You're listening Ad-Free on Amazon Music.

The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to the waves for Thursday, July 26th, the bottle service for breakfast edition.

I'm Hannah Rosen, a host of NPR's Invisibilia, and in the New York studios, we have the great June Thomas, senior managing producer of Slate Podcast Network. Hi, June. Hey, Hannah. And Noreen Malone of New York Magazine. Hi, Noreen. Thank you all who came to our live show. I'm sorry, I missed it, but I listened to it. And it was fantastic. June, you were fantastic. It was really fun show. As we're and Verlund. Yeah, it was fun. It was a nice vibe. That's a really great venue, which I'd never been to before, the Hamilton in Washington, D.C. We've got to go there again. Yes. I have seen many a thing at the Hamilton. And also, thank you to all who send us your plane stories from our last show. That is the last show the three of us did. They were hilarious.

Like, I just, it's so awesome what happens on airplanes and trains. And my personal favorite was someone who was chatted up about a Gerard Butler convention. Now, June, what is your familiarity with the Scottish actor Gerard Butler? And whoever knew that there was such a thing as like an entire convention dedicated to him? I am embarrassed to say that for many years I was a slight fan because I thought he was Welsh. And that was the only reason. But just because I have like an, you know, ancient connection with the Welsh. And so I liked him. And then I found found it was Scottish and I'm like yeah well I'm

jettison in him now he's a bit carby but I mean carbby carby what does that mean he's got a carb face

come on you know what it means but he you know I like that he he like that he takes the

chance to sing you know and I can see you know he's a bulky guy he a Liam Neeson Ty, I can see why some women would find him attractive. Maybe I do not know who Gerard Butler is. I thought he was like sort of a mid-aughts rom-com generic punk. Yeah, no, he is, but I think he also has it, like he could be an action star. Like he has that kind of, he has that little bit of left to him.

I think it's a steroid. Wasn't he in the 300 as well? Like he's got that, I mean, I know that was kind of. That is not a movie that was marketed to me and I avoided it. Anyway. Wait, but a convention? Yeah, I know. I love that. So it was just to give some back. This letter was from a woman who was heading to a Gerard Butler convention and was telling her seatmate who wrote to us that her daughter was really upset about her complete obsession with Gerard Butler and how much money she had spent. But she also said that the woman told her that she had lost like 30 pounds in order

to go to the convention, which seemed like great, but like what, what's going to happen

at the convention? Like, great motivation. Like, fantastic. I got no issues. Well, if the woman

who went to the convention or any woman who went to the convention is listening, please tell us

what happened. Yeah. All right. Our topics. On to our topics. First, we're going to talk about Maria Butina and the sexy spy trope. Second, the macho tropes and the Trump-Pooten dynamic and how we talk about it. And finally, Refinery 29's Money Diaries, Women, their heart-earned money, and the pleasure of mocking millennial women.

And then in our Slate Plus segment, June, what are we talking about?

In our Slate Plus segment, we will be, well, I'm just going to project here.

I think we'll be just being jealous of how cheap men's haircuts are.

And we'll be asking if it is sexist.

And if you want to hear those Slate Plus segments, you can go to slate.com slash the waves plus and sign up.

Maria Boutina is a Russian woman charged in federal court this month with acting as an unregistered agent of her government, which is legal speak for a spy.

She was a student or maybe posed at a student in

AU and befriended people at the NRA and on the right generally. She was funded by Russian

billionaires and stylistically, she checks a lot of boxes for lady spy in a Cold War movie

...