was amazing.

Yeah.

I was thinking about my thoughts for this segment and it's like, I have a lot to say about what this show says about reality TV, but my through line is like, none of it's good. I,

I'm intrigued by this. It is captivating. But by and large, it's bad for the culture. Yeah. But I can't look away. I agree. I mean, I was that gay that saw the finale and thought, ooh, chaos, terribleness, vitriol. I love it. And Craig looked at me. He's like, this isn't good, Zach. This is not good for us as a people. We do not need to be celebrating this terrible. I was like, you're right. Yes, we should look to God, not to the devil and all this.

Look to God. Not to Monica. You know, for a second reality TV, there was this line of logic to explain our attraction to it. It's like, well, that's powerful women. These are women doing it for themselves. This is women's empowerment. But at this point,

Jen Shah's locked up for elder fraud. Elder fraud. Monica and all them doing God knows what. Like, it's not empowering anybody. No, people are going to jail. People are going to jail. Like, it is not okay. Okay. So, yeah. Anyway, we will get there. So much. So much. We're good to all of it. But first, let's just check in. How is the reality of your life, Zach? What is your vibe this week? My vibe this week is walking.

That's my vibe. So you heard this-ish the other night when we were watching the Globes, but I have stolen my boyfriend's Apple Watch. I've never been an Apple Watch person. I refuse because, you know, I have my phone always with me. I'm always on my computer. I'm really good at technology. I didn't need another thing to add. However...

For some reason, walking came up. I think I was talking to my sister or my brother-in-law, and they are big walkers. They live in San Francisco. And I used to walk everywhere in New York. And I looked at my phone, and I didn't realize it tracks your steps every day. And I saw that my steps weren't very high. I drive to everything in LA. I drive a block. I drive everything.

You do. In that big old, big old truck. The big old truck. So I'm just out here in these streets, you know, burning gas and not getting my steps. So I realized part of my new year resolution, because I'm trying a few, I'm doing dry January just because I think I drank a few too many martinis over Christmas. So I need to detox a bit, but I also want to walk a lot more. And I've been doing a lot of walking with my Apple watch and

I love it. I love walking and listening to podcasts. I love walking and feeling the sunshine. It really has made my life so much better.

However, what I have noticed now that I'm no longer just a driver in LA, but a walker is we Angelenos are a little too confident in our walking across streets because the drivers are not paying attention. And every walk, I almost see someone die and I need all of us to take a breath. And just because that sidewalk walking arrow says green, it does not mean it's probably green to the driver for you. They're not stopping for you. So it just, I've become very aware of us as drivers are not paying attention to anything and vice versa. It's wild.

And like the pitfall of Los Angeles, it's like, it's not just that the drivers are crazy, but there'll be residential streets and residential neighborhoods in which the lanes are so wide, it encourages you to drive faster.

So I live in a single family home neighborhood. It's quiet, but you get to the main drag. There are little highways. There are little highways that you like walk to the corner store to get to. That said, welcome to the world of walking as someone who walks a dog every day. It's great out here. And welcome to the cult of the Apple Watch. Let me tell you what's next for you. You think you're obsessed with your step counting now? Wait until you get obsessed with tracking your heart rate all day, every day.

So what's amazing about the Apple Watch, and by the way, Apple's not sponsoring this show. If they want to, please call us. We take the money.

But I have never understood, you know, your BPM. I know that there are numbers and your heartbeat and all this stuff, but I've never had like physical, like material data related to my life to show me. So now when I'm like at CrossFit working out, I look and I'm like, okay, 130. Now I'm walking, it's 102. I am learning in real time in a way that's becoming very practical and I love it. And let me tell you, these damn rings. See, I don't do the rings. Yeah.

I do the rings right now. Let me tell you, and then we will move on from me because I talk about this for too long. And that's how I know I'm in a cult. This is a sign of a cult right now is that I had a whole day. I worked out in the morning. I went to a work thing at Sunset Tower, which I saw a lot of people post globes, which we'll talk about. And I came home and I saw I needed a thousand more steps to hit the 10,000 goal that people try to hit every day. At what time was this? It was at 7.30 at night. And

my boyfriend was at the gym and I said, hey, do you need a ride home? I'm going to come over and just walk for 10 minutes in the gym. And fix it. And

So I like drove to walk, which is very LA, but I hit my 10,000 steps and I continued to hit my goal of 10,000 a day. So there we go. My heart rate monitoring has gotten so intense. I was at yoga last night and literally in between poses, I was looking at my heart rate. How high do we get? How high do we get? And I'm like, this is not the spirit of yoga. This is not what I need right now. But they get you. Oh, Apple. Oh, ghost of Steve Jobs. You haunt us. You haunt us all.

Oh, he really does. So Sam, what's your vibe this week? How are you doing? How's the new year treating you? My vibe this week is, all right, kid, I have time to go. I think last week the new year started and I was hitting snooze.

But this week, it's like, no, get it together. We're working. We're back in it. Let's go. Like, for instance, this morning, I woke up at 4.30 just because. And I was like, oh, 4.30? Yeah. And my body and my mind and my heart and my soul were like, get up. But I filed invoices that I've been putting off for weeks. I got my shit together. I'm like, we are moving this year. And this is the first time that I feel that in the new year so far. On January 9th. Took me nine days. Wow.

