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[soft music]
[John] The old phrase,
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,"
is false. That is not true.
There is, no doubt, a correct-shaped human face,
like there is with every other animal.
You know, cows all look the same.
Sheep all look the same.
Humans should all look the same,
but they don't.
They vary hugely.
And sometimes
the shape of the face is appealing,
and sometimes, shall we say, less so.
What worries me is the fact
that most people are severely deformed.
It's a terrible thing to say, but it's really true.
[upbeat music]
Everybody is programmed
to have the same type of face.
[man] Have you ever taken a boat ride or a raft?
Yeah.
[John] But the development of our face has gone wrong.
[woman] Pump, pump, pump.
[John] We are no longer very beautiful.
What was the worst part of the treatment?
[John] My job is to create beautiful faces.
And anything you can do to make the face better
is the right thing.
Was it as bad as you thought it would be?
I thought the treatment would be a lot worse.
[John] People say, "John,
you create the best faces in the world."
- Seashells on the... - Seashore.
- Brother. - Brother.
The problem is,
I'm too far ahead of everybody else.
[electronic music]
[thunder rumbling]
[whirring]
[Mike] Okay, now get the head back.
Open nice and wide.
Open a bit wider.
Okay, cool. And then bite together.
I actually stopped talking about what I did
at dinner parties,
because I'd go to a dinner party.
The normal thing happens.
Everyone says, "Oh, what do you do?"
And I go, "I'm--I'm-- I'm an orthodontist,
but one of the most controversial."
[soft music]
I spent my entire life
with this knowledge in my brain
that no one else seems to see.
You know, look at the car crash,
the slow motion car crash that's happened to you.
Do you not see it?
Modern orthodontics, particularly fixed braces,
you're not affecting the cause of the problem.
Actually, often,
you're making the underlying situation worse.
[indistinct]
People don't like to change.
We're comfortable in the skin we're in. And I need to get people to change.
At this point, if you remember from last time,
I always make them look a little bit jaw-y.
So the jaw, physically,
should be slightly further ahead of the top jaw.
'Cause this area here, as he starts building his muscles up,
he's gonna lift this jaw up,
and this area is gonna go... [blows raspberry]
Out like that. Kay?
So if we get him here, up like that, and we achieve that
in a sort of more harmonious structure,
well, he'll have had, I believe, to my knowledge,
one of the best facial outcomes yet achieved.
I've got this ability, I know,
to transform lives immensely, beyond reason.
[camera shutter snaps]
Children that look like this
don't have the same lives,
either health-wise or integrating with society
and their peers, as people like this.
It has been really, really hard work.
But we've only just got going.
- [Mike] Monday. - [man] Monday.
- Tuesday. - Tuesday.
- Wednesday. - Wednesday.
[Mike] Now I start to need to change you.
Now, we change you with an appliance
that's got fangs on it like this, okay?
If she drops her jaw down,
the appliance engages underneath the mandible,
and that will remind her to keep her mouth closed,
building up this Pavlovian feedback response.
And that's what we want.
Life is full of surprises.
The fact that the internet got me famous
is one of those things, I guess.
This term mewing, the whole mewing thing
has been an absolute gift to me.
It's a godsend. It's named after me.
My surname has become a verb now.
It's a massively used term.
Someone pointed out to me recently
that the hashtag #mewing has been seen
over a billion times on TikTok.
That blows me away.
I stagger. How am I in this place?
I mean, how did I get here?
[birds chirping]
[soft music]
[vocalizing]
[Mike clears throat] Right.
I'm gonna kind of stick my legs out there a little.
Well, get your feet in. You could pull the chair.
Well, I think they've now set up on us.
- So the last-- - Are our heads close enough together?
I have abs-- I'm sure they'll give us some instructions.
They will.
You look to be quite a way away, that's all.
Yeah. Well, I'm waiting for instruction.
- So... - Right.
I really think it's gonna be a nice, sunny day today.
[woman] Excuse me.
Don't feel shy about--
- [woman] May we begin? - Yes.
[woman] So what's it like to be a father/son team?
I'd never thought about it.
- What do you-- - I don't see myself as a team.
I see myself as a chap who likes orthodontics
with a son who's interested in orthodontics.
Yeah. Yes, you see, you are an individual.
- Oh. - Yeah.
You're not the best team player in the world.
- Well, probably not. - No, no.
I don't think we work together.
There we go. I think that about sums it up.
- Well, no. - I've been trying for years
to get him to work with me, but he does his own thing.
I've never-- Don't think I've ever had a different thought.
At the age of 16, I had a little black book,
only about that big.
♪Whenever I had significant thoughts, I would note them down.
And so I spent most of my life puzzling
on the reason for this or that or center.
I was not a good student.
I regularly failed my exams.
And I really don't think I'm at all clever.
Quite stupid, in fact.
But interestingly, I had this ability to--
I think they call it lateral thinking.
Therefore, I was always coming up with ideas
which were entirely different than everyone else's.
Traditional truths are not always correct.
I think I see myself as a rebel.
Once you've come up with the answer,
you know it's right.
And of course, that's my problem now.
I know I'm right.
The orthodontists are absolutely sure I'm wrong.
[man] Could you sit up a little for me?
Oh, so sorry, yes.
- I keep slithering down. - [man] No, no, not at all.
I'm-- Remember my age, son.
[man speaking]
[John] A delicate subject to talk about other people,
particularly about their faces.
So one does need to tread carefully.
But if you walk down the street, you'll find a huge number of people
who just have flat faces.
Now, most people think, "Well, I've just got a flat face."
But there's a reason for that. There's a reason for everything.
[pensive music]
I spent most of my life
studying faces.
I decided I wanted to be a dentist way back, before I was ten.
My father, he was an orthodontist, so obviously enjoyed it,
that it seemed natural for me to do the same thing.
I started off very much part of the establishment.
But I was unhappy with the effect
of orthodontic treatment on youngsters.
They were purely mechanical cures.
They would say, "Look, these teeth are all there.
We'll fix it."
And the dentists found that if they fitted a plate with bits of wire on it,
they could line the teeth up.
Fix the palate, see.
See, my belief are
they're doing more harm than good.
The whole orthodontic scene is a scandal.
[whirring]
[clicking]
[electricity humming]
[soft music]
[whirring]
Most orthodontic treatment flattens faces.
In reality, it pulls them back,
which is the exact opposite of what you want.
It's a bit like taking a cardboard box.
If you push it in,
it kinks and cracks and twists.
Well, the face is just the same.
If it's pushed back at one end, it kinks like this.
It's better to try and lodge the jaws to take the whole lot forward,
which also provides room for the teeth.
My dear wife, Jo, and I were treated traditionally.
We both have narrow faces and crowded teeth.
I really wanted to bring my children up without traditional orthodontic methods.
And so I thought I'd design an appliance to do that.
I don't know if you've done much, what they say, "DIY,"
do it yourself, but it's very convenient
to be able to experiment on your children.
Most people do it socially, but I also did it medically.
[dramatic organ music]
William, my older one, I was just forming these ideas.
It wasn't effective, and as a result,
has never had good facial development.
But Michael was the next one in line.
You can see that his face
is totally different from mine.
It was mainly that I was just clever about him.
-And Rosarie... - Hey.
His younger sister,
I think even cleverer still, you know.
You do get a bit better in life with luck.
[dramatic music]
As the eldest, I was the first guinea pig.
And therefore, some of the contraptions I wore
were possibly a little bit more crude.
I remember Bill being taped up to this headgear
that an alarm used to go off if his mouth fell open.
Well, initially, they hadn't got the alarm quite right,
so before he reali-- there was something underneath
with a sharp object there.
[laughter]
If my jaw dropped, it would be--
I would describe it as uncomfortable.
(if he learns to keep his mouth shut)
Poor William.
He wore that very well and never complained.
None of them complained.
[Bill] We were fair game for experimentation.
[Rosie] Oh, I'm sure that he'd be done now,
for the amount of experimenting
that he did on us.
One of his experiments was to see
what would happen to facial development
if someone didn't chew. So if someone just swallowed
and just did, like, baby food for the first three years--
two, maybe three years.
Let's be generous. There was only two and half years.
Pretending it was breastfeeding, as if you were breastfeeding.
Yes.
[John] We used to breastfeed children for two to three years.
We now do it for less than six months.
It is one of the biggest lifestyle changes that we've made in the human race.
And I'm sure it's the main reason why there are so many ugly people around.
Everyone would have their Sunday dinner,
and mine would have gone through the Magimix.
And I'd be given this bottle,
and I just thought it was completely normal
that I had, as Dad always talks about, one of the largest malocclusions ever.
- Yes. - Because I had
- It was a disaster. - this tiny, tiny little jaw
because I hadn't chewed.
So he wrote lots of research papers.
And I think my mother, I was about three,
and sort of said, "Right, we're going to start
giving her ordinary food now.
So then he was very excited.
But then he started putting a brace in me.
And he created the largest expansion that he'd ever done on anyone before,
because I went from this very, very crowded malocclused...
- Is that the right word? - Malocclusion, yeah.
