May 15, 2013

In "In the Reign of the Gay Magical Elves," Bret Easton Ellis — author of "American Psycho" — complains of his victimhood, as a gay man...

... at the hands of "The Culturally Correct Gay Elite," who enforce a strict stereotype of gay men as victims, to be coddled like children and who punish any gay man who — like Ellis — "makes crude jokes about other gays in the media (as straight dudes do of each other constantly) or express their hopelessness in seeing Modern Family being rewarded for its depiction of gays, a show where a heterosexual plays the most simpering ka-ween on TV and Wins. Emmys. For. It."
Within the clenched world of the gay PC police there has been a tightening of the reigns. It’s as if in this historic moment for gay men we somehow still need to be babied and coddled and used as shining examples of humanity and objects of fascination—the gay baby panda—and this is a new kind of gay victimization. The fact that it is often being extolled by other gays in the Name of the Good Cause is doubly stifling.
Okay, Bret. Much as I agree with you about the problems of infantilization and political correctness, I've got to further victimize you. Not you, the gay man. You the writer.

1. A "tightening of the reigns"? Especially when writing under the title "In the Reign of...," you need to know your metaphors. There's a difference between what kings do in their domain and the leather straps a rider uses to control a horse.

2. If you're offering to be the cutting critic and what you're criticizing is putting gay men into the victim role, don't whine about your own victimhood. It's incoherent. Be cuttingly critical and take the consequences.

Factoid about Ellis: "Feminist activist Gloria Steinem was among those opposed to the release of Ellis' book ['American Psycho'] because of its portrayal of violence toward women. Steinem is also the stepmother of Christian Bale, who played Bateman in the film. This coincidence is mentioned in Ellis' mock memoir Lunar Park."

More recently, Ellis got in trouble with the "gay elite" for tweeting that "openly and famously gay Matt Bomer who is publicly married to his partner seemed a weird idea for the role of the very straight BDSM freako Christian Grey in the movie adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey." Ellis needs people to understand — and he's hurt that he was disinvited from the GLAAD awards —  that he "never said Gay Actors Can’t Play Straight Roles." Rather, he "thought this because of Matt’s easy openness with being gay... and with baggage that I believe would distract from the heavy sexual fantasy of that particular movie."
A key exchange in the first section of the book is Anastasia’s open questioning of Christian’s sexuality and his insulted denials—with Bomer in the role, it becomes a very META scene. Right now, in this moment, this particular casting would be a distraction—the public/private life of the actor mixed-up with playing a voracious het predator.
Interesting insight... from a gay man who wrote about the ultimate "het predator" in "American Psycho." 20 years ago, when Steinem registered her complaint, we didn't know that Ellis was gay. He sat back and let the feminists develop all our theories about the violence in the hearts of heterosexual men:
A designer serial killer, ["American Psycho"] Bateman knows from Tumi leather attache cases and wool-and-silk suits by Ermenegildo Zegna and wing tip shoes from Fratelli Rossetti....

But his true inner satisfaction comes when he has a woman in his clutches and can entertain her with a nail gun or a power drill or Mace, or can cut off her head or chop off her arms or bite off her breasts or dispatch a starving rat up her vagina.
Can we go very META on that?

37 comments:

rhhardin said...

He's a homophone.

Palladian said...

Ah, Bret Easton Ellis, still trying desperately to be relevant, as his single and irrelevant book fades from public memory.

Oso Negro said...

Never met the man, never read his books, never heard of him until today. Certainly won't be reading the books. If he indeed wrote about sending starving rats up women's vaginas, I would have to say that he has issues. Unless he was a Japanese soldier participating in the rape of Nanking, when it was apparently everyday stuff. We might say the Japanese had issues, also.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It's not easy being both a freak and an attention whore.

Palladian said...

Just because you bravely balk the strictures of simpering PC flaks doesn't make you a hero, or not an asshole.

Darrell said...

The starving rat trick he stole from the Marquis de Sade. The rest, only he knows where he stole it from.

traditionalguy said...

This guy seems like a confrontation lover. He reminds me of Mel Gibson's Braveheart scene where Wm. Wallace tells his men gathered against another army to watch him start a fight.