That's incredible. So Sam, I told you I've been trying to wake up before five or around 5 a.m. I really want to like wake up one hour earlier, get my day going. I have failed miserably. And last night I failed miserably because I couldn't fall asleep. Or every time I fell asleep, I had a nightmare involving Emma Stone for some reason. So I kept waking up because of Emma Stone. Someone just watched Poor Things. What was going on tonight?

Wait, what was the nightmare? I have no idea. I think I was like stuck in the loop of the globes. Like it was like we were at the globes and things. We all were. I don't know. We all were. Anyway, I'm very proud of you. Are you going to keep doing the 430? No, this was a fluke. But like I woke up and I was just like, Sam, there are things on your to-do list that you have just been putting off. Do them now. And usually it's paperwork.

file the invoice, send that form, do the DocuSign, get it done. And so I had an early morning where I got like three or four of those things done and it felt so good. And of course, the thing that I put off for three or four weeks took me seven minutes, Zach. It took me seven minutes.

But it's done now. The procrastination never helps anybody. Yes. It usually is way shorter than your imagination has led you to believe. So I'm proud of you. Let's keep this energy going. Remember, just seven minutes in the morning will make you feel way less stressful as you move through your weeks here. My vibe this week is just like, it's not that simple.

If you do the things you have to do sooner than later, you'll have more time to do the things you want to do. And you'll have time to do the things you want to do without the cloud of responsibility hanging over that motherfucker. So that's my vibe this week. Get it done. Well, what I love about this is that this throws back to one of our prerecorded episodes, which...

resonated with people where I brought forth the line, thank you, past self, for taking care of future me. And that's very much like this energy that you're exemplifying is that, you know, by doing the seven minutes this morning, future you is like, thank you, girl. Now I can go to the movies. I can go to the movies.

Exactly.

I am teaching creative nonfiction at Bennington College. It's a low residency program, which means that each semester we're only on campus together in person for 10 days. And then the rest of the semester, it takes place over email correspondence. But yeah, I'm having a great time. I'm teaching nonfiction. If I sound a little winded, it's because Bennington has this beautiful, sprawling campus that

I just passed a beautiful frozen pond, and I'm about to pass an orchard in my cottage that I'm staying in with two of my colleagues. It's right at the edge of campus, so it's just like a beautiful snowy walk. Very serene. It's about sunset right now, and the sky is just this beautiful pink. And, you know, I hope you can hear my voice, how happy I am. I am just...

so grateful to be doing what I love, which is talking about making something of this thing called life, crafting our experiences, our observations, our hauntings and questions into something worth sharing with other people. And my students and colleagues are wonderful. I'm co-teaching a nonfiction workshop with Eula Biss, who I am just...

I'm such a fan of hers, so just getting to sit with her and our students, you know, and to go over their essays and memoirs and progress is just a joy. And I wish this kind of experience for all of you, no matter what your discipline is, you know. I hope you get to pursue what you love in community with rigor, as we are doing here. And yeah, I guess I'll see you or talk to you all next week.

All right. Take care. Love you. I love to hear that man talk. I felt like I was there in Vermont with him in the snow, building the snow castle. Oh my goodness. We also got a picture of the walk after he sent it and it's stunning, stunning there. I have never been to the state of Vermont, but he seems to be having the time of his life. And I hear from reports from Zai Jones, there are quite a bit of VibeCheck listeners at the Bennington College. So thank you everyone there for listening and supporting the show. We love.

Saeed, enjoy your walks in the snow this week. Speaking of, do we got to get him an Apple Watch for his walks? Oh, yeah. I wonder how Saeed would do with an Apple Watch. Oh, he would reject it fully. He would reject it fully with his entire being. All right. Well, before we get into this episode, we want to thank all of you who send us fan mail and reach out to us on social media. We absolutely love reading your messages, so keep them coming at vibecheckatstitcher.com. And also, a side note.

The recent Apple iOS update has kind of messed with show subscribers on Apple Podcasts. A lot of your favorite shows, you may not be actually subscribed to anymore, like ours. So go double check right now. Go look, make sure you're part of the Vibe Check crew. And while you're there, leave a review. We're almost to 1,000, which is so exciting. And we'd love to hit that number very, very, very soon. So please help us subscribe, leave a review, tell us what you love, what you don't love, what you want to hear, and we will read them ASAP.

This whole first segment was brought to you by Apple products and technology. Thank you, Steve Jobs, for creating this world that we live in. For all you've done. Gosh. All right. With that, shall we jump into today's show, Sam? Let's jump in. I'll tell you the first thing that you should know about this next segment. I wrote all of my own jokes. Unlike Joe Coy.

For those who watch the Golden Globes, you know what I'm talking about. Joe Coy hosted the Golden Globes this past Sunday. And the Golden Globes and the aftermath of that show are kind of the talk of the town in L.A., at least, this week. So the Golden Globes, first of all, we should point out, Zach...

They're back. They were gone for a while. They are back. This award show put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press, it was canceled for a bit over a race scandal. People finally began to talk about it just a few years ago. But for the longest time, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association had no black members. It was also very corrupt.