...place to quite a big jaw, as I have now, so...
[woman] So he created the problem and--
- Well, he didn't mean - And then fixed it.
- to create the problem. - [laughing]
[John] My daughter, Rosarie, has a very good-looking face.
I mean, she's-- I hate to think how old now.
She must be in her late 50s.
No, she'd probably be horrified. No, I think, late 40s, perhaps.
Not very good on ages.
Anyway, but she's got lovely bone formation.
I experimented on my children, and it worked.
I'm sure I should be put in prison for that.
The human, when brought up naturally,
has no dental problems.
If a parent asks me,
"John, what's the best way I can do
to look after my children
and make sure that they grow up correctly?"
I will say this simply.
"Sell your house, buy a cave in the top of a mountain,
and don't cook any of your food,"
and I think that's a very good prescription.
[light percussive music]
[Dr. Simon] John has created an island for himself.
And in that island, I think I'm there.
I think Mike's there.
And it gets a bit hazy after that. [laughs]
My journey to orthotropics has not been a straight line.
I was studying conventional orthodontics,
and I came across John's philosophy.
I have been trained through John,
and I follow John's technique very closely.
One of the things that he answered for me was why there is malocclusion,
which is when the teeth end up out of alignment
and they grow crooked.
Human beings, we've always had jaws and teeth that are fairly evenly balanced
and fairly straight.
In the last 300 years, that has really shifted.
[soft music]
We live in a world today where no one has straight teeth.
And so how do we go from
tens and tens and tens of thousands of years
where everything was perfect
to one where every kid needs some form of braces
to get the teeth straight?
We're taught that genetics plays the primary role
in jaw development, and John's thought was,
it's not possible for genetics to be so precise,
for everything to line up perfectly without any environmental influence.
- [Angela] Have you got fingerprint? - [Moira] No.
I've just got the facial recognition.
Look at the phone. Nothing's happening.
[Moira] Put it close to your face.
Did it open?
No, it doesn't recognize me.
But I bet you get voice recognition.
- See, it opened. - Yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, see, he's altered her jaw,
so I now can't get into her phone.
[laughs]
Yeah.
I didn't know it wasn't traditional, you know, orthodontistry.
I thought I was getting orthodontic treatment.
I had no idea that...
that I was one of the first people
that he was going to try this procedure on.
[soft music]
We grew up on a farm.
His surgery was a long way, and it was down country lanes.
We had a working class background. He was a private dentist.
So he was a different strata to us.
We were always the twinnies, the twins.
She's twinny, I'm twinny.
We're absolutely identical.
Not so much now, but we used to be totally identical,
couldn't tell us apart.
- I mean, we were just... - Joined at the hip.
- Yes. - Apart from the teeth.
[Moira] I was really conscious of my teeth.
We both sucked our finger and thumb from when we were little girls
until probably early teens.
[Angela] Like that.
[Moira] I had, you know, an overbite.
I remember being teased on the bus,
and, you know, I used to get called Lucky
'cause I had this big gap in the middle of my teeth.
I used to be able to get a penny in.
So I never used to smile much, and I was very conscious of my mouth.
- But you did smile, but you did this. - All the time.
Like, I would always be like this in the photographs.
We used to babysit for Dr. Mew,
and I can't remember how it came up
that he wanted to do a treatment on my teeth.
Well, he only took one look at you and realized you needed something doing.
Thank you. Yes, anyway.
You would have been a perfect patient, of course, 'cause you had a control.
Exactly, you're my control,
which is probably why we got the free dentistry.
- Yeah. - Mm-hmm.
[woman] That's exactly why.
- That is why? - [woman] Mm-hmm.
- [gasps] You owe it all to me, Moi. - Ha, there you go.
[laughing]
[light music]
[John] When you want to do good research,
no doubt, twins is the best way.
If you take a pair of twins and treat one
with one method and one with another method,
you're going to get a very clear message,
because when you're treating twins, they're both the same.
[Moira] I had an appliance.
And it was called the Biobloc.
It was like a medieval torture instrument.
[soft tense music]
And I had to sleep with my bottom teeth
pulled out to almost in front of my top teeth,
which isn't pleasant. But I had great confidence in him
because he was so confident.
And I would do whatever it took to finish that treatment,
which is what I did.
My mouth did change.
I mean, the gap in the front of my teeth wasn't there anymore.
I felt far more confident about smiling.
So it was wonderful for me.
You know, it was the best thing I could ever have done.
I'd probably still be living at Heart Lake farm
if I hadn't had it done, married with five children.
[chuckles]
[John] Okay, stop.
They became the first of a series of six twins
who had had different treatment.
Elise, the twin on the right in this picture
who does not need treatment,
has a larger and more pragmatic face.
Probably because of this,
her face looks more mature than that of her sister.
Because I really wanted to know the truth myself.
I didn't know if orthotropics was better or worse.
I could then compare them,
and I was flabbergasted.
I said, "Eureka! That's obviously it."
And that was when I really produced
the label "orthotropics," which means correct growth.
[soft music]
All plants are guided by tropisms,
where they will grow towards the light.
So growth is a tropism.
Plants grow, and in a way, so do faces.
[Dr. Simon] What orthotropics is about
is redirecting the course of growth.
It's very easy to start, terribly difficult to finish.
Initially, you're making room for teeth.
It's a very spectacular, very appealing period.
The next phase of orthotropics
is where we develop the individual jaws
to be the incorrect shape.
And what tends to happen is parents then say,
"This doctor has no idea what they're doing,
and it is infinitely worse than when we first started."
And then they will take them to find a second opinion.
And they will say, "What has this man, what has this woman done to your child?
They've wrecked your child."
The problem with orthotropics is it looks good,
then it looks terrible,
and that lasts four years.
And then finally at the end of it, it looks great.
Right, I let people know, "This is a double black diamond."
If we travel here, you have to trust,
in the end, you'll end up in a fantastic place.
[light music]
We are training children
to work at a level
which is beyond what we would normally expect.
[John] Come take a seat.
[Dr. Simon] The level of physical discipline
requires a commitment that is not common today.
You have to train not only the children,
but their guardians, the parents.
Why was it you came for treatment, actually?
Because I felt that recently, Lisa's lower jaw was receding more.
[Dr. Simon] We are talking specifically about posture.
You cannot develop straight teeth if you have bad oral posture.
How much do you hope that this can be improved?
Well, I hope that her jawline would look more normal
and that cosmetically
it would improve the outline of her face and her jaw.
In orthotropics, we have appliances
that have a penalty nature to them.
[John] This is your stage three appliance, Lisa,
and it's intended that it will be sore if you drop the jaw down.
[Dr. Simon] When John developed orthotropics,
he developed it in a world
where there were physical penalties and punishments
when you didn't behave.
You know, I was smacked as a child. I was smacked at school.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
[John] That's very good, indeed. Well done.
[Dr. Simon] One of the things about human beings
is physical reminders trump verbal nagging.
And that's how we change habits.
Those years that I went through treatment,
from the age, I think, eight or nine through to 12.
And my brother had to go down the traditional route
as a control.
And obviously, for John Mew, the ability then to do that comparison,
compare and contrast.
The experience I had, it was quite brutal.
When I look back at it, I look back and think it was just natural.
It was just part of what I was going through.
And everybody else was going through it, if they have orthodontistry.
But I now know that wasn't the case.
[laughs] So...
Yeah, we as children didn't really question why.
If he convinces the parent that this is the right thing,
then the parents can be the overseer
and govern that the child does what they're supposed to do,
um, which is kind of what happened.
- [woman] Your mom was overseeing? - Yeah. Yeah.
[Benjamin] She was supervising, wasn't she?
[indistinct murmuring]
[woman] Oh, you'd like to-- That's wonderful.
We're talking about parents and children.
Come on in. We'll figure it out.
- [man] Yeah. - What do you want to say?
- [woman] Thank you for joining us. - [laughs]
[woman] I know this may seem--
Do you want to sit here?
- [Leo] I could sit on the-- - [woman] Is that okay?
[indistinct chatter]
Yeah, yeah. No, that's it. Just...
- Why don't you sit here? - I just wanted to mention
when you were talking about the responsibility with the parents,
um, it came to the stage where Quentin's teeth
were so far out and his jaw so far back,
he couldn't possibly have been left like that.
I had horrors that John Mew would drop down dead
and he'd be like, "Ah, ah, ah."
Yeah, so I couldn't really say,
you know, "This is too much," because we were in it too deep.
But it was quite scary. It really was.
- [Quentin laughing] - Ooh. Yeah.
So really, you're very lucky.
Well, it could have all gone horribly wrong.
- Yeah. - Yeah, true.
Could have been left with just the top.
[laughs]
What's happened to their faces?
Well, you can see that Ben's face
is slightly flatter and slightly longer,
whereas Quentin has more forward growth,
which I think perhaps gives him a slightly better profile.
[woman] Twin studies, does that ring a bell?
John Mew actually doing a study on twins doesn't exist.
[woman] He worked with six sets of twins.
Yes? Six sets of twins or six--
Yes, that's 12 people.
Twelve patients does not a study make, ever.
