From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: Clark University
Date: 7 JAN 93 18:52:15 GMT

Ron Hogan wrote, re: Paglia's comment on _Tristram Shandy_:

>what *is* her critical judgement of the work?  As far as I can tell, the sum
>of her judgment is that it's "utterly unfunny".  In a cultural survey like
>this, almost no remark is 'casual'-- this one sentence becomes the sum 
>of her judgment of Tristam Shandy.  

I think she's entitled to state her opinion, however brief.  The intelligent
reader will decide whether to accept her opinion as fact, or deem it
bullshit.  In any case, this casual aside is part of her style.  As she says
in the preface to _Sexual Personae_, "My method is a form of sensationalism:
I try to flesh out intellect with emotion and to induce a wide range of
emotion from the reader."  She knows that by inserting her often-eccentric
personal opinions into the text, she'll induce readers to sit up straight and
say "Whaddya mean, you don't like CHAUCER?!?"  She suckered you in, Ron. 
Gotcha.

Heather: 
>Her critics certainly feel they can call *her* names.  Gloria Steinem, for 
>example, has compared her to Hitler. 

Ron: 
>Not in any way to justify Steinem's remark, which I find reprehensible, 
>but was this before or after Paglia insulted her?  

I don't know the sequence of events.  There have been bricks flying back and
forth for some time now.  Her foes have been extremely nasty, and in a
frantic kind of way (Naomi Wolf called her "the Phyllis Schlafly of the
nipple-piercing crowd").

In her appearance on _60 Minutes_, Paglia countered the Hitler comparison by
saying Steinem's desire to repress opposing viewpoints reminded her of
Stalin.

>Maybe they could take a lesson from Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer and sue
>each other repeatedly. 

I'd like to see Gloria and Camille duke it out Mailer-style.  Paglia would
probably be a quick puncher, but Steinem would have her on weight.

Ron:  
>The Bette Davis cult among male homosexuals is blown out of proportion. 
>I imagine that the number of male homosexuals who like Bette Davis is not 
>significantly greater than those who like other actresses, and also not of 
>a greater percentage within the homosexual community as the percentage of 
>heterosexuals who idolize Bette Davis. 

Heather: 
>You *are* kidding, right? 

Ron: 
>Not at all.  I don't have the numbers to back that kind of claim up-- 
>I seriously doubt it's ever gone to the polls, but it strikes me as 
>a perfectly reasonable claim to make.  Of course, being a film student, 
>I'm surrounded by hetero/homo/bi/a/sexual people who do nothing but 
>watch films-- 

But before you went to film school, you must have haunted revival houses and
immersed yourself in American film culture, right?  Gone to see double
features at places like Theatre 80 St. Marks in NYC?  _All About
Eve_/_Jezebel, _The Women_/_Mildred Pierce_, _Ball of Fire_/_Double
Indemnity_? 

I have.  I also have several friends who are male homosexuals.  Most of them
are big film fans, and we've talked a lot about screen idols.  (Not to
mention Maria Callas.)  I know many lesbians, too, who are film fans.  It
doesn't seem that they have a comparable cult feeling toward male movie
stars.  I wonder why this is?

>so everybody knows Bette Davis' work and the opinions of 
>her work are pretty standardized from one group to the next.  

We're not really talking about critical evaluations of her acting ability,
but how her star persona appeals to a certain audience.  You don't think that
Bette Davis was a big star simply because of her acting ability, do you?  

>I would be so bold to guess that you're referring to the specific intensity 
>of idolization in those male homosexuals who dress up in drag and sing 
>cabaret songs.  And again, I say she's blowing it out of proportion, and 
>I thought she came close to stating an essentialist link between the two 
>states of being. 

Which two states of being? 

>My complaint here isn't that Paglia's arguments for why male homosexuals 
>enjoy these things are entirely wrong, but that they do tend to lump their 
>components into generalized categories. 

Your complaint seems to be that Paglia is stereotyping.  I happen to
disagree.  I think she's observing a phenomenon and drawing her own
conclusions.  What you seem to be saying is that the phenomenon doesn't
exist.  It *does* exist.  

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books