All this led to the whole thing being canceled for a while. But then, after being dumped by NBC, they are back at CBS. It was this Sunday, hosted by Joe Coy. And even though all the reviews were bad, the ratings were higher than normal and higher than they've been for the last few years. They were up to 9.4 million viewers. Did that surprise you, Zach? That surprised me. That's a lot because all we've been hearing the past few weeks, Taylor Lorenz actually has a great voice.

TikTok, I think, about this. But most television consumption is football. It's sports. There's been a lot of NFL, college happening, et cetera, et cetera. But no one's watching anything else. So for an award show by the Hollywood Foreign Press, which isn't even the biggest award show to break through, is pretty incredible. And CBS must be feeling great because they didn't have this before. And it shows that they must have done something really great by bringing in the right

And they underpaid for it. Yeah.

Everyone was lowballing them. CBS lowballed them, and they still won. But it's such an interesting win for CBS and the Golden Globes. Those ratings are great, Zach.

But all the reviews for this show have been horrible. Everyone has been ripping apart Joe Coy's monologue. At one point in the midst of the monologue, as it was failing in the room, he blamed the bad jokes on other writers and said, the good jokes that y'all laughed at, I wrote those.

So tacky, nasty, horrible. There was a sexist joke about Barbie in there. The whole thing was weird. The reviews are horrible. USA Today said it was, quote, attempted improvement but got worse. Vanity Fair said it was a near total disaster. The Hollywood Reporter says it was a flailing, fun-free telecast.

And the Hollywood Reporter, we should note, is owned by the same company who owns the Golden Globes. And even they said it was bad.

It was bad. They even dragged it. Zach, how bad was it? How bad was it? So I was late. Sam and I went and watched the show at a bar in my neighborhood. I got there late, so I rewatched the monologue when I got home. And oh my God, it was so bad. And the Taylor Swift joke was just kind of representative of why this was like, there was such great material in the room, but he couldn't land it ever on anything.

Yeah, there was a bad Taylor joke. There was a bad Barbie joke. He joked about Oppenheimer being too long for too long. It's just like, dude, like, it's not good. But I should add here, though, it's a really hard job. He said that he got the job 10 days before the award show itself, which means they had a hard time finding anyone who wanted to do it.

And to put together three hours worth of jokes and sketches in 10 days, that's super hard. And also, you know, Joe Coy...

is entering the chat of the awards season a year after Gerard Carmichael. And that was painful in its own way. It did launch him into stardom. He's in movies like Poor Things in the wake of that. People know him more. But it was a little prickly because he was making fun of the obvious racism of the foreign press. So Joe Coy is coming in the wake of that and he...

has way worse ratings than Gerard Carmichael, who must be feeling really great this year. Being like, look, you were mad at me last year. Now look what you get when it's not me. But I think what his bad monologue points to is a very confused awards season that we're entering right now. Can you talk more about what is going on around us at the moment? Well, yeah, this is what I don't understand. So the big question right now with the awards industrial complex is,

is do people still want to see these shows in the era of streaming? If the energy has moved away from movie theaters, and we can argue about that, but moved to streaming, moved to YouTube, moved to TikTok,

Is there really a critical mass to watch people like Willem Dafoe be in the midst of awards chatter for films like Poor Things that most people will never watch, right? So it's like, can this thing that feels very old Hollywood at this point survive? And I don't know if Hollywood even knows how to thread that needle. Because with this monologue, what you see is like Hollywood coming together to celebrate itself, but also knowing that it needs to, at least to a certain extent, monetize.

mock itself and it's like well which is it are you gonna have the party and do the glitz and glamour or are you gonna have the party and poke fun of yourselves the whole time that's even weirder you know how do they do it what I just like I think all of Hollywood is afraid to be full Hollywood given whatever reason

But I only want to watch Hollywood if it's full Hollywood? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it does so much. I was reading some reporting from The Hollywood Reporter this morning giving light to the very confused after-party situation. I think you and I both read it this morning. But so many studios, including CBS, were afraid to throw a big party because of how it looked post-strike in the midst of two wars. Can we just stop here? Right. I don't... I just...

You're already at the award show in a ballroom gown. You're already performing Hollywood. You're afraid of the after party. It just feels so... The lack of bravery, the presence of such cowardice. I don't get it. And it's also like, you know, we love the ridiculousness of entertainment. We work in it. We report on it. We're around it. I love it so much. But I

I like when it doesn't take itself too seriously. I think culture is super important and what we make in the culture is so important. But it's like, girl, read the room. You are an award show. We don't even know who's voting for these. We have no idea. We just know that this is like dresses, gowns. Moet Chandon is sponsoring like, just lean in.

Just party. And the fact that they're all like doing articles being like, you know, I didn't go to an after party. I went to In-N-Out Burger because of, you know, I feel so bad about the world around me. It's like, girl, donate all your money then. Create a nonprofit. Donate your money. Literally. Literally. You not going to that party is not going to

end conflict, house the unhoused. It's just like, get over yourselves. Like, okay, this is my through line for this whole thing. Get over yourselves. If y'all want us to check this out, watch it, be in it, give us the glam, give us the Hollywood, give us celebrities getting drunk in public. Otherwise, you and Joy Coy can go sit down. Exactly.

