Marlee Silva – Making A Meaningful Indigenous Movement

SUMMARY

We’re thrilled to introduce you to this week’s guest on Power Up Life. She’s one extraordinarily talented boss babe, advocate and much more.

Her name is Marlee Silva – a Gamilaroi and Dunghutti woman who is Co-Founder of Tiddas4Tiddas, a social media initiative, which is dedicated to celebrating Indigenous women and girls through storytelling.

Marlee is a breath of fresh air. She’s so funny and so wise – an exceptional human who also happens to be a speaker, author and host of the super-successful ‘Always Was, Always Will Be Our Stories’ Podcast. She also happens to be a Happow ambassador as well!

Marlee is a true inspiration. Despite lacking confidence in high school, she decided to push through in order to pursue her dreams despite her fears, and look at her now! It just goes to show who you think you are in high school in no way determines your future. And that’s something to get excited about. 

By the way, if you’re keen to know the challenge Gianna and Marlee went to head-to-head with, they played Heads Up! No pun intended.

Let’s Power Up Life!

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CREDITS

Host: Co-Founder/CEO Happow, Gianna Lucas

Producers: Gianna Lucas, Marija Dukadinovska, Carissa Shale

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00
Speaker 15: Three, two, one.

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I’m not just happy, I’m Happow.

00:00:11
Gianna: This is Power Up Life, the Podcast. I’m your host, Gianna Lucas co- founder and CEO at Happow, the social enterprise that powers these podcast. We help you slay life in high school, uni and beyond. Each week on the show, you’ll learn epic life skills in a super chill way, hear from well- known legends as they reveal their biggest setbacks and milestones to date, and you’ll find out what our Happow squad think about a whole stack of topics too, from epic challenges to super raw moments this show has it all. So let’s Power Up Life.
I’m so thrilled to introduce you to this week’s guest on Power Up Life, she’s one extraordinarily talented boss babe, advocate, and much more. Her name is, Marlee Silva, a Gamilaroi and Dunghutti woman who’s co- founder of Tiddas 4 Tiddas, a social media initiative, which is dedicated to celebrating indigenous women and girls through storytelling. Marlee is a breath of fresh air, she’s so funny and so wise, an exceptional human who also happens to be a speaker, author and host of the super successful Always Was, Always Will Be Our Stories Podcast. Oh yeah, and she also happens to be a Happow ambassador as well, might I add. Marlee is a true inspiration, despite lacking confidence in high school she decided to push through in order to pursue her dreams, despite her fears and look at her now. It just goes to show, who you think you are in high school in no shape determines your future, and that’s something to get excited about. By the way, if you’re keen to know the challenge we went head to head with, we played Heads Up!, no pun intended. Anyway enough from me, let’s Power Up Life.
And now I have Marlee with me, at home in her bedroom. Apparently it’s freshly painted, very nice Marlee. Thanks for coming on the show.

00:02:24
Marlee: Yes. Thank you. I mean, this is part of the silver lining of this downtime. Very proactive. I think I’ve been talking about repainting my room for about two years, so we’re doing it. It’s a great time and it’s great to be with you today.

00:02:37
Gianna: And I can see behind you, the walls are very white. Are you going for that sort of Scandinavian aesthetic?

00:02:43
Marlee: Oh yeah. You’re giving me much more credit than I probably deserve. Yeah, just going real fresh white and actually the wall that I’m looking at, so you can’t see, it’s going to be a feature well, purple actually.

00:02:57
Gianna: Oh, purple. Is that your favorite color?

00:02:59
Marlee: It’s not, but I just think it’s going to look really nice. My favorite color is blue and I want purple.

00:03:05
Gianna: You want purple?

00:03:06
Marlee: Yeah. I want purple, it’s weird.

00:03:08
Gianna: Well, well done for stepping out of your comfort zone during COVID-19 it’s a great [ inaudible 00:03:13], brings out the best in many of us. So obviously it’s bringing out the best of you, your adventurous side. As I said, thank you so much for coming on the show. I’d love to firstly ask you, did you always dream about creating a social platform, a movement like you have?

