The Polyester Podcast

Hey everyone, for a variety of reasons, mostly that we all need a little break we'll be taking a few weeks off the podcast until the near year. Thank you for your support this year love you all! Have a lovely rest of the year and we'll see you in 2024 xxx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jacob Elordi in angel wings, period sex, and a MILF Rosamund Pike: Saltburn has been the film du jour but does it deserve its controversial accolades? Ione and Gina get into the many ways that Saltburn remains a contentious watch for most working class people, especially when audiences contextualise the movie through the writer and director, Emerald Fennel's gaze. While critics ask if Saltburn is...

It's the season finale of The Kardashians and this series can be only summed up as self serving: Every single piece of imagery given in this series has been a medium to send a message: Scott's birthday party serves only to remind the audience that Kim used to grace the covers of canine magazines and now she has featured multiple times on the front of Vogue. But when will the family - made up of li...

Another trend has spawned across TikTok and the site formally known as Twitter - Are you girl pretty or boy pretty? The difference largely lies in how you appeal to the male gaze as hosts Ione Gamble and Gina Tonic explore in this week's podcast episode. Have labels become limiting, do we need to care about our attractiveness or is this all a misogynistic psyop? Support our work and become a Polye...

This week, The Kardashians are leaning into the uncanny valley nature of their narrative construction, taking us behind the scenes on Kourtney's pregnancy announcement and Kim and North debating fashion as she gets dressed for the Met. Marie and MJ are questioning the hierarchies of who the family - and those around them - defers to. Is North being a brat or is she a creative with valid criticisms...

In an extra special live episode in collaboration with Barbican, we invited our art history columnist Zara Aftab to host a conversation with artist Rene Matic and journalist Diyora Shadijanova exploring their exhibition RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology. The trio discuss the ways categorisation has diminished our connection to nature, the growing intersectionality of feminism relating to th...

What is there to day? There’s an apology tour to squeeze out what’s left of the scandals.  Then a lot of time being spent creating more structures and storylines about Kim working constantly, so we’re gonna show her being tired. What does that mean though? Why do we care? A way for The Kardashians to show us a version of true slices of life - the busy reality of trips to New York, meetings, a...

It's finally here: The trailer for the movie of the musical of the movie Mean Girls, but the promotion for 'Not your mother's Mean Girls' has the generations united in disdain. Why did they say that? And why is Regina George wearing combats? This week Ione and Gina are discussing nostalgia culture and the eroding of tweenhood. A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists...

This episode they packed in a loooot of storylines. Lots of the Momager and with Kris needing to be everywhere at once, she finds new ways to do it. There’s questions about Kendall and talk of more Scaffolding to protect the privacy. And a bit more from the NPCs and how it feels to enter it and how it feels to be on the outside of it.  Anand in the world of celebrity action this week we’ve go...

Why has Macklemore got a better take on war than Kier Starmer? This week Ione and Gina are taking a look at the culture surrounding celebrity opinions in relation to major political events. From back peddling to blindly sharing infographics, should we be turning to the feeds of the upper classes for news anyway? READ, A DANGEROUS CONFLATION: AN OPEN LETTER FROM JEWISH WRITERS, IN FULL ACTIONABLE W...

What stood out to you sisters? Fake drama on the show? Could they ever? There’s the relevance of incredibly empty and fluffy episodes when so much is happening outside of the show. A very tame Palm Springs for easter trip, some trouble in the grey gardens and it’s clearer than ever the show is just a bunch of scaffolding to shield the sisters from their reality.  Kim tells the fam about her n...

Is the dirtbag left just conservatism and facism in a pretty outfit? More and more women are joining the alt-right under the guise of irony, playing a crucial part in the widening of political divides and making bank by broadcasting their bigoted opinions. With tradwifes going mainstream and shock-politics podcasts drawing in hundreds of thousands of listeners; Ione and Gina are examining what it...

First things first, a famous well loved . . . cat. In all the unreal-ness of the reality you can’t get more real than a cat, and a hiss.  We’re used to the family FaceTiming to name drop - but this time the person on the other end is an important player in The Kardashian effort - the goal is always to expand. And we go behind the latest campaign, SKIMS soccer, with a live reaction from t...

