297: The Many Returns of Bryan Guffey

The Many Returns of Bryan Guffey

Tired. So tired Overtired.

Jeff: Hello people. This is Jeff Severns gunzel this is the Overtired podcast. We have a special guest today. First. I want to introduce my cohosts. Christina Warren. Hello, Christina

Christina: Hello.

Jeff: and Brett Terpstra.

Hello, Brett.

Brett: Oh, hi,

Jeff: Brett has a beard. He’s thinking of shaving, but we won’t get into that Um, unless he actually starts to shave it in on the episode.

Brett: That’s terrible radio.

Jeff: and our very special guest Brian Guffy, uh, is here, been here many times before. Hello, Brian. Welcome back.

Bryan: Hello. Hello. Glad to be here. Very excited and very caffeinated.

Christina: Yay.

Jeff: good.

Christina: That is very.

Jeff: What type of caffeinated? Like too much coffee or too much red bull.

Bryan: Starbucks cold brew.

Brett: Man. I got this stuff from this company called wandering bear. They ship you like winery in a box except it’s coffee. So I have this like tap in my fridge that I can just pour out a full glass of cold brew. Anytime I want to. It’s dangerous. And I’m on a subscription plan. It just constantly refills itself.

It’s like magic.

Jeff: Wandering bear. That could be my street name.

Bryan: honestly, I feel you

Brett: I feel like that given, given your heterosexuality that might give the wrong impression to some people.

Bryan: haven’t been wandering enough lately. So that’s my problem is I would be like stagnant bear.

Jeff: so listen, I know you’ve been on a bunch of times, but do you want to give a little introduction to Brian Guffy before we start talking about things?

Bryan: Sure I can do a real quick thing. Um, so let’s see. I host, uh, the podcast’s unsolicited fatties talkback and, um that’s with Deshaun Harrison, Mikey Mercedes, and Caleb Luna and Jordan Underwood, where we just talk about, basically we take advice, columns designed for fat people or about fat people and reinterpret them from a fat liberation lens.

And then I do this other really fun podcast called, um, technically queer, which is four trans people with ADHD and other mental health, uh, challenges, trying to make a podcast and get it out on a regular basis. And to tell you how successful we are. We have four episodes out we’ve recorded another five that we have just forgotten to release.

Christina: So there’s like your lost episodes.

Bryan: Yeah, exactly. Like we’re gonna release them. We just keep forgetting to put them up and hit published.

Jeff: You know, I, I actually can see how that would happen because there are times when I just enjoy the conversation and like, can forget that something’s gonna come of it.

Bryan: Yeah, absolutely. And I don’t know which one of us is the most responsible. It really changes week to week. Except it’s never Alex Cox. I love Alex, but they’ll tell you, like, they’re not the one that’s gonna get the thing posted.

Brett: Hi, Alex.

Christina: Hi, Alex, we love you.

When therapy becomes commodity

Jeff: All right. So we have some topics that we’ve kind of previewed when we were all kind of talking before we started recording. And one we’ve been sort of kicking down the road and I’m, I’m actually really glad that it lands here. Um, a couple of episodes ago, before we started recording, I went on the Overtired Twitter and just said, does anybody have anything they wanna hear us talk about or follow up on?

And there’s a podcast called pod therapy. And one of the hosts of pod therapy wrote in with this question, he said, what are your views on the appification of mental health? Is the examples like Headspace better help cerebral. We could probably add the sponsor, uh, that we brought on last week. Um, mind bloom and awkwardly would just, just add a sponsor into this conversation.

Um, and, and he said,

Brett: better, better help has also been a

Jeff: that’s true. That’s

Brett: gonna, we’re gonna speak honestly.

Jeff: And he said, do you think the tech industry and venture capital can do this well? So that’s the question that we’re gonna like look at now, before we get really started. I wanna also just point out that Christina had circulated an article to all of us from the wall street journal.

Um, Christina, why don’t you take a stab at summarizing that article?

Christina: Yeah, so it’s, it’s a really good, uh, read it’s it’s, it’s a, it’s a long read, um, uh, but we’ll have a link to it in, in the show notes. Um, and it’s, it’s, um, one of the stories that it kind of centers on is, um, this guy, Harland band, who, was living in a sober house. He’d been diagnosed as a kid with ADHD, but, he’d had, you know, his struggles with, um, I guess substance abuse, um, but, using, done, which is one of the, uh, various services that advertises on, on TikTok and Instagram and, and YouTube and things like that.