00:03:27
Marlee: I don’t know if I’ve always dreamed to build something myself, but I’ve always been driven towards being parts of movements like the one that I’ve ended up creating. I’m very lucky in the sense that I’ve been raised in a household where I’ve always known I’m Aboriginal, always had an immense amount of pride instilled in me because of that and in my parents’ teaching of what that means, I’ve come out of it understanding that being an Aboriginal woman is the greatest honor in my life. So even in high school, I was always putting my hands up to volunteer for particular Aboriginal organizations, being involved in lots of different youth and leadership opportunities as a young Aboriginal person who had a voice. I nearly said I was confident and had a voice, but as a teenager, I definitely wasn’t confident, but I’ve just really enjoyed public speaking and felt more comfortable doing that, which is a bit strange but-

00:04:18
Gianna: You knew you would have a voice one day.

00:04:20
Marlee: Maybe.

00:04:21
Gianna: You were preparing yourself.

00:04:21
Marlee: The ancestors telling you, go on stage, you’ll be all right, you’re going to be fine. And then once I left school, my first job, well, aside from waitressing, was for an Aboriginal non- profit that worked with indigenous high school kids. And I definitely, I found my love there and working with kids that reminded me of me so much and being able to kind of help them realize how amazing they are and their potential was a real gift. So did that for a long time, did that for most of my university degree, and then-

00:04:48
Gianna: Where did you actually study? Sorry, do you mind me asking?

00:04:51
Marlee: Yes. So I did my Bachelor of Creative Arts, majoring in Creative Writing at the University of Wollongong, and then came up to the University of Technology Sydney and did my honors there in communications. So I’m a whole bunch of things that people tended to laugh at and go, ” Oh good luck getting a job.”

00:05:10
Gianna: You proved them wrong.

00:05:10
Marlee: So, I basically turned around and went, ” Well, I made one for myself.” So it was in that last year of study in that honors year where, because of all the opportunities that I’d been kind of putting my hand up for and really diving into without hesitation since I was about 15, I’d been come out of it pretty strong in I guess, skills that are quite entrepreneurial without me having realized. So 2018, The NAIDOC theme was, Because of Her We Can, and my hon-

00:05:38
Gianna: And what is NAIDOC? For people who don’t know.

00:05:40
Marlee: Of course, NAIDOC is the premier celebration of indigenous cultures that happens annually, it means, a wake. Usually held in July, but because of COVID it’s actually been pushed back, which is crazy, I don’t think that’s ever happened before. I call it the black Christmas. It’s the best time, there’s big events, there’s the NAIDOC Ball, there’s the-

00:06:00
Gianna: Wait, there’s a ball? Like a full-on ball?

00:06:00
Marlee: There’s a full-on ball with awards-

00:06:00
Gianna: It’s more like Cinderella as well and Christmas combined.

00:06:09
Marlee: Yeah. And you should see the outfits are amazing, especially because we have such amazing Aboriginal designers. I can’t remember where I was last… Oh, I was in Europe, for the NAIDOC Ball last year. So I saw lots of pictures from it and I was just like, “Oh my gosh, we are the best ever.” Very bias obviously, but. So there’s a theme associated with NAIDOC every year and it kind of dictates a lot of the community grassroots action that happens around it. So this year is, Always Was, Always Will Be. That’s a great theme, I think we say that quite a bit and it talks about how the land that we walk on always having been Aboriginal land, or if you’re in the islands, Torres Strait Islander and waterways. And in 2018, it was, Because of Her We Can, which saw our women-

00:06:56
Gianna: Which is very feminist as well.

00:06:58
Marlee: Yeah, a hundred percent. And our culture is just traditionally matriarchal, well, there are different mobs, who some are patriarchal lines and some matriarchal. But there is a very strong presence of female leadership throughout our history, throughout our 80,000 year history, not just the last couple of centuries. So it was a no brainer to see our women celebrated in this way, and a lot of their stories were revealed that we hadn’t heard before or hadn’t been championed in the same way that a lot of our sports men are these days and-

00:07:32
Gianna: In NAIDOC 2018, you’re saying?

00:07:34
Marlee: Yeah-

00:07:34
Gianna: Yeah.

00:07:35
Marlee: Yes. So I mean, NAIDOC is one week technically, but the whole year and a lot of community events that sit around it are dictated by that theme, which is amazing, there’s beautiful content coming out online all the time around that period, of interviews with women in different communities. And I was doing my research at the time on the representation of indigenous women on film and television, because of my writing background, I was writing a film script at the same time. So my accompanying research was like, ” Hey, there’s examples of Baz Luhrmann and trying to write an Aboriginal woman and a work (inaudible) trying to run an Aboriginal woman, who’s an Aboriginal man and neither of them fit quite right because neither of them are Aboriginal women.” So my rebuttal with-

00:08:21
Gianna: Your thesis, your years thesis-

00:08:22
Marlee: Yes, my thesis was that, in order for us to raise true and genuine representation our Aboriginal women, on- screen not only have to be played by Aboriginal women, but have to be written and directed by them as well. I was really just plugging my own work obviously.