[soft music]
I used to be an academic orthodontist, and I started my career in London,
which is actually where I met John Mew.
I've known John Mew since the '60s.
My first interaction with Dr. Mew--
why do I call him Dr. Mew? Mr. Mew--
was when I was at the London Hospital Medical School.
I was in charge of the orthodontic department.
And one of my jobs was to evaluate submissions
for an essay competition.
Mew put in his submission.
It was just as bad as everything else he's written since.
Uh, fanciful, no science, no nothing.
I remember it because it was a curious submission.
It had two illustrations, and there were two fish tanks
with a bunch of trout in one of them
and no trout in the other, okay?
And the caption had something to do with the fact that,
please observe how the trout's snout anatomy changed
because they were pressing their face against the glass
of the fish tank.
And so that was his argument,
which I had to reject, because it had no science in it.
So the next thing I know is he telephoned me
and wanted to come and see me at the London Hospital.
And he accused me of suppressing his reality and his truth
because I disagreed with his premises.
I said, I don't disagree with your premise.
I just disagree with crappy science.
I don't care who you are, you know? He didn't like to hear that either.
[light music]
[John] It's never easy to change people's ideas, so I tried.
I wrote papers. I gave meetings.
I gave lectures. I had long chats with people.
I'd pull people into a corner and browbeat them.
You know, the usual things.
I was just hoping to reason with people
and they'd see the truth or the light, as I might say.
[dramatic music]
[reporter] It's what every parent wants for their child,
a perfect smile.
But does that smile mask a hidden danger?
[John] I didn't push it
until a program called Dispatches.
[tense music]
If my views were accepted,
orthodontics would have to change dramatically.
And indeed, many people would either have to change the way they worked
or give up doing orthodontics.
But there's a clear comparison between us as twins in favor
of the orthodontistry method of Dr. Mew's, right?
[interviewer] And how do you feel about that?
In hindsight, I would have preferred to gone with Mr. Mew's method.
That was on national television.
And the next day, every single one
of the English national dailies
had half or full-page articles on what I'd said.
The orthodontists all thought that I behaved absolutely appallingly.
Essentially, I had been a traitor to the cause.
And they said, "You'll shatter people's faith
and make them think orthodontics is no good,"
which, in a way, was what I was trying to tell them anyway.
From then on,
I was always in conflict with orthodontics.
There was really no option, was there?
A leading London dentist claims current orthodontic methods
sometimes straighten the teeth, but they then ruin the face.
That's at the center of a bitter row in the world of orthodontics.
[man] Can you see the two sharp spikes on that plate?
Well, I got very angry. I looked at it.
I could not believe someone could put that in a child's mouth.
I'm accusing all the people who treat your way
of ripping off the parents. And it's child abuse.
I provide them appliance which is designed to hurt
if the child drops their jaw.
You might call that child abuse. I would call it training.
That's crap.
The establishment were initially hoping that when he reached
sort of the age of 60 or something, he would either retire or sort of mellow.
Um, if anything, the opposite has happened.
He was still poking the beast year after year after year.
I've even been threatened with assault at meetings.
People hate me with a depth that's really quite surprising.
I even went to the length of marching up and down
the principal medical area in London with a big sandwich board
saying what I thought about orthodontics.
It was words to the effect
that orthodontics damages faces, which is true.
[man] On the cover of your book, you have the Galileo quote.
[John] Oh, yeah, "Eppur si muove."
Galileo said that in a loud whisper...
[dramatic choral music]
...as he turned his back on the Pope.
And he very nearly lost his life for that.
Essentially, he was talking about the world and the sun.
He was saying the world moves.
And I put the same phrase in relation to the jaws.
Of course, the orthodontists didn't quite see that.
They saw it that I was treating patients in an improper way.
So the orthodontists approached the General Dental Council,
the authority which grants licenses in England,
and said, "Look, this man's doing the wrong thing.
We've got to stop him."
So three years ago,
I had my license to practice dentistry removed.
[man] They really felt they needed to strike him off
in order to try and besmirch him.
But I think possibly the biggest shock in store
was that there simply wasn't just one Mew.
There's--there's another one following in his footsteps.
[woman] Mike, specifically,
has taken over the family business.
- The mantle. - The mantle.
The mantle, as Mom would say.
I would say--I would say the sort of noose around the neck.
[laughter]
- [woman] I love that. - He's taken on that big challenge.
[soft music]
[Mike] You know, you used to have, the plowman would do what his father did.
You know, the plowman's son would become a plowman.
And that became your universe.
And in a way, what my father did became my universe.
And it was at a very young age,
I decided I was gonna do this.
Michael turned to me and said, "Rosie,
I think I might slowly be turning into Dad."
And I said, "What do you mean, 'turning into'?
You've been there for about ten years already."
- There's been a Mini-Me. - Mini-Me.
[Bill] There's been a Mini-Me following in Dad's footsteps.
He's not your average father.
[solemn music]
Few people have fathers like I do.
You know, he is just a-- you know, he's an inspiration.
[indistinct chatter]
Bye.
[Mike] Seeing my father being attacked and criticized
has been one of the things that's driven me forwards.
It just makes your blood boil...
'cause I've seen my father just be destroyed.
Reverse, reverse, reverse. Full throttle. Full throttle.
[John speaking]
I didn't think that I could study orthodontics
in the UK because
everyone so vehemently disagrees with my father.
And that's one of the reasons I went to Denmark.
I chose Denmark, being, you know, one of the top orthodontic programs
on the planet.
But I just, you know, I shudder at what they were teaching me at times.
Just lift the chair up for you.
- That feel okay? - That's fine.
[Mike] For about 20 years,
I worked side by side with my father at least one day a week.
The timer has now failed on the stage four.
We want Thea wearing it 12 hours a day.
She forgot her appliance.
And it's quite apparent she's only wearing it at night.
We have two chairs literally in the same room,
chatting with him about life, the times, and everything.
And I just have nothing but happy memories of that.
Then I took over and it sort of became my clinic.
I literally thought this would never go anywhere,
but I couldn't bear to do conventional orthodontics
where I felt I was damaging people's faces and health.
Orthotropics is what I was born to do.
[soft music]
[bleats]
[Mike humming]
Very good for you, yogurt.
Well, this is what everyone says-- Or what they were saying.
And all of a sudden, apparently yogurt is not good for you anymore,
and it's full of sugar.
Yes, I...
I swallow the description that it's full of the right bacteria.
When you consider the state of our knowledge,
I think it's abysmal.
How are we getting on with the omelet?
I'm wondering whether to have some shredded wheat or not.
Well, I think-- I think we are almost omelet-ready.
There we go, sir.
- [John] Fantastic. - [Mike] Your omelet.
You're very good with omelets.
Whenever I do them, they're either too wet or too dry.
[Mike] There's a very odd smell coming from your fridge.
Some milk has drained into your smoked haddock, Dad.
[John] You put cheese in it, didn't you?
- I know. - Which is lovely, but of course,
it's become very stringy.
[Mike] Dad's done all of this great stuff, come up with all these great ideas.
But no one knew about it. And I knew in orthotropics
there was something interesting.
Almost anyone I have a conversation with is fascinated with this.
And yet here we have this really dry topic that I couldn't get out there.
But my father's been trying for 30, 40 years, if not more,
and he's not made-- got this idea out.
And now we've got social media.
And my bet here is that social media is going to somehow give us wings.
If you can't breathe out of your nose,
you're forced to either die or breathe out of your mouth.
[gulps]
We were just throwing things out there,
throwing anything we could.
Did Brad Pitt have a stronger jawline in the past?
This way.
And it was really a scattergun approach
to see if we could get people interested in what we were doing.
I now have 14 sticks of chewing gum in my mouth
all at one time.
As this occurs, it narrows,
and asymmetries automatically accumulate.
Is that comfortable, Tasha?
It was my objective to get something to go viral.
You just hold that eye contact,
you know, with a cheeky smile on your face.
Eye contact with a cheeky smile, that's magical for a girl.
[Mike] Someone saw one of my videos, thought that was interesting,
and I was just asked to give a lecture
at a conference called the 21 Conference, I think, something like that.
We're in good hands. Let's welcome Mike.
[applause]
[Mike] It was the type of thing that if I'd done proper research,
I'd have never done.
I teach seduction for life.
I am so bored and sick of teaching people how to walk up and stare at girls
and stop them and go, "Hello."
If you like women and you want to have sex with women and date them--
Who likes girls? Put your hands up real quick,
all the people who like women. All right.
Of course, a lot of them, I showed how to have their first orgasm.
It was great, you know.
They'll--they'll be real thankful for that.
What gives you a good face?
I know that I look better now than I did ten years ago.
Because I've made a concerted effort
to get my tongue on the roof of my mouth...
and chew more, a bit more chewing gum.
That really is the thing.
After that, we noticed people talking about me
and talking about these exercises I presented.
If I could plug you in like they do in Matrix
and upload a good tongue function pattern,
I think I could get you all to grow fantastically.
We were monitoring my name on the internet.
We then found a few alerts went out
on a forum called SlutHate.
