Weekly Recap — 3/26/21
Stitcher has a plethora of podcasts worth listening to. Each week, we’re giving you new episode recommendations from some of our top shows to help keep you up to speed and ease the pain of the pod discovery process.
Porsha4Real — “Feeling Myself”
On this week’s episode of Porsha4Real, host Porsha Williams is joined, as always, by her mom, Dianne, and sister, Lauren. This week the always entertaining podcast that covers love, family, parenting and so much more, aims to help listeners love themselves more.
“Ever since I became single I’ve been feeling myself, the host says. “Like really feeling myself.” What is feeling herself? After dealing with a hard breakup, Williams says it means loving herself more and embracing the transition stage of no longer being in a relationship.
“A lot of what I’ve done is to be attractive to a man” she says. She’s stopped caring about that and one of the actions she’s taking is starting to post unfiltered pictures online. It makes no difference to her now if they show pimples, unclear skin, or bags. “It was really about me thrusting myself into a world of truth.” True love involves embracing you really are she says.
Williams’ mother also admits that what helped her love herself after her own divorce was that she just didn’t have time not to. Since it happened so quickly she says she didn’t have a choice to be doubtful of herself. “I couldn’t accept no.” She seeks out positive affirmations. “When you get focused it’s easy to see what will make you feel good and what will not.”
Listen to the rest of the episode to hear why the team says taking measure of your life is the key to improvement, what Proscha expects for herself in her next relationship, and telling a caller how each of them got through their first big heartbreaks.
Office Ladies — “Happy Spring Break and A Look Back on Booze Cruise with Greg Daniels”
Though this week’s Office Ladies is a rerun, it’s always a good time to revisit one of the show’s most classic episodes, “Booze Cruise.”
The Office developer and producer Greg Daniels joins hosts Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey to recap and dissect the ins and outs of the episode that was acclaimed by critics and remains a classic of the series that also features names like Amy Adams and Rob RIggle as guest stars.
The episode revolves around the Dunder Mifflin team going on a cruise which Michael Scott (Steve Carell) uses as an opportunity for a party and training exercise. In addition to being one of the show’s funniest episodes it’s also important for Jim’s confession to Michael that he has feelings for Pam.
Some fun facts provided by Fischer and Kinsey include that it was the first Office episode to air on a Thursday nights, making it part of the must-see TV lineup. “I wrote a whole MySpace blog about it,” Kinsey says. Fischer says, “We felt like we really made it.”
Fischer also admits that while filming the episode she had “grand fantasies” of partying with the cast in the hotels where they were staying, but that never happened.
Daniels delves into how he went from writing for The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, and King Of The Hill to co-creating and showrunning the American version of The Office.”
Daniels’ appearance on this episode of the podcast is not only fun for fans , but insightful for any aspiring TV writer as he delves into his Inspiration for making the episode (he was looking for “classic office situations”) and how he found organic moments to make the episode feel more like documentary than a comedy.
One example is a famously long pause that takes place between Jim and Pam after she complained about her fiance Roy to him “That was part of what made the show so special and so different from what was on TV was that moments of behavior were really important, more so than jokes and setups and punchlines,” Daniels says. He says it came out of appreciating what works in documentaries and finding the truth.
Listen to the episode to how Daniels sought to change the way shows approached the interaction of writer and actors, how Mindy Kaling hijacked her character of Kelly, and where in the episode you can find a real photo from Rainn Willlllllson’s childhood.
*BONUS: Fischer filmed a vlog of her experience filming the episode nad it can be seen here.
iWeigh with Jameela Jamil — “Michelle Buteau”
“I hope that this episode makes you feel heard, I hope it makes you feel seen, I hope it makes you laugh because she’s funny as hell. And I hope that it motivates you to create your own path the way that she has done.”
This week on iWeigh host Jameela Jamil opens the show by telling her listeners that she’s done with “good vibes only shit.” She says she’s sick of the “nonsense toxic bullshit” of having to be positive all the time. “It’s okay if you’re not good vibes.”
The goal of Jamil’s podcast is to reframe how we as a society define “worth through weight” by conversing with those who have overcome and worked through shame.
In this episode, Jamil brings on comedian, actor, and author Michelle Buteau.
Buteau admits to Jamil that when she was younger she had a teacher who told her she was too fat to be a television host. But she didn’t feel it was right at the time to fight back.“I was 18, 19. I was taught to respect my elders and not question authority and I was still too shy to — I wasn’t Amanda Seales back then. I’m still not Amanda Seales.” She said “weight was everything.”
She quickly learned that Hollywood had “definite boxes and categories.” You’re either going to be a character or a leading lady. “It’s just like, ‘are you going to be fat or skinny? Those are your choices.” Instead of pursuing on camera work, Buteau went behind the scenes working in production. She became a field producer and editor and says she got tired of editing “beautiful people with no personality, spirit, or even opinion.”
Jamil couldn’t hold back her anger when hearing the story. “These figures of authority can just say this one sentence and it can just change someone’s trajectory,” the host says.
At one point in the show Buteau reveals that, even after finding success, she faced fat shaming. She says that so many people in her life would grab her gut, back fat, and chin asking if she’s sure she wants an extra helping of food. She says a showrunner on set grabbed her chin and said “‘what are we going to do about this?’ I said, ‘it might cut your dick off and feed it to you.’” Buteau did fight back and the showrunner was fired.
Like so many of the podcast’s episodes it’s a crucial listen to understand what shaming someone for how much they weigh or what they look like can do to a person. Buteau says, “I don’t think I will ever not be struggling with my weight.” Even in 5th grade she was doing Slimfast and pushups and situps. “What happens if you just love on yourself…and be the healthiest version of yourself?”
Listen to the episode to hear how Buteau’s had to consistently audition for “best friend at brunch roles”, how both she and Jamil regret denying themselves birthday cakes, and how her trust in performing comedy saved her.
— Ian Goldstein