00:08:42
Gianna: Yes you do.

00:08:42
Marlee: And so once I was finished that, quite literally after I’d submitted my thesis, because I mean, normal people would just try and take a few weeks to relax because doing a whole year of research is pretty exhausting, but I was like, ” Oh my gosh, momentum, we’re getting towards the end of this NAIDOC theme, we’re getting towards the end of seeing our women celebrated, I need to do something.” And I think that’s where all those skills that I’d been acquiring kicked in, and I went, ” I’ve got to do something myself.” And I was playing with all these different ideas, and I was like, ” Okay, what’s something I can do right now, that I don’t need a lot of preparation for, that I have the skillset for already, that is really easily accessible by as many people as possible, and I have full control over.” And it became quite obvious when I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is look at my phone, which is a terrible habit, it’s very unhealthy-

00:09:33
Gianna: We are all guilty, Marlee.

00:09:33
Marlee: But we all do it.

00:09:33
Gianna: We all do it.

00:09:33
Marlee: And that’s okay. So I’m happy that now when I do that, the first thing I do is, if I’ve pre- written the post that I want to post that day, I just click post or I write the post. And so it’s a nice thing to just write something beautiful about an Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander woman. But yeah, that’s what I did, I said, ” Okay, I’m going to start an Instagram page.” And I told my sister, I said-

00:09:55
Gianna: And your sister’s Keely, isn’t that right?

00:09:56
Marlee: Yes. That’s her name, Keely (inaudible) Silva, she’s 23 months younger than me and people often think she’s older, but I think that’s purely because she’s a lot taller than me. But when I tell the story of me sitting across from her at breakfast and going, ” I have this idea and you’re going to do it with me.” People realize that I’m the older sister and that kind of-

00:10:14
Gianna: You didn’t give her a choice.

00:10:19
Marlee: She has seen me having ridiculous ideas all the time, like a week after I said to her, ” I have this idea.” We were actually coaching an under 18’s girls team at the OzTag World Cup a week after, that came from-

00:10:33
Gianna: That’s like a full- on professional sport right there.

00:10:36
Marlee: That’s a bit of a stretch to say professional, but I mean, it is big-

00:10:42
Gianna: It’s big.

00:10:43
Marlee: It’s kind of just on the East Coast and it’s a lot of fun, but yeah, the world cup is really cool. We do have representation from genuinely from a lot of different countries, we had the Irish team, French team, we had [crosstalk 00:10:56]-

00:11:02
Gianna: Okay, so it’s professional sport. It’s professional, try again.

00:11:02
Marlee: It’s not though, but okay [crosstalk 00:11:01].

00:11:02
Gianna: So you were launching Tidda 4 Tiddas and this at the same time?

00:11:05
Marlee: Yeah. So, we’d been working with these young girls for a while, and I’d been, because I do, I go a bit above and beyond with a lot of stuff in our coaching, managing positions with them. On our Facebook group I’d been setting challenges for them to see how fast they can do 10 burpees and record and post it, and I wrote profiles for them all and sent them a little handbook of, get to know your teammates before we get out there and all this kind of stuff and interacting with them and again, essentially looking at my younger self in that way really was inspiring me as well. But, my point of mentioning that was that yes, it partly played into me going, ” Okay, I have to do it now.” In terms of launching Tiddas 4 Tiddas, because I could see how hungry these girls were for role models. I mean, growing up, we all have role models that… It’s easier for me to see who I was looking up to now, but for the most part-

00:11:53
Gianna: Who were you looking up to?

00:11:54
Marlee: Male footballers. In terms of Aboriginal role models, that’s what I was looking at, because that’s all I could see. And I mean, it also helps that my dad was a professional footballer, and kind of fits into the stereotype of indigenous success because we’ve had a very privileged upbringing because my dad played in the NRL for 14 years, but both my parents grew up in housing commission in Western Sydney, had nothing.

00:12:17
Gianna: Both your parents?