Exactly. And I think why I feel this more than ever this year is because of who won all the awards because it pointed towards a Hollywood that has not changed. It's the same Hollywood. They just keep trying to mask it with other stuff. So Sam, you go in because you had a lot of great thoughts on this.

Yes. So I have a theory about what the Golden Globes winners say about the rest of the awards season, and it's not a happy theory. Anywho, the winners at the Globes last night, which honor movies and TV...

They were all pretty predictable. Succession won a lot. Oppenheimer won a lot. The bear won a lot. And there were almost no surprises, so much so that even the historic first of Lily Gladstone becoming the first native woman to win the supporting actress in a drama Golden Globe, that was, dare I say, not exciting because we all saw it coming for months. And so I think what we're seeing here is like these categories are locked.

And we're going to be marching the next few weeks in boredom because we kind of know who's going to win. The show wasn't even done before people who watch this stuff were saying, well, that's it. Oppenheimer has been knighted. It's been crowned. It's Oppenheimer's march towards the Oscars. And some folks were already saying, well, you know, if you compare Oppenheimer to Barbie, Oppenheimer is just more of an Oscar movie, which won the sexism. But two, we're still doing that.

We're still doing, oh, you know, it's an Oscar movie. Yeah. I don't like that. And that's part of the old Hollywood of it all. And that just like annoys me. The anointing. Yeah. Yeah.

The anointing is annoying, and you can tell even during the telecast how the process internally is working. So every time there was a hint towards Oppenheimer, they threw the camera to a woman who I find really interesting. I respect her deeply, Donna Langley, who runs NBC Universal. She's the chairwoman. She's the reason why all of these projects under Universal have done so well because she's allowed them to get the support. And she deserves a lot of praise. But most Americans have no idea who Donna Langley is at.

But the camera kept panning to her, which I thought was just like, okay, so the system has decided Oppenheimer is it, and they're going to produce it through the show like this. Well, and you know why the team behind Oppenheimer is focusing so squarely on a woman in this moment, because that movie is so white man. Yeah. And if you're going to have an awards season in which the black and white, literally grayscale white guy movie beats Barbie...

You've got to at least have a woman up there with the white guys when it happens. And I think they're getting that ready together right now. Oh, yeah. Fully, fully. And what's so wild is just the meta-narrative of the Barbie movie playing out in the award season, if your theory holds true. If we go through this whole season and they lose everything at the Oscars except for a few things, because they even got moved from original screenplay to adapted.

Which is wild. What was she adapting? There was no Barbie screenplay number one that she adapted. So before, for those that don't understand the difference, adapted means there's already pre-existing IP. Like a book. Like a book. So American Fiction is another version this year, or Zone of Interest is another one. But there's a lot of incredible adapted. Oppenheimer is adapted.

original is fully new and that's where Barbie was going to win. Now it's been pulled and moved over. So it feels like all the systems are really making it to where Barbie has to show up to everything and be seen but never heard. And I don't think Barbie's a perfect movie. I think it is a movie that...

made a huge tentpole moment and saved Hollywood and did all this. But Hollywood, to your point, still can't get outside of themselves and be like, hey, you know what? Sure, Oppenheimer is the Oscar-worthy film of the past 60 years. And every year this would win because it's a white guy doing a story about white men who do good for the world. It's the king's speech. It's all that shit. But the movie that saved everyone's jobs was...

Was Barbie, period. Point blank. And Taylor Swift's decision to circumvent the studios and go to the theaters directly. So women did this. And yet the awards are not going to show that. And that is really sad and boring to your point. Yeah. And the awards aren't even just not honoring the biggest movie of the year. They're making fun of it.

Joe Coy made sexist jokes about Barbie at the start of this show, and Barbie saved that telecast. The power of that movie brought viewers to the Golden Globes. I think what we're seeing here is the very gendered and sexist way in which some movies are deemed awards-worthy and some movies are not.

And for me, if I'm looking at all these films that are in play for Best Picture of the Year, if it's a competition between Oppenheimer and Barbie, I ask myself a few questions. Which did I actually find more visually enjoyable? One, it's Barbie. Which had the larger cultural impact? Two, it's Barbie. And which started the most conversations that might actually shift or change the culture? It's Barbie.

And so I don't understand why an industry like Hollywood, which is struggling to survive in this new reality, doesn't ask themselves the same questions and see the obvious frontrunner. Instead, they're doing this old, tired playbook of what feels Oscar, and it's not going to carry the industry into its future. Right.

And it's boring. It's so boring. It's so boring. And it also feels, we've talked a lot in the past about glass cliffs, that in moments of duress, you see people of color, women, become CEOs, get the director job. They come in to fix the thing because people are hedging that that thing's going to fall apart anyway. So might as well get some diversity points. Barbie, in some ways,

benefited from a glass cliff moment at hollywood they're like okay girl nothing's working let's just throw it let it happen let these women go wild create the crazy thing it's not going to do well and then it proved them wrong and we as an industry and as a people don't know what to do when when women do save the day we still don't know how to like really be like great you should be president you should be the oscar winner for best director it's like why can't we still not do that because they

kept your job in place and yet you still are taking from them. So, you know, misogyny is real and very present in Hollywood and the world today. It's so real. I am so over this totally empty argument of like, well, you know, that's what the Academy wants.

