Camille Paglia: Dud or Dudder ?

Julie Burchill does manage to make herself look completely terrible in that exchange, though.

She does talk awful fast, doesn't she? Is there some obscure Howard Hawks screwball comedy from the 30s called The Cliche-evading Feminist that I missed that she bases her persona on?

Duddest.

On Gaga.

This is for you, Generation Gaga:

Furthermore, despite showing acres of pallid flesh in the fetish-bondage garb of urban prostitution, Gaga isn’t sexy at all – she’s like a gangly marionette or plasticised android. How could a figure so calculated and artificial, so clinical and strangely antiseptic, so stripped of genuine eroticism have become the icon of her generation? Can it be that Gaga represents the exhausted end of the sexual revolution? In Gaga’s manic miming of persona after persona, over-conceptualised and claustrophobic, we may have reached the limit of an era…

Gaga has borrowed so heavily from Madonna (as in her latest video-Alejandro) that it must be asked, at what point does homage become theft? However, the main point is that the young Madonna was on fire. She was indeed the imperious Marlene Dietrich’s true heir. For Gaga, sex is mainly decor and surface; she’s like a laminated piece of ersatz rococo furniture. Alarmingly, Generation Gaga can’t tell the difference. Is it the death of sex? Perhaps the symbolic status that sex had for a century has gone kaput; that blazing trajectory is over…

even when I don't really disagree with her she's tiresome

I mean really, she's the arbiter of what qualifies as "sexy" now?

Lady Gaga is a manufactured personality, and a recent one at that. Photos of Stefani Germanotta just a few years ago show a bubbly brunette with a glowing complexion. The Gaga of world fame, however, with her heavy wigs and giant sunglasses (rudely worn during interviews) looks either simperingly doll-like or ghoulish, without a trace of spontaneity. Every public appearance, even absurdly at airports where most celebrities want to pass incognito, has been lavishly scripted in advance with a flamboyant outfit and bizarre hairdo assembled by an invisible company of elves.

Worst slash fic ever.

was really hoping this would pass by ilx unnoticed

if i didn't see the byline i'd figure this was out of a college newspaper. laughable. every sentence has something wrong with it.

xp it's already been on some other thread!

Hated her stuff for Salon ages ago, and I love that she had faded from relevance.

it's kinda weird/sad that Paglia can't draw the connection between Gaga's pronouncements about lies/art/fakery and the fact that Gaga is, obviously and openly, a manufactured fake. Like, that is not grounds for criticism Cam, Gaga SAYS SHE'S MANUFACTURED in BOLD, ALL CAPS LETTERS, like ALL THE TIME

every sentence has something wrong with it.

also ^^^ this

missing the point that for gaga, the rather inhuman machinery of celebrity is both playground and subject. never get the impression that gaga intends to be sexy, but rather sex-like, in the way that pop celebrity is always sex-like, a strained parody. agree with CP's observations, but not with what she makes of them.

or: what shakey said

So how many symbolic ends of the sexual revolution have we had so far? Does the number have five digits or six?

in her defense, i really did enjoy reading/struggling with/tearing my hair out over sexual personae like 20 years ago

never get the impression that gaga intends to be sexy, but rather sex-like, in the way that pop celebrity is always sex-like, a strained parody.

lol totally. btw this sentence is more insightful than all of the sentences in Cam's piece.

lotta concern for the "symbolic end" from a woman who hates hates hates the "pomo" academy, pissing and moaning about it's lack of good old hardness of mind, meanwhile numbers on young sexual behavior have been changing dramatically between oh 1970 and now oh fuck me in the ear why am i writing

goole has restarted the sexual revolution by being fucked in the ear

bad bromance

if you want a good laugh go look up the old salon column where professor camille sounds off on the subject of PUNK ROCK. i was halfway through a scathing reply before i realized the article was over two years old.
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, October 7, 2003 7:46 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark

I would like to read this article, but I don't think I found it on Salon.com.

I think Paglia's angry that Gaga has eclipsed her beloved Madonna in the relevancy sweepstakes.

rudely worn during interviews!

lol the same way noel gallagher swept paul mccartney in the relevancy sweepstakes in 96

or taylor swift has swept lisa loeb in the relevancy sweepstakes

or taylor swift has swept lisa loeb in the relevancy sweepstakes

missing the point that for gaga, the rather inhuman machinery of celebrity is both playground and subject. never get the impression that gaga intends to be sexy, but rather sex-like, in the way that pop celebrity is always sex-like, a strained parody. agree with CP's observations, but not with what she makes of them.