He was able to connect with the doctor and basically get, within about 10 minutes, you know, get a, uh, appointment with. Who was then able to prescribe from Adderall. And that, I think it was actually not even a doctor was a nurse practitioner, but someone who had the ability to, prescribe medication and that kind of set him off on, a relapse.

And, uh, it was the, the entire, uh, story, I think it opens up this, this question of a couple of things, one, which is sort of the culpability of what these services have in terms of, you know, prescribing medication to people and trying to kind of balance, you know, on the one hand we talk about how there’s lack of access to a lot of people who have mental health problems and, and they don’t have access to doctors.

And this was especially true during the pandemic. And I think we’ve all, uh, all of us on this pod we’ve benefited from, um, you know, like telehealth services, but kind of trying to, to balance that with okay, Do the people who are, are issuing these prescriptions, how much do they actually know about their patients and, and how much are they actually, how much due diligence are they doing?

Because in this case, you know, this was somebody who was able to kind of answer the right question, say the right things. And in a, in 10 minutes, get a prescription, you know, for, for a, a schedule to narcotic, mailed to his house, uh, which then set him off on, um, a, uh, a relapse. Whereas. Not to say this couldn’t have happened in person, but in person there would maybe be other, uh, um, barriers to, to prevent that.

And I think beyond that, it’s saying, you know, uh, one, one of the things the article goes into, and, and there are some other articles that the, the same reporter for the journal had written about is the, I think the pressure that the, um, either the doctors or nurse practitioners or whoever are working for these services have to turn over patients as quickly as possible.

So it’s not just that you don’t get a lot of time with people it’s that they themselves are under pressure and are basically encouraged to kind of turn people over as quickly as possible, but also to prescribe as much medication as possible because you need to have higher satisfaction rates. And so what does that do?

Um, you know, uh, ultimately to, to treating mental health and, and does this, you know, create more problems than, than it potentially.

Jeff: Has anybody has, have any of you used any of these services? It’s kind of weird to have head. There, but I, I, I think it’s fine, but beyond Headspace, anything that would be actual one-on-one mental health treatment.

Brett: I tried out better help. Um, I had a pretty good experience with better help. Uh, didn’t ultimately feel like I connected with my therapist there and let it go. But, um, it, I didn’t try again, like you have the option with better help to continue.

Jeff: And how did that, how, what was that like, how did that kind of get started? What was it like to, to log on? Did it feel, um, like sort of a commodifying of mental health or did it

Brett: no, it actually.

Jeff: I just don’t click with this.

Brett: It actually felt really good. And I say full disclosure, they were a sponsor of ours. Uh, they have been in the past. Um, I honestly don’t have anything bad to say about better help. They’re not prescribing medications. Um, I feel like they’re

Christina: That’s a very

Brett: from right. But, uh, it did. It felt like they, they connected me with someone that checked off all the boxes that I, I said, these are the things that are important to me and a therapist.

They found someone, uh, that matched as best they could. Um, I guess I had requested someone who was, uh, well versed in ADHD. And when I talked to my therapist there, uh, she did not actually have any experience with ADHD. So I guess they kind of failed in that regard. Uh, but I did have the option to, to switch therapists and I just didn’t follow through on it.

So I don’t know if it would’ve gotten. If I would’ve gotten better results, if I tried.

Christina: Yeah. And I can just say, um, my mom, who is, who is a licensed, uh, you know, uh, therapist and counselor, she has been contacted, she’s contacted by them probably, you know, a couple times a month asking, you know, if she wants to work for better health. Um, and for her, you know, she’s retired. It probably, I’m not sure how much they pay per hour from what I’ve looked.

It looks between probably like 35 and $45 an hour for her as a retired person. It might make sense if she were to work, you know, 20 hours a week or something, um, as just something to do. Right. Um, not, not as her primary income or anything else, but I do like one of my concerns with, with services, like better health, even though I, I agree with Brett, like I think that, you know, you can get good people out of it, uh, but that you can get, you know, maybe not good people too.

It just kind of depends on, on who you’re doing. One of my concerns with better health, more than anything else is the fact that it’s like the amount of money that they are paying, that the counselors is, in my opinion, going to necessitate one of two things, either people who are, um, you might have people like my mom who are retired and are qualifi.

