0:00

Hey everyone, I just got

0:02

my ashes and I'm ready

0:04

for Lent. It's gonna be

0:06

the most transformative Lent of

0:08

our lives. Check it out.

0:10

God bless. Do you guys know

0:12

Lisa from Black Pink? Yeah.

0:15

She has this song called

0:17

Rockstar where one of the

0:19

lyrics in the chorus is...

0:22

I'm going to do my

0:24

best Lisa impression. Lisa, can

0:26

you teach me Japanese? I

0:28

said, hi, hi. Little known

0:31

fact, she's actually recalling an

0:33

interaction she had with Gwen

0:35

Stefani. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

0:37

Oh my God, I thought you're

0:40

for real. I thought that was

0:42

a real fun fact. I just

0:44

love the idea of Gwen Stefani

0:46

being like, Lisa, can

0:48

you teach me Japanese?

0:55

Hello, hello, and welcome back to

0:57

A Bit Fruity. The other day,

0:59

I saw a tweet from a

1:01

one Gwen Stefani that absolutely stopped

1:04

me dead in my tracks. Would

1:06

one of you like to read

1:08

this Gwen Stefani tweet because I

1:11

feel like it needs the feminine

1:13

touch? Wow, at Jonathan

1:15

Rumi, you are a

1:17

powerful, inspirational human. What

1:19

an enlightening, beautiful, beautiful,

1:22

beautiful interview. Thank you

1:24

for being you, GX.

1:26

The interview in question

1:28

was one between Jonathan

1:30

Rumi, an actor known

1:32

for his roles in

1:34

various Christian TV

1:37

shows and movies, and a

1:39

one, Tucker Carlson. I

1:41

was perplexed. I was

1:43

shaken. I was paralyzed.

1:46

Gwen Stefani. Gwen Stefani.

1:48

I'm just a girl.

1:50

You know,

1:53

you know,

1:55

that's right. I'm sorry, I've

1:57

spent the last 48 hours

1:59

looking and listening to nothing

2:01

except Gwen Stefani, and so

2:03

it's really just like her

2:06

kind of, I'm just a

2:08

girl. Like the way she

2:10

really kind of curls around

2:12

certain consonants is front and

2:14

center of my brain right

2:16

now. But this was Gwen

2:18

Stefani of no doubt promoting

2:20

Tucker Carlson of the great

2:23

replacement theory. For the rest of

2:25

the day, there were but four words

2:27

running through my head. This shit. is bananas.

2:30

My day as I had planned

2:32

it was over. I needed to

2:34

know everything. I'd fallen into

2:37

a sweet escape that felt

2:39

neither sweet. Sorry. This

2:41

whole episode is going to

2:44

be prized. I started writing

2:46

the intro and I couldn't

2:49

stop. I'd fallen into a

2:51

sweet escape that felt neither

2:53

sweet nor like an escape.

2:56

Rather a rabbit hole. So

2:58

I went to Gwen's Instagram,

3:00

now littered with advertisements for

3:02

the Hallo Daily Prayer app,

3:04

advertisements on which thousands of

3:07

commenters are saying things like, what

3:09

happened to Gwen Stefani? And bring

3:11

back Gwen. I went on Tiktok

3:13

to find a viral video of

3:15

a gay man, getting his tattoo

3:17

of Gwen Stefani's face removed. Where,

3:19

too, I found similar comments. Like, Gwen

3:22

Stefani would hate Gwen Stefani.

3:24

This feels like a recurring script

3:26

in pop culture lately, especially

3:28

for people in and around my

3:31

age group. Pop culture fixtures that

3:33

we grew up alongside, making, as

3:35

so many have, the magga pivot.

3:37

In today's episode, I wanted to

3:39

come together, Taylor, cat, me, you,

3:42

the listener, to do what has

3:44

become an unfortunate ritual lately.

3:46

Mourn a pop diva. Specific to

3:48

Gwen, I want to figure out

3:50

where and why the pivot from

3:53

punk rock princess to Harajuku culture

3:55

vulture to Tradwife occurred and

3:57

draw from it broader conclusions

3:59

about privilege, cultural appropriation,

4:01

celebrity artifice, and whatever

4:04

the hell is going

4:06

on with that prayer app.

4:08

As usual lately, I am joined by

4:10

two of my best friends, Kat

4:12

Tenbarge, and Taylor Lorenz. Welcome back

4:15

to the show. Hi. Thanks for

4:17

having us back again. And before

4:19

we get into the meat of

4:21

the episode, if you would like

4:23

more of the show and or

4:26

to support the show, we are

4:28

over on Patreon with some bonus

4:30

episodes. I recently did a bonus

4:33

with Transculture critic Fran Toronto about

4:35

Amelia Perez and the disaster that

4:37

has come of representation politics. And

4:39

I am doing some live shows this

4:42

spring, which I would love to

4:44

see you at. I'm so excited.

4:46

It'll be just like the podcast

4:48

but live. We are doing shows

4:50

in Toronto, Chicago, Philly, Brooklyn, Seattle,

4:52

LA, and Portland this May

4:55

and June. So if you're

4:57

interested in that, the link

4:59

will be in the episode

5:01

description. So before we get into

5:03

the chronology of Gwen's life and career

5:05

and see how it shaped up to

5:07

be what it is today, I want

5:10

to ask you guys, like, how are

5:12

you feeling going into this and

5:14

what is... the mood given, you

5:16

know, your personal and cultural relationship

5:19

to Gwen Stefani? Well, when you

5:21

texted us and were like, have you

5:23

guys seen what's going on with Gwen

5:25

Stefani? I was like, no! And then

5:27

as soon as we started putting the

5:29

pieces together, and as soon as we

5:31

started like doing research on this, I

5:33

was just like... I should have really

5:35

like it all make so much more

5:37

sense now and I almost feel silly

5:39

for not realizing how transparent like the

5:41

Gwen Stefani act has been but I

5:43

think a lot of people are in

5:45

the same boat so I'm glad that

5:47

we're going to walk through it all.

5:49

You know the Gwen Stefani thing was so

5:51

wild to me because I haven't thought about

5:53

her in years but she was such a

5:56

part of my childhood like as a millennial

5:58

like I think literally in like fifth grade.

6:00

I definitely did not have one

6:02

of her CDs because I was

6:04

not allowed to listen to like

6:06

that sort of music. But she

6:08

was like popular, you know, she

6:10

was so cool. I just remember

6:12

having like young emotional relationships and

6:15

like listening to her music and

6:17

being obsessed and she was so

6:19

beautiful and she had like the

6:21

perfect washboard abs and like perfect

6:23

hair. I mean, now looking back

6:25

at some of her costumes, there's

6:27

deeply problematic, but at the time,

6:29

she just seems so theatrical and

6:31

cool and like, emo and awesome. I

6:33

remember there was a theme park in

6:35

Cincinnati where I grew up, where in

6:38

like the kid section, they would always

6:40

be playing the Sweet Escape by Gwen

6:42

Stefani. Oh my God, Sweet Escape. That

6:45

was a song that I feel like

6:47

my friends and I would like blast

6:49

in the summers and like blast. it

6:52

and like getting ice cream and like

6:54

it was such a that was such

6:56

a good song. Truly one of

6:58

the best pop hooks of the 2000s

7:01

that woo-hoo, weh-hoo. It's so

7:03

instantly iconic and

7:06

recognizable. Well Gwen

7:08

Stefani was born in

7:10

1969 a few months

7:12

after Woodstock, notably, in

7:14

Anaheim a city in

7:16

Orange County, California. And that's

7:19

the end of our episode. Thank you

7:21

so much for joining. Taylor, as our

7:23

resident Californian on the

7:25

podcast, would you like to

7:27

describe maybe the political significance

7:29

of Orange County, California. Orange County,

7:31

California is kind of weird because

7:33

it's actually kind of a Republican

7:35

stronghold like Huntington Beach and like

7:38

so much of that area is

7:40

mega. Like now it's pro Trump,

7:42

but it's always been right leaning.

7:44

A lot of big mega churches

7:46

are down there like Irvine, like

7:48

it's very Christian. It's very different

7:50

than LA, even though it's right

7:52

outside LA. It's like a suburb

7:54

of LA practically, but like culturally

7:57

it's much closer to like the South

7:59

or somewhere. else. Like it is

8:01

this like sort of different

8:04

pocket of culture within California.

8:06

Gwen's Italian-American dad was

8:08

a marketing executive for

8:11

Yamaha Motorcycles and would

8:13

often go on trips for business to

8:16

Japan. Her mother was an Irish-American homemaker. Gwen

8:18

had an older brother named Eric and two

8:20

younger siblings. There's this great essay that I

8:22

am going to reference a number of times

8:24

throughout this episode. It's from 2018, and it's

8:27

by a writer named Anne Helen Peterson. It's

8:29

called Anne Helen Peterson. It's called The New

8:31

Gwen Stefani, is a lot like the old

8:33

one. I'm going to link that essay in

8:35

the episode description if you want to read

8:37

it. But Anne wrote, Gwen had grown up

8:40

in a devoutly Catholic home in a devoutly

8:42

Catholic home, which over the years to come,

8:44

she would describe as the Brady bunch

8:46

family. Church every Sunday. Her mom got

8:48

mad when she used the F word

8:51

on stage, but took solace in the

8:53

fact that she didn't have any tattoos

8:55

or piercings. Her dad was thankful that

8:57

Stephanie spent her teen years playing piccolo

9:00

in the school marching band. Her family

9:02

had once taken a trip to the

9:04

Vatican, on which Stephanie, then aged 21,

9:06

was forbidden to talk to

9:08

boys. In a different interview,

9:10

Gwen said, we weren't rich,

9:12

but we definitely had whatever

9:14

we wanted. That sounds like

9:16

you're rich, by the way.

9:18

Yes, it does. So Gwen

9:20

really enters the public imagination

9:22

as the front member of

9:25

No Doubt. No Doubt was

9:27

formed in 1986 as a

9:29

SCA band by Gwen's older

9:31

brother Eric and his friend

9:33

John Spence. Originally... Gwen Stefani,

9:35

I keep wanting to call

9:37

her Gweneth Paltrow, Jesus Christ.

9:39

Different episode, let me know

9:41

if you want it. That

9:43

is truly another episode. That

9:45

is another six episodes. Gweneth,

9:47

Jesus, Gwen story. The year

9:49

after No Doubt was formed,

9:52

John Spence died by suicide

9:54

and Gwen's brother Eric slaughtered

9:56

Gwen in as the lead

9:58

singer. There's this. interview that Gwen

10:00

Stefani does in 2004 with Vogue, where there

10:02

are a lot of really insane quotes that

10:05

I think are revealing of an attitude about

10:07

what it means to be a woman that

10:09

she's had for basically her whole life, including

10:11

while she was in no doubt. In that

10:13

interview, she says, I was very passive. My

10:15

brother did everything. I was like, I'm just

10:17

the sister. And then after that, I was

10:20

Tony's girlfriend describing a relationship she had

10:22

with a band member. And that was good

10:24

enough for me. I never really had any

10:26

ambitions or goals or goals or goals or

10:29

dreams or dreams. Listen when I read

10:31

that I was just like I was

10:33

so mad because I was like this

10:35

is just so performative like whenever a

10:37

woman tries to say I'm I have

10:39

no in their life like I have

10:41

no ambitions I have no hopes I

10:44

have no dreams I have no goals.