The problem is that the Academy wants the same thing all the time, so then change that. We could break this cycle and say, let's be done with this idea of which movie is Oscar-ish. Which movie did you like the best? Which movie did you like the best? Speaking of that, as we close, what are you most rooting for, Zach, in this awards season? I am very much into supporting, no matter what they win or lose,

I'm just telling everyone, go see American Fiction and go see Poor Things. Those two movies felt the most subversive for me this year, at least so far. Yeah, I would agree with that. American Fiction's really wonderful. Poor Things, stunning. Did not expect to like the movie that much. Emma Stone's that girl. That girl. Always will be, forever, always. And then a movie that really we saw together, actually, that shook me was The Zone of Interest.

which is very heavy, but I hadn't been that challenged sonically in a while. And I just think it was really, it's just really interesting and surprising. I wasn't expecting it to be as interesting and thought-provoking as it was. So those are mine. So those are the top ones. Listeners, let us know what movies you're into this award season. Let us know your thoughts on the award season, Industrial Complex. Did you watch the Globes? What did you think?

What do you want more of in this award season? We want to hear from you. Vibecheckatstitcher.com. Vibecheckatstitcher.com. Also, right before we go to break, I promise, Zach...

Let the people know. You told me this. It's actually true. It's documented. This awards season in Los Angeles, the city of LA has run out of dresses? What, girls? It has. What? It's all out of dresses. There are, I think, six award shows this week, and the showrooms have no more dresses, and people don't know what to do. So it's a very funny fashion moment. So next week, maybe we'll do a recap of the fashion highlights of who borrowed whose dress to get to what show. You better send these stars to Nordstrom Rack. Right.

You better get on the North Rack and find you something. Come on. Ready to wear. All right. We'll be back. We'll be back.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are Black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging Black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands.

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z, but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors.

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, WeAreGolden.

Here's an HIV pill dilemma for you. Picture the scene. There's a rooftop sunset with fairy lights and you're vibing with friends. You remember you've got to take your HIV pill. Important, yes, but the fun moment is gone. Did you know there's a long-acting treatment option available? So catch the sunset and keep the party going. Visit pillfreehiv.com today to learn more. Brought to you by Veve Healthcare.

All right, we are back. And now we are talking about reality TV. I have been looking forward to this for seven days because I've been wanting to have this conversation. So last week, things changed for me. And if you've been on the internet, you probably have heard this one sound that we're going to play for you right here that has really defined the week. Proof, timeline, screenshots, f***ing everything.

Oh my god. Timelines. Receipts. Screenshots. Proof. Timeline. Screenshots. Club. Another club. Another club. Bus. Club. Another club.

Oh, God. And now welcome to Gay Twitter Brain. Straight into my veins. It's just like so good. Straight into my veins. Oh, God. So if you have not heard that sound, let's give you some backstory and context. So the voice you're hearing is Heather Gay, star of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. She recently had a book come out called Bad Mormon. An icon of the gays. Icon of the gays. She's a wonderful lady. Very interesting person. Her book is very good, too, if you're looking for a new memoir. Memoir.

I actually like her. She gets really deep on faith and belief and leaving a church. And she's like, I think the most earnest of the whole bunch. 1000%. 1000%.

- 1000%. - Love her, most real, and owns beauty labs and does a lot of cosmetic stuff for people. And if you want Botox, she'll give you Botox. We love a dynamic queen housewife. So Heather Gay is yelling at a housewife named Monica Garcia. So if you haven't been watching the show, Real Housewives of Salt Lake City started four years ago. It's been through a lot of tumult. Famously, they have a housewife, Jen Shah, who's currently in prison for six and a half years for fraud involving elderly people.

As in like taking old folks' pensions? All their pensions, millions of dollars, terrible, terrible stuff. And that was all caught while filming. Like the raids of her house, her arrest, her court dates, all of it on film. So this is the first season since she's gone to prison. And who has joined the cast is a woman named Monica Garcia, who was her assistant in...

And she's been framed as this underdog who has known the housewives for a while and now is getting her start. And she actually testified in the trial against Jens Shaw. Yep. She was like a big witness that got Jens Shaw found guilty. So,

So when this clip is taking place is the season finale. It is her birthday weekend. They are in Bermuda. And what is revealed is that Monica is not who everyone thinks she is. She actually is not only a housewife, but the creator and the person that runs the account called Reality Von Teese, which was an infamous account on Instagram for years that trolled all the housewives, releasing personal information about them without their consent and destroying some parts of their life.

Yes. And Reality Avanti's, this Instagram account, first leaked some of the videos of Jen Shah that would end up taking her down in federal court. This is wild. So all season, Monica is just on the show as a housewife, and no one knows. They have the usual drama. They fight about dumb BS. But towards the end of the season...

Heather starts to put some pieces together and say, this is weird. In the final episode, she gets a phone call from an anonymous source who confirms that Monica is not who she says she is. And the fireworks and explosions when the others find out that the person they've been hanging out with for weeks was actually this strange internet troll who was trolling them for years.