[tense music]
And it was this world of incels that I really didn't know much about.
People were talking about that lecture I'd given
and what they could do to improve themselves.
So I gave some responses.
Hi.
Thank you for quite a lot of interest from a number of forums,
in particular, a forum I'm responding to here
called "SlutHate," as it happens.
The first response came from IncelExecutioner.
I do love some of the names you've got here.
BetaGayFace, you asked about face pulling.
A question from Kushmaster.
And then final one, um, Yul Brynner.
Why did I engage with them, and why did I respond to that?
I guess it's an instinctive thing
to get the information out there to help people.
Most people go through this period of time.
I went through this period of time
when I was a young teenager and I felt gawky and awkward
and I couldn't chat a girl up.
I couldn't-- you know, it was quite difficult.
I can understand this group of people
gravitated to orthotropics because, in essence,
this was a sort of secret
that had never been divulged to them before
that was the answer to all of their problems.
I'm literally turning-- yes, I'm turning the dweeb to a Chad.
Yes, we engaged-- I engaged on SlutHate,
which is one of those things, again, if anyone asks you,
never go and engage with people on this sort of thing.
But science isn't PC.
Science is as you find it.
But, you know, I'd have done a deal with the devil to get this across.
We've been overwhelmed in response
and interest from people.
It was just--it was a revelation to me.
It was really just nice.
It was nice to actually have an audience
who wanted to listen to you
rather than the door being closed at every opportunity.
I didn't really cognitively think ahead of what was happening.
But I could see this thing growing.
All of a sudden, it was like Pandora's box had been opened.
[hip-hop music]
That exercise is called mewing,
and it's supposed to give you more defined and sculpted jawline.
Here is an example of a before and an after.
You can see that her jawline is more defined.
All you have to do is place your tongue on the roof of your mouth,
and then you just close your lips.
[man 1] In this video, I will be telling you
how long it takes to see results from mewing.
[Mike] This is Joey.
He heard about a technique called mewing,
which is the proper posture of the tongue.
[clicking tongue] Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.
In the long run, it's actually shown to improve your face bone structure.
[man 2] I was not expecting the mewing thing.
That's not what I expected to happen.
This really sort of academic, medical,
dry, difficult to understand complex of orthotropics
that we'd struggled to get out there
suddenly became sexy.
In yoga, just imagining, like, the cat's back rounded,
that's your tongue, like, rounded out.
Ah.
[Mike] I've been amazed at what's been occurring recently.
I'm wondering when my surname became a verb.
M-E-W-I-N-G, mewing.
Mewing has changed my life.
What's up, guys? It's Tomazzo here.
I look better. I'm healthier. I'm fitter.
But having strong jaw muscles is also important
because it makes your face look much better,
even for girls too.
It kind of fixed everything. It just didn't fix one or two things.
It's revolutionary. It's gonna transform the world,
like, maybe, probably.
If you want to develop a healthier face,
if you want to fulfill your genetic potential,
identify it, work on it,
feel that posture a third of the time.
I've got so many kids who are being forced through orthodontics by their parents.
Mm.
[Mike] All of a sudden, the idea of mewing
was just this antidote to all of that.
And also, it resonated with "good looks."
Mewing is not cat.
Mew. It's not cat.
It's the correct tongue posture.
Tongue is up and flat.
On the soft palate like a trampoline.
- Hi. - [Koko] Hi. Excited to meet you.
- How are you? - My name's Koko.
I'm Kim.
Thank you so much for coming.
- [Scott] Scott. - [Koko] It's good to meet you. Koko.
- Hi, how are you? - Thank you.
Have you done any face exercise
- or face yoga or anything like that? - No.
[all] Mm.
- [clapping] - [laughter]
Mewing is a huge part of our method, face yoga.
Mike Mew is like a legendary doctor
in our community.
He's like our god.
[Mike] If you want to get freaked out,
type "Mike Mew is God" into the internet and hashtags.
Oh, gosh, it freaks me out.
Like, I mean, yes, I've become a messiah to people.
You do have a very good jawline.
I tell you what.
Yeah, you see?
My goodness, me.
[upbeat music]
[Mike] And there came a point
when I actually thought to myself,
"Look, we've got the chance of going around the system."
[man] I believe Mike Mew,
- who I actually had on my podcast-- - [Joe] Mewing.
[man] Yeah, mewing, exactly.
Mike Mew, I think has cracked the case.
That is crazy. Is that real?
- [man] Yes. - [woman] Yeah, yeah.
- She has like this little tiny ass jaw, - [woman] That is real.
and then she developed a real normal one.
[woman] Yeah.
[Mike] Victor Hugo said,
"No army can stop an idea whose time has come."
You can't put the genie back in the bottle.
And I don't care whether this came out of SlutHate.
I don't care whether this came through the British Orthodontic Society.
It came, and it became popular.
And now we can be on to the proper challenge
of scientific engagement, the next step.
[tense music]
[man] For me, the ancestral movement is this return
to how our Paleolithic ancestors lived,
moved, and ate, and just understanding
that the more we emulate how they sat
and squatted and kind of moved,
the healthier we became.
And that's what this whole symposium is about.
It's the ancestral health movement.
Next movement is the crawl, just like a baby would crawl
except the knees don't touch.
[man] I've been on a personal journey
in trying to reverse what's happened to me.
My journey was a little bit more invasive.
It's called a transpalatal distractor,
and it was surgically installed.
And I turn that device every other day
to widen my upper arch.
Doctor's goal is to make my nasal cavity wider
so I can breathe at night.
Before this, I could not breathe through my nose at all.
I didn't have any idea why.
I was just, like, going into research wormholes, confused.
I had no idea what was happening to me until I discovered mewing.
So understanding craniofacial dystrophy,
as Mike Mew calls it, helped me understand
what happened to me.
Incorporating his philosophy is curing my sleep apnea.
It's literally, like, saving my life.
Personally, I find him to be like an idol, like someone who's championing the truth
right now in the scientific world
where it's really hard to come up with new ideas.
[James] All right, this is starting to feel a bit like the Oscars.
We've got a superstar coming up right now,
none other than Dr. Mike Mew. He's an orthodontist from London
and an expert in oral posture and rehabilitation.
He's here to discuss how the way in which
we hold our mouths affects how our faces will grow,
how we'll breathe, and more.
[Mike] What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to start pulling everyone together
to make this movement. And I've never done that before.
I don't quite know what to do.
This is the biggest disease you've all got that you don't know about.
Because it's in your face. It is your face.
You know, you don't want to admit this. It's uncomfortable to admit it.
You're all affected. You're all deformed.
You know, we've never really had this,
where a group of people come together,
fomented on the internet.
You know, we had the Arab Spring where people--
the social media helped get people together
as a cohesive group to gain change.
Um...
now I want to try and do the same thing in medicine,
you know, by the people, for the people type of thing.
And what we really need is a revolution.
Many of you here will be affected by the problems I'm saying,
you know, forward head posture, snoring, sleep apnea.
My father's focus on facial beauty
has definitely held this whole science back,
and there is no real way around that.
He goes full on, full throttle to beauty.
And I think that harms his message.
People seem to care so much more about how they look
than how healthy they are.
But if I can use that to get people to be healthier,
then great. I'll do what I want.
If your face didn't grow well,
you may be looking ugly.
That is your fault, and that may well have
significant health implications.
You know?
I'm saying don't be happy with where you are.
Get off your ass and change.
[man] And, Mike, how about for craniofacial dystrophy,
what can we do right now?
What can everyone in this room do right now
to help reverse this?
Stand up straight and shut your mouth.
[laughter]
[host] Speaking of chewing, it's lunchtime, everybody.
So thank you very much for coming. Thank you to the entire panel.
[applause]
[kettle whistling]
[John] Michael gets upset with me because I talk a lot
about facial appearance and attractiveness.
He says that that is counterproductive
to the idea of promoting orthotropics.
I say nonsense.
Anybody can make themselves really good-looking
if they try, well, certainly by the age of ten.
[soft music]
As a five-year-old,
I had a beautifully shaped face.
Lovely, round, a bit square. Very attractive.
But at the age of nine,
I started to leave my mouth open.
And the whole shape of my face changed really quite dramatically.
And I can remember going from being a square-faced boy to a long-faced boy.
I do remember one girl I rather fancied saying,
"You know, the boy with the long face," referring to me.
So yes, people did notice.
But I've always been a fairly lively individual.
Therefore, I don't think that it handicapped me that much.
But it did mean I didn't get the pretty girls.
[soft music]
Your face is your fortune, without the slightest doubt.
Good-looking people have all the advantages.
This was a drawing
that I asked a professional artist
to make for me to represent what I thought was a truly beautiful face.
I sent it back to the painter,
I would think, ten times, saying,
"Please alter this, please alter that."
And I'm still not really happy with it.
I really believe that in our mind,
imprinted in our subconscious,
we know exactly
what the perfect face looks like.
And we know within one or two millimeters.
And we actually measure that.
We have an instrument
which we call an indicator ruler.
Very simple.
And you put this bit there under your teeth like that.
And then you touch your nose.