10:46

It's just not true, but it is

10:48

something where it's like very clearly

10:50

you want people and men to

10:52

have this idea of you that

10:55

you're very non-threatening and I think

10:57

that it annoys me especially because

10:59

it's like Gwen Savani here is

11:02

creating a caricature of herself where

11:04

she's dehumanizing herself like she's basically

11:06

saying I'm just a blank slate

11:09

for you to project onto whatever

11:11

your expectations of me I can

11:14

meet them which is like a

11:16

fallacy and it's something that only

11:18

a specific kind of woman can

11:21

get away with like for a

11:23

woman to be considered a blank

11:25

slate you have to conform to

11:27

basically all of the most privileged

11:29

aspects of being a woman it

11:31

only really works for her because

11:33

she was like a white conventionally

11:35

attractive and therefore non-threatening like type

11:37

of woman who came from California

11:39

who could just as easily be

11:41

like edgy as well as the

11:43

girl next door like it's very

11:45

easy for her to take on

11:47

whatever role whatever the person consuming

11:49

her wants to see, she can be

11:52

that person. But that in itself is

11:54

a privilege. And by sitting there and

11:56

being like, and lying, because we also

11:58

know that she does obviously. like she's

12:00

very clearly a very ambitious woman. So

12:02

it really pisses me off when

12:04

women sit there and are like, I

12:06

don't actually have ambitions. You see

12:08

this so frequently with women in conservative

12:10

media. They're like, women should not

12:12

have ambitions. Women should not want to

12:14

work. Women should not want to

12:16

own anything. And it's like, shut up.

12:18

You literally are like a multimillionaire

12:20

who runs her own media company. Like

12:22

you're literally Gwen Stefani. Like don't

12:24

tell me that you have no dreams

12:26

or goals. Trout

12:28

wife, Gwen Stefani.

12:31

It's ridiculous. So

12:34

no doubt they have sort

12:36

of a following within California,

12:38

but nothing national, certainly nothing international.

12:40

Nobody really knows who they

12:42

are on the world stage yet.

12:44

And then in 1990, no

12:46

doubt is signed by Jimmy Iovine,

12:48

who is the co -founder of

12:50

Interscope Records. Some years later

12:52

in 1995, no doubt would release

12:54

their smash hit album, Tragic

12:56

Kingdom, of which you are most

12:58

definitely familiar with, if not

13:01

by name, then with the songs

13:03

like Don't Speak, Spiderwebs,

13:05

Just a Girl. Gwen

13:07

Stefani really takes on

13:09

this, you know, feminist punk

13:11

rock image. She kind of becomes

13:13

the image of those things in

13:15

the latter half of the 90s.

13:18

Taylor as the, I feel

13:20

like Kat and I are both

13:22

like Gen Z millennial cusped. But

13:24

as the old one. As

13:28

the old hag of a

13:30

fruity. Well,

13:35

we were talking on the phone last night

13:37

and you were kind of describing like what Gwen

13:39

Stefani meant to you as a middle schooler

13:42

during this time. She was just so cool

13:44

and so independent. And I think also

13:46

the lyrics, like obviously I'm Just a

13:48

Girl had been out for a while,

13:50

but like it was so pervasive and

13:52

it was, it felt like this like

13:54

independent anthem, because she, first of all,

13:56

she's the lead singer of this like

13:58

cool band, right? And at the. time, so

14:00

much of the pop music landscape, at least

14:02

during my like tween and then later teen

14:05

years, was it was like the Brittany Spears

14:07

era. It was the Christina Aguilera era. Like

14:09

it was all about these like this sort

14:11

of like hyper feminine like pop star women

14:14

single acts and then on the male side

14:16

you had like blink 182, like Oasis was

14:18

kind of like, I don't know, just like

14:21

all these like male kind of like bands

14:23

that I feel like guys were into and

14:25

like they would listen to it like the

14:27

warped tour or whatever. And so like when

14:30

was this like kind of like gateway

14:32

into that like more male world or

14:34

like she just she actually seemed to

14:36

be like challenging gender norms in a

14:38

way. I liked that she had this

14:41

sort of alternative version of femininity in

14:43

my perception because she wasn't just like

14:45

I'm a genie and a bottle or

14:47

whatever, which obviously like, you know, the

14:50

scene is amazing. We love her. We

14:52

love her. And they were forced to,

14:54

like, now we know so much about

14:56

sort of like the way that the

14:58

pop industry commodifies women, but I think

15:01

like at the time, it's she seemed

15:03

rebellious. Like she would wear these like

15:05

low slung like big pants and like

15:07

cool tops and had the chop sticks

15:09

in her hair, which we can get

15:11

into, but like, like, this big Asian

15:13

market. I think it's still there. Oh,

15:15

Pearl River Market, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

15:17

yeah. It's like Soho, Chinatown. I would

15:19

always go to Canal Street to buy

15:21

knockoff. I think I was trying to

15:23

get like a knockoff Kate Spade bag

15:25

on Canal Street and like we're walking

15:27

around. And I remember my friend bought

15:29

like a like one of those like

15:31

fake kimono type tops because it was

15:33

like in because I think like Gwen

15:36

was wearing it at the time or

15:38

it was like definitely part of that

15:40

like late 90s early 2000 style which

15:42

now reads as crazy cultural appropriation but

15:44

at the time seemed like alt and

15:46

cool and she seemed alt and cool.

15:48

She really took on this sort of

15:50

feminist image that you know you read

15:52

early interviews with her and it definitely

15:54

seems like she wanted to take the

15:56

mantle that had been handed over by

15:58

like you know a Courtney love type

16:01

and make it softer. I think Gwen's

16:03

image has always been attempting to hold

16:05

two truths at once, which is on

16:07

one hand this sort of like creatively

16:10

adventurous feminist type irreverent creative soul with

16:12

this like aspiring Trad wife. And again

16:14

from that 2004 cover interview that she

16:16

did, she was describing when Jimmy Ivan

16:19

signed her to inner scope. Here's the

16:21

quote, cat, I feel like you're gonna

16:23

love to hate this, but... She said,

16:25

Jimmy took me aside and said, Gwen,

16:28

you are going to be a huge

16:30

star in six years. I was like,

16:32

first of all, who the hell are

16:34

you? And second of all, I'm not

16:37

going to be in this band six

16:39

years from now. I'm going to be

16:41

having 14 children and be married. Then,

16:44

practically to the day, don't speak was

16:46

number one around the world. It's pretty

16:48

spooky. We always laugh about that. It's

16:50

really funny because it's like, like you

16:53

were saying, Taylor, just listening to Gwen

16:55

Stefani's biggest songs, you would think that

16:57

she was, if not feminist, just simply

16:59

an alternative. Like, she presents this idea

17:02

in her music and she did this

17:04

throughout various eras of her career, where

17:06

she would kind of nod to the

17:08

fact of like, misogyny and like how

17:11

she's considered as a woman. Also very

17:13

similar to what Pink does, I feel

17:15

like, in a lot of her music

17:17

at around this time, like a thing

17:20

that you could... still consume but that

17:22

presents like a very slightly alternative view

17:24

of womanhood and it's ironic that that's

17:27

what she presented in her music but

17:29

at the exact same time she was

17:31

saying like literally I want to be

17:33

a trad wife I want to be

17:36

like 25 years old with 14 children

17:38

on a farm and I also think

17:40

it's very interesting the fact that like

17:42

Disneyland has played such an important role

17:45

like symbolically throughout her life because she

17:47

grew up in Anaheim. and she was

17:49

part of like the Anaheim youth who

17:51

would spend so much time at Disneyland,

17:54

which as unfortunately a Disney adult, someone

17:56

who reads a lot of... books about

17:58

Disney history. I think it's really interesting

18:00

that she grew up in this community

18:03

that was like very affluent and had

18:05

like the resources to spend a lot

18:07

of time at Disneyland which don't get

18:09

me wrong at the time I think

18:12

it costs like $15 to go there

18:14

but still you know tragic kingdom they

18:16

use Disney as like a symbol and

18:19

sort of are like rebelling against it

18:21

and how they posture it but at

18:23

the same time like she has spent

18:25

her whole life frequently going to Disney

18:28

today she's known as a who is

18:30

frequently like spotted at Disney. She takes

18:32

her kids there. And the juxtaposition of

18:34

like Disney as the ultimate symbol of

18:37

American capitalism, the ultimate symbol of being

18:39

consumer friendly, consumer safe, non-threatening. Like I

18:41

just think it makes a lot of

18:43

sense that in the same way in

18:46

her music and in her persona, she's

18:48

combining these two things. And like that

18:50

makes sense to me that that's part

18:52

of her aesthetic. Do you guys know

18:55

about the 1995 Roe versus Wade anniversary

18:57

show appearance? Okay, so this

18:59

is something that is written about

19:01

in that 2018 essay, but basically

19:04

in 1995, as no doubt is

19:06

exploding in fame with their album,

19:08

Tragic Kingdom, they're asked to perform

19:10

at a Roe versus Wade anniversary

19:13

show, where Gwen gets on stage

19:15

and says, quote, if I got

19:17

pregnant right now, I wouldn't get

19:19

an abortion. But isn't it cool

19:21

that nobody can tell me what

19:24

I can and can't do? And

19:26

the organizers of the show were

19:28

like, we did not know that

19:30

she was going to say that.

19:32

I think it's so interesting how

19:35

she's always actually been consistent with

19:37

her conservative values. But I guess

19:39

maybe because the conservative movement didn't

19:41

have the same sort of like

19:43

cultural capital and power, it was

19:46

so. not perceived. Like she's doing

19:48

these things that like now today,

19:50

imagine that on Twitter, you know,

19:52

we would immediately sort of contextualize

19:54

her differently. But I think also

19:57

just the media climate was so

19:59

different. the media climate was so

20:01

misogynistic back then, she could maintain

20:03

that like hyper feminist independent image

20:05

despite her repeatedly saying all of

20:08

this stuff that makes it clear

20:10

that that's not who she is.