And I’ve been doing this for a long time, but you might also have people who are fresh out of school and can’t get jobs other ways and might be doing this in addition to other things. And, you know, maybe don’t have the experience that you would want, especially since frankly, when you look at the price of the service, it’s, it can be less expensive than, you know, like weekly therapy without insurance, but it’s not cheap, right?

Like

Bryan: No at all.

Christina: couple, it’s a couple hundred dollars a month, which again, you know, like my, my psychiatrist who does therapy with me, he does not take insurance. That’s always been his thing. He’s about $400 an hour. Um, but so, you know, I see him once a month, but if I saw more than that, obviously something like better health will be less expensive, but better health is still several hundred dollars a month.

And, um, I think that unless you find somebody who you can really connect with, it’s kind of a crapshoot, at least that’s been what I’ve kind of picked up on from talking to people. Who’ve used it.

Bryan: Yeah. I think one of the things that I, so I’ve used modern health, I mean, Christina and I we’ve talked about modern health before they do EAPs for a lot of companies

and

Christina: we, yeah, we have moderate. I haven’t used them, but I have access to them.

Bryan: Yeah. And so I got an, I got a specific ADHD counselor through there, not for any med, like I was just looking at their website and they don’t do, they don’t prescribe, uh, restricted, uh, like scheduled medication.

They don’t do that because, uh, probably is my guess of this exact thing. But, um, you know, my experience was also like the ADHD therapist I got was like fine, but I definitely like stayed with her longer for that specific thing, because it was free, you know, like I got so many sessions involved or included.

Um, but I also wanna say that I think one of the problems with therapy in general, as I know you just went through, like Brett is therapy is a crap shoot, finding the right therapist, period is a crap shoot. And one of the things that I actually think. Is a bit frustrating to me with better help. And some of these other services is the reason they exist is because of how expensive it is to get treatment period.

Especially if you’re UN specifically if you’re uninsured.

Christina: right, right. No, you’re exactly

Bryan: thinking I can, yeah, I can go to done and I can get an ADHD prescription really easily. And we can all probably talk to how hard it can be to get a diagnosis for things and how much money you can spend. Um, you know, that’s the reason these things exist.

Um, at least partially,

Jeff: Or how easy to get the wrong diagnosis.

Bryan: oh yeah.

Christina: No, but I think you’re right. I mean, I think this is what one of the, the struggles is, is that this is obviously an area where I think that you can disrupt it with technology. Like I, I’m not willing to say that. I don’t think that there’s any role for VC in this, because I do think that technology can disrupt healthcare.

I think that I, I, I think you can disrupt, uh, this field. I think it is open to that. And, and Brian and I, we we’ve discussed some of the advancements that have happened even kind of in the app space around insurance, which I think has been really positive. I think that the disconnect is how do you make sure that you’re not disrupting it in a way that could be harmful actively to, to the people where, where, you know, you go into typical like VC mode where you’re thinking I’m just gonna go for the Moom and we need to do pure growth.

And you’re not taking into consideration that this is still people’s.

Brett: Yeah, the, the main, the main problem is the same problem. Is you see throughout the healthcare industry is profit motive. Um, it’s right. It’s right for disruption. But when that disruption comes at the price where, where everything has to make a profit, uh, when you turn mental health into a commodity, uh, which is exactly what will happen with, with VC, uh, you turn it into a commodity.

You’re not gonna get the best for the patient. You’re gonna get the best for the investor.

Jeff: Yeah. And it’s like the nurse, the nurse practitioner in that wall street journal story. It’s super interesting because you know, this, this guy having gotten the Adderall prescription, went down a dark road into old addictions. And this person when interviewed by the wall street journal reporter, not surprisingly has no memory of him, right.

Like, because she was in a machine and, and processing people.

Brett: you had a 30 minute appointment to do all this.

Jeff: Exactly. And, and I thought that, that, that was one of those times actually, when it’s very powerful to have gone to this person. Cause I wouldn’t honestly reading the article. I’m thinking I don’t have anything to learn from this person about this guy.

They’re not gonna remember. Right. But that’s the point and that’s the problem that can exist with, like you said, uh, Christina, the pure profit approach.