00:12:18
Marlee: Both my parents, they met at high school and both of them… I don’t know if part of their ability to connect to each other comes from a lot of their similar experiences, but they both had alcoholic fathers and saw domestic violence in their households and really were ambitious in making sure they built lives for their future children that were complete opposites to what they had growing up. So I think being raised by people like that who really have a good perspective on what matters, they are the hardest workers I know and remain to be. Dad actually went to, he’s a police officer, and he joined the New South Wales Police Academy in the off season when he was still playing professional rugby league, and used to do night shifts and finish at 5: 00 AM and go straight to training. And it’s crazy, it’s so crazy. Obviously your parents become your first role models. And then because of him, my understanding of what it means to be Aboriginal and successful was other people that were like him. I turn the TV on and I see men that look like him, and what do they do? They play sport. And I’m like, ” That’s what I want to be.” Even though I’m not an athlete.
As a teenager, I felt inadequate because I wasn’t good at sport, which doesn’t make any sense because I was very good at academically and very good at a lot of other things, but because I wasn’t good at sport, I kind of was like, ” Oh, I’m not going to be great. I’m not going to do what my dad did because I can’t throw a footie.”

00:13:40
Gianna: So you thought at that time, that if you weren’t in sport then you weren’t going to be successful, essentially?

00:13:45
Marlee: Yeah. There was definitely that part of that, I mean, it wasn’t particularly a loud voice, but it was there, and I think seeing the girls that we were coaching at the time in 2018 and all the other factors come into it, I was like, ” Oh my gosh, there are so many amazing Aboriginal women that I know of now because of the circles that I travel in, and because I have my ear to the ground in terms of our indigenous led media and all that kind of stuff. But they’re not accessible to these everyday girls unless they are part of their family or something, so I’m going to start this Instagram page and we’re just going to pump out these stories.” And it really was just as much as that sounds like there’s a lot of thought that goes into it, it was just a lot of no- brainers kind of going, connect the dots, connect the dots.
And then the name came to me, so tidda means sister, it’s an Aboriginal slang word that I’ve used always growing up and it just made sense, because I think we’d heard statements around International Women’s Day things like, women for women, girls for girls, that sort of stuff. And then we were like, ” Sisters for sisters, ah, Tiddas 4 Tiddas.” It resonates with a lot of people, regardless of whether you’re Aboriginal or not. So we started it and my sister’s an artist, so she gave me an artwork to use for the logo and I was like, ” Oh, this looks really flash, it looks really professional or whatever.”

00:14:53
Gianna: We’ve been around for years.

00:14:54
Marlee: Yeah, we know exactly what we’re doing. And then I remember both of us being a bit ashamed to do the first post on our personal Instagrams to be like, ” Go and follow this page.” Because I was like, ” Oh, I don’t know if people are going to ask me these questions I don’t know the answer to. And people are just going to be like, ‘Oh, what are you doing? You weirdo'” I guess that voice just popped up for a minute. We had a thousand followers in a week, 10 000 within the first four months, we were on the money when it comes to the fact that there wasn’t… We assumed there wasn’t anything else like this out there and I’d done a bit of research and we couldn’t see anything. So we were right there, and then we were also kind of lucky in a sense that a lot of people were hungry for this and the right people got behind us. A few high- profile people like your Brooke Boneys and you have Dr. Anita Heiss and people like that loved the page from the get- go and shared it and told people about it and then Mia Freedman saw it, and she-

00:15:46
Gianna: Fan girl of Mamamia.

00:15:46
Marlee: Yes, and she-

00:15:50
Gianna: [crosstalk 00:15:49].

00:15:50
Marlee: She re- posted us, and I just remember my phone blowing up in the middle of the night and going, ” What the hell is going on?” And she’d re- posted something of ours and then asked me over for a cup of tea and next thing I know I have a podcast with the Mamamia Network, but I don’t want to act like it’s just this super easy thing that happened or like it’s just a complete fluke because I do work very hard on it, but there’s so many things that no amount of hard work would have got me to that without the fluke or the kind of luck in a few ways that people just backed us. So, that’s how we got in to where we are today.

00:16:28
Gianna: And I absolutely love you sharing your story because there’s no such thing as an overnight success, there is a lot of passion and research and you did all that. Yes, you created something and yes, you got traction quite early, but you were following your heart and I think there’s something really powerful about following your passion. What is next for Tiddas 4 Tiddas?

