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Why is everyone lusting after a man made of wicker? · The Front

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I was watching the trailer and I felt uncomfortable watching
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: on the work computer. So maybe it's one of those
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: ones where had just watched in the privacy of your
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: own home. I'm not sure.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: I'm Claire Harvey. Dragons, fairies, gay hockey players. Why are
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: women fantasizing apparently about everything and everyone except heterosexual men.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: I brought in our culture editor, Milanda Rout for some answers.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Milanda Rout is The Australian's editor of Culture and Milanda,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: everyone's hot for the basket right now? What is going on?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: It's all about the bench. No sexy picnic basket. No,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: it's all about a new movie called Wicker, which is
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: starring Olivia Common and Alexander Scarsguard. What's that?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: This is my husband?
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: I heard that he's strong as a tree.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: And just as and the trailer has just dropped in
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the last few weeks and it's set the Internet on fire,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: melted some hearts and other parts.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: These are two massive stars. Olivia Coleman has just hit
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: her prime as a British actress. Alexander Scarsguard is kind
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: of in everything Yes, and she plays a lonely woman
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: in a fishing village in a kind of medieval setting.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it says it's kind of timeless, so but it's
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: supposed to be. Yeah, she's not very happy. She's kind
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of the lonely spinster, ignored, and so she seeks it out.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they kind like some kind of magical person
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: played by Peter Dinklin who can craft her husband. And
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that's what he does.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I want you to meet me a husband be at
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: the chaplain in a month good out of wicker. He's
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: the name of the movie. Yes, and it's a beautifully
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: constructed basket man. It is very very attractive basket. And
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the twist is that they start having wild six and
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: she becomes very happy.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, and I think there's one scene in the trailer
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: where he talks about how they're having to fix the bed.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: I'll be fixing the bed this afternoon, broke again.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: And Yes, she's very happy, which then has an offset
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: and causes lots of angst in the community amongst all
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the other men who can't fathom that someone would be
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: happy with a basket.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: You know, you've made quite an impression. The wives, they're
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: all a flutter.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: I don't blame her, I climb up.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I don't think anyone really saw this coming. Although it
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: does derive from a short story. An Australian couple actually
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: directors made this movie. I can't remember the last time
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: a trailer set the Internet a light quite like this.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: I am down bad for this. Oh you'd fuck a
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: basket absolutely free. Now a lot of women online are
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: attracted to a wicker basket. Look.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know what movies the guys are seeing this October,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: but the girlies are seeing a movie about a magical
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: man made of wicker who breaks the bed.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, bad news for human men. You're in trouble. You're
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: about to be replaced.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: It's extraordinary. But that's also the fabulous thing about the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Internet is that people just pick it up and roll
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: with it. And in this instance, Ikea, which is obviously
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: a very well known Swedish brand, has then put a
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Instagram post talking about how they have benches which are
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: made of wicka or weave benches which are they've written
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: husband material, and then that has gone completely off as well,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: so it's women are now lasting after Ikea benches, and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: it's just it's very, very funny.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I've seen some funny videos of people looking lustfully at
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: their outdoor furniture, I know. And also to the fact
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: that Scarsguard is Swedish and so there was like comments
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: on there about sturdy and supportive, perfect husband husband material.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: It is very, very funny. Now, of course, we can't
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: resist getting deep on this because.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: It's what we do.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Of course, why would women be fantasizing about somebody who's
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: not real?