Christina: And, and, and, and to be clear though, that could also be the case if, if this was like a regular doctor, right? Like, like my, my mom, um, she was recently went through some heinous stuff with, with, um, her like her primary care doctor and, and with actually with a cardiologist. And we could talk about the, the ridiculous amount of, um, like ageism that exists in medicine, but that’s a whole separate topic, but, you know, these are these massive healthcare centers that are, you know, like huge buildings that are, that are not HMOs, but are, you know, just the, these huge practices that these corporations own, where doctors see, you know, hundreds of patients and, and you don’t know, like how much are they going to remember, you know, one person to the next, other than their charts, right?

Because it’s, it’s all, it does become a, an assembly line and becomes a.

Bryan: Yeah. And I’m, you know, I’m just not sure. Um, if there, there’s also something about the virtual aspect, if you’re not, if all you’re doing is virtual stuff, right. If all you’re ever doing is virtual, if that’s the way you enter as a practitioner, particularly, I think there can be an issue with seeing the person as quite the same as you would see somebody that you met in person, just in terms of like the way we treat people from a humanity perspective.

We know for a fact that like, Computers, all of this technology is like a substitute, but it’s not a perfect one for being in person with people, for connecting with people, for taking the time, the minute the person is off the screen, you know, in a, in a regular session, like you’re still in your office, you know that you have another person coming in.

There’s time set aside for you to take notes. You know, all of those things are allowed because you’re in a physical space, which may not be the case. If you are in a virtual space, the Mach again, the program might just pop somebody else up on your screen.

Jeff: right.

Bryan: know, how much is it like a call center?

Jeff: Yeah. Here’s a whole nother human. On the other hand, like I, I have friends who are therapists, who, um, who really believed during the pandemic, if there were patients that came to them because they wouldn’t have to come in person.

Bryan: Oh yeah.

Christina: I think that’s the challenge, right? Is, is that these things, if you were to do it the right way without that profit motive, which I think you’re exactly right, right. Like that’s the problem with this. If you were able to do, to take on some of this disruption, without it being about how can we exact as much profit out of this as possible, then I think that some of this tech could be really good and could lead to better care, but that’s not how we think about the system in this country.

Like we, we think about it literally as how much money can we extract and, and how much like, like what’s, what’s our best option. And the problem with that, I think, especially when you start talking about like, when you’re now talking about schedule two drugs and, and mailing them to people after a 10 minute meeting, you know, O over a zoom call, That’s a problem because, you know, look, this guy who this story’s about, he was not upfront with a therapist or with a doctor, nurse practitioner or whatever he was not upfront did not share his history.

Um, and there’s no telling that he would’ve been honest in person. Right. He might have been able to get drugs in person as well, but I also have to think that in person, when you’re not on kind of a 10 minute thing, somebody might have asked some questions, like, have you had, do you have any history of substance abuse?

Do you have, you know, what was your past experience with these things? And that might have led to a, a slightly different, um, you know, outcome. I, you know, there, there’s no telling if it would’ve or would not have, but it definitely does. I, I definitely have to say as someone who is in favor of more people having access to medication, I’m equally uncomfortable with people having.

Unfettered access in some ways to these types of drugs when there’s not a lot of due diligence happening on, on behalf of, of the people who are prescribing them. Like that, that to me, I think is really scary because these are things that, that could fuck people up in really serious ways.

Bryan: Well, and the particular thing that I think we have to look at with done is done is basically to be very clear, they markets themselves, as you can get your ADHD meds in 30 minutes, right? This is not some normal run of the mill psychiatrist or therapist. Who’s there to give you therapy. They’re literally there to write you a prescription.

That’s why they exist, you know? And that’s like, that’s the purpose of the company, which again, like one of the things that I think about in all of this is how, in some ways it is the entire insurance, like. The whole medical system in the United States sets us up for this because why do therapists charge so much money?

Uh, because insurance, um, because insurance often will screw a therapist in terms of the money that they get. Like they can’t, and it’ll take them forever to get money back, you know, in reimbursements and everything. Uh, it’s almost impossible for any individual therapists to go out on their own and take insurance because of the amount of paperwork it requires in all of this, you know?

And so we put all of these barriers into allowing cuz it’s not just about profit. It’s about sort of like. Astronomical profit. Right? We want people to be able to live, right. We want therapists to be able to provide services and give good money and like, and get, uh, have a decent living in exchange. But they can’t do that with the way the system is set up right now without like charging exorbitant amounts of money.

That’s a lot of people can’t afford. Um, or, and then, so then you get on the other side of this, a thing like done, which charges you very little money and gives you a prescription really quick, because that’s the way that’s like, there’s those two options for people. And one for people is inaccessible.

