Down the Rabbit Hole: So shameless
By Chegs Chisholm
This Lockdown is good for a few things: Cooking – apparently everyone is now a god(ess) in the kitchen and collectively we have remembered the lessons we learned at Grandma’s hands - baking, breading, canning, preserving ... basically all low-level preppers.
Apparently, lockdown is good for being kind to ourselves and introspection. It’s also superb for bingeing – Netflix, YouTube (the world’s biggest and longest live music festival right now), books and of course podcasts.
Prior to lockdown, there were so many podcasts. My library was stacked with hundreds of items yet to be played. Yet, three weeks in, it’s empty. Just recommendation after recommendation of Covid news and euphemistic affirmations. Somehow, just like life, the Apple algorithm is absorbed by Covid. Gardening (code for escaping the family for an hour or two while wearing noise-cancelling headphones) no longer has the appeal it once did. Until the algorithm threw me a bone. The happiest glitch in machine learning I’ve known to date. Shameless: the podcast for smart people...who love dumb stuff.
Typically, when I find a new podcast, I commit to one episode. It might be shit. They usually are. But with Shameless, based on by-line alone, I immediately swiped right. I am a smart person and I love, love, love, dumb stuff. If secretly.
So why Shameless? Well hitch up (okay, put on) your lock-down pants people, I’m about to take you down a rabbit-hole filled with the kinds of contrasts Alice only dreamed of when she took her ill-fated tumble. The Shameless podcast is made by two vibrant twenty-something journos. Twice weekly they wax lyrical about all things pop culture in the most frank, debauched and beautiful way. Their currency is curiosity and critique. They float seamlessly between affection for the latest Married at First Sight star to disdain for mainstream media’s typically masochistic treatment of a young celebrity. They discuss the absurdity of the Met Gala as gaily as they scrutinize influencers who imply authority where they have none. One minute you are at the heady heights of fandom, the next, knee-deep in cultural analysis, wading through every appropriate ism. It’s not high-brow or low-brow, it’s neatly and squarely in the middle making it highly accessible and not at all opinioned.
Shameless appeals to me because I have loved dumb forever. Somehow though, in my 20s, I concealed dumb. Being blonde and female, I thought to be taken seriously I would need to say goodbye to the frivolous celebrity and fashion magazines. I’d need to turn off the reality TV shows and take the spoon out of the Nutella jar. When I had my daughter I proclaimed I was done with outwardly loving dumb, forever - I would be the feminist icon she deserved. Strong, intelligent, driven. Afterall, adults are refined. Pop culture is not. Until Shameless. This podcast affirms that you can be critical and intelligent and love dumb stuff too – and that in doing so, you’re not ascribing to any anti-feminist trope; you’re smashing it.
It reminded me that it’s okay to be both cultured and grown up. That examining Queer Eye is just as significant in conversation as determining the plot line in a critically acclaimed foreign film. That being fascinated by what people are wearing, as much as what they are saying is okay. That it’s equally okay to intellectualise that fascination, without becoming political or academic. That being a strong feminist role model isn’t about shoulder pads and corporate ladders, it’s about celebrating and accepting. That if you want to revere celebrity you can, just hold them to account for their errors as much as their depictions of beauty, strength and solidarity.
The hosts of Shameless are light and uplifting, like unicorn glitter. Yet simultaneously they are centred and critical in their treatment of prominent people. The episodes I listened to are not polished. They are flawed and genuine. These are clearly intelligent people. They are unapologetic in the topics they cover yet gently mock how ‘uncultured’ they must seem to some, acknowledging the weight of this thing called ‘adulthood’. Amid the Taylor Swift fangirling, fashion reviews and Insta-influencer commentary, is thoughtful, careful and considered human critique. It’s a level of introspection, and a comfort in just being, that many adults never actually reach.
In lockdown I didn’t necessarily learn how to cook. But through binge listening to podcasts, I decided it was time to pick up the Nutella spoon again and to reaffirm my love of dumb stuff. One day I hope I can sit with my girl, in front of a kitsch rom-com and discuss celebrity, fashion and pop culture in an utterly smart way, without shame.