I would say this part of my face
is probably that much too far back.
Twenty, twenty-five millimeters.
That's a huge measurement.
- [woman] These 20 millimeters... - Yes.
What difference have they made in your life?
Um, I-- I would have been good-looking.
[soft music]
[Mike] Don't underestimate the long-term effects
of gaining habits.
And it's very difficult to enthuse children--
Elbows off the table, Jessica. Elbows off. Elbows off.
Good girl.
Enthuse children at an older age to change deeply ingrained habits.
And a habit learned at this age
can become a lifetime's change.
Elbows off the table.
There. There we go. Lips together.
[Milla] Michael is a little bit--
- he's a little bit strange. - [chuckles]
And we're all strange in some ways.
But, um, I do take him as he is.
And I'm fine with it, you know?
Yeah, it's perfect, Milla.
I couldn't have met someone more perfect than you,
- you know, honestly. - No way.
- Yeah, no, honestly. - No one better than me?
[Mike] No, no, no, no, you're right.
He said to me straightaway, um, "You have nice teeth."
[both laughing]
- [woman] That's okay. - Yeah.
Yeah, it's a good line.
Mm.
[woman] Oh, you're both chewing.
- Yeah. For later. - [woman] You're a gum-chewing family.
- Yes, we try and force it - Yeah.
on the kids, as well.
[Milla] Okay, here's a gravy.
Don't lean on the table, just serve it.
Daddy, today I had a chocolate pudding for lunch.
You had a chocolate pancake for pudding for lunch today?
- Dear me. - [Jessica] Chocolate inside.
- [Milla] Lucky girl, eh? - Lucky girl.
Yeah, what is that school feeding you, eh?
- [Jessica] No, not school. - No, it's Mummy, actually.
- [Mike] It was Mummy, was it? - [Milla] It's the lunch box, yeah.
[Mike] Oh, yeah, right, the lunch box.
[laughing]
[muffled indistinct speech]
- Lips closed. - Don't speak with your mouth full.
Lips together, Zarina.
Lips together. I can see the kale sticking out your mouth.
[light percussive music]
Personal vlog, September the 25th, 2018.
I have been expelled from the British Orthodontic Society.
The decision was unanimous.
And to quote a paragraph from the decision,
"Having listened to what you had to say
and having considered the matter in full,
the unanimous decision of the board is that, in our opinion,
your conduct is contrary to the interests of the society."
Now, they all went on to say
that they felt the social media campaign
that I've run seems to demonstrate an unhealthy obsession with publicity
to the detriment of patients.
Um, now, I don't want to be taken into a dark corner
and mugged quietly.
What I would really like to do is just get someone to engage in debate.
So I want to go along
to the British Orthodontic Society Conference.
It's the big conference of orthodontics.
[upbeat music]
[man] If I had to give you
one word about how I feel just now about being at conference again
in Manchester and seeing everybody,
I think that it's summed up in the word "giddy."
[Mike] I think one of the biggest problems
is that lots and lots of patients
who have heard about me or seen my videos online
are asking difficult questions
the orthodontists can't answer.
The closer we get to Manchester,
the closer we get to the British Orthodontic Society,
the more scared I get.
You know, there's no other word.
You know, it's just--
It's really hard to do this.
It's really, really hard.
You know, I've never had a full scientific discussion
or engagement with any orthodontist,
probably ever in my life, never. You know, and I think that's a shame.
I would imagine that most people at this conference
would describe me as a charlatan.
I think they probably think
I'm a bit stupid and a bit mad.
I mean, just wake up. You know, actually read a bloody paper.
Actually ask yourself the question.
You did blindly follow the orthodontist 'cause they're your mates.
Yeah, actually do what you were trained to do
and look at the basic evidence.
You know, you go into the lion's den.
That's where I'm going now.
[woman] I, un, I got a sense, and by a sense, I mean a number of emails
from Nigel Harradine,
- Yeah. - who was the head of the BSSO.
- Now the BOS. - Yeah.
And he-- What came across was a real Mew fatigue.
The vast body of orthodontists in this country
who are well trained who go on courses
who read the literature and keep up,
they're basing their practice on the best available evidence.
And some people just like to perhaps feel
that they are slightly crying in the wilderness.
[woman] He used a few terms.
"The science falls on their completely deaf ears,"
and, "They are an ancient fossil with no adherents,"
and, "Irrelevant noisy fringe,"
and, "What they're selling is a scam."
[Dr. Peter] Right.
I totally agree with every word you've just cited.
What I disagree with is that somebody as important
as a former head of the British Society for Orthodontics,
it's not enough to say, "I'm sick of hearing Mewisms."
What he should be doing is use the scientific method
and say why it's rubbish.
Point out what's wrong with the Mews
and how the Mews have the responsibility
to prove that what they're saying has some merit, scientific merit.
The Orthodontic Society is not doing it.
And I suspect the reason that they're not doing it
is because some of the things that orthodontists do
are equally culpable, equally without foundation.
[soft tense music]
[Dr. Marc] One has to look back at the last modern century
of orthodontic practice
to fully understand the business.
Edward Angle probably was one of the greatest tinkerers
in all of health care history.
He was almost like a Thomas Edison
of orthodontia.
And in that time, the late 1890's,
there was a Victorian concept
that man needed to achieve nature's ideal.
And Angle was a subscriber to this point of view.
He looked at how teeth come together,
which is called occlusion,
and he came up with a classification system
of what he believed was nature's intended ideal.
[Dr. Peter] Edward Angle was the first one
to start a school of orthodontics,
and thereby, he had a monopoly of orthodontic education.
He had this ancient skull,
which had 32 teeth in perfect alignment.
And that became-- by dictum, by Angle's rule,
this is the aim of treatment.
If God didn't want you to have 32 teeth, he would have given you 28, right?
From that point forward, that became the gold standard
that you were supposed to achieve at the end of treatment.
And he concentrated,
over the course of his lifetime,
the best way to move those teeth.
[Dr. Peter] With each step towards facility,
more people jumped on the bandwagon.
Angle defined it as a standard of beauty
because it was ideal.
Ideal and normal and beauty all became conflated
in one concept, the orthodontic ideal.
And therefore, come to me,
your lovely, friendly orthodontist,
and I'll make you look normal
by arranging your 32 teeth
exactly the same way as his and hers
and hers and his and then the other.
Everybody should look the same.
That's the goal of orthodontics.
I mean, just because you have a Korean child here
and a Spanish child there, to hell with it.
Just do everybody the same, 'cause everybody wants to look the same.
Everybody wants to look good.
Everybody wants to look like an American model or a film star.
Is there anything wrong with that?
[laughs]
[dance music]
[Mike] The British Orthodontic Society is just a club.
You don't need to be a member
of the British Orthodontic Society.
Now, the problem with this is that they had already
referred me to the General Dental Council.
The General Dental Council holds my license to practice.
So, we will have a hearing at the General Dental Council in November.
And in November, they're going to decide whether or not to take my license away.
So, I tried to engage some people in conversation,
and it is literally, "No, I don't want to talk to you."
You know, it's really quite oppressive for you to be in a place
where 50% of the people are blanking you.
And you know--you know, you can see people touching
and talking about you and pointing you out.
You know, this whole thing, what I'm doing,
it really takes courage to do this.
You know, I'm impressed with my father.
He's got thicker skin than I've got.
Maybe he didn't at my age and he grew.
[John] I'm slightly concerned
that this is going to be a story about you
rather than about orthotropics.
I don't--I don't think you want that, but I think they're gonna make it that.
[light percussive music]
Hi, Mike.
So the GDC now know
- you've taken the case. - They do.
- So they've been informed of that. Okay. - Yes, they've been informed.
- So they're waiting on you. - They know that there'll be a time lag,
- obviously, for us to catch up. - Yes. Yeah.
I've been going through the very interesting statement
- of Stephen Powell. - Mm.
Now, you know that's...
- nearly 200 pages long. - Good bedtime reading.
Yeah. Nearly 200 pages long
- with about 200 pages of appendices. - Mm.
I'm working my way through that slowly.
But the accusation is fundamental.
It's root and branch.
- They say what you're saying - Yeah.
- is total nonsense. - A total nonsense, yes.
In essence, he's calling you a charlatan.
- Mm. One of us is a charlatan. - But--
[laughs] Okay.
Well, the trial, I think, in the next few months
- is going to work out which one. - Yes.
[Stephen] The allegations against him are quite lengthy.
So, I'll just give you a flavor of what they are.
Basically, what the GDC is saying
or what the prosecution is saying
is that he was making claims about his procedures
which have no scientific basis,
so saying, "We can do X and Y."
In fact, he knew that he could not achieve X and Y.
A second part of it
is that he was advocating the need for treatment
where they are saying
actually there was no need for treatment at all.
In terms of the expert evidence against him,
they are saying that the whole thing is basically snake oil.
[John] Undoubtedly, orthotropics is on trial.
I mean, I'm concerned for Michael. I'm his father.
But I've been through the same battle myself,
and I know that Michael
- will not get a fair trial. - [Mike] I can--
What do you think about the new barrister?