Jeff: And as we’ve talked about so much on this podcast and privately with friends, like the thing I thought about, you know, putting aside some of the particulars of the, the man’s story and the wall street journal story, like just starting ADHD meds, starting Adderall, there are so many questions. There’s so many questions you have about why does my body feel like this?

Is it the drug? Or is it the drug’s interaction with something? Is it neither? Am I just nervous? Am I stressed? Because I’m putting this thing in my body. Right? That’s if you’ve never had experience with such a thing, right? Like even if you’ve had experience, sometimes you can get a higher, you know, dosage than you probably should get just.

As people feel like, oh, you you’ve done this before. Right. And so for me, like I’ve found with, especially with Vivance, which is the only ADHD med I’ve taken, um, I’ve had such a road with that particular drug that the idea of just having a quick, Hey, you know, yeah, you can get this and here’s how, and here’s your meds and you’re often running and, you know, no real follow up, uh, no promise of follow up that really scares me cuz of what it can do to your body and to your mind.

Um, especially if you’re not used to sort of paying attention to your body and your mind as it sort of changes day to day,

Christina: Yeah, 100%. And I think that Brian made a really great point. Is that done, um, you know, would advertise itself specifically as this is the easy way to get your, your, your ADHD meds in 30 minutes, which attracts a very different audience type than somebody who’s looking to solve a problem. I mean, what you’re doing there and just be explicit about it.

You’re going after college kids and you’re going after people who are looking to abuse drugs and get it, get it cheaply and get it without, without having to go through barriers. That’s what you’re doing.

Bryan: Or people who are already so fed up with the system, right.

Christina: I mean, potentially. Yeah, potentially. Yeah. I’m just saying, I think that the way they advertise it, not to say other people couldn’t use it, but the way they advertise it is very clearly for drug seekers.

Brett: So there was like a two year period of my life where, um, I like, I was cut off from my ADHD meds by a system that. Just like wrote me off because I had drug abuse in my history and there was like no chance I would ever get, uh, ADHD meds again. Um, and like a service, like dun could’ve saved. Like, I mean, my life fell apart.

Uh, I I’m, I got divorced. I lost, or I gave up my job. Uh, and I couldn’t find new work. Like I went broke, um, like things did not go well. And, and, and, and I started abusing alcohol again, uh, because one of the things that being treated for ADHD is actually good for addicts. Uh, if your ADHD is treated, you are far less impulsive in your use of drugs.

So the idea that an addict should never get an ADHD medication, uh, is, is errant. Um, but like a service like done could have saved me from a lot of heart.

Christina: 100.

Brett: But you’re right. Like, what’s the difference between me and a college kid who wants Adderall to take their finals? You know, like no, no one could determine that in a 30 minute or less conversation over, over the phone.

Bryan: Yeah. That’s the thing. Yeah,

Christina: I was gonna say, I think that’s the problem, right? Like I,

Bryan: it flattens you, it flattens them.

Christina: exactly, and, and to the, to this point, because now I think that the, the pharmacies see it as a liability, um, uh, Walmart and CVS were two of the, the biggest pharmacy changed in the us will not fill prescriptions from done. And, and it has to be because of this sort of thing.

And that’s unfortunate because again, like, I do feel like to your point, like Brett, like you’re not the only one who could have been saved and had really good benefits from this. Like, I, I was reading about the service and at first I was really sympathetic to the service because I was like, I think that what, what they’re trying to solve is an important thing.

And then though I think about it though, and I’m like, God, but. This is still some serious stuff. Like there has to be a checks and balances here. And I guess the more I was kind of reading, especially about done with their CEO and whatnot, the fact that a big red flag for me is zero background in, in healthcare or, or medicine, um, or, or, or, you know, bioengineering, anything like that, right.

Is, is to be like, which I’m sorry. I think does a little bit preclude you from starting a startup like this, right? Like at least have a co-founder who’s a doctor. Right. But if you don’t have anybody on your founding team who comes from this world and you just see this as an area to, you know, create a middle man opportunity for yourself and speed things up and be efficient.

I don’t have a lot of trust that you’re going to do things the right way. And, and in that case, you could potentially my big fear with a lot of this is that this ends up because when people have been overprescribed and have been overdiagnosed in my opinion, and I think that that leads to people, not taking people who have the actual.