00:16:51
Marlee: So if it weren’t for COVID, I would have just kicked off our first ever school workshops, Tiddas 4 Tiddas workshops. We’ve been in schools quite a bit, speaking as guests for things like NAIDOC week or reconciliation week. This is the first time that we’ve actually built a curriculum for young girls, that it can be adapted to both indigenous and non- indigenous skills in terms of, it’s led very much by culture and identity, but there’s opportunities to invite non- indigenous people in so they can support their indigenous peers, which I think is really important, and that just comes from my own experience of being one of very few identifying students at my high school. And there’s definitely ways now that we’re kind of exploring how we could digitalize it, maybe come up with some really cool videos to at least kick off the relationship before we could actually get into the schools, obviously still working on the podcast. And I think it’s been a year since we launched the first season and I think we can go back and reflect and see how we can be bigger and better. The other big thing which is more personal, I guess for me, is that I just finished writing my debut novel.

00:17:59
Gianna: You should be so proud of yourself, that’s awesome.

00:18:01
Marlee: I am, I really am. If you’d ask 15 year old Marlee what her big dream in life was, it was to have a book with her name on the front cover. So didn’t think I’d be doing that before I’m 25, but here we are. Another one of those crazy things, the publisher Hardy Grant Books, who have been absolutely amazing. They really took a risk on me because I mean, for starters they reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in doing something like this and I was like, “Are you joking?”

00:18:31
Gianna: Well, can I just say, when a publisher reaches out to you (inaudible) and not the other way around, that’s even more empowering and reassuring to know that you are on the right path. That is amazing.

00:18:37
Marlee: Yeah, I couldn’t believe it. At first I was like, “Am I being catfished?” So, that feels quite surreal. So, what it is, is a collection of stories of different everyday Aboriginal women, not high- profile ones, they have names that you would never have heard before. And they’re incredibly generous and vulnerable young and older women, the youngest I interviewed was age 15 and the oldest was 86 and it’s a real breath of experience and knowledge and advice and ways to sort of understand the sisterhood and what that means for all women, not just indigenous women. And it’s quite positive, there’s some really insane experiences these women have had, some of them quite devastating and harrowing, but they just are so positive and resilient and it’s incredibly inspiring. And I can’t wait for them to be celebrated.
The book’s going to be out in September, it’s called, My Tidda, My Sister. Thankfully it hasn’t been affected by this, I mean, I’d finished the manuscripts before we went into lockdown.

00:19:43
Gianna: Luckily.

00:19:43
Marlee: I mean, this would have been a good time to finish it if I hadn’t, but I did have a deadline I needed to get it in by. And I collaborated with a few female Aboriginal artists who are phenomenal and are who I’ve been big fans of for a long time, so that’s another layer of story as well. And just so much generosity and a lot of different, amazing women. So, I’m really proud of it and there there’s parts of my own story that are in there, but it’s not really mine, it’s not really-

00:20:13
Gianna: One of many.

00:20:13
Marlee: About me. Yeah. And I kind of am excited to see the reaction. That’s going to take us to the end of the year with the school programs and a few other things that are too much in their infancy for me to feel comfortable talking about. But yeah, it’s exciting and I do this full time now, so I never thought that… Well, I didn’t think it would happen for a long time, not just in our second year, but it’s wild. It’s wild, wild, wild.

00:20:37
Gianna: You are definitely on the right track, Marlee. Don’t go anywhere though, right after this we’re going to talk all about gratitude.

00:20:46
Carissa Shale: Did you know Happow is on socials? Come and say, ” Hey.” Follow us @ HappowAU, and be sure to check us out at happow. com. This week, we asked you what community issues matter the most to you. And here’s what you had to say.

00:21:03
Speaker 4: The community issues I am most passionate about are social inclusion and equality. I believe that social inclusion is like human rights, in that they are for everyone, every day and everywhere. Our differences should be celebrated and cherished rather than used as weapons to divide.

00:21:19
Speaker 5: Climate change is super important to me.

00:21:21
Speaker 6: I am passionate about equal rights and voice for everyone in the community, mental health and adolescents and the environment around us.

00:21:28
Speaker 7: The whole idea of equality and equal rights is a big community issue that’s important to me and needs to be resolved. Every individual deserves equal treatment, income and opportunities, no matter who they identify as, their color or how they look overall.

00:21:42
Speaker 8: Mental health support, equality, and action being taken on discrimination and bullying. I believe everyone in our society should feel safe, valued, and accepted.