He has asked for all the cash up front.
Now, that's very unusual with a barrister.
Not--not top barristers in London.
Well, I've not come across it yet.
Yeah, 'cause you've not been playing in that game yet.
- Oh, I don't think you're right. - Oh, maybe.
On one occasion,
- I took the minister of health to court. - To the high court.
- Yes, you did, didn't you? - I did not get much higher than that.
My case is different.
So tactically, as we start up till my court case,
could maybe not be too critical of the whole orthodontic profession.
Yes, I mean, when talking to orthodontists,
I'm always very polite.
The ideal way and the way we've agreed...
- Right. - We're trying not to be
too immediately insulting about fixed braces.
Um, you are. I'm not.
You won't separate me on that.
Fixed braces should never be used.
They damage the teeth, the roots, and the face.
Then say fixed appliances can damage faces,
not that they always do it.
- No, Michael, I really can't. - [gibberish]
- Okay. Okay. - I'm sorry.
We won't agree on that.
- I am not good at changing people's minds. - Yes.
- No. - But I do speak the truth.
If Michael is going soft on that,
it's because he doesn't want to rock the boat too much,
but it's true.
Dad, you were a property developer. That's how you made your money.
- Yes. - You could-- Later in your career,
you could afford to lose your license.
Yes.
You know, I've got a young-- I've got a young family.
You know, for me, I mean, I've--
I've sold my house for the proceeds.
Now I've just taken the deposit
for buying another house
and blown that as well.
So this is everything. I've put everything into it.
This is everything of my life.
So, I think-- And also,
my father has already lost his license.
You know, we don't have a backup now.
I'm plan B. Plan B's got to work.
[Milla] Obviously, he paid quite a big money for that barrister.
Michael said, "Do you think--
can I pay that money to the lawyer instead of buying a house?"
And I said, "Well, if you think it's the right thing to do, you do it."
So, when you have family,
you know, it's what you do.
Hundred percent I'm sure that he gonna win that case.
Otherwise, I would be very-- it will be--I will be just...
How should I say?
I'm gonna invite the barrister for tea.
[laughing]
It's a familiar narrative all the way through history.
David and Goliath,
big corporations, the small guy,
the whistleblower.
[tense music]
He has, I think, the understandable difficulty
that he's very emotionally invested.
This is now two generations of individuals
that are protecting a theory and a way of treatment,
whether that lives or dies.
[Mike] I-- My life is layers and layers and layers of stress at the moment.
It's worries about my career,
how that-- If I lose my license,
you know, how I will let all my patients down.
You know, I'm worried about moving the science I'm doing forwards.
You know, because I know what I can achieve.
And I know that I'm not getting the halfway there
with my patients at the moment.
What's been happening since I saw you last time?
Not much.
[Mike] Okay.
When you mean not much,
what do you mean by not much?
Uh, I mean nothing really major or noticeable--
or noticeable other than traveling happened.
[Mike] All right, have you been wearing your Myobrace much?
[Adam] Uh, no.
[Mike] What about the chewing gum?
[Adam] I did a bit on some airplanes.
[Mike] Have you been working on trying to improve your posture?
A little bit.
[Mike] But you've not really done anything?
- [Adam] No. - [Mike] Okay.
Wider. Close a little bit.
You gave me the distinct impression
that you didn't want to do any more treatment
the last time I talked to you.
I have no recollection
- of the last conversation. - [Mike] Yeah.
Well, I make notes.
Orthotropics is completely--
it's completely compliance-dependent.
And I'm treating most people who have no real idea of the benefit
they're gonna gain from this.
They don't realize that this is probably
one of the most important things they're ever, ever going to do.
And they can't be bothered to wear the brace in the afternoons.
Adam, if you could commit to chewing gum...
It's hard to find a steady supply of certain gum
- No, no-- - at the moment.
- [Mike] Just a minute, I will-- - Say what really you've been--
Don't worry about the logistics, Adam.
[Adam] Okay.
[Mike] Think about what would be the desired outcome.
All right.
Thank you, sir.
Work hard.
Get back in the Myobrace.
- Let's talk in two weeks' time. - Okay.
All right? Okay. Thank you very much.
For once, I found someone
that doesn't squeeze my hand too hard.
[Mike] That wasn't too hard, was it?
No, he's saying that it's the first time--
For once I found someone.
- [Mike] Okay. - Yeah.
So thank you.
- [Mike] Take care. - Bye.
[plucking ukulele]
[woman] I have no musical training, no musical background,
no ability to sing. [laughs]
I picked up my child's ukulele,
and suddenly, music started to flow into me.
And I wrote this song called "The Lies."
[laughing] It's seven minutes long.
[soft music]
♪ Water isn't H20 ♪
♪ It's a story you've been told ♪
♪ What is truth and how do you know ♪
♪ Who's telling those lies ♪
♪ History, history ♪
♪ It's a trickster's symphony ♪
♪ Rockefeller, medicine And orthodontics too ♪
♪ Carefully designed To keep disease in you ♪
♪ If you won't see When you're being fooled ♪
♪ Parasites over you will rule ♪
♪ Ooh, the lies we've been sold ♪
♪ Re-examine everything you're told ♪
[sighs]
[exhaling shakily]
Whoa, this trial. I mean, you know--
You know, I should be clinically depressed.
Whoa, whoa. Over the top.
The reason I'm not is 'cause I'm on a mission.
We're now two months away.
And I'm agitated-- I go to bed agitated.
I wake up in the middle of the night agitated.
And I've got so much to do that I haven't done yet,
you know, just mountains of work.
Let's break up tasks. Then I can sit and get on.
Yeah, so that's the one thing.
Because I'll need some quiet time for me to get on with.
I would have liked to be so much further ahead.
I would have liked to have so much more media engagement.
I've gotta increase the web presence as much as possible.
And I'm just so behind where I wanted to be.
You know, having to phone Dianne up and plan the video we're gonna do.
And it--it's really hard.
How's about, shall go see if I can watch those two videos?
[Dianne] Yes.
That might be the best thing.
Okay, let me watch.
- [Dianne] Before tomorrow-- - [John] I would have joined in
if I'd known there was a discussion.
- It doesn't matter. - [laughs] Yes.
Lots of points I would have liked to have made.
But there's always a discussion.
- Always a discussion. - [John] Nobody tells me anything.
[Dianne] You've got the family you have
and then the family you choose.
And we kind of chose the Mews. And I think that's mutual.
So yeah, that's a good feeling.
I want a real glamour shot, yeah.
[man] Yeah, I'd like to have a real glamour shot
of the two of you, and Bill in the background.
- I'll lean forward. - How's my jaw?
- Then it will be bigger. - Yeah.
[Dianne] We live in Broek in Waterland,
which is a very small town near Amsterdam.
And I've got this receded chin.
And I always thought, "Well, you know,
that's just genetics you don't know about."
But I think it was somewhere on Facebook that somebody posted something like,
"You have to see this video because it will change your life forever."
I was like, "Yeah, right."
But that was a video by Mike
doing the 21st Century Man convention.
And he was talking about all these things. And then everything clicked.
It's like, "Oh, I've got this. I've got this.
I've got this. I've got this."
And then one day, he asked for people
to come help with his YouTube channel.
And I thought, "Why don't just drop this man
a letter or email?"
He said, "Yeah, well, I'm in a castle next weekend with my family.
Do you want to come over?"
And we're like, "That's kind of weird, but just let's-- let's go."
Let's-- You know, I've got twin boys.
Let's just go to England and meet this YouTube guy
and see if we can help.
[soft music]
We were coming down here, and we saw the castle,
and it just felt unreal.
[indistinct chatter]
[laughing]
[indistinct chatter]
It felt like we were welcomed in some kind of Italian family.
And it clicked, just clicked.
[indistinct chatter]
I do think Mike changes life for some, as he did mine.
To some of the Mews, he's like the new god and messiah.
Well, maybe he is. Who knows?
For him, he's just trying to do his best, like Jesus was.
[laughs]
We're gonna talk about-- the video we're gonna do now.
- Oh, yeah, let's go upstairs. - Okay?
Wait, wait, just a little bit of planning. So we're gonna go upstairs
and we're gonna start by saying that we need
more nuance to the idea of beauty.
Don't respond just yet. Just wait until we're upstairs.
- [John] I can do that, all right. - [Mike] Okay.
[John] We should do.
[groans]
No, no, no. That's just the way it is.
We're YouTubers.
[speaking indistinctly]
I'm just trying to quickly
put together a PowerPoint presentation as we speak.
- It sounds a bit late for all that. - Well, yeah--
Don't we just want to chat?
Okay, we're ready to go.
Hi, and welcome.
I'm sitting with my father,
and today we're gonna talk about
some more nuances to facial attractiveness than just a square face.
So, Dad, I've got an image here.
These people had physically better facial form
from a health perspective.
[John] I look at those faces,
and they don't terribly appeal to me.
I'm always attracted to dimples in the cheeks
and there are very few there.
[Mike] Remember-- Sorry--
Remember to look at the camera.
Well, I'm talking to the interviewer.