Wow. Some of the most engaging television I've seen in years. It's so good. It's so good that even Jennifer Lawrence at the Golden Globes in every interview brought up this scene and offered to give her Oscars to the housewives because she was so proud of them. And that's how big of a deal this was. So what's wild about this and why we're talking about it today is that we've hit this inflection point in reality TV where fans, people who grew up with the shows, are

are now old enough to be in them, and they're wiggling their ways into these shows in these really interesting ways, with Monica maybe being the scariest one for any reality TV star who's become famous, where you are sitting there, there's a new cast member, and the woman that has been trolling you for years, who you've been afraid of every morning, like, is she going to release more tea, has actually become your best friend, and you had no idea. And you just threw her a birthday party in Bermuda. You just threw her a birthday party in Bermuda. It is

So sinister. So Sam, you started watching Housewives and so many people were seeing, this is now becoming one of the highest watched things ever on Bravo, rivaling Vanderpump Rules finale. You know, it's bringing a lot of new viewers in. You're new to it. What do you think? What's your takeaway? What does this tell us about the culture right now? Yeah, I'm new to it. So I watched Atlanta Housewives way back in the day because I love NeNe, but I have really not watched since she left that show. I watched New York for a bit, but really wasn't committed to that either. Yeah.

This I began watching because you and others around me were like, you must watch it. So good. So I actually devoured the entire fourth season of Salt Lake City Housewives in like two days. And my biggest takeaway after watching it is one, damn, this is good TV to give a most resilient lifetime achievement award to Heather Gay's extensions because they were fighting in that wind in Bermuda.

It was like extension on extension. Did you see that? That is so funny. Yes, I did. Yeah, they were. The hair was under duress. It was really under duress. Yes. But Takeaway 3, we've reached an era of reality TV where it's turned itself into a new genre. This is post-reality TV. None of it's real anymore and we're still watching. Yeah.

It's a performance of reality in a series of like funhouse mirrors. Who was the watcher? Who was watched? Who was the star? Who was the contestant? Who was the viewer? What screen? It's amazing. And so what I love about this show and this season and this finale is that it puts on full display the ways in which the walls separating fans from stars have now fully eroded.

And you have people like Monica who can walk right over that line between fan and star and play both sides really well. Yeah.

And she points out how we are all performing for more than just one screen. You're performing for the screen that is your phone. You're performing and trying to get on another screen on TV. Like we are all performing for at least one screen often while watching and trying to be on another. And like season four of Salt Lake kind of proves that to me. It's like this weird thing of like the reality TV snake is eating its own tail at this point.

but we are all the snake. We are all the snake, Zach. We're all in it. And like, Monica just shows that like,

We're fully enmeshed in this stuff and we're so enmeshed in it now, it's making something new out of its own slime. Yeah. I love it. I love it. It's insane. And when you think about like from a media production standpoint, the fact that we've reached a moment in reality TV where your tweets, your trolling of fans, like I'll be honest because one day these may come out to light for me, come into the day for me. When I started watching Housewives when I was in college-

I was that annoying gay that tweeted out every show and I would tweet at those housewives. - You would be. - I was, I was 19. - You would, you would. - Me and Kim Zolciak had some beef and I was working through it on Twitter.

And I regret those tweets because they were not the nicest things and they may still exist. I don't know. Cancel me over them, please. I will own up to it. But we now live in a world in which people like myself, Monica, who grew up, that's now plot building for these shows. And they can now cast those people, bring them into the shows, weaponize them, use them to exploit the trust of established cast members. And that to me is like, we've hit full...

To your point, post-reality moment. Like, this is, like, only a post-reality TV moment where in which everything you do in real life is now being fed into this machine. It's all content. Yeah, it's all content. It's all content. We can all be a housewife and everyone's watching everything all the time. That is incredible. I'm not saying it's good. In fact, it's really bad and corrosive. But, gosh, it's incredible to watch. And the fact that, like, reality TV has existed now long enough –

for fans to be able to play the game better than the folks who created the game and won the game for years. To watch that play out in real time isn't just great TV. It is genre-bending, and it's the most new-feeling thing I've seen on TV for years. It feels actually new. When I think about a lot of these Oscar-worthy films we've talked about,

They feel like the same story. Oppenheimer is the same great white man story told a different way, right? So many of the things that we get on TV, in movies, feel like a recycling of old plots and tropes. Everything Disney's doing right now is recycled IP. Meanwhile, out here in Bravo land, they're making something new. It ain't good for nobody, but it's new. Yeah.

It is new, and it's a new way of—it challenges you as a viewer, because you're like, when does the filming stop? When does it begin? Yes. Where do their lives—what boundaries are even in their lives? And I think that's really highlighted in the recent efforts that are going to hit a full sprint, I think, this year with Bethany Frankel, famously from Real Housewives of New York. She's attempting to unionize reality TV stars, because in the wake of the strikes of both SAG-AFTRA and WGA—

She's like, hey, wait a minute. Unscripted TV is propping up this industry and yet none of us get residuals. We have not the same protections. We get paid maybe $7,000 for a season and these seasons sometimes ruin these people's lives or make them rich.