20:12

So what this reminds me of

20:14

is how in this I feel

20:16

like cultural period where it's like

20:19

post-ro well, ros still exist at

20:21

this time and like within like

20:23

the popular discourse around abortion, you

20:25

see this weird sort of thing

20:27

emerge where it's like emerged in

20:30

Twilight, the whole end of the

20:32

Twilight series is about how like

20:34

Belliswan wants the choice to not

20:36

have an abortion essentially. And like

20:38

the word abortion does not appear

20:40

in the Twilight series, but this

20:42

was a conversation at the time

20:45

was like, why would you have

20:47

a narrative that's so focused on

20:49

a woman who like... wants to

20:51

choose to keep her kid and

20:53

not have an abortion. And Gwen

20:55

Stefani is saying this at this

20:58

like abortion-centered event. I'm like, she's

21:00

literally, she's doing like the

21:02

Stephanie Meyer Beliswan thing. I

21:04

am so appreciative of the

21:06

breadth of your references. You're

21:08

just like, Gwen Stefani is

21:10

Beliswan. It's so aspirational. Cultural

21:12

appropriation is obviously a huge

21:14

throughline in Gwen Stefani's entire

21:16

career and it starts really

21:19

early with Gwen Stefani if

21:21

you recall during the no

21:23

doubt era wearing a bindi.

21:25

Yes. Which is if you're

21:27

unfamiliar it's a jewelry or

21:29

a mark often a red

21:31

dot worn by a lot of

21:33

South Asian women specifically in India

21:35

as usually a spiritual symbol evoking

21:38

the concept of the third eye

21:40

and Gwen started wearing this you

21:42

can see it like in all

21:44

of her music videos and photo

21:46

shoots and performances. Gwen who again

21:49

Irish-American mom, Italian-American dad, she was

21:51

in a relationship with her bandmate

21:53

Tony in no doubt who was

21:55

Indian and whose mother wore a

21:58

bindi. So Gwen Stefani would... to

22:00

their house for you know family gatherings

22:02

and she was like I'm just trying

22:04

to imagine like Gwen like being

22:06

like I love that you know I

22:09

got one of those and then

22:11

she did she just like she went

22:13

to like clares or something and

22:15

she bought some stick on jewels and

22:17

she started wearing a bindi yeah

22:19

this was so part of her aesthetic

22:22

back then also like I mean it's

22:24

interesting how she was always tied in

22:26

with like Asian cultures you know And

22:29

I don't remember any discourse around it.

22:31

I feel like they sold those bindies.

22:33

I mean, people replicated that, like that

22:36

was an accessory. Yeah, I feel like

22:38

any pushback in the 90s and early

22:40

2000s to cultural appropriation was like, since

22:43

there was no Twitter, there was no

22:45

Twitter, there was not a way to

22:47

communicate it to the masses really quickly

22:50

in the way that discourse around cultural

22:52

appropriation would later evolve. And I feel

22:54

like people who did speak out early

22:57

on about it were oftentimes just

22:59

like... really easily dismissed? Where would they

23:01

even speak out too? totally, like there's

23:03

barely a mechanism to do it. One

23:06

of, I feel like the hallmarks when

23:08

we're talking about cultural appropriation, because people

23:10

always love to say, oh well, you

23:13

know, appreciation versus appropriation, what's the difference,

23:15

meow, meow, but I feel like one

23:17

of the hallmarks of cultural appropriation is

23:20

the relative political power of the cultures

23:22

which are being borrowed and which are

23:24

borrowing. And which are borrowing. you know,

23:27

aesthetic costume value are not celebrated and

23:29

are often, you know, denigrated and discriminated

23:32

against in American culture. It's about, you

23:34

know, this white woman ultimately being able

23:36

to profit and then discard accessories

23:38

and looks from these cultures. And Gwen

23:41

really does that a lot throughout her

23:43

career. Anne Helen Peterson wrote, no matter

23:45

how much Stefani borrowed from other people

23:48

and cultures to create her look, it

23:50

was framed as uniquely hers. When Madonna

23:52

showed up with her hands, I thought

23:55

this was crazy, when Madonna showed up

23:57

with her hands, at an MTV music

23:59

video awards in 1998, Entertainment Weekly suggested

24:02

she was cribbing Stephanie's look. Stephanie's response

24:04

was, quote, I was a little shocked

24:06

by that. But whatever, I'm sure there

24:09

are things I knicked off of her

24:11

from the 80s. Zero self-reflection. Which is

24:13

also a through line. Also didn't Quoth

24:16

Paltrow, sorry to bring it back

24:18

to her, but didn't she say she

24:20

invented yoga? Or like she popularized yoga?

24:22

So I feel like this is like

24:25

kind of like a thing that white

24:27

women celebrities, especially in like the lifestyle

24:29

or like cultural trend setting space, are

24:32

like, that was my thing. And it's

24:34

like. It's literally not at all. And

24:36

it's just like to such an offensive

24:39

degree. When we talk about Gwenstefani and

24:41

cultural appropriation, we often relegate it to

24:43

things like the bindi and the way

24:46

that she would seriously mooch off of

24:48

Japanese and Harajuku culture, which we are

24:50

about to talk about. But when I

24:53

was outlining this episode and I was

24:55

looking at really just like the

24:57

through line of who Gwenstefani is and

24:59

perhaps always been, I think it's helpful

25:02

maybe, and you tell me what you

25:04

think, but I feel like it could

25:06

be helpful to make sense of her

25:09

sort of like feminist punk rock era

25:11

as another cultural costume and maybe the

25:13

one that resonates with people the most

25:16

because that's the one where she entered

25:18

public imagination. Yeah. It is so funny

25:20

because I don't even know that it's

25:23

something that she embraced as much as

25:25

like it was sort of put on

25:27

her maybe by like the public and

25:30

by the music industry and sort of

25:32

trying to position herself as different and

25:34

just like again being the front

25:36

woman of this band at a time

25:39

when that was seen as like sort

25:41

of subversive and like you said she's

25:43

like alternative and cool. But it doesn't

25:46

seem like she ever embraced it herself.

25:48

It's funny, like you said, that it's

25:50

everyone's first impression and first impressions are

25:53

always our lasting impression because it's how

25:55

we're introduced to this artist. And often

25:57

it's very hard for artists to like

26:00

evolve past you know what they're originally

26:02

known for. But it's just kind of

26:04

funny because it doesn't even sound like

26:07

it was something that she really...

26:09

embraced. From that Vogue 2004 interview, Gwen

26:11

said, the scene that I grew up

26:13

in with female artists like Bikini Kill

26:16

and Hole and all these more punk

26:18

rock girls, I always had the pressure

26:20

of you've got to be a feminist

26:23

and you've got to hate guys and

26:25

you've got to cuss and be tough.

26:27

And I was never like that. I

26:30

grew up like a Catholic good girl.

26:32

That always kind of scared me, the

26:34

pressure of having to be so cool

26:37

or like, fuck you to the world.

26:39

You to the world. I love to

26:41

dress up and I love to wear

26:44

makeup and be myself. I like being

26:46

a girl. I like having a

26:48

door open for me. I like all

26:50

the traditional stuff and I won't deny

26:53

it. So it's like basically in order

26:55

to sell herself as countercultural rather than

26:57

do something authentic because authentically she is

27:00

not countercultural at all. So in order

27:02

to market herself and sell herself, the

27:04

clearest path for her to do that

27:07

was to just... deal from another culture

27:09

and we'll get into it more but

27:11

I think the way that she presents

27:14

Japanese culture in itself is so deeply

27:16

problematic. It's like she's trying to create

27:18

edge where there is none. So she's

27:21

going about it by just pilfering from

27:23

Japanese culture. I also obviously like just

27:26

the way that she perceives feminism

27:28

is so warped and just the pick

27:30

me type attitude of like I'm not

27:32

like those other female artists, I like

27:35

to have the door open for me

27:37

and that's why I'm not a real

27:39

feminist. Like, it's bizarre. I would like

27:42

to take a quick break from the

27:44

show to shout out factor for making

27:46

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27:53

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27:56

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28:00

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for sponsoring this episode. Now let's get

29:05

back to the show. Something really interesting

29:07

about this point in her career when

29:10

she's transitioning out of no doubt and

29:12

transitioning into herself as a solo act.

29:14

I've been listening to the song What

29:17

You Waiting for a lot recently and

29:19

I watched the music video multiple times.

29:21

We can't play it but I'll sing

29:24

because I know that's what everyone

29:26

wants. What you waiting, what you waiting,

29:28

what you waiting, what you waiting, what

29:30

you waiting, what you waiting, what you

29:33

waiting, what you waiting, what you waiting,

29:35

what you waiting, what you waiting, and

29:37

what you waiting. So in

29:40

this song, and specifically I think the

29:42

music video is really, really interesting because

29:44

one of the things that stuck out

29:46

to me about the lyrics in the

29:48

song is there's a parochies like, I

29:50

know it's so messed up, Power Society,

29:52

all things, about women, like that's the

29:54

implication. And so listening to it, I

29:56

was like, is this like a feminist

29:58

anthem, sleigh? went and watched the music

30:01

video and I was like this is

30:03

racist because in the music video the

30:05

plot of the extended music video is

30:07

that Gwen is preparing to launch her

30:09

solo career and she does not know

30:11

what type of song to write she

30:13

doesn't know what type of aesthetic to

30:15

have she doesn't know what to do

30:17

or sing about and she's like Yikes,

30:19

the pressure is really like ticking down

30:22

because I have this huge record deal

30:24

and I need to come up with

30:26

something that's going to define my solo

30:28

era so I need to get some

30:30

inspiration. And in the music video she

30:32

like goes to a doctor's office and

30:34

like takes this pill, then has this

30:36

fantasy where she's doing like an Alice

30:38

in Wonderland scene. but all of the

30:40

people are Japanese in the background of

30:43

the scene like all the different characters

30:45

besides her are Japanese people and this

30:47

is like a very market entrance I

30:50

think into this era where she particularly

30:52

appropriates from Japanese culture and it's literally

30:54

presented to the audience as like Gwen

30:57

didn't know what to do. So she

30:59

took inspiration from Japanese culture and is

31:01

going to make millions of dollars off

31:04

of it. Like that is literally the

31:06

narrative that underlines the entrance of her

31:08

solo career. You know, like you mentioned,

31:11

Kata, I don't think that she sees

31:13

Women of Color as equal to her.

31:15

Like even in that video that you're

31:17

talking about when I was just re-watching

31:20

it ends and she's just sort of

31:22

like performing in this room in front

31:24

of this group of like four women

31:26

of color. where they're sort of like

31:29

passively staring at her and she's like

31:31

this beautiful butterfly you know that's emerged

31:33

and is superior or something can now

31:36

like fly out of the wonderland. It's

31:38

like she views Asian women and

31:40

Asian people as very one-dimensional

31:42

but by taking from them

31:44

it's like she views herself

31:46

as more of a three

31:48

four-dimensional person. as we've been

31:51

getting at in 2004, Gwen

31:53

Goes Solo with the release

31:55

of her solo debut Love

31:58

Angel Music Baby or Lamb.

32:00

This album has all of the

32:02

hits. Hala Back Girl, Bubble Pop

32:04

Electric, Rich Girl, What You Waiting

32:07

for, and the entire concept for

32:09

the album was based on Harajuku.