If I have to talk about anything,
I find it very difficult to be directed on this.
[Mike] So we need to be--
And I can see all sorts of difficulties already.
But that's what we want to discuss.
Yes, I've got very specific ideas.
- Fine, first of all, we-- - [John] Absolutely.
First of all-- Wait.
This is Rubens.
- [overlapping speech] - [John] Many times.
[Mike] Many times, it's not a new one.
- [John] Yes. No. - At the time,
this is what was considered attractive.
[John] That time, there's no doubt
that fat people were considered,
shall I say, more attractive, more appealing,
I think, would perhaps a better word.
[Mike] And then, of course, we've moved on
to this era of these incredibly thin models.
[John] Yes. I have always preferred
the 38", 22", 36" shape myself.
And I actually think that's probably a little bit more natural.
And looking at our ancestors of 20,000 years ago,
they hardly had any such mouths.
Now they're relatively common.
I've not seen research on that.
No. No, nor have I.
So you've just-- [laughter]
Remember, I am someone who is a lateral thinker.
Yeah, yeah, I--
And I have very little science.
- It's mostly logic. - But--but--
I mean, my biggest problem often is my father.
I'm certain that, to some extent,
my father stands in the way of his own legacy
by being so pigheaded and obstinate.
- All right. - Thank you for watching.
[Mike] Thank you very much for watching.
- I'll see you next time. - [Mike] See you next time.
Thank you very much for watching. See you next time.
Uh, something--
Yeah, you need editing. But that's, uh-- Yeah.
You know, well, they say you should never work
with animals and children or your father.
[laughter]
[Rosie] Okay, let's just get a little bit more around your ears here.
Try not to cut your hearing aid off, though, eh?
[laughing]
There you go, Popsies.
- Beautiful. - Right, thank you.
Don't leave me over here.
[Rosie] Okay, hang on. I'm coming back. I'm coming.
Well, unfortunately, the years count on.
And nowadays, almost all my friends have died.
I must say that my friends that died when they were young
had fantastic funerals.
But when I die, there's going-- Nobody's going to be there.
Don't worry about that, Dad. I--
[laughing] I have--
- You'll make sure it's a good send-off. - I'll make sure you get a good send-off.
Right, with lots of alcohol.
With lots of-- Yes, yes, shame I don't drink anymore.
Yes, let's have a bloody good party.
[laughing]
- [Bill] Mike, for your campaign website... - Yes?
- When does it need to be live? - [Mike] Thursday.
What's happening on Thursday?
Thursday, I'm gonna dress up as Martin Luther.
Are you? How wonderful.
So then I'm gonna go in. I'm gonna hammer my ten principles
to the door of the GDC.
Can I just inquire, why-- why Martin Luther King?
[Mike] It's not Martin Luther King. It's Martin Luther.
Martin Luther was a Protestant who nailed--
Rosie, there's no-- there's no flame under this chorizo.
Yes, I just turned it off 'cause I'm not quite ready.
[Mike] Okay. All right.
[Bill] So he set out Protestant principles
against the Catholic Church.
Right.
But he started the Protestant church, basically.
And how do you dress as Martin Luther?
- I don't know. - What does that--
what does a Protestant look like?
- Have you sorted out a costume? - Have you got a costume?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[John] Remember, the Germans
wore different clothes than the English.
- I'm not sure about the-- - [laughter]
I'm not sure about the historical accuracy.
- [laughter] - [Bill] Are you very worried
that the orthodontic establishment
will have you up on inaccurate dress?
[Mike] Yeah, I don't know.
I think damage to the door might be top of their priority.
But you could just hammer--
[Mike] How long has that asparagus been on?
It's got one minute, 18 to go.
Mike, I do mean this.
You need to have a proper document drawn up
with the capital letters in gold trimmed with red.
Right. Did you get that, Mike?
- It's very important. - Way beyond
my calligraphy skills, so yes,
it'll be one of those days where it'll all work out on the day.
Let's not worry too much about it.
[light percussive music]
[Stephen] Dr. Mew is obviously a real character.
He's quite eccentric, which I don't mind at all.
But we have to pull back from being a bit crazy,
because there is a fine balance between an eccentric professor type
and someone who's a bit crazy.
And to dress up as Martin Luther
would just be a sort of a flippant thing to do.
And when you're going into the GDC in a few months' time,
you don't want to walk past their front door
with the nail marks in it from where you pinned your request.
It just doesn't-- I can't see how it helps.
So I just said to him I thought it was crazy
and not to do it,
and I would expect him to follow my advice.
[solemn music]
[vocalizing]
[grunts] I got my...
Roughly a decade ago, my father stood at this very spot
with a sandwich board
trying to raise awareness of basically the same issues.
And, yeah, it didn't get anywhere.
And half of the reason I'm pushing so hard
is to gain him some recognition
while he's still capable of appreciating it.
So here's my statement to the world, to the GDC.
"For too long, our concerns
have not been heard or debated.
My speciality was becoming
more of a religion than a science.
We want the truth, the whole truth, and no dogma."
I've signed this Martin Luther Mew.
And I was going to nail
one of these statements to the front door,
but I'm just cautious of imagery that could be used to defame me.
Now I've gotta play the game, you know? I've got to win this.
I've got to win this for everyone. I've gotta win this.
[Rosie] I worry the slight pressure
that Dad's putting on Mike,
not in a nasty way, but just, "We're almost there,
we're almost there, we're almost there.
If we just, if we just, if we just."
So it's like this massive drive at the moment.
I think Michael is almost more driven or more focused than Dad.
Dad-- I mean, Dad has done everything
and been everywhere.
If I was to die and be reincarnated
as anyone in the world, I would come back as Dad.
[laughs] Sorry. [speaking indistinctly]
'Cause he's done-- he's done--
- He has. - I know you have. I know.
But his life, not your life, his life.
- Michael, I worry about him - [Mike] I'd just be
- slightly because he is... - an absolute--
[Mike] There's no point.
[Rosie] ...totally insanely focused on orthotropics
and has nothing outside of it.
- And I think part of it-- - Not nothing.
Not nothing, no, no, no. But you're--
Less than I should.
You're 80%.
[upbeat music]
- [Mike] I mean, he's lived it to the full. - You know, he was a racing car driver.
He holds records at Brands Hatch.
[Mike] He happened to be--
[Rosie] He says-- He's, like, the oldest person ever
- to get their Yachtmasters. - [Mike] Yeah.
- He's, you know-- - Skiing history.
[Rosie] Jousting.
On horseback with a large jousting lance.
Charging at someone else.
[Bill] Charging to-- somewhat out of control.
[Rosie] He doesn't ride horses.
And then he said, "Okay, we're gonna build a castle.
Kids, we're gonna build a castle on an island
in the middle of a lake."
And we all went, "Yeah, okay, Dad."
[Mike] You know, all our friends thought we were bonkers,
- more so, more so than they did before. - Yeah, yeah.
[Mike] But mind you, I sometimes think him building the castle
was a little bit like Churchill's war.
- You know, when-- - Therapeutic.
- Therapeutic, yes. - [laughter]
It took his mind off--
the wilderness, yeah, well, he may as well
- 'cause he has forever. - Well, I know I think
he thought that Biobloc and orthotropics
was going to hit in quicker.
And he just got so frustrated.
He said, "I need something else for a legacy."
[pensive music playing]
[John] You've learned enough about me to know that I'm a busy boy.
I'm always wanting to do something.
Um...
it's in Word, I think.
Well, I'll get it here.
I'll find it quicker.
Ah.
"Thank you so much, Dr. Mew.
Your study is worth a Nobel Prize.
It feels so good that there are still honorable men
like Dr. Mew and his son Dr. Mike Mew
in the evil world of dentistry." That's a bit strong.
[Dr. Peter] I'll tell you, John Mew's life
would be infinitely better and more fulfilled
if he had the orthodontists of the world
beating a path to his door and saying,
"We admire you. We respect you. You are our guru."
He--he needs respect, and he needs adulation.
And I don't think it matters to him all that much where it comes from
as long as he gets the adulation.
However, I think John Mew has, uh...
Actually done something good, at long last, in his life.
He's done something good by making you interested
in making this documentary,
because it brings to the surface
a number of issues
which characterize orthodontics.
[dramatic music]
Whether it's John Mew doing it
or whether it's the average good guy orthodontist.
Only those dentists who successfully complete
specialist training are entitled
to call themselves orthodontists.
And orthodontists understand tooth movement
and the guidance of facial development.
Orthodontists do one thing, and we do it well.
Orthodontics has become a business.
And because orthodontists have to sell something,
they fabricate things.
There are no diseases
associated with malocclusion at all-- None.
[clattering]
But if there is no disease, what are you measuring?
It's purely subjective. It doesn't matter a damn.
How do the Mews convince people
that there is some merit in what they say?
They do it partly by terminology, by medicalizing orthodontics.
How many adults are gonna die ten or 20 years early
because of craniofacial dystrophy?
And you're made to feel guilty
if you don't save your child
from this horrible thing that they might have
if they don't get the treatment.
To me, you're doing a public service
by exposing these fictions
which are dressed up as health needs.