Diagnoses and need help. Seriously. I, I genuinely believe that. And I think that it, it leads to this thing where, uh, it, there could be, uh, like a pendulum swing where it would be very difficult for all of us, like on, on this and many people who listen to this podcast to actually get their medications. And that, that, that’s a thing that scares me because of, of how these services work and, and just kind of this culture of, yeah, we’ll give anybody a diagnosis if you happen to be of a certain class and happen to have access to certain things and, and, and say the right, you know, phrase, then we’re gonna give you your Adderall.

Like, I don’t wanna not be able to get my dexo drain because you know, the, the Congress decides that they need to have more stringent guidelines, you know, because, because of this sort of thing, that that’s, I have to be completely like selfish and say, that’s one of my fear.

Brett: Well sure. That’s that’s every, every, everyone who is successfully treated for ADHD, that’s a constant fear we have to live with

Bryan: Yeah. I mean, yeah. It’s, I mean, they have this new advisor, uh, yeah. They just hired a new advisor probably after all of this stuff happening is why they did this. Um, Steven Stahl. Who’s actually a guy I’ve read about before, who has a lot of experience treating HD ADHD, but like fundamentally 30 minutes and a one minute assessment is not enough.

Like they promote a one minute assessment. There’s a reason why the ADHD assessments take a while. Like there’s so many things

Brett: Can’t assess something in one minute.

Jeff: it’s the ADHD assessment for ADHD.

Christina: really

Brett: Right.

Bryan: a joke or my boyfriend told me was if you wanna test somebody for ADHD, just have them pack a suitcase for a trip.

Christina: Yeah. a good one actually.

Brendon Fraser in a fat suit

Jeff: uh, we actually have like a couple of pop culture topics. And I’m wondering how you feel about transitioning.

Brett: do.

Bryan: Yeah. Pop

Jeff: All right. Well it’s I was thinking it, Brian came in saying it Brendan Frazier in a fat suit. Everybody. Do you wanna do the summary first, Brian?

Bryan: Sure. So. Honestly who doesn’t love Brendan Fraser, Brendan Fraser in the mummy, Brendan Fraser in all sorts of great movies as a kid, you know, George of the jungle, like we loved Brendan Fraser in the nineties and the two thousands then Brendan Fraser disappeared. And in 2018 he came back and, you know, there was an article in GQ where he talked about, um, being blacklisted by the film industry, after speaking out about being sexually assaulted, um, you know, he has started to see, you know, more, more career, more, uh, more roles and things.

And so this September, there was a big movie that was, you know, high profile called the whale, which is also a play that was, um, by Darren Aoki. Um, It’s like it’s Oscar bat, but it’s Oscar bat in which Brendan Fraser wears a fat suit. I should also note that most of us who remember Brendan Fraser, remember him as a thin, very muscular hot person.

Typically Haun person,

Brett: And oh man. That’s how I remember bringing

Bryan: Brendan Fraser himself is fat now. And so I think that’s important to understand as well, a little bit about this movie, just a quick background. This is a movie about a man who, um, is struggling. It’s about a 600 pound gay man struggling to connect with is estranged daughter before his compulsive binge eating kills him.

Um, you know, and it got him a six minute standing ovation at the Venice film festival and yeah, I mean, so this

Christina: based on, based on a,

Bryan: Based on a play.

Christina: play. Yeah.

Bryan: A pretty successful play. And like for me straight up, I’ll start the story. I don’t think, I don’t think people should be wearing fat suits. I don’t think that I don’t think that people’s bodies are costumes to put on and take off personally.

Um, uh, I have a, I have a personal problem with this. I think this movie also is sympathy porn for fat people for like thin people to be like, oh, here’s a reason for me to care about a really fat person. When oftentimes what we do is we ridicule them in shows like my 600 pound life and all of those sorts of things, instead of seeing them as whole people.

Um, I’m also like personally, like really struggling with the fact that Brendan Frazier as a fat person who I hope will have started to realize what it is like to live in a fat body will then choose to put a fat suit on, on top of. But I also recognize the flip side of this is that I want to think about the fact that here is Brendan Frazier.

Who’s been blacklisted from the film industry for a very long time, finally getting opportunities. Um, and they come to him with this, you know, and here’s an opportunity for him to do something in a, in a movie that, you know, to me is a lot like movies about drug addicts, right. Where we’re trying to like, you know, empathize with the drug addicts.