32:11

Herajuku, it's an area in Shibuya,

32:14

Japan, which is known for its

32:16

youth fashion culture. Herajuku as a

32:18

style, it's very colorful, it's lots

32:20

of layering, vibrant colors, maximalism more

32:23

is more. It has a huge

32:25

influence on fashion today, like even

32:27

on... she says of this album

32:29

that her dad who again was

32:32

that Yamaha Motorcycles executive that he

32:34

would come back from business trips

32:36

from Japan when she was a

32:39

child and he would tell her

32:41

stories of the street performers there

32:43

and then when she could finally

32:45

travel on her own she says

32:48

she went to Harajuku in 1996

32:50

when she was on tour with

32:52

no doubt and she became fixated

32:55

and so part of a huge

32:57

part of perhaps the part of

32:59

The album rollout, the album imagery,

33:01

the tours, the promo was her

33:04

Herajuku girls. The Herajuku girls were

33:06

four Japanese and Japanese American backup

33:08

dancers that Gwen Stefani hired to

33:10

promote the Love Angel Music Baby

33:13

album. This is like not news.

33:15

I'm basically just describing this because

33:17

I always like to give context

33:20

for what I'm talking about. And

33:22

also, there are some listeners of

33:24

this podcast who are either too

33:26

old or too young. to remember

33:29

the Harrojuku girl era. These four

33:31

women, they were with Gwen everywhere.

33:33

They were at her performances. They

33:35

were in her music videos. They

33:38

were at her like red carpets

33:40

where they famously would not speak.

33:42

They were instructed to be totally

33:45

silent and just stand there. Gwen

33:47

also would sometimes introduce them as

33:49

her, and I thought this was

33:51

crazy, imaginary friends. named these four

33:54

women who are, might just remind

33:56

her, real women, love angel music

33:58

and baby. There's this one lyric

34:01

from Rich Girl, the song, If

34:03

I'm with a Rich Girl, which

34:05

I think encapsulates her concept of

34:07

these women and of the album

34:10

at large really well, she says,

34:12

I'd get me four Harajuku girls

34:14

to inspire me and they'd come

34:16

to my rescue. I'd address them

34:19

wicked, I'd give them names. Love,

34:21

angel, music, baby. Hurry up and

34:23

come and save me. I mean,

34:26

this is dark. Well, I just

34:28

think it's like, it's shocking how

34:30

she had these women dress. So

34:32

she has these quote unquote harejuku

34:35

girls dressed up as like, sort

34:37

of a parody of like gay

34:39

show women where they have their

34:41

faces, often like, they're wearing like

34:44

very like white makeup. They have

34:46

the red circles painted on their

34:48

cheeks. They have the little narrow

34:51

lipstick of just sort of like

34:53

just the. middle-of-your-mouth color, the high

34:55

eyebrows, the thin eyebrows, like it's

34:57

just it's such a parody of

35:00

I think what a lot of

35:02

people in the West view as

35:04

Japanese culture or sort of traditional

35:07

Japanese aesthetics. One of like the

35:09

harms of what Gwen Stepani did

35:11

with her portrayal of her juku

35:13

girls and Japanese culture is that

35:16

because she had such a huge

35:18

platform in popular culture, her portrayal

35:20

of Japanese people and of Japanese

35:22

women in particular is the most

35:25

widespread portrayal that a lot of

35:27

her listeners and people in her

35:29

audience received. So for example, as

35:32

like a white tween girl growing

35:34

up in suburban Ohio, I was

35:36

not exposed to authentic, respectful portrayals

35:38

of Japanese culture that were made

35:41

by Japanese people as much as

35:43

I was exposed to what Gwen

35:45

Stefani was doing and how Gwen

35:48

Stefani was portraying Japanese people. That

35:50

was what I had the most

35:52

exposure to. So even though I

35:54

didn't walk away from it having

35:57

a worse view of Japanese people,

35:59

the view that I had was

36:01

this Americanized appropriative version, and it

36:03

wasn't until I was much older

36:06

that I actually learned more about

36:08

Japanese culture from Japanese people. I

36:10

think about the artist Rinasawayama who

36:13

talks about this and makes art

36:15

about this and about being like

36:17

a Japanese British woman and about

36:19

how Japanese people are portrayed as

36:22

a stereotype as a stereotype. how

36:24

that is so difficult to navigate.

36:26

And I think that the way

36:28

that Gwen had the Herrigue girls

36:31

stand behind her silently and the

36:33

way that they were objectified and

36:35

the way that ultimately they were

36:38

sexualized because they were supposed to

36:40

be like really cute girls who

36:42

were playing into this album image

36:44

that was ultimately sexy and that

36:47

in particular is really damaging to

36:49

Asian women Japanese women and Asian

36:51

women are already infantilized and sexualized

36:54

particularly in the Western image of

36:56

their culture and so I think

36:58

that Gwen Zaponi 100 million percent

37:00

not only did she contribute to

37:03

this but if you just look

37:05

at how massive this cultural impact

37:07

was I think it's like it's

37:09

a part of her history that

37:12

she has never apologized for or

37:14

owned up to and it's she

37:16

should she has to the harm

37:19

has not been undone it has

37:21

not even been acknowledged. I think

37:23

also I mean like cat you

37:25

mentioned her impact on like suburban

37:28

America and like women's fashion was

37:30

wide. Like, this is a woman

37:32

who, especially back then, was considered

37:35

this trendsetter, this like style icon.

37:37

She was so ahead of her

37:39

time. And I think that you

37:41

saw this ripple effect too, where

37:44

you just had a lot of

37:46

other suburban white American girls cost

37:48

playing Japanese people, like, or their

37:50

perceptions of Japanese people, right? It

37:53

was like going to get the

37:55

like Comono style top from delias

37:57

or whatever. I saw this when

38:00

we were talking about this episode

38:02

that Gwen Stefani debuted a harejuku

38:04

mini line for kids for target.

38:06

Yes. Again, it just shows like

38:09

she was just commodifying this other

38:11

culture that she had really no

38:13

connection to and then selling it

38:15

to the masses in America very

38:18

successfully. Well, she had kids lines,

38:20

but she had an adult line.

38:22

She had a fragrance line called

38:24

Herajuku Lovers, where there were five

38:27

different fragrances, one for each of

38:29

the women and one for her.

38:31

I think Forbes estimated that between

38:33

2007 and 2008, between the merchandise

38:35

and the tour, I believe she

38:38

made $27 million. Wow. It's also.

38:40

I think, you know, looking at

38:42

what Herajuku is like right now,

38:44

everything that I've read about it

38:47

talks about how Herajuku in particular

38:49

has become so commercial since the

38:51

time when Gwen Stefani first went

38:53

to Herajuku. versus now, there's like

38:56

massive overtourism in Japan, generally speaking.

38:58

I just did an article about

39:00

this for Wired, looking at how

39:02

like Tiktak has influenced people in

39:05

particular to like go to Japan

39:07

and it's led to massive overtourism.

39:09

So Herajuku today, it's incredibly crowded

39:12

and the people who are there

39:14

are oftentimes Western tourists looking to

39:16

capture some of what Gwen Stefani

39:18

was talking about in like her

39:21

early auts music. But the culture

39:23

that she was stealing from is

39:25

now actually eroding and disappearing in

39:27

part because Herajuku has been taken

39:30

over by American corporate brands. Like

39:32

if you go to Herajuku today,

39:34

there's like a Nike store. There's

39:36

like all of these like American

39:39

brands that have taken this very

39:41

valuable space. And part of like

39:43

why American tourists want to go

39:45

there has to do the fact

39:48

that. Gwenstafani popularized Herajjuku to such

39:50

an extent. Something that you'll hear

39:52

come up a lot when people

39:54

talk specifically about Gwenstafani in the

39:56

Herajuku era was this idea that,

39:58

you know, conversation. around cultural appropriation

40:01

were not in 2004 what they are

40:03

today. And I think that's a complicated

40:05

idea because while it's true that cultural

40:07

appropriation, the conversations about it were not,

40:09

like, buzzy the way that they are

40:12

today. There were especially Asian women at

40:14

the time who were very vocal about

40:16

the fact that they were not okay

40:18

with what Quinn Stephanie was doing. And

40:21

I was reading some essays from those

40:23

women and I wanted to quote them.

40:25

So in 2005 this journalist named Mihian

40:27

in a salon article called Gwenihana wrote

40:30

she's even named them Love Angel Music

40:32

and Baby after her album and new

40:34

clothing line. The renaming of four adults

40:36

led one poster on a message board

40:38

to Muse. I didn't think it was

40:41

legal to own human pets, but I

40:43

guess so if you have the money

40:45

for it. Stephanie fauns over Herajuku style

40:47

in her lyrics, but her appropriation of

40:50

this subculture makes about as much sense

40:52

as the gap selling anarchy t-shirts. She

40:54

swallowed a subversive youth culture in Japan

40:56

and barfed up another image of submissive

40:59

giggling Asian women. While apeying a style

41:01

that's supposed to be about individuality and

41:03

personal expression, Stephanie ends up being the

41:05

only one who stands out. Another really

41:07

scathing article was actually from comedian Margaret

41:10

Cho, who on her blog in 2005

41:12

wrote, I want to like the Harajuku

41:14

Girls, and I want to think that

41:16

they are great, but I'm not sure

41:19

if I can. I mean, racial stereotypes

41:21

are really cute sometimes, and I don't

41:23

want to bum everyone out by pointing

41:25

out the minstrel show. I think it

41:28

is totally acceptable to enjoy the Harajuku

41:30

Girls, because there are not that many

41:32

other Asian people out there in the

41:34

media, really. So we have to take

41:37

whatever we can get. At least it

41:39

is a measure of visibility. which is

41:41

much better than invisibility. I am so

41:43

sick of not existing that I would

41:45

settle for following any white person around

41:48

with an umbrella just so I could

41:50

say I was there. Even though to

41:52

me a Japanese schoolgirl uniform is kind

41:54

of like black face, I'm just an

41:57

acceptance over it because something is better

41:59

than nothing. An ugly picture

42:01

is better than a blank space. And

42:03

it means that one day we will

42:06

have another display at the Museum of

42:08

Asian Invisibility that groups of children will

42:10

crowd around in disbelief because once upon

42:12

a time we weren't there. Wow. That

42:15

like took my breath away because it's

42:17

so sad. I'll link that to in

42:19

the episode description. I'll link both of

42:21

those essays. And not to just like

42:24

knock your socks off, but Gwen Stefani

42:26

responded to this Margaret Cho essay. We're

42:28

actually, we're going to get into a

42:31

few of Gwen Stefani's responses to these

42:33

types of criticisms over the years. And

42:35

the first of those responses comes in

42:37

2007 to Margaret Cho in an interview

42:40

that Gwen Stefani did in Entertainment Weekly.