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Look, it's a really interesting question. I think it's also
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: coming off the back of a huge increase in the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: romance genre across film, across TV, and in fiction. Women
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: are really seeking out I don't know, something that's not
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: reflected in society. Not that we're after some scarecrows, but
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: maybe we're just after someone who was treating us nicely.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: And people and young women feel like the dating world
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: that they live in is too hard. But you have
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: a huge genre in romanticy where you have fairy, strong
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: female characters going after vampires, fairies, dragons, pretty much anything
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  Speaker 1: that's not a straight white male and they're just going
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: gang busters. So I think it's more a reflection of
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: maybe it's easier to read about these characters, watch these
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  Speaker 1: movies and be on the Internet than be out in
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  Speaker 1: the real world with whatever that is these days.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: It's an intriguing turn for kind of eroticated take, isn't it.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: You know we have seen the advent of women scentered
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: or women le pornography in recent years, the ubiquity of
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: pornography on platforms like only fans or elsewhere on the Internet,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: and yet women are turning to fiction to read about sex,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: but not with necessarily human men, or not necessarily just
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: with human men or human women. I think we can
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: probably blame Peter Jackson for this, and then of course
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Game of Thrones. Although I wasn't lusting after the Hobbits, No,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: there was a couple of oils.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I think it's interesting as well. But I think when
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: you talk about female creators with only fans, that's not
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: for women, that's for men. Women I think need more
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: than that. I don't know, they need more than like
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: obviously they're lusting after a wicker basket. They want more
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: than just I don't know.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Abs you mentioned the hot Priests that's a character in
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: the TV series Fleabag.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Love is awful. It's awful, it's painful, frightening.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: There's something wrong with your priests all any of.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: Us want, and it's how when we get there.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: That's the ultimate unattainable man, isn't it? And is that
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: part of what it's about, the fantasizing about someone or
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: something who was otherwise out of reach.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, And I think Andrew Scott author sure. I remember
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: seeing things online about that, how disappointed people were that
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: he was gay. So he was really truly unobtainable because
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: he played a priest in the show and he was
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: gay in real life. So not that in any kind
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: of world would you'd be out of date a Hollywood
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: actor or anything like that. But I think it is
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: interesting that women are attracted to those characters.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: That's a point about Alexander Scarsgard to One of his
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: most recent outings was a show in which he played
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: a gay character having some very leather bound sex with
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: other men, and yet the audience for that, at least
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: in part along with heated rivalry do he romance, was
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: heterosexual women.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And middle aged women, And there was a lot of
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: commentary around that, like why middle aged women are watching
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: homosexual sex, But a lot of people in argument to
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: that or in response to that, saying was actually about
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the romance of the story and the yearning of the story.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: So maybe that's what's missing in women's lives. In if
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: you're in your twenties and you're dating and you're using apps,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: there's no romance, there's no yearning. It's very transactional. So
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: perhaps women are finding romance in spots where it's not
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: reflecting in their own lives.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Coming up, Olivia Coleman and the changing Face of Hollywood.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: The results of the Australian general election.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Oh good news or bad?
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Mister hawk by a landslide.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Oh dear, the one who wants us out, the rough
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: tough former trade union negotiator and the proud holder of
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: the world record for beer drinking a yard of ale
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: and a scone spot an eleven second. Yes, stn't know
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: what that is. Sounds very impressible. Olivia Coleman's a really
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: interesting isn't She first crossed my radar when she was
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: in The Crown playing Queen Elizabeth at one of the
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: stages of her life so impressively, and since then she's
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: been in everything from The Bear to Paddington in Peru
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: to Wankass. Yeah, she's amazing. I mean, I do see
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of kids' films, but I've stun to learn
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: she's actually only fifty two, and yet one of the
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: narratives about her is that isn't it wonderful to see
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: an older woman on screen? I mean, she's not seventy five.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: No, but she's also unashamably playing characters like this. You
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: see in the trailer she's got no makeup on, she's
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: not hiding. She literally is playing a character who's not
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: very happy.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: So then fresher woman, you caught yourself a lover? Yeah,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: I love seems more burden than a prize.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: So it's refreshing to see women age, and I think
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: British women do it better, but like Hollywood, you wouldn't
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: be able to do that. Everyone looks twenty.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like in the Odyssey Charlie's then, you know, is
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: who is probably the same age?
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Or Anne Hathaway. Yeah, she's not much when she's pregnant,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: for God's sake, I mean, all credit to her, but
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: it's just interesting. There's probably not many years apart from
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: both of them, but there's such different experiences of life.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Will you be going to see Wicker?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I don't know I don't know. I
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: feel like it's something like I was watching the trailer
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and I felt uncomfortable watching on the work computer. So
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: it's very intimate, and it's maybe it's one of those
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: ones where had just watched in the privacy of your
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: own home. I'm not sure, Melanda.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Problem.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Melanda Rout is The Australian's Culture editor. This episode of
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: the Front was hosted by me Claire Harvey, produced by
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Kristin Amiott and edited by Tiffany Demack. Thanks for joining
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: us on the Front this week. Our team also includes
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Leah Tam mclue, Joshulburton and Jasper Leek, who also wrote
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Our Thing