So we tell a story of a drug addict who like goes through this inspiring thing and I just really struggle with it because, um, why don’t we care about drug addicts normally, right. Why do we have to tell inspiring stories about them?

Jeff: For me, it really fit in not directly, but it fit in with this tradition of often, um, very sort of trim Hollywood, male actors gaining 60 to 80 pounds for a role, I think like Robert de Niro and raging bull and like a million of those examples. Right. And like, they are praised. Yes, they are praised and placed in a very special category almost as if look what you did to your beautiful self, you made yourself this thing, just so you could act for us, you know, and it’s a very, and you’re doing violence to your body, anyhow, cuz you’re doing you’re gaining and then losing it really fast, right?

Bryan: it’s really bad for your body. It’s really bad.

Brett: This episode brought to you by fatness.

Bryan: it’s awesome. It’s just like thinness. They’re all part of the natural human spectrum.

Christina: Yeah. I mean, I struggle with this because on the one hand, I do think again, to your point, like we have this history for whether it’s a good, or it’s a bad thing. It is a history of, of people, you know, transforming their bodies for roles and, um, people, you know, um, being moved by it and, and I’ve definitely been moved by those performances, like by Christian BA’s performances, by, uh, Robert Janero and raging bull by, um, you know, uh, uh, the elephant man and, um, um, uh, Daniel de Lewis in my left foot.

Like these are really fantastic performances that I, I don’t, uh, look at them as, as being like negative, um, uh, in most cases or, or like, uh, Pejoratives in certain ways. Um, ones that I find a little ridiculous, although not discounting, what, what she, the work she went into it, but like, you know, um, the fact that like Renee Zeiger, you know, the weight she gained for, um, Bridget Jones, I think that the people like Laing, that was ridiculous because she became like the, the sides of like a normal person, but I’m not going to discount ha having been someone who is very thin and then gained weight, I’m not going to discount.

Uh, and then lost it again. I’m not going to discount like the actual toll and what it does to your body when your body changes that way. Like, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna discount that, but I feel, I I’m, I’m, I’m sort of conflicted because on the one hand I’m I’m with you, I’m like, I, I don’t think that we should, you know, be using like, uh, fat suits and.

Although there’s a part of that says, okay, but what’s different about one prosthetic versus another, right. We use prosthetics in so many other ways. So are we going to say that one type of prosthetic is allowed on another isn’t um, and if you wanna have a conversation about the nuances that I’m happy to, but, but I think that’s important thing to put out.

But the other thing though, is that I do fear and, and this is I’m sorry, but I’m just gonna be honest here. If we were to make a rule that says that people can’t use prosthetics or fat suits, then I do think that you would not see any stories that people of size told not because, because a, the number of actors who would be available to do it, but B like.

This film is getting attention because it’s Darren Aronofski and it’s Brenna Fraser. If they actually cast an actual 600 pound actor in this, no one would care and it wouldn’t get funding and it’s it’s show business, right? Like, like people were really upset. Again, Renee Zevier with the thing about Pam, I understand that.

Here’s the thing. If the Oscar winner is not attached to that project, it doesn’t get made. So sometimes I think you have to like opening up to, to, to the rest of you, but like have to say like, do you, do we want stories told or do we not? Cuz sometimes I think it really does come down to that.

Jeff: What about Coda? I feel like Coda is a, is a film that kind of makes the, the sort of other.

Christina: Yeah. But that’s a small film, right? Like you can do that for sure. I’m just saying like, you’re not going to get like Coda, didn’t go to the Venice film festival, right? Like it was, it was purchased at Sundance by apple TV. And they, you know, a really good Oscar campaign, but also in fairness here coulda had the attachment of an, of an academy award winner, right.

That had had Marley Matlin. If you didn’t have her attached to it, who is unfortunately the on she’s been the face of, of, of deaf of people in acting for her entire career. Right. And because she won an Oscar when she was, you know, 21 or whatever, like she’s been the one person there, if she was not attached to that film, that film doesn’t even get its, its small amount of funding.

Right. Let alone getting picked up. So like it’s a pipeline problem. I hate to be like that, you know, but that is part of it. But it just, I, I wonder if like if we can even open with a pipeline more, if you don’t have any of these roles done. Like, like if, if it’s, if it’s, so if people are so like at the point where they, they don’t even feel like they can tell any stories like about drug addicts or about people of size.