42:42

She said... And I am so sorry

42:44

to be reading this. Margaret didn't do

42:46

her research. The truth is that I

42:49

basically was saying how great that culture

42:51

is. It pisses me off that Cho

42:53

would not do the research then talk

42:56

out like that. It's just so embarrassing

42:58

for her. The Harajuku Girls is an

43:00

art project. It's fun. What an abhorrent

43:02

response. Margaret Cho doesn't need to do

43:05

research on being Asian. So Gwen should

43:07

be doing her research and frankly has

43:09

expressed no interest in actually researching this

43:11

issue or learning about the nuances of

43:14

these cultures and I think that that

43:16

sort of response and that dismissiveness and

43:18

her continued insistence on doubling down. It

43:21

just shows that she has no interest

43:23

in self-reflection and she fundamentally has no

43:25

respect for these cultures because here is

43:27

a incredibly prominent Asian woman. telling you,

43:30

educating, doing the actual work to educate

43:32

you, and writing so thoughtfully and in

43:34

such a beautiful and nuanced way. And

43:36

I mean, her reaction is to just

43:39

dismiss it. It's wild. Yeah, I think

43:41

her response is honestly evil because it's

43:43

like, if you didn't read Margaret's piece

43:46

and you only read Gwen's response, which

43:48

is like two sentences and much easier

43:50

to digest, you would walk away with

43:52

like, it's basically like disinformation. don't get

43:55

that I my intent is not negative

43:57

and it's like that's not the question

43:59

on the table intent doesn't matter if

44:01

the end result is harmful and I

44:04

also don't think that Gwen went into

44:06

this with good intent like even if

44:08

the argument is like I appreciate the

44:11

culture I It's not true. You don't

44:13

appreciate the culture. She fetishizes it in

44:15

order to commercialize it and sell it

44:17

back to people for profit. Exactly. It's

44:20

the exact opposite of appreciation. It's exploitation.

44:22

Seven years later in 2014, Time magazine

44:24

did an interview with Gwenstafani, where they

44:26

once again asked her if she regretted

44:29

how she went about the Herajuku era,

44:31

to which she said, no. There's always

44:33

going to be two sides to everything.

44:36

For me, everything that I did with

44:38

the Herajuku Girls was a pure compliment

44:40

and being a fan. You can't be

44:42

a fan of somebody else? Or another

44:45

culture? Of course you can. Of course

44:47

you can celebrate other cultures. That's what

44:49

Japanese culture and American culture have done.

44:51

It's like I say in the song

44:54

Herajuku Girls, it's a ping pong match.

44:56

We do something American, they take it

44:58

and flip it and make it so

45:01

Japanese and so cool. And we take

45:03

it back and go, whoa, that's so

45:05

cool. That's so beautiful. It's a beautiful

45:07

thing in the world, how our cultures

45:10

come together. I don't feel like I

45:12

did anything but share that love. You

45:14

can look at it from a negative

45:16

point of view if you want to,

45:19

but get off my cloud. Get off

45:21

her cloud. Get off her cloud. Get

45:23

off her cloud. Get off her cloud.

45:26

Get off her cloud. I love that.

45:28

I started this episode with like talking

45:30

about Tucker Carlson and the prayer app,

45:32

which is that like I think she's

45:35

always been conservative. Yeah. I think she's

45:37

always been conservative, like I think she's,

45:39

you know, like, honestly, like always been

45:41

kind of a white supremacist and has

45:44

worn various costumes to artistic critical acclaim

45:46

and made a ton of money doing

45:48

that kind of thing, but it's never

45:51

been out of respect. And it makes

45:53

sense that ultimately, like, the return to

45:55

form is this Tradwife selling prayer rap

45:57

subscription. I also think her use of

46:00

the word fan is really interesting because

46:02

I think she's using it interchangeably with

46:04

the word consumer Which is to say

46:06

that like the only way you can

46:09

interact or engage with Japanese people in

46:11

their culture is to in her case,

46:13

profit from it, but otherwise to buy

46:16

it. And I just think that it

46:18

all kind of links back to this

46:20

idea where one pillar of her conservatism

46:22

is just the desire to profit and

46:25

consume. And I think that that in

46:27

particular is so harmful when you look

46:29

at cultures through the lens of.

46:31

consumption and capitalism only because it's

46:33

exactly what she's doing. She's erasing

46:35

the foundation and the vast majority

46:37

of Japanese culture to distill it

46:39

down to this thing that you

46:41

can literally go to Target and

46:44

buy for your children. And now

46:46

that conservatism and her specific brand

46:48

of conservatism in Chadwife culture is

46:50

becoming more culturally dominant and there

46:52

is like a way to profit

46:54

off that. she's able to lean

46:56

further into who she always has

46:58

been and just further her profit. It's

47:00

sort of like, oh, okay, well, I bided

47:02

my time, you know, dipping my toes into

47:05

all these other cultures, doing all these other

47:07

things to kind of... profit like you mentioned

47:09

cat but now she doesn't have to pretend

47:11

she can shill her prior app she can

47:14

you know be who she always has been

47:16

but more openly and not suffer any sort

47:18

of financial setback for it because if she

47:21

if the perception of her was as this

47:23

trad wife sort of like anti-feminist back a

47:25

decade ago she wouldn't have been able to

47:27

make the money that she was making and

47:30

of course she's telling us who she

47:32

is obviously through these interviews But I

47:34

think also the marketing teams around her and

47:36

how they're able to position her and her

47:38

business team, which you know, she runs, they

47:40

can do the prayer app deal, right? Like

47:43

they can do these things now where it's

47:45

like, all right, this is mainstream now.

47:47

And guess what? She's always been around.

47:49

You know, every single time she's

47:51

given the opportunity to apologize or

47:53

reconsider the Harajuku era, she always

47:56

goes into this diatribe about like,

47:58

but cultural diffusion is so. amazing.

48:00

Again, like never acknowledging the varying

48:02

degrees of power and the flow

48:04

of power that cultural appropriation entails.

48:06

But it's particularly egregious when you

48:08

consider something that was unearthed on

48:10

Twitter about a year and a

48:12

half ago by this account called

48:15

Tokyo Fashion. They brought to like

48:17

this legal document where when is

48:19

Paltrow's legal team actually tried to...

48:21

Where Gwen Stefani's legal team actually

48:23

tried to trademark the word Harajuku

48:25

in America under her brand, and

48:27

the trademark examiner was like, Harajuku

48:29

is a place, you can't trademark

48:31

that, and they were like, but

48:33

the only reason anybody knows it

48:35

in America is because of Gwen

48:37

Stefani, which is just like, if

48:39

you're actually interested in like organic,

48:41

vibrant, cultural exchanges, why are you

48:43

trying to trademark Harajuku? It gives

48:45

the whole game away. Like you

48:47

said, Matt, this is white supremacy

48:49

in action. Like if you're basically

48:52

insinuating that Gwen Stepani is the

48:54

only reason, you're saying that she's

48:56

the only reason people know what

48:58

harejuku is, you've just given the

49:00

whole game away in a trademark

49:02

application? Like that's so on the

49:04

nose. It's a clear and direct

49:06

desire to profit off of an

49:08

entire place that is not yours,

49:10

that does not belong to you,

49:12

but you believe that it should.

49:14

And to control the consumption. of

49:16

that culture and to ensure that

49:18

you always profit from consumption of

49:20

that culture. It just goes back

49:22

to like her earliest days, you

49:24

know, when she had that feud

49:26

with Madonna, right, where it's like,

49:28

well, I'm the one that mainstreamed

49:31

Indian culture. So, you know, she

49:33

should be thanking me. People should

49:35

be buying my line of bindies

49:37

or whatever, because she sees herself

49:39

as the one bringing these like

49:41

exotic cultures to American suburbia. And

49:43

she kind of... did do that,

49:45

right? Like, but the problem is

49:47

that that's bad. This trademark thing

49:49

really gives, it's like the jig

49:51

is up. You can really see

49:53

just how explicit it is. So

49:55

I think we have to also

49:57

recognize that she knows what she's

49:59

doing. And I think maybe she's

50:01

in denial because she has these

50:03

fundamentally conservative beliefs, but it's very

50:05

transparent what's happening. I'd like to

50:08

take a quick break from the

50:10

show to thank the sponsor of

50:12

today's episode, Blue Land, who along

50:14

with my supporters over on Patreon,

50:16

make it possible for me to

50:18

spend 12 hours a day going

50:20

down right wing online rabbit holes,

50:22

which you know what? When I

50:24

put it that way, maybe we

50:26

should all stop enabling this behavior.

50:28

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sacrificing on quality, but I now

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52:17

And now, let's get back to

52:19

it. Gwen Stefani is given yet

52:21

another opportunity in 2023, another nine

52:23

years after the Time magazine interview

52:25

from 2014, to atone for the

52:27

Harajuku era. She does this interview

52:29

with Allor magazine, the Beauty magazine,

52:31

with a journalist named Jessa Marie

52:33

Collor, who is a Filipino-American journalist,

52:36

who asked her about the Harajuku

52:38

Girls. This is one of the

52:40

craziest things I have ever read.

52:42

Here's an excerpt from that interview.

52:44

As an adult, Gwen was able

52:46

to travel to Harajuku to see

52:48

the Harajuku girls herself. I said,

52:50

my God, I'm Japanese and I

52:52

didn't know it. As those words

52:54

seemed to hang in the air

52:56

between us, Gwen continued, I am,

52:58

you know. During our interview, Stefani

53:00

asserted twice that she was Japanese

53:02

and once that she was, quote,

53:04

a little bit of an orange

53:06

county girl and a little bit

53:08

of a Japanese girl and a

53:10

little bit of an English girl.

53:13

I mean... What this reminds me

53:15

a lot of the white Lotus

53:17

episode that just came out with

53:19

that man who is like clearly

53:21

having some like trans identity thoughts

53:23

and was like and I was

53:25

wondering to myself am I an

53:27

Asian girl like that was literally

53:29

Gwen Stephanie in 2004. Yes and

53:31

it's so egregious and I think

53:33

it just really reinforces the fact

53:35

that like two Gwen Stephanie identity

53:37

is so one-dimensional because for her

53:39

she can afford for identity to

53:41

be one-dimensional in reality. Gwen Stefani

53:43

is just a woman from Orange

53:45

County. She's not a woman from

53:47

the UK and she is certainly

53:49

not a Japanese woman. And it

53:52

is so easy for her as

53:54

a white woman from Orange County

53:56

who is very rich and very

53:58

famous. threatened by much and perceived

54:00

as non-threatening to auditors, it's very

54:02

easy for her to say, oh

54:04

my God, I'm Japanese. She carries

54:06

none of the baggage or the

54:08

stigma or the experiences of racism

54:10

that come along with being a

54:12

person of color in America. And

54:14

so it's incredibly offensive for her

54:16

to say this. The fact that

54:18

she's speaking to an Asian woman,

54:20

the journalist who she's speaking to,

54:22

and the fact that she's saying

54:24

this, and the journalist is... clearly

54:27

in like writing out like these

54:29

words hang in the air between

54:31

us and then she just says

54:33

it again like Gwen Stefani has

54:35

on one hand the lack of

54:38

self-awareness to conduct herself responsibly and

54:40

respectfully in this conversation but she

54:42

has enough awareness to know that

54:44

what she is doing reinforces what

54:46

she's profited from and what she

54:49

has benefited from all of these

54:51

years. I really think her behavior

54:53

in these interviews and in response

54:55

to Japanese women and Asian women

54:57

is so egregious because I really think

55:00

that she is intentionally doing this like

55:02

she knows exactly what she's doing. She

55:04

knows she can get away with it.