Here we are. Now put your jaw forward, can you?
That's right.
[Dr. Peter] John Mew is not unique.
What he's doing is just a replication
of the same shoddy orthodontics.
I don't care whether he calls it orthoptics or whatever.
He is just a continuation
of what's been going on for more years
than John Mew has been in orthodontics.
Orthodontists are simply there to straighten your teeth,
make your face look as good as possible,
and that should be good enough.
It's just like being a hairdresser.
I'll hold the mirror. Now you try that yourself.
That's right. Now...
[Dr. Peter] And that's why I think, ultimately,
orthodontics, including the Mew phenomenon,
is destined to die.
You can fool some of the people all of the time,
but you're not going to succeed, because people see through it.
[Leo] It's extraordinary that someone can say
people's face should look like this.
[Quentin] It's subjective, isn't it? So how can you define it?
- Well, it's appalling, really. - [Quentin] How can you define it?
- Isn't it? When I think about it. - The nose to teeth is 38 millimeters.
Yeah, I mean, how--
I mean, if he thought that Quentin's face
could be perfect, and yet he'd be--
and let Ben go and have any old treatment--
But mine was already perfect, so I didn't need... [laughter]
Yeah, but--
Well, actually, that's not a bad thing for us,
'cause we wanted to get to that point where we had our own identity,
to get to a point where, if that is the case
that John Mew thinks everyone should have
a set distance between nose line and chin,
then that eradicates that identity,
individualism, and-- which is--
that's gotta be questionable.
[sizzling]
So it's almost time.
I've gotta head up to this case at the GDC.
This is the first day.
I've already been warned that they want to consider delaying it.
What you call it? Adjourning it for a while.
It's a disaster for me. I mean, however, into London we go.
[dramatic music]
Some orthodontists are calling Mewing a scam
and trying to revoke his dental license.
So go sign the petition in the link below
to help save Mike Mew's orthodontic license.
[Mike] The buildup to this day has been at least five years.
Zarina was one year old when this started.
She's now six, so most of her life.
Dr. Mew, thank you for agreeing to join me on JawHacks
to discuss your situation.
You are going up against what seems to be
this tidal wave of orthodontists.
[man] It's almost like a kind of information warfare
that they're levying against you,
and I can see that it's put you
at a great amount of distress.
Now, do you think if you had never become a YouTube legend
with your ideas that have, quite frankly,
lifted so many young people up out of despair,
would you have been spared the gauntlet?
[Mike] Uh, with no question.
I'm really surprised how much it's affected my wife.
This morning, she didn't want to get out of bed.
She didn't want to come downstairs.
She was... depressed.
How else do I say it?
[man] Well, you've started the revolution already.
There's already a whole generation of young people
out there who are looking to take the candle,
- take the torch and run with it. - Yeah.
[man] When's this whole legal mess gonna be over, Mike?
[Mike] It runs for four weeks.
Murder cases are only usually two weeks.
It's nice to see you in the light.
- [laughs] - You feel real.
- We met, though? - No.
[Mike] Three people are going to decide my fate.
[speaking indistinctly]
And I feel they're gonna decide
the fate of the health of the people of the planet.
- I'm here for the case of Mew. - [man] Yes.
[soft music]
[line ringing]
[John] John Mew speaking.
- Dad, it's Mike. - Yes, Mike.
[Mike] So what's happening is
that they're gonna delay it.
[tense music]
You know, I wish we could be further along the line.
I wish we could have got this further,
but... it is what it is.
And I'm in this place. And there's no closure.
And... it's not an ideal scenario.
As you know, the GDC made an application to adjourn.
But so look, Mike. That's where we are.
What's going to happen
throughout the rest of the year, unfortunately,
is I suspect that when they're done
going back for two, maybe even three tranches
of two or three weeks spread out
over probably a few months in the year.
How long-- What's the worst-case scenario? Spread out of six months?
Um, no, worst case scenario, maybe spread out over 12 months.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. [clears throat] Okay.
What today's been about is waiting,
waiting on other people to make these decisions about your life.
And it's excruciating.
You know, it really-- It's painful.
At no point has my father ever had
any proper formal engagement on his ideas and theories.
I mean, how much longer can he hang on?
He's still, you know-- I think the only reason
he's still mentally just there
is because this is going somewhere.
And if he doesn't get to see the end of this court call,
I will lose my temper.
I will never forgive.
That would just...
[birds chirping]
- Hey, Mum. - [Rosie] Hi, lovely.
- I'll take that. - Hey, gorgeous.
Yeah, you can carry that for me.
Hello. Hello.
- [smooches] - [Rosie] Hello, lovely.
- Oh, just put it here, darling. - [Mike] Lovely.
[Rosie] Thanks, darling, that's perfect.
Hello, birthday boy.
Hello, sweetheart. Why is it that sound is working full on?
Oh. Hello. Hello, darling daughter.
I don't know, Dad.
Actually, that's quite a good video,
even if I say so myself.
The queen's going through Edinburgh at the moment.
Coffin's now arrived in Holyrood.
[indistinct chatter]
[Rosie] I think Charles will be an amazing king,
but unfortunately, he's not her.
His ears stick out and his face has swung down.
[Rosie] Oh, well, Michael, you can't put it all down to facial form.
[Mike] Sorry, Charles has a big problem. His face didn't grow well.
[Rosie] Well, I don't think you can blame it all on that.
I think he didn't choose well in his marriage.
For love, I think Diana was an amazing person,
but I think, unfortunately, they weren't a good--
- But she was pretty, and he wasn't. - They weren't a good match.
Yeah, I don't think-- You can't put it all down to aesthetics.
[Mike] Dad. Dad.
[Rosie] Oh, my goodness, you're so fast.
[Rosie] Hey, Dad, Dad, have you been watching Jessica's face?
- Have you noticed-- - Her face?
Have you noticed her face has come along lots
in the last six months?
I notice her all the time. And yes, I do think.
What has really helped is lip taping at night
- and all the gum chewing. - Yeah, I'm sure.
I'm still thinking, what is her indicator line?
It'll be too high.
You know it'll be too high. But it's--
Yes, but that's why I'm thinking--
[Mike] Yeah, I know. I know. I know.
I couldn't do-- I couldn't put Jessica through a whole course of therapy.
[John] But as you know, I'm always ambitious
and I'm always optimistic about it.
[Rosie] Oh, my goodness, Jesse, that is a mega one.
- [Mike] Okay, so all right, we need-- - [Rosie] Don't swear.
[Mike] I need a couple of volunteers to help me light this.
[Rosie] Totally. I'm in.
[indistinct chatter]
[soft music]
[John] Yeah but last year we had 93 candles
and if you remember, I've never seen such a bonfire.
[indistinct chatter]
- Ready, ready, ready. - Cheers!
[overlapping cheers]
- Happy birthday, Poppa! - Happy birthday.
Happy birthday!
[indistinct chatter] Happy birthday!
Jessica, cheers!
Cheers.
[indistinct chatter]
[Mike] Wish, wish, have a wish?
[Rosie] Have a wish?
- Blow! Blow! - A wish?
All right, I wish that I--
Now blow.
Quick, before the whole place goes up in flames.
[cheers and applause]
- [Mike] What was your wish, Dad? - [Rosie] What was your wish for?
- I'm not allowed to say. - [Rosie] Why?
- I'm gonna make-- - Because it won't come true.
It is very hard to change
the opinion of the entire world.
But I'm amazed how many people now Mew
or adopt Mewing, which bears my name.
And it shows that the public have actually accepted this--
I should call this in advance--
much more than the orthodontists.
I'm sure Michael will inherit my legacy.
In a way, I feel guilty because I led him into it
and he willingly followed.
But should I have done?
Should I have ever attempted to change the world at all?
[Mike] Dad, you were the first by a long, long way
of putting it all together,
understanding what was really happening.
What were the terms it goes, you know,
they say it doesn't exist, then they fight you,
then eventually they say, "Oh, but it's obvious."
[Rosie] It's acceptance.
They say, "It's obvious. We always knew that. It was obvious."
Yeah, I'm a dreamer. And hopefully-- I know, and I've put my life
on the line for a dream. I have.
[woman] Your father's dream.
Yes, it was my father's dream.
[laughs] God, what the odds are--
People who aren't aesthetic sometimes just don't see it.
- They don't-- - [overlapping chatter]
[John] Well, I'm amazed how orthodontists
don't see facial change.
[Mike] No, a lot of people are just immune to art.
[John] It's interesting. I guess you're right, though.
[Mike] They're immune. They just, you know, they don't see art.
They don't see art in the same way and they don't get the same appreciation.
And in a way, I would say this is an element of art.
To appreciate beauty is to appreciate art.
[John] Yeah.
[pensive music]
I-- I do think because what I've said is different,
it will be recorded.
And ultimately, I don't have the slightest doubt
that orthotropics will displace orthodontics.
That, in a way, is quite an important thing,
and I suppose that in future, people will write that down and say,
"This guy John Mew thought it up."
But, you know, I'm gonna be dead, so it won't affect me.
[soft upbeat music]