00:21:52
Speaker 9: I’m passionate about empowering young people with life skills like leadership, emotional intelligence, confidence, and self- love.

00:21:59
Speaker 10: I don’t think we can achieve meaningful participation of everyone until we are all equal.

00:22:05
Speaker 11: Equal rights for everyone with a big focus on gender inequality as this is an issue that unfortunately is still evident in our society and something I know I’ve been personally affected by.

00:22:15
Speaker 12: Equal rights for girls and boys. I’m also very passionate about sustainability on our earth, keeping our planet clean and simply respecting our earth by putting our rubbish in the bin.

00:22:25
Carissa Shale: I’m Carissa Shale, and that’s this week’s top topic. Got something to share? Drop us an email, yoursay@ happow. com.

00:22:32
Speaker 1: Want to Power Up Life? Download your free power pack wallpapers at happow. com.

00:22:42
Gianna: Okay. I’m very, very passionate about being grateful, being thankful for the big and small things in our life. And I ask everybody who comes on to the show these two questions. Number one, what is something big that you are grateful for? Marlee go.

00:22:56
Marlee: I am incredibly grateful for my family, as a support network they are the ones who’ve really helped build me up to be able to do everything that I do. And they believe in me and are great sounding boards when I have all these kind of big, wild ideas and yeah, I couldn’t be where I am without them.

00:23:17
Gianna: Beautiful. And number two, what’s one small thing that you’re grateful for that maybe people would take for granted, but you like? Now you can’t say paint, because I know you painted your wall, it’s got to be something else.

00:23:27
Marlee: I just want to say my dog’s, I’m really great… And it doesn’t feel like a small part of my life, they’re my children, but I’m very-

00:23:35
Gianna: (inaudible) babies.

00:23:36
Marlee: Yeah, I’m very grateful. And I don’t think people take dogs for granted, I feel like there’s a really big growing thing where dogs are just like the heroes of the world.

00:23:43
Gianna: Oh, my dog, Peep, is the hero of the world, like she is my number one. Well, apart from my (inaudible) and my husband, of course.

00:23:52
Marlee: But yeah, my dogs, especially in this downtime, they’re just the place that you go to, to feel happy. And just looking at their faces makes me really happy. So yeah, definitely super grateful for dogs.

00:24:03
Gianna: So, family and dogs. Excellent answers. Now how can people get in touch with you and Tiddas 4 Tiddas? If they’re like, ” Oh, I just love what Marlee and Tiddas 4 Tiddas is all about.”

00:24:12
Marlee: We’ve started on the gram and that’s the place that we are most active and you can slide into our DMS or email us, our email’s connected to our Instagram account, anytime you want. People get confused with how you spell tiddas. So, tidda is T- I- D- D- A, so it’s tiddas with an S-

00:24:30
Gianna: With an S.

00:24:31
Marlee: And then a number, 4, because we’re cool and down with the kids. Tiddas 4 Tiddas, that’s what we are on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and the podcast, if you put that into your podcast app.

00:24:44
Gianna: Awesome. And how can they follow you as well?

00:24:46
Marlee: I’m also on all those platform under my name. So I’ll give you the spelling of that too, it’s Marlee, like Bob Marly, but instead of E-Y, it’s double E. And then Silva is like the metal, but instead of E-R, it’s A.

00:25:00
Gianna: Oh, you just have to have a complicated name, don’t you? Can’t it just be the traditional one?

00:25:04
Marlee: Yeah, just dumb spellings of things.

00:25:09
Gianna: Awesome. Thanks so much, Marlee. Right after this guys, we’ve got the challenge, so excited about this one.

00:25:17
Carissa Shale: Learn Epic life skills in a super chill way, sign up for free at happow. com.

00:25:24
Gianna: Okay. Marlee, it’s time for the challenge. Do you want to know what you’re going to be doing today?

00:25:28
Marlee: Yes. I’m ready to win whatever it is.

00:25:31
Gianna: Okay. So, we’re going to play Ellen DeGeneres’ Heads Up game, which is essentially celebrity heads and it’s on our phones. And because we are both at home, fortunately, we can see each other’s screens without seeing ourselves. So we’re going to make sure we hide out our own screens, which we’re doing right now. Now, how this game will work is, with Heads Up!, it’s a free app so guys download it, it’s awesome. You can choose different things like superstars, blockbuster movies, you can even do accents and impressions, but for us, you and I have to choose one thing and we’re going to do one round each where we place the phone above our head and we’ve got to help the other person guess who is on our head. So, if it’s on my head, Marlee, you’ve got to help me guess the right answer. If it’s on your head, I’ll [inaudible 00:26:19], you guess the right answer, the person with the most amount of points at the end wins. And to help us do things legal, I’ve got Brendan here, say, ” Hi”, Brendan, come right into the mic.