It seems impossible to go a week without Doja Cat stirring up a new controversy; from sporting a tshirt featuring an alt-right figurehead, to appearing in racist chatrooms and isolating her fanbase. As her behaviour appears to veer away from simple trolling and towards an actual endorsement of alt-right views, Ione and Gina are digging into why we continue to pander to celebrities that act in ways...

Is The Bachelor sponsoring this season of The Kardashians? As this season progresses, the family continue to focus on fluffy storylines while ignoring the more serious issues bubbling under the surface. In La, Kris and Khloe are trying to set up Scott, while Kim's in London playing Soccer Mom while dodging her friends matchmaking efforts — and we're still unable to go a full episode without someon...

Between announcements of yet another white man being appointed to lead a luxury house , modelling agencies recruiting refugees and then mistreating them , and curve models making up less than 1% of SS24 runways; its safe to say the fashion girlies are not alright. With memes circulating that decry the lack of diversity and inclusivity within the industry, it can often feel like fashion not only do...

The KarJenner sisters are fictionalising their own PR moves and Kim is pushing it to the extremes with her series of American Horror Story while using the show to embed feminism into Kim's brand alongside shamelessly canonising their world. Meanwhile in the Hulu show, the family distract us with fluffy storylines that don't mean much of anything, except to drive home the fact that the family are a...

Earlier this month, an influencer took to TikTok to denounce some women she heard at brunch bitching about their friends. No, this woman did not know the people she was filming. Nor was she friends with the person they were gossiping about. Chaos ensued, with the video being viewed over 1.2 million times over a week and people rushing to find 'Sarah', the subject of the gossip. But is gossiping st...

We’re back in the world of The Kardashians, episode two! The sisters talk about the spectrum of the (The Kardashian) sisters and how they aesthetically and conceptually give us different things... from the tabloids stories about Khloé and will they won’t they with Tristan, to Kim’s trip to Harvard and projecting seriousness. All in all the entertainment of politics, celebrity activism and the para...

From girl math and girl dinner to the fact that all of our clothes have become adorned with little bows; girls once again rule the URL world. But how much has changed since the Tumblr era? Is this latest cycle of reclaiming hyper-femininity harmless, or just another opportunity for our interests to become hyper-capitalist fodder? Ione and Gina are diving into the cultural moments that have brought...

As season four premieres, the show itself has finally become its own character - with Kourtney and Kim continuing their fight into the new season by drudging up past drama via edits of The Kardashians. As American Horror Story kicks off with Kim in a starring role; it seems as though the Kardashians are finally unveiling who they are - cosmetic surgery, forced storylines and more. MJ and Marie sit...

Hello! We are back, with an episode that obviously probably feels as strange for us as it is for you (this is ione typing btw). I'm now joined by miss Gina Tonic , who listeners of the podcast will know as someone mentioned frequently. Gina is our senior editor as well as mine and Eden's bestie. We'll be returning on a weekly basis to discuss the discourse through a feminist lens, but to ease us i...

The sisters are back! Before season four of The Kardashians premiers next week, MJ and Marie are sitting down to discuss their new approach to this season; focusing on the Kardashian world as a whole, rather than recapping episode by episode. The pair are picking apart Kim's starring role in American Horror Story; from Ryan Murphy being a scab, to the franchise taking camp mainstream, and whether...

The season finale is here! Whether or not you agree with Kourtney that season three has been exhausting; MJ and Marie are here to guide us through the highs, lows, and media theory hot takes of the final episode.  Catch up with the rest of our brand new podcast series if you missed it! We've teamed up with the genius behind Kardashian Kolloquium, MJ Corey, and her sister Marie, to breakdown t...

Here we are! The penultimate episode of Dispatches From the Kardashian simulacrum.  MJ and Marie take us on a tour of cultural cohorts and whether or not we’re ever truly able to understand generations outside of our own. With the time between generations shortening and the differences widening will we ever share basic human realities again? Did we ever even share them in the first place? In...