Or about, you know, deaf people, like what, what, what do you do? Like I do think I do agree. In most cases you should have the people who are those things playing those roles. But I also understand that, like, it, it’s a it’s show business and it’s gonna be about who you can, you know, attach to it, to actually get funding, you know?

And, and if it’s a, if it’s a matter of the film of the story, getting told and not getting told I’m, I’m a little more conflicted there.

Bryan: I don’t think this story needed to be told.

Christina: And that’s

Bryan: I think just like, yeah, I think, yeah, I think that’s the problem for me. Um, I don’t know why we need a, like we don’t, I guess, and I don’t know why we need stories about a 600 pound man. Who’s apparently decided he’s going to die because of a compulsive eating disorder.

Um, like I’m not sure that that’s the story that needed to be told. Um, I also think, yeah, absolutely. I also think you could have told it with like a 400 pound person or a 300 pound person, which like Brendan Frazier already was we already, I think like it, what’s weird about it for me is like the.

Excessive, like, let me just say this. People think that 300 pound people are gonna die already. People think all like so many, like the stereotype is the fat people. You’re just, we’re all gonna drop dead of heart attacks. And so it seems like it really does seem like they used the fatness as an opportunity to make it a bigger deal than it was.

And you could have told the story otherwise,

Brett: Do you feel like you might have to amplify it though for, for people to sympathize

Bryan: well, right.

Brett: for the average person

Bryan: but that’s the problem, right? Like, yeah. Now, now we’re saying that we, you, we don’t care about fat people unless they’re 600 pounds. And then we care about them in a really weird way. know, which is that we only care about them if they lose weight or they’re going to die, not if they’re just like normally living people.

Um, and I think the last thing was you talk about prosthetics, Christina. I would just say, I think, as you said, the nuances here, I think the biggest one is like some prosthetics change the human body in a way to align with stereotypes and those, you know, like, I don’t just as like mainly it’s like, I don’t think, I don’t think men should play women.

Either, you know, like, I don’t think that, you know, like when, when Jared Leto played a trans woman, like, I think it was Jared Leto. Like, no, not like cast a trans woman. And part of the reason why they’re not casting these people is because we’re not in the industry. And the reason we’re not in the industry is because they decided they’d rather cast thin people and have them wear fat suits or prosthetics.

So I think the question is, you know, we have to, like, there are probably great actors out there who are fat and they just don’t know

Christina: Sure. No, and I don’t disagree with that at all. And, and, and look, it’s a chicken and an egg thing. You’re, you’re not wrong. I’m just saying like, we have to accept the industry reality, which is for instance, with, with JTO right. That film does not get made unless it is starring Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto, that film does not get made.

And so, like, that’s just a fact. And, and so, you know, especially then now you might have a better chance you would still need to have Matthew McConaughy. You would never be able to, to make that film without it. Um, you know, I, I wasn’t in favor of the Scarlet Johansen, you know, film where she was going to be playing a transman.

However, that film fell apart after she left the project, they could not get funding. So it, it does like people are retroactively angry at, at like Hillary Swank being in, in boys don’t cry, which I think is bullshit because I think in that time, That, that was the, she was perfect casting and, and that was an indie film made with, with very little money.

And I think it fit the, the, the nuance of that story incredibly well. So I actually have a big problem with people retroactively being angry with that, but I can understand not wanting to, to CA like wanting to cast trans people over S I get that. I just also like, think that we have to acknowledge, this is a, this is a business, fundamentally, this is a business.

And, you know, for a lot of people, the question would then become like, do we like, do we tell the stories or not? I think that there’s a valid comment to say, does this story, this play need to be told, does this need to be a film? And I, I get that, but I, I think that the more broadly you have to, like, for instance, Shirley’s th who absolutely deserved her Oscar for monster, and it’s still, to me, one of the, like, most amazing performances ever, she gained weight, they modified her face.

She was in makeup for hours and hours a day. They could have cast an ugly person, right. I don’t think that you can make the argument, at least to me, cuz cuz like pretty privilege is, is, is a very real thing. And, and obviously most people who are on screen are going to have pretty privilege, but like, I, I, I, I, and I know this, isn’t what you’re saying.

I’m just saying people could take this to, to its other place where they’re like, well, we, we couldn’t have cast Charlie’s Thoran in that role because we should have cast, you know, someone who actually, you know, uh, didn&#