00:26:29
Brendan: Hey, guys. Hello.

00:26:30
Gianna: Hello. So, he’s going to make sure that everything is above board, because he’s all about the policies and procedures. All right. I have hidden my view, so I shouldn’t be able to see myself now.

00:26:42
Marlee: But, I can’t see you though.

00:26:43
Gianna: Oh, you can’t see me? Hang on.

00:26:45
Marlee: That’s important, I need to be able to see you otherwise, I’m definitely going to win.

00:26:50
Gianna: All right, here we go. Got it. Okay, I’m disappeared now. So what would you like to do? Would you like to do superstars or blockbuster movies? You’re my guest, you decide.

00:26:58
Marlee: I’m going to go with movies and I have to say, you’ve made a fatal error because I’m pretty good at this game. I’m not going to lie.

00:27:04
Gianna: I was going to hope you would have said superstars, shame, it’s okay.

00:27:07
Marlee: Well, I read your mind, see? It’s a mind game. I’m already winning, you got to get back on top now, it’s like…

00:27:15
Gianna: All right, do you want to go first? Or do you want me? Do you want on your head or my head?

00:27:19
Marlee: I’ll do it on my head.

00:27:20
Gianna: Your head?

00:27:21
Marlee: Is that all right?

00:27:21
Gianna: Okay. So I’m going to help you guess. Okay. No, good start, good start, good start, I like it.

00:27:26
Marlee: Maybe just to see.. Can you see that?

00:27:27
Gianna: I can see that.

00:27:27
Marlee: Is that going to be fine? Okay. Or is that better?

00:27:31
Gianna: No, either one. I can see.

00:27:33
Marlee: Okay.

00:27:34
Gianna: My eyesight is all right.

00:27:35
Marlee: Blockbuster movies.

00:27:36
Gianna: Yep.

00:27:37
Marlee: Play. You’re going to do the replay thing?

00:27:39
Gianna: No.

00:27:39
Marlee: I don’t want to do instant replay. Please avoid.

00:27:43
Gianna: Okay, here we go.
Oh, a Ben Stiller movie with Robert Downey Jr. and they set out and I think in Vietnam, in like the 1970s. It’s of comedy.

00:27:56
Marlee: Tropic Thunder.

00:27:58
Gianna: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Well done, you got that.
Okay. Things that fly in the air, they fly in the air to get people-

00:28:02
Marlee: Birds?

00:28:03
Gianna: A To B. No people sit in them to go to-

00:28:05
Marlee: Planes.

00:28:06
Gianna: Yes. Yep. That’s it.

00:28:09
Marlee: Oh, okay.

00:28:10
Gianna: No, pass.

00:28:11
Marlee: Oh, no.

00:28:12
Gianna: This is hard. Oh, Gal Gadot, she plays?

00:28:16
Marlee: Oh, Wonder Woman.

00:28:17
Gianna: Yep, yep, yep.

00:28:18
Marlee: Wonder Woman?

00:28:18
Gianna: Yes. Flick up again, gosh, I don’t know how to describe these to you. When it’s… The umbrellas in the sky, and ( singing).

00:28:27
Marlee: Singin’ in the Rain?

00:28:29
Gianna: Yeah, I’ll give that one too.

00:28:30
Marlee: Was it Singin’ in the Rain?

00:28:31
Gianna: Yeah, so Singin’ in the Rain. Okay. All right, Brendan, how many did she get?

00:28:37
Brendan: Marlee, you got four with that.

00:28:39
Marlee: Rocky Horror Picture Show, oh my gosh-

00:28:41
Gianna: Do you know why? Because, I want-

00:28:41
Marlee: (Singing).

00:28:41
Gianna: I know. And I thought because some of the names will be more complicated, I thought, what could I say in the least amount of words as possible to give you the maximum amount of chances to win.

00:28:54
Marlee: Right, okay.

00:28:55
Gianna: So you got four. I think that’s pretty good. All right, my turn now. This is tense. Can you see this? Can you see?