But there's just not a lot of protections there. They can't go back to their jobs after that. Yeah. What do you do after this? So we're hitting a moment where we're reckoning with the importance of reality TV. And there's been a lot of fallout in that reckoning. And Sam, I think you've been having conversations with different people lately about kind of some issues they face in their own productions.

Yeah, I spoke a few months ago with a cast member from Love is Blind who was now on a mission to change working conditions on that show and others like it. But he basically told me about how some of the methods that were used on contestants during their time on these shows, it's abusive. Yeah.

For instance, when you go on Love is Blind, they take your ID, they take the keys, they take your wallet, and they lock you in that hotel, and they know when you try to leave. And if you get out, you can't leave. You have no ID. You have no credit card. You're stuck.

On top of that, the payout, if you do the math hour by hour for the time that they're there, it is way less than minimum wage. It's like $7 an hour. Yeah. Yeah. The waivers they sign to be on these shows basically allow for them to die in a company like Netflix has no blood on their hands. Wow.

They mess with these people's mental health while they're there. This contestant told me that a lot of times contestants would be in mental distress or be in a bad state and they would be hidden from other contestants, told they were OK, not given medical attention. At least one contestant had a nervous breakdown during the taping of the show and was not given medical treatment at all.

On top of them being plied with alcohol at every turn. It's really bad. It's really bad. I watch a lot of reality TV, so I'm looking at Real Housewives of Beverly Hills lately, which has a new season. It's beginning to feel that corrosiveness, that kind of manipulation that's been common for now a few decades since the emergence. I would say in the early 2000s was the big emergence of this as a format.

We're starting to see the damage of it. You look at Kyle Richards, who's Kathy Hilton's sister, Paris Hilton's mom and aunt. Her own sister Kim's been battling substance abuse. And you're seeing it all play out on TV. They aren't getting better all the time. They're going through a lot. And they need to take a break, but they can't because their whole life has been monetized and been fueled into this entertainment machine. So it does feel like we're at a moment where

we're becoming hyper aware that the camera is on us all the time and that all of us are going to be pulled into a plot at any moment, which feels both exciting and terrifying to me.

It's confusing to me as someone who just loves to watch good TV. One can argue with this last season of the Salt Lake City Housewives, at least, reality TV has reached a zenith. It's really good. Better than good. This is good stuff. But in this moment where it's better than ever to watch it, we know it's worse than ever for the people on these shows and for the people who take it too seriously. And so I wonder now as a viewer...

I've gotten addicted to these housewives at a moment in which they've become fully corrosive for the culture, in which we both admit there's nothing good to glean from these shows. How do I watch knowing that? And to be clear, I want to keep watching. I want to keep watching. Yeah. And that's like kind of the big ethical dilemma we're having this year, listeners. And we want you to involve yourself in this with us, is that we now know that reality TV isn't that great for people anymore.

in it. It's not helping them. It's not making the world better. Nothing good has come out of Salt Lake City Housewives. Nothing really great, but we love watching it. So what is our own responsibility in participating in this machine? And what do we owe these women that we are letting their lives get turned upside down? So I don't know the answer. I know I will be watching the reunions. Salt Lake City will have three weeks of reunions because it's become such a big thing. Three? Three.

Three. That evil genius Andy Cohen. Oh my God. Yeah, making all the money. So, you know, with that, we're going to leave it there. And we just want to hear from you what you think and how you're dealing with all this as we all watch it together. We're going to take another quick break. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with recommendations.

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Tito's Handmade Vodka had been mixed with its fair share of cocktails. But one night, a chilled glass topped with lime and cranberry would change everything this bottle knew about happy hour. From the producers of America's Favorite Vodka, it turns out the cocktail you've been waiting for was right there the whole time. The Tito's Rom Cosmo. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll sip with Tito's.

Coming to cocktail parties near you at Tito's Vodka.com. 40% alcohol by volume, namely 80 proof, crafted to be savored responsibly. All right, listeners, we are back. And before we end the show, we'd love to give you some recommendations for your week. Some things that you can dive into, get into, things that we're loving right now. So to get us going, Sam.

What's your thing for the week? You know, we are deep in awards season, and I'm trying to watch all of the movies that are in contention. I, last week, had the privilege of seeing Poor Things, the new Emma Stone movie, in which she is a kind of Frankenstein monster who, of course, grows a heart. It's great. It's great. It is beautiful.

It is surreal. Emma Stone is one of the greats of our time. And she does this thing where she plays out over the course of the movie, uh,

a woman whose brain is maturing rapidly in real time. And so the person she is at the start of the movie doesn't have a clear grasp of vocabulary or control of her limbs. And by the end, we see Emma Stone's character as this fully formed woman. It's beautiful and amazing to watch her do this progression as an actress over the course of the film. It's wild. Absolutely.

how well every part of this movie works so well together except for Gerard Carmichael he's a little stiff yes that's it

I love this movie. You know, go ahead, say it, Zach. No, I agree. Gerard Carmichael, I was like, so happy you got the job, but why are you here? Yes. What are you doing? Yes. What do you add to this? What is your accent? Like, why are you so out of this world? Yeah, that was odd, but good for him. The one thing I walked away from this movie having is a newfound attraction to Mark Ruffalo. I have never seen him in this way, but for some reason... Ooh!