Yeah, this. I'm surprised how often people point out how unsexy Lady Gaga is, as if they're the first to notice, when her unsexiness seems to be part of the point of her. If you want to be sexy you don't dance around in that horrid old underwear she wears in Alejandro or put on the drag queen make-up she has in the Telephone video, a lot of what she wears seems purposely designed to look unflattering. It's definitely more of a parody than a sincere attempt at being sexy and it's a bit odd how people look at her and think "failed sexiness" rather than wondering if a female pop singer might have other aims.

Other aims, like entertaining people?

making crutches sexy

I don't know if this is challops or what but I think Lady Gaga is sexy as hell.

Some old women find cats sexy.

Paglia votes Green: http://www.salon.com/2012/10/10/camille_paglias_glittering_images/

(she proclaims “Star Wars” creator George Lucas our greatest living artist)

But I think that Mitt Romney is a moderate — like Nelson Rockefeller, who as governor of New York poured money into the state university system that educated me. Romney is an affable, successful businessman whose skills seem well-suited to this particular moment of economic crisis. Hence I want to use my vote to make a statement about my unhappiness with the Democratic Party and the direction it has taken. The biggest issue for me is the Obama administration’s continuation of endless war, war, war. I denounced the Iraq incursion before it even happened.

My third reason for going Green is the creeping totalitarianism of Obamacare, which Jill Stein as a physician is rightly skeptical about. I began denouncing the Obamacare bill in my Salon column within two months after Obama’s inauguration. And I was also criticizing the President’s imprisonment within an insular circle of advisors who were not of sufficient quality and experience as administrators or strategists to sustain his presidency. If Democrats and their cohorts in the mainstream media had listened to me and begun criticizing the administration early on, there would have been ample time for a course correction and Obama would now be sailing into reelection.

she is so dumb

only nixon could go to china

afghanistan is the grave of empire

and other historical observations by camille paglia

obamacare is creeping totalitarianism and it also doesn't spend enough on new doctors and hospitals

whenever she talks about the 60s she's like a really uncharitable parody of a boomer

what is this weird "I totally complained about that BEFORE IT EVEN HAPPENED" rhetorical tack she seems so fond of

ugh, i can't believe this is the paglia thread that u guys bumped. we have such a better one!

did it include this

http://images.tcj.com/2011/12/Mbooty6-a.jpg

my preferred paglia thread:
sexual personae

"Her book is over 700 pages long!"

ah yes the Vision thread

xp

They already got Bill Clinton. It involved a stained dress. They got him as much as they are ever going to get him.

It took years of concerted and mostly failed effort to pin something on him. I remember when the stained dress emerged, I was like, oh my god, finally, they found something. And they made the most of it.

They managed to turn impeachment into a partisan joke. Why did this happen? Because everybody knew that they had spent forever finding it, had done nothing else but look.

By the way, Hitchens attitude on Bill Clinton was merely the first indication he was actually crazy. I'm no Clinton fan, but I did once really admire Hitchens, having read a bunch of his articles in Harpers during their great period (late 80s to late 90s).

So long as Hitchens kept to Clinton's fiscal and socialpolitical calamities ("welfare reform," the crime bill, DOMA) he was in peak form. If you want to read his Clinton book, stick to those chapters.

Oh, Clinton is despicable on that stuff -- does Hitchens make the case particularly well, given that I've seen it many times elsewhere?

Since you're here Alfred, I'll mention the attack on Norman Podhoretz that CH did is just one of the great jugular knifings ever - did you ever read that one?

Hey, back to Paglia, I was one of those people who bought Sexual Personae when it came out and thought it was really interesting. Speaking of Harpers, they thought she was interesting too....then they had to backtrack. I'm going to hide behind Greil Marcus and Harold Bloom now.....um, those guys thought she was okay, don't blame me!