00:29:02
Marlee: Yes.

00:29:02
Gianna: Okay.

00:29:05
Marlee: Oh, I don’t know. Flip up. Benedict Cumberbatch , he… Yeah, I don’t know anything else. Do you know it?

00:29:12
Gianna: I don’t [inaudible 00:29:15], I can’t see.

00:29:12
Marlee: Flip up. Don’t know that one, sorry.

00:29:18
Gianna: Oh my goodness. Okay.

00:29:20
Marlee: Oh, it’s a really beautiful film-

00:29:21
Gianna: Beautiful film, that narrows it down.

00:29:23
Marlee: In the Oscars it won best picture, but they… Oh, no it didn’t win best picture, they said it was won best picture, but then they didn’t-

00:29:31
Gianna: Oh, who’s in it?

00:29:32
Marlee: Gay boys in America, it’s like a gay story, it’s beautiful and like… Flip up, it’s too hard. I don’t know that one either, I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve set you up. Oh, Gal Godot.

00:29:45
Gianna: Wonder Woman?

00:29:46
Marlee: Yeah.

00:29:46
Gianna: It’s the same one.

00:29:46
Marlee: But I know, yes.

00:29:46
Gianna: Okay, it’s all right.

00:29:46
Marlee: Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t [crosstalk 00:29:56].

00:29:55
Gianna: I got zero. Oh, that’s the worst performance I’ve done.

00:30:01
Marlee: No, you got one, you just flipped it the wrong way.

00:30:03
Gianna: Oh, I did get one. Brendan, which one did I get?

00:30:05
Brendan: You got Wonder Woman.

00:30:06
Gianna: I got wonder woman, of course. Okay, yes, I did get Wonder Woman. I got one point.

00:30:10
Marlee: I’m so sorry.

00:30:11
Gianna: That was-

00:30:12
Marlee: That was-

00:30:13
Gianna: You killed me there.

00:30:14
Marlee: I’m really sorry. My explaining was terrible, I knew a lot of the movies, but I was like, ” Oh, I just [crosstalk 00:30:21].”

00:30:20
Gianna: You know what? It’s amazing what happens when we’re under pressure. And also, some of the names, we’ve got to think on our feet to go, not only do we understand it, but we’ve got to make sure that the other person understands it too.

00:30:31
Marlee: And I think my problem was, I was focusing too much on the storylines of the film. You have to also think about ways to get people thinking about the words in the title, if that makes sense. You’ve got to be-

00:30:41
Gianna: Without saying too much, because you can’t say the name of the title, like one of yours that I had for you was, Singing in the Rain. But I couldn’t say… I was going to sing, ” I’m singing in the rain”

00:30:52
Marlee: Yeah, and it’s like that’s the title.

00:30:52
Gianna: But you can’t. Yeah, so I think you did very well. You got four, you smashed it. I got one, but you know what? You are the interviewee. So you deserve to win anyway, so well done, Marlee.

00:31:03
Marlee: Thank you.

00:31:03
Gianna: Than you so much for coming on Power Up Life, you’ve been an absolute legend. Congratulations on everything that you are achieving for Tiddas 4 Tiddas, and we look forward to speaking to you again soon.

00:31:13
Marlee: Thanks for having me.

00:31:14
Gianna: Marlee, what a babe, she’s all hot and absolutely hilarious. I’m so proud of her and everything she’s achieving. How lucky are we to have her as a Happow ambassador? Just saying. If you would love to learn more about Marlee and Aboriginal culture and history well, I’ve got some amazing news for you. In your fave podcast feed, we’ve dropped a super special bonus episode where Marlee and I go deep, I ask her so many questions about indigenous culture, the things I’ve always wanted to learn more about. So keep on the lookout for that as it drops the same day as this episode of Power Up Life. Love this episode of Power Up Life? Why not leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast app by doing so, you’re helping us reach even more people just like you. Want to be a Happow advocate and contribute to our weekly talk topics and more? Email us at [email protected].
Don’t forget to follow us on social, simply look up for HappowAU to follow us and stay in the know. This episode of Power Up Life was produced by me, Gianna Lucas, Marija Dukadinovska and Carissa Shale for the Happow Podcast Network.
Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Power Up Life, a Happow podcast. If you loved this episode be a legend and leave us a quick rating and review on your fave podcast app. Dive into the show notes for all episodes on our website. Catch you next time and remember to Power Up Life.