55:06

That's why she keeps doing it every

55:09

five years. It's like Gwen Stepani, have

55:11

you changed? Have you evolved? Will you

55:13

apologize? And each time she's like, absolutely

55:15

not, why would I do that? I

55:18

don't have to. Like there's no consequence

55:20

for her behavior, so she just relishes

55:22

in it. Yeah, Jessica writes later in

55:25

that piece, in her own voice, between

55:27

March 2020 and March 2022, there

55:29

were 11,467 reported hate

55:31

incidents against Asians across

55:33

the United States, 917 of

55:36

them toward Japanese people. Stephanie

55:38

has often spoken up about her

55:40

deep love and appreciation for Japanese

55:42

culture, but to allure's knowledge, she

55:45

has not publicly expressed outrage or

55:47

made any statements of support during

55:49

this cycle of anti- Asian hate. Japanese

55:51

culture for her is only one thing.

55:54

It's the thing that is attractive to

55:56

her and that she can profit from,

55:58

but hate crimes against Japanese... and hate

56:00

crimes against Asian people, that's not

56:02

part of what Gwen Stefani loves

56:04

about Japanese culture. That's not the

56:06

thing that made her think I'm

56:08

Japanese. It's because of the one-dimensional

56:10

nature of what being Japanese means

56:12

to Gwen Stefani. And I also

56:15

think that it's no surprise that

56:17

she's zeroed in on the harejuku

56:19

fashion culture because what she's not

56:21

including is sort of what... the

56:23

culture that she appreciates about Japan

56:25

is like the actual culture and

56:27

history of Japan. Because that would

56:29

require her to actually be invested

56:31

in what Japan is as a

56:33

country, what the history of it

56:35

is as a place, and what

56:37

its people have experienced. That would

56:39

be difficult. That would be nuanced.

56:41

That would not be palatable to

56:43

the average American consumer. And so

56:45

when people ask Gwen Stephani, if

56:48

she's sorry, feels regret for anything

56:50

that she's done. Why would she?

56:52

She's just sat here and profited

56:54

from all of it. Like... I

56:56

think a lot of people, and

56:58

I think even myself included as

57:00

Gwen Stefani, has been in the

57:02

background of my life, have just

57:04

given her kind of a benefit

57:06

of the doubt that she has

57:08

evolved along the way. And I

57:10

think this is a benefit of

57:12

the doubt that is particularly given

57:14

to white women, even when they

57:16

have done absolutely nothing to deserve

57:19

it, and in fact, have done

57:21

the exact opposite. And so I

57:23

think it's really important not to

57:25

view Gwen Stefani as like progressive

57:27

before and has had this sort

57:29

of like deevolution because she has

57:31

been this person all along and

57:33

to act as if there is

57:35

a market difference between the Gwen

57:37

Stepani of two decades ago and

57:39

the Gwen Stepani of today is

57:41

dishonest. It imagines that she's a

57:43

better person than she actually is.

57:45

The fact that people do give

57:47

Gwen Stefani the benefit of the

57:49

doubt, the fact that people don't

57:52

view her as problematic as she

57:54

actually is, gets to the heart

57:56

of why she's been able to

57:58

get away with this, and why

58:00

this is so appealing for her.

58:02

It's so appealing for... so many

58:04

white celebrity women to put on

58:06

cultures and then drop them once

58:08

the baggage becomes too heavy. I

58:10

would love to say that this

58:12

is the end of the Guenstefani

58:14

cultural appropriation timeline, but unfortunately dear

58:16

listener, I cannot say that. Are

58:18

you familiar with the 2012 No

58:20

Doubt comeback album? No, I'm not.

58:22

No, most people aren't. So... In

58:25

2012, no doubt puts out a

58:27

comeback album called Push and Shove.

58:29

One of the singles from which

58:31

is called Looking Hot. Looking Hot

58:33

is a song that, first of

58:35

all, isn't good, which is fine.

58:37

Bad music is just bad music.

58:39

But it's also, as so much

58:41

of popular music was in 2012,

58:43

it's not really about anything. And

58:45

I mentioned that only to say

58:47

that they could have made this

58:49

music video, anything. And yet they

58:51

chose to make it about cowboys

58:53

and Indians. After backlash it was

58:55

swiftly removed from like its official

58:58

release on like Vivo or whoever

59:00

was putting out music videos at

59:02

the time, but the video still

59:04

exists online and it's exactly what

59:06

you think it is. It's just

59:08

it's like I almost said Gweneth

59:10

Paltrow again, Jesus Christ, I'm gonna

59:12

need to get like electric shocks.

59:14

But it's like Gwen Stefani wearing

59:16

a Indian, it's... It's crazy that...

59:18

Every time Gwen Stefani has had

59:20

a new project like has any

59:22

culture has any minority culture gone

59:24

through Gwen Stefani's career unscathed? I

59:26

don't know that alone like speaks

59:28

to kind of this like thing

59:31

about white mediocrity Because it's like

59:33

we're getting to the point where

59:35

we're like we're now reaching peak

59:37

Gwen Stefani in terms of like

59:39

her current evolution and who she

59:41

currently is But how do we

59:43

know that that was Gwen Stefani

59:45

at the beginning? She would never

59:47

have become the global superstar that

59:49

she is today like the real

59:51

Gwen Stefani if you strip it

59:53

back to just her is not

59:55

successful enough. Like it's not the

59:57

successful Gwen Stefani that we all

59:59

know and love. In order to

1:00:01

reach these career heights, she has

1:00:04

to put on a costume because

1:00:06

just wants to Bonnie. doesn't sell.

1:00:08

Gwen Stepani only sells when she's like

1:00:10

stealing from someone else and using that

1:00:12

as what is marketable about her. And

1:00:14

I also, that's why I know that

1:00:16

she knows what she's doing, that's why

1:00:18

I know that she's known all along

1:00:20

that this is all so offensive and

1:00:22

she keeps doing it anyways because it's

1:00:25

been called out to her over and

1:00:27

over again repeatedly and she keeps doing

1:00:29

that because I think she's kind of

1:00:31

a one-trick pony, but the trick is

1:00:33

like trying on these different costumes and

1:00:35

cultures and cultures. 2015 where

1:00:38

she goes through a divorce

1:00:40

from Gavin Rosedale with whom

1:00:43

she had three children and

1:00:45

later that year she romantically

1:00:47

links up with a one.

1:00:49

Um, Blake Shelton. The singing in

1:00:52

this episode is like so amazing.

1:00:54

Yeah, I like to imagine. I

1:00:56

don't know. I wish I had

1:00:58

like a monitor in their house

1:01:01

to hear what it's like. Hey,

1:01:03

Blake. Did you make the coffee

1:01:05

this morning? I

1:01:09

love, I'm sorry, this is kind of

1:01:11

a Gwen roast, but I really do

1:01:13

love like her voice. She just, she's,

1:01:16

Gwen somebody has such a singular

1:01:18

voice, not even like a singing

1:01:20

voice, but like how she sounds

1:01:22

when she speaks, again, it's the

1:01:25

way she like really curls around

1:01:27

the consonants. It's like, eh,

1:01:30

Blake, like, I feel like it's so

1:01:32

Southern California. Yes. 100%. But so

1:01:34

Blake Shelton is this country star.

1:01:36

And if you recall from the

1:01:38

time when they first get together,

1:01:40

and I think still a big

1:01:42

part of their image, is this

1:01:44

like Gwen Stephani and Blake Shelton,

1:01:46

what could they possibly have in

1:01:49

common? Like alternative feminist rock chick

1:01:51

with this like hillbilly country guy, but

1:01:53

I think you the listener can already

1:01:55

get a sense for what I'm about

1:01:57

to say, which has been such a

1:01:59

theme. of this episode is

1:02:01

like, they have everything

1:02:03

in common. Yeah, and the

1:02:06

voice has brought so much

1:02:08

evil onto our flying animals.

1:02:10

Like revisiting this era, like

1:02:12

this 2015 era for her

1:02:15

when she released the album,

1:02:17

that was like, why do

1:02:20

you have to go and make

1:02:22

me like you? Or no, that's

1:02:24

the same one. She had

1:02:26

to do it! I don't remember what

1:02:29

they are! But like, so this era,

1:02:31

she was like trying to like do

1:02:33

like a musical comeback as well, and

1:02:35

she was not appropriating cultures, like as

1:02:37

far as I'm aware, I haven't watched

1:02:39

the music videos, so you know, from

1:02:42

the lyrics alone. Can I name three

1:02:44

songs off the album? I am not an

1:02:46

authority on who has ever listened to

1:02:48

any music, but I will tell you

1:02:50

that no I cannot. And I think that

1:02:53

that kind of also gives the game

1:02:55

away, which is like once you lose

1:02:57

all of the personas that Gwen Stepani

1:03:00

has put on, the end result does

1:03:02

not sell nearly as well as when

1:03:04

she's doing cultural appropriation. Like that's the

1:03:06

version of her that was so commercially

1:03:09

successful. And now that she's older, and

1:03:11

even with all of the cultural clout

1:03:13

and capital that she's accumulated over the

1:03:16

years, her return to music. was not

1:03:18

a big success. I won't say it

1:03:20

was like a total slop. And when

1:03:22

I was listening to the lead singles, I

1:03:24

was like, I think it's fun. I like

1:03:26

the beat. But they weren't hits. They didn't,

1:03:28

they were culture defining. And it would have

1:03:31

never, if Gwen Stefani had come out

1:03:33

swinging with the type of music,

1:03:35

she started making around the 2010s

1:03:37

alongside Blake Shelton, it would have

1:03:39

never established her as a superstar

1:03:41

that feminist punk music and then

1:03:43

this sort of like herajuku made

1:03:45

her. What is also really

1:03:47

interesting about the voice

1:03:49

era Gwen Stepani is

1:03:51

that it reflects like

1:03:53

the voiceification. I think I'm

1:03:56

the first person to say that. The

1:03:58

voice of our culture. I think

1:04:00

like what Gwen has sort of retreated

1:04:02

into at this point in her career,

1:04:04

which sets her up so beautifully for

1:04:07

what she's doing now, is she's retreated

1:04:09

into like, it's not really a retreat,

1:04:11

it's the same thing. What's happening in

1:04:13

suburban America right now? Like what? We'll

1:04:16

get the suburban American listeners to appreciate

1:04:18

me, Gwen Stefani. And so she goes

1:04:20

for this route that is very comfortable.