I don't want to review the horror of those times, but let's not forget how Ken Starr's Whitewater panel transformed into a Starr Chamber when the Paula Jones lawsuit joined forces with it as if they weren't already one and the same (the first independent counsel, Republican Robert Fiske, was treated curtly when in 1994 he found nothing illegal in the Clintons' bungled cattle futures trading). Then there were the leaks to the press, the manipulation of a moronic Newsweek reporter who couldn't see that Linda Tripp had been hanging around Starr's office bringing witnesses since 1993, the SCOTUS decision (for which, regrettably, John Paul Stevens showed no remorse years later) affirming that a sitting president had no immunity against civil actions (I don't oppose the ruling in theory, but the facts dictated that the Court tailor this decision as narrowly as possible).

treeship can you explain what you mean by "crypto-conservative" here bc afaik the clintons are kind of completely wysiwyg?

secretly conservative. bill's record is atrocious, from the "welfare reform" to the crime bill to the trade agreements to DOMA and beyond

I suppose it might be "secret" to those who imagine Democrats are what they have not been for quite some time now?

Kind of a big selling point in his view.

bill was pretty open about his not-liberalness -- he ran as a "new democrat," promised to "end welfare as we know it," was a former DLC chair, and was fairly hawkish.

alfred, do you know of a good book on the clinton impeachment fiasco?

yes right I understand what u mean by "crypto" but I'm not sure what you believe is being concealed

alfred, do you know of a good book on the clinton impeachment fiasco?

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.)

Ignore the title: http://www.amazon.com/The-Death-American-Virtue-Clinton/dp/0307409457

roger, she is concealing it from some people. facebook friends post pro-hillary things alongside articles that bemoan inequality and the militarization of the police, as if hillary's legacy is of having resisted these things. i think she gave a speech in ferguson that people were impressed with. the "new democrat" schtick wouldn't land anymore so clinton is remembered -- dimly of course by my generation -- as simply a democrat/progressive imo.

i think people of mine & treesh's generation who became politically aware during gwb presidency were kind of vaguely scooted towards the impression that clinton was a really good liberal president, like idk ppl didn't really tell you "you know bush is awful but bill clinton wasn't so hot either" and teach you about welfare reform and i only became aware of that reputation later in college, like when i was a teenager the only bad thing i knew about him was that he got a beej, which i thought was hilarious

anyways the democratic party is moving left, even if at a glacial pace & whatever her personal politics or history hillary's economic platform will reflect that

No one talked about Clinton-era policy because the media was trained to regard neoliberalism as gospel, and lots of pundits were stupid enough to think 2000-era Bush drivel about compassionate conservatism represented a genuine, uh, compassionate break from the '90s (and the economy really was booming from '97-'01).

People were too busy making money (dotcom boom!) to notice how shitty bubba was, plus his enemies were significantly worse

when we say he was a shitty prez, who are we comparing him to?

there needn't be a comparator. anyone to the left of joe lieberman can look at his record and find it wanting

the democratic party is moving left

still don't see it, email Senate leader Chuck Schumer about it next term

where the hell are Hil's female lovers, that's what me n' Camille wanna know

there needn't be a comparator. anyone to the left of joe lieberman can look at his record and find it wanting

well, yeah

but someone [who is not ralph nader] has to be president. maybe we need a poll

oh you're one of those

lol

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/227359/camille-paglia-jews-and-feminism

apparently paglia voted for sanders in the primaries and stein in the general

thought I was losing my mind. there's more than one thread on her that got updated today. WHY
also BRING BACK SEARCH?

Camille Paglia

So, good for the Jews. xp

As for Trump and his oafishly loose words, liberal Democratic women have been in serious mauvaise foi in their ceaseless attacks on him, given the sycophantish pass they gave to the serial sexist behavior and concrete sexual exploitation and abuse of Bill Clinton (for whom I voted twice). The unwillingness of so many middle-class feminists to hold Hillary Clinton responsible for her cold and demeaning treatment of her husband’s working-class accusers seems inexplicable to me.

Apparently she didn't get the Always Believe the Woman EXCEPT for...memo.

DUUUUUUUUD!

Camille Paglia's Profiles in Cocaine continues with saying Sinéad O'Connor deserved to be abused as a child pic.twitter.com/vLlqVsrOe0

— cris (@ilchinealach) June 29, 2023

(just posted same clip in the Sinead thread, but figured it is worth emphasizing here)

vile human being

paglia was and remains an idiot