He doesn't for me in this movie. I'm into it. I was like, okay, Daddy Ruffalo. He's been eating steak. He's been eating some steak. He's a little thicker. Yeah, he's thickums. Thickums. I'm into it. Yeah. I do love the way he yells Emma Stone's character's name. Bella! Yeah, it's so good. It's so good. This movie is just

You know what I love about it? It's a beautiful Oscar-worthy film, but the plot points play out like a children's book, honestly. Like an adult children's book. They're not giving you too much plot. It's just this one woman, this one monster's journey. And it's very linear, and it makes sense, and then it ends. I loved it. I loved it. It didn't overcomplicate itself. It's really great.

Yeah. I walked in being like, why am I seeing this? Do I really like this type of film? And I walked up being like, wow, that was one of the most impressive things I've seen, especially this year. Like this is daring. Yes. Interesting. And just the costumes are beautiful. Beautiful. Visually stunning. Yeah. All right, Zach, what's your rec? So my rec is,

has like multiple prongs to it. So listen carefully, everybody listening to this. So the book I'm going to recommend is called Erasure by Percival Everett. It is a book I read over break to prepare for a conversation I'll be having later this month with Tracy Thomas over at the Stacks for her book club pick of the month.

If the book sounds familiar to you, it should because it is the book that American fiction written and directed by Cord Jefferson, the current contender for an Oscar that Sam wants to win, I want to win, our dear friend Cord, is based off of. And it's really wonderful to read the book and see the movie because they're both exquisite on their own. But Sam, you also have some news related to this as well. Yeah. Speaking of...

of that book, speaking of that movie, American Fiction, and speaking of Cord Jefferson, the director and writer of the adapted screenplay. We're going to have a chat with Cord Jefferson in this podcast feed before the month is over. I was able to sit down with Cord himself in person in LA this past December.

And we're going to share the chat later on this month. It's so good. Cord and I talk about not just his movie, but navigating Hollywood and how the lessons of that book and that film are also applicable to his career and mine and Zach's as black men in these white industries. Um,

It gets really meta, really big picture. And gosh damn, I mean, I'd say it even if it wasn't his friend, but Kord is just whip smart. And talking to him, you feel like you're learning every minute. I loved it. It'll be in your feeds this month.

Yeah. He makes me believe in straight men again. You know, I'm really supportive of that as an idea. That part. Because of Paul Jefferson's important work. Yes. So definitely American fiction, I think is out in most major cities and theaters now. Yeah. Go see it. Go see it. And go read the book. The book is really, I read it in like two days. It wasn't that, like I had a lot of time. It was a break. We weren't working. So I really dove in. And once I began, I didn't want to put it down. And I,

I loved it. And what's really smart about the movie and book is that it's about, as you probably have heard, a writer that creates a book under a pseudonym that is kind of satirical, him making fun of black literature, what he thinks black literature is. But in the book itself, you have the entire book called My Pathology in there. So you read two books. You read Erasure and then My Pathology. So it was really fun to read two books at once. So I'm counting that as two books. I've read two books so far this year, and I'm really proud.

Look at her. Look at her. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, listeners, let us know what you're feeling or not feeling, what's keeping your vibe right, what are your recommendations. Share them with us via email at vibecheckatstitcher.com, vibecheckatstitcher.com.

Listeners, thank you for checking out this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast listening platform. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts. And if you're an Apple Podcasts girly, make sure that you're still subscribed to this show because it's been a little glitchy over there for a while. OK, also leave us a review. And most importantly, tell a friend about the show.

IRL, in real life, in front of a person to their face. Get so close to their face when you recommend vibe check that they can smell the Red Hot Cheetos on your breath. Do that. Red Hot Cheetos. Make it happen.

Yes. Yes, yes. Do that. Or any other chip or snack that you're eating. Make sure they can smell that on you. As always, huge thank you to our producer, Shanta Holder, engineer Sam Kiefer, and Marcus Hom for our theme music and sound design. Also, special thanks to our executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda Management and Production.

And as always, we want to hear from you. So you can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com and keep in touch with us on Instagram at at Zach Staff, at Sam Sanders, and at The Ferocity. And reminder, Saeed is present wherever there is a social media platform. So if you're a blue sky girl or all those others I don't know, he's there talking. I'm sorry. I don't have them anymore. I've let them go. And across all those platforms, remember, use the hashtag vibecheckpod. All right. With that, stay tuned for another episode next Wednesday. Until then, goodbye. Bye.

Stitcher. Tito's Handmade Vodka had been mixed with its fair share of cocktails. But one night, a chilled glass topped with lime and cranberry would change everything this bottle knew about happy hour. From the producers of America's Favorite Vodka, it turns out the cocktail you've been waiting for was right there the whole time. The Tito's Rom Cosmo. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll sip with Tito's.

Coming to cocktail parties near you at Tito's Vodka dot com. 40% alcohol by volume, namely 80 proof, crafted to be savored responsibly. Reese's peanut butter cups are the greatest, but let me play devil's advocate here. Let's see, so, no, that's a good thing. That's definitely not a problem. Reese's, you did it. You stumped this charming devil.