1:04:22

Like it's the opposite of being edgy.

1:04:25

It's stuff that's like palatable in a

1:04:27

different way. It's stuff that like palatable

1:04:29

in a different way. It's stuff that

1:04:31

like isn't going to cause a conversation

1:04:34

about cultural appropriation. Because now that in

1:04:36

this period of time, in the 2010s,

1:04:38

and in the 2020s, those conversations are

1:04:40

now happening. Like social media is now

1:04:43

a thing. If Gwen were to try

1:04:45

to try to try to try to

1:04:47

do like a hairdo like a hairdo

1:04:49

like a hairdo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o it would cause a

1:04:51

lot of issues for her. And so

1:04:54

I think she knows that. And so

1:04:56

she is kind of retreating into like

1:04:58

this more openly conformist sort of career

1:05:00

model. And at the time that she

1:05:03

gets the divorce and she's already co-hosting

1:05:05

with Blake Shelton, it makes so much

1:05:07

sense for her in terms of like

1:05:09

you look at how conservatism has had

1:05:12

this cultural swing in relevancy, which is

1:05:14

what I feel like we talk about

1:05:16

on this podcast over and over again.

1:05:18

It's like you can track. politics in

1:05:21

America through the careers of these like

1:05:23

white celebrity women and with one Stephanie

1:05:25

it's like okay now what's going to

1:05:27

be profitable it's going to be popular

1:05:30

what's going to be successful it's like

1:05:32

cookie cutter TJ Max shopping white suburban

1:05:34

America I'm gonna marry a country star

1:05:36

and I think that her relationship with

1:05:39

Blake Sheldon actually makes so much sense

1:05:41

because she's always just riding the wave

1:05:43

of what is mainstream and what is

1:05:45

popular and people don't want to admit

1:05:48

it. because we have taste. But like

1:05:50

what's popular? We on the A Bit

1:05:52

Prudy podcast, we like to think. We

1:05:54

like to think we have at least

1:05:56

gay taste. But like the voice was

1:05:59

like one of the most popular TV

1:06:01

shows in America and like Shelton is

1:06:03

one of the most popular people in

1:06:05

America. The voice draws more viewers than

1:06:08

Rupal's drag race, I wouldn't know. It's

1:06:10

not on my radar, but when I

1:06:12

go back to Ohio to like see

1:06:14

my parents, they have it on their

1:06:17

Tiibo. Well this kind of brings us

1:06:19

to Gwenstaphani today, and I would like

1:06:21

to talk about hallow the prayer out.

1:06:23

a little bit. I know you've been

1:06:26

waiting for it and you've been sitting

1:06:28

very patiently, my dear listener. Cat, have

1:06:30

you seen the advertisements? I have now.

1:06:32

Because I sent them to you. But

1:06:35

we're going to pretend that you haven't

1:06:37

yet so that we can all be

1:06:39

on the same page. I think this

1:06:41

is insane. Okay, here it is. Hey,

1:06:44

everyone. I just got my ashes and

1:06:46

I'm ready for Lent. This year, I'll

1:06:48

be doing Hallows 40-day Lent prayer challenge.

1:06:50

It's going to be incredible. Check it.

1:06:53

Check it. Check it. Check it. Check

1:06:55

it. God bless you. You're looking to

1:06:57

grow closer to God this Lent. I'd

1:06:59

love to invite you to join me

1:07:01

and praying every day leading up to

1:07:04

Easter on the Hallow app. I love

1:07:06

this app and I use it every

1:07:08

day. You'll join millions of Christians around

1:07:10

the world including the incredible Mark Wahlberg,

1:07:13

Jonathan Rumi, Father Mike Schmitz, and so

1:07:15

many more in meditating on Jesus's way

1:07:17

to the cross. It's gonna be the

1:07:19

most transformative Lent of our lives. The

1:07:22

season has always been my favorite time

1:07:24

of the year. It's the season that

1:07:26

we get to celebrate the birth of

1:07:28

our Lord. This year I'm excited to

1:07:31

share that I've partnered with this amazing

1:07:33

prayer meditation and music app called Hallo

1:07:35

on their 25-day prayer challenge leading up

1:07:37

to Christmas called Advent Pray 25. Join

1:07:40

me and millions of other Christians around

1:07:42

the world as we celebrate together the

1:07:44

truth that God so loved the world

1:07:46

that he gave us his only son.

1:07:50

I the first time I saw

1:07:52

this I thought I was hallucinating

1:07:54

What exactly is the hallow app?

1:07:56

Well, I'm glad you asked it

1:07:58

is a daily prayer and meditation

1:08:00

app that you have to pay

1:08:02

for, which I've always just found

1:08:05

it interesting when like things

1:08:07

that are supposedly purely about

1:08:09

like religion and faith and

1:08:11

God, are also like, and here's

1:08:13

your monthly subscription, but you

1:08:15

know, never mind that, it

1:08:17

has raised tens of millions

1:08:19

of dollars in investment funding

1:08:21

and is backed notably by

1:08:23

gay right-wing activist and billionaire

1:08:25

Peter Thiel and JD Vance. our vice

1:08:28

president. Our vice president. It

1:08:30

has a number of celebrity

1:08:32

faces, including racist hate crime,

1:08:34

committed, and sometimes actor Mark

1:08:36

Wahlberg. One of its spokespeople

1:08:38

is Jim Caviezel, the Q-enon-on

1:08:40

activist, an actor from Sound

1:08:42

of Freedom. The prayer app is

1:08:44

so interesting to me because it

1:08:46

really does get back to her

1:08:48

roots. Like we're seeing the real

1:08:50

Gwen Stefani here. She's finally emerged

1:08:52

back as her like... Catholic tribe

1:08:55

self. My biggest thought about this

1:08:57

is like religious people are really

1:08:59

good targets for scams because religious

1:09:01

people have already trained themselves to

1:09:03

submit authority on what they do

1:09:05

with their money, what they do

1:09:07

with their time. to people who

1:09:09

they view as authorities in their

1:09:11

church or their religion. And so religious

1:09:14

people are really easy to scam for

1:09:16

money. And that's kind of like a

1:09:18

defining factor of religion. But when you

1:09:20

see stuff like this, it's just so

1:09:22

transparent in a way that it hasn't

1:09:24

been in the past because of like

1:09:26

the emergence of digital technology. Because obviously

1:09:28

you can just pray. You don't need

1:09:30

to buy an app to pray. You

1:09:32

can just do that. That's what people

1:09:34

have been doing since the invention of

1:09:36

prayer. You can like take out your

1:09:38

Bible. read it and you can pray.

1:09:40

And so the fact that they've invented

1:09:42

a new sing, like they've invented a

1:09:44

new spiritual need for people to

1:09:47

have, and that itself I would

1:09:49

argue is also sacrilegious. It is

1:09:51

ridiculous. And people in Gwen's comments

1:09:54

like called this out were like,

1:09:56

why are you profiting from like

1:09:58

spiritual spirituality and prayer? that's unethical

1:10:00

and counterintuitive to religion. But I

1:10:02

think in reality it makes a

1:10:05

lot of sense because I think

1:10:07

that a lot of religion in

1:10:09

reality actually is about sort of

1:10:11

financially exploiting people and I also

1:10:13

think that like The fact that

1:10:16

this is run by Peter Thiel

1:10:18

and has investment from Thiel and

1:10:20

J.D. Vance, like that's not surprising

1:10:22

at all either because if you

1:10:24

look at everything that's wrong with

1:10:26

modern society and you're like, who

1:10:29

has a hand in everything that's

1:10:31

wrong with modern society as we

1:10:33

know it, it's Peter Thiel. I

1:10:35

hate billionaires and I really hate

1:10:37

gay billionaires because I feel like

1:10:40

I have something in common with

1:10:42

them and that is embarrassing. I

1:10:44

also think that like in terms

1:10:46

of the celebrities who promote this

1:10:48

app and like the fact that

1:10:50

you have these right-leaning celebrities like

1:10:53

you have these very overtly conservative

1:10:55

people but then you also have

1:10:57

people like Gwen Stephani who still

1:10:59

is considered someone in liberal America.

1:11:01

I also think it's probably really

1:11:04

easy to get liberal celebrities to

1:11:06

like switch sides because so much

1:11:08

of what they have like preached

1:11:10

over the years has always been

1:11:12

at the end of the day

1:11:14

like capitalist and so it's not

1:11:17

so much like they were really

1:11:19

strongly believing in whatever the mainstream

1:11:21

majority would like and therefore financially

1:11:23

support them. So now that that's

1:11:25

switched, like there's nothing to hold

1:11:28

them back. from like switching over

1:11:30

to literally Trump's administration because they

1:11:32

were always kind of doing this.

1:11:34

They were always kind of just

1:11:36

looking for wait for things that

1:11:38

they could sponsor that fell in

1:11:41

line with like the biggest possible

1:11:43

paying audience. Vice did a write-up

1:11:45

about the Hollow Prayer app where

1:11:47

they shed some really interesting insights.

1:11:49

Here's one quote from that article.

1:11:51

The app features voices known for

1:11:54

their conservative stances towards sexual and

1:11:56

reproductive health rights. Lila Rose delivers

1:11:58

prayers on the app, who is

1:12:00

a president and founder of live

1:12:02

action, an anti-abortion advocacy group with

1:12:05

a significant social media presence, which

1:12:07

has recently been protesting outside drug

1:12:09

stores that disperse abortion pills. Her

1:12:11

prayers on the app are mainly

1:12:13

focused on the Virgin Mary, as

1:12:15

well as a litany for life,

1:12:18

which she says, quote, helps us

1:12:20

to respect human life from the

1:12:22

moment of conception to the moment

1:12:24

of natural death. Mad. Live action

1:12:26

is one of my number one

1:12:29

enemies. They don't know that I

1:12:31

exist, but to me, they're one

1:12:33

of my number one enemies. This

1:12:35

is so crazy. I did not

1:12:37

realize there was a live action

1:12:39

tie-in with this app, but live

1:12:42

action is super super notorious if

1:12:44

you are in the abortion rights

1:12:46

whatsoever. And the whole Gwen Stephani...

1:12:48

pivot to marrying Blake Shelton and

1:12:50

being like a southern bell and

1:12:53

being like a religious southern-esque woman

1:12:55

like country woman and specifically also

1:12:57

having lived in Orange County. Do

1:12:59

you know who Cole and Savannah

1:13:01

LeBrant are? No. Okay. But wait,

1:13:03

can I guess who they are?

1:13:06

Are they like an influencer couple?

1:13:08

Yes. Colin Savannah, that gives Influencer

1:13:10

couple. Yes, and they go by

1:13:12

Colin Sav. They were Colin Sav

1:13:14

and now they're the Lebrant fan.

1:13:17

Okay. I'm going to keep this

1:13:19

brief, but I know there's going

1:13:21

to be at least one person

1:13:23

listening to this who is like

1:13:25

cheering right now. The Lebrans command

1:13:27

a really big audience of people

1:13:30

who are skeptical and people who

1:13:32

are hares. Savannah LeBrant lives the

1:13:34

life that Gwen Stepani said she

1:13:36

wanted to live when she was

1:13:38

a teenager in no doubt. She's

1:13:41

the girl who like got married

1:13:43

and started having all of these

1:13:45

kids and was like religious and

1:13:47

Savannah LeBrant is from Orange County.

1:13:49

And when she and Cole got

1:13:51

together, they lived in Orange County.

1:13:54

But along with some other influencers,

1:13:56

like a small trickle of conservative

1:13:58

influencers and like super religious influencers

1:14:00

over the past like five years,

1:14:02

they moved to Tennessee. And they

1:14:04

have worked with live action. And

1:14:07

so that's why I'm like, oh,

1:14:09

it's all coming together. Wow, I'm

1:14:11

looking at a photograph of this

1:14:13

family and they look like AI

1:14:15

generated. Yes. Yes. 100%. Sorry, continue.

1:14:18

It's just like there's a cultural

1:14:20

movement happening right now that involves

1:14:22

like a few things, anti-abortion stances,

1:14:24

Christianity loosely defined, like Christianity without

1:14:26

any of the like standards. Right,

1:14:28

right. Christianity without any of the

1:14:31

teachings of Christianity, but more of

1:14:33

just like the idea of like

1:14:35

American white nationals Christianity that's come

1:14:37

to light. The aesthetics of Christianity,

1:14:39

the bigotry and white supremacy inherent

1:14:42

to it, the anti-abortion stance, and

1:14:44

then like the celebrity influencer lifestyle

1:14:46

brand. All of these things and

1:14:48

fifth thing, Peter Thiel. And always

1:14:50

Peter Thiel, fuck Peter Thiel. These

1:14:52

are like all coming together and

1:14:55

creating this really big. thing that

1:14:57

I think a lot of people

1:14:59

aren't picking up on in popular

1:15:01

culture, which is ultimately like the

1:15:03

erosion of women's rights. Peter Thiel

1:15:06

is also heavily invested in fertility

1:15:08

tracking apps. So between the fertility

1:15:10

tracking apps and the anti-abortion prayer

1:15:12

app that Gwen Stephani is promoting

1:15:14

on Instagram, you have this movement

1:15:16

that's ultimately like the intention of

1:15:19

all of this is to get

1:15:21

young white women pregnant and popping

1:15:23

out kids and have them be

1:15:25

conservative and have them be religious

1:15:27

and like that's what this is

1:15:30

all about like one safani is

1:15:32

officially a part of like the

1:15:34

modern fascist project in America. I

1:15:36

just have to pause and say

1:15:38

direct to camera like this sucks

1:15:40

This sucks like I loved Gwen

1:15:43

Stefani's early stuff. Yeah, and now

1:15:45

she's like yeah, she's she's just

1:15:47

Doing modern fascism's work on on

1:15:49

Instagram. It's it's sad. What is

1:15:51

happening to our country? It is

1:15:54

sad and also I just you

1:15:56

know these types of people are

1:15:58

always in my comments and messages

1:16:00

about how I'm like grooming children

1:16:02

or whatever the hollow prayer app

1:16:04

has a section of prayers targeted

1:16:07

towards what they label as littles,

1:16:09

which are three to seven year

1:16:11

olds. Yeah, yeah. A three year

1:16:13

olds shouldn't even have an app.

1:16:15

Well, I mean... But you know

1:16:17

what? Like, it's like they know

1:16:20

that those kids are watching cocoa

1:16:22

melon. So it's like, they're past

1:16:24

the point of being like, should

1:16:26

children be on technology? They know

1:16:28

it's happening. So of course they're

1:16:31

going to take advantage of that.

1:16:33

Of course they're going to... It's

1:16:35

the same people. It's Republicans. I

1:16:37

mean, Democrats too. But like, Republicans

1:16:39

are like, we gotta get kids

1:16:41

off these phones. No. You want

1:16:44

them on the Halo app for

1:16:46

three years old? You want them

1:16:48

at age three to be listening

1:16:50

to virginity prayers on their phone?

1:16:52

Like, it's ridiculous. And we made

1:16:55

it on the journey right back

1:16:57

up to where we began at

1:16:59

the Tucker Carlson promo tweet on

1:17:01

Gwenstafani's Twitter account. And while a

1:17:03

week or two ago when I

1:17:05

first saw that tweet, nothing made

1:17:08

sense, going through this entire journey

1:17:10

in my head allowed it, unfortunately,

1:17:12

to make a lot of sense.

1:17:14

And I don't yet know at

1:17:16

the time of this recording what

1:17:19

I'm going to title this episode,

1:17:21

but a note that I made

1:17:23

here, which seems fitting for a

1:17:25

title, is this is the most

1:17:27

honest Gwen's ever been. I feel

1:17:29

like when I read all of

1:17:32

those comments, especially on Gwen Stefani's

1:17:34

hallow prayer app, Instagram advertisements, and

1:17:36

on the Tik Talks, where people

1:17:38

are like, the old Gwen Stefani

1:17:40

would hate the new Gwen Stefani,

1:17:43

and what happened to the... Gwenstefani

1:17:45

I grew up with, I'm like,

1:17:47

not to sound like a broken

1:17:49

record this episode, but this is,

1:17:51

I think, the clearest picture of

1:17:53

Gwenstefani we have ever had. We

1:17:56

talk a lot on this podcast

1:17:58

about people's radicalization to the right.

1:18:00

We talk a lot about the

1:18:02

various radicalization pipelines that different people

1:18:04

go down for different reasons, whether

1:18:07

that be financially motivated or spiritually

1:18:09

motivated. And we try to bridge

1:18:11

empathy with all of those different

1:18:13

pipelines to understand how they happen

1:18:15

and ultimately raise awareness so that

1:18:17

less people go down them. But

1:18:20

I think with Gwen Stefani, as

1:18:22

with Kim Kardashian, who we talked

1:18:24

about a month or two ago,

1:18:26

I think this is less of

1:18:28

a pipeline to radicalization and more

1:18:31

like a return to form. I

1:18:33

think that Kim Kardashian comparison is

1:18:35

so... perfect because I really think

1:18:37

that we're seeing the veil lifted

1:18:39

on all of these people where

1:18:41

these Kim Garnashi and Gwen Stefani,

1:18:44

these people were never feminist icons.

1:18:46

They were never who the people

1:18:48

that we sort of perceived them

1:18:50

as 10 years ago, 20 years

1:18:52

ago. But now they can lean

1:18:54

into that conservative ideology. They can,

1:18:57

you know, pose with the Tesla

1:18:59

robot. They can have their prayer

1:19:01

app. They can. basically just be

1:19:03

who they really are. Again, at

1:19:05

a time when authenticity is rewarded

1:19:08

and people are looking for authenticity

1:19:10

more than anything else from these

1:19:12

influencers and celebrities. But I think

1:19:14

it's, it's. so funny to see

1:19:16

the parallels and to see kind

1:19:18

of like all of these celebrities

1:19:21

especially women that were held up

1:19:23

as these feminine icons just go

1:19:25

completely mask off. And it's really

1:19:27

been since I think like Trump's

1:19:29

ascendance that we've seen that where

1:19:32

they feel like they can go

1:19:34

mask off because again there is

1:19:36

now this alternative profit structure to

1:19:38

support them. There's an alternative economy

1:19:40

on the right that will ensure

1:19:42

that they continue to profit and

1:19:45

continue to make their millions and

1:19:47

so they don't have to play

1:19:49

pretend anymore. It can be easy,

1:19:51

especially as white people, to fall

1:19:53

into this pattern of thinking, where

1:19:56

we're like these conservative celebrities who

1:19:58

I used to. love have been

1:20:00

taken from me, like they've changed.

1:20:02

They're not the same person that

1:20:04

I grew up loving. And I

1:20:06

can empathize with that because it's

1:20:09

comforting to imagine that Gwen Stefani

1:20:11

was not always someone with fascist

1:20:13

leanings and has been radicalized by

1:20:15

some unseen force. But it's so

1:20:17

important to critically examine what in

1:20:19

the past let us here. And we've

1:20:22

literally walked through all the steps that

1:20:24

showed us that. this person who we

1:20:26

see now was always the person who

1:20:29

is Gwen Stefani like she's always been

1:20:31

this person and so I think it's

1:20:33

like really important not to overlook that

1:20:36

because the way that we avoid having

1:20:38

people become outwardly fascist is that we

1:20:40

extinguish things like oh cultural appropriation we

1:20:43

start with like the problematic patterns of

1:20:45

behavior and the refusal to apologize for

1:20:47

them and the refusal to feel that

1:20:50

about them because if we don't

1:20:52

stop that if we don't hold

1:20:54

people accountable for that, then we

1:20:56

end up here. Gwen Stefani,

1:20:58

in the event that you're

1:21:00

listening to this episode,

1:21:02

I would like to round out this

1:21:05

conversation with just two words

1:21:07

to you. Don't speak. I

1:21:09

know what you're thinking, and

1:21:11

I don't need a reason.

1:21:14

Don't tell because it hurts.

1:21:16

You've mastered her vocally.

1:21:18

It's incredible to

1:21:20

watch. The listener is

1:21:22

currently disagreeing. The comments.

1:21:25

In fact,

1:21:27

he had not

1:21:29

mastered her vocals.

1:21:32

Cat and Taylor, thank you so much

1:21:34

as always for going down the not

1:21:36

so sweet escape with me. Thanks so

1:21:39

much for having us. If you would

1:21:41

like to follow more of Cat and

1:21:43

Taylor's work, they are both

1:21:45

doing incredible independent journalism

1:21:47

and their newsletters, podcasts,

1:21:50

etc. All of their

1:21:52

work will be linked

1:21:54

in the episode description.

1:21:56

Thank you so much for joining us

1:21:58

for the morning of... Yeah, yet got

1:22:00

another TV. I hope we don't

1:22:02

have to keep making have Again, if

1:22:05

you would like to come you would

1:22:07

the podcast experience the some special perhaps some

1:22:09

special guest, were on this very

1:22:11

episode, who knows? that were You can

1:22:13

grab tickets now at the link

1:22:15

in the episode description to the

1:22:18

tour. I am so excited

1:22:20

for it. I really am. am. The

1:22:22

internet can feel so strange and dissociative

1:22:24

and disembodied sometimes, so I can't wait

1:22:26

to hang out with you all

1:22:28

in person. in If your city is

1:22:30

not on one of the tour dates

1:22:32

listed, there is a place in

1:22:34

the tour website for you to submit

1:22:36

your city. If you want me

1:22:38

to come hang out, come feel free

1:22:40

to do that as well. I love

1:22:42

you so much, and until next

1:22:44

time, until next time, stay fruity.