But that slip up of "tightening the reigns" seems apropos to describe the Obama push in his war against Americans.

Darrell said...

He should write "Fifty Shades of Gay" before someone beats him to it.

Renee said...

That article was awesome!

Simply, because I knew gay people before it was PC to be gay. I remember and know normal gay people. I remember a time you can be gay and screw up sometimes like a normal human being. A person didn't have to be a role model, and one's sexuality wasn't all that represented yourself as a human being.

Farmer said...

Gay activists have a vested interest in appearing to be cuddly, sexless, sources of boundless wisdom who exists solely to sing show tunes and advise white, urban, liberal women on their relationship problems. Ellis knows that, so why pretend not to? The average American will never support gay marriage if faced with the average gay couple. So dress them up and sell them as mincing kewpie dolls. There'll be time to complain about it - and act as though the stereotypes were always imposed from the outside - later.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Don't care too much about the gay politics stuff.

Care A LOT A LOT about the homophone error (nice rimshot, hardin!) which is extremely common, even in professional writing, in this era of spellcheck. Isn't anyone a naturally competent speller anymore? Aren't writers supposed to have a better sense of the language and its proper use? Isn't catching those errors that 95% of the population wouldn't what proofreaders are paid to do?

m stone said...

What Farmer said.

bagoh20 said...

Throughout the reigns of most kings there were lots of reins being utilized. You could argue that one was impossible without the other, so what makes them so incompatible that a writer cannot use both in the same piece?

Darrell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

Sure it's a spelling error, but I would be careful about jumping on anyone for that around here.

bagoh20 said...

"The average American will never support gay marriage if faced with the average gay couple."

I think this is exactly backwards. I know gay couples of both sexes, and all the ones I know are pretty respectable in nearly every way. I think if people knew more of them, they would support gay marriage more, not less.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Bag, I thought Althouse was a safe zone for humorless pedantry!

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

(p.s. not calling Althouse a humorless pedant. Some of us commenters, on occasion, however....)

Darrell said...

You can tell that whoever wrote American Psycho has no clue what goes on in those Wall Street firms or any business, for that matter. Did he ever have a job where he didn't wear a paper hat?

Farmer said...

bagoh20 said...
I think this is exactly backwards. I know gay couples of both sexes, and all the ones I know are pretty respectable in nearly every way. I think if people knew more of them, they would support gay marriage more, not less.


Spoken like a man who's never shopped at the East side Woodman's.

bagoh20 said...

"Spoken like a man who's never shopped at the East side Woodman's"

I have no idea what that is, but I assume it's frequented by flaming obnoxious gays and you. Do I have that right?

Renee said...

I know gay couples as well, but it didn't change my view on marriage.

Farmer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Farmer said...

bagoh20 said...
I have no idea what that is, but I assume it's frequented by flaming obnoxious gays and you. Do I have that right?


Angry, butch lesbian couples and me. Lots of people with aggressive skin disorders too. Pretty light on the porn 'stache folk though.

Anonymous said...

I like the phrase "gay baby panda."

Issob Morocco said...

Brett? Bateman? What is up Anne?

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

rhhardin, lol!

Never read American Psycho and never will. You can't un-read a book. Or un-see a movie, for that matter.

Some years back, a co-worker brought in to work a bag full of Dean Koontz paperbacks. I read a couple, and now earnestly wish I hadn't. There are things I just do not want in my head.

slarrow said...

On #1, I thought he was making a queen joke.

On #2, suppose Morgan Freeman expressed some displeasure about the inauthentic nature of the Magical Negro role. Is that still whining about your own victimhood?

Oh, and GLAAD is a thuggish organization that apparently can aim its guns inside the walls as well as outside.

Valentine Smith said...

GLAAD wants a sit-down with Ellis. Conformity rules among the nonconformists. To explain?

"Nothing personal, it's business."

Or ...

"Heresiarch! The stake the stake!

Or ...

"Kulak wrecker, you will be purged, purged. Yes a show trial, we'll be spitting on you in parking lots you you you nonperson you. So there!"

We all know that it was no accident that AIDS arose in the male homosexual community. It's the stain that will never be erased.

edutcher said...

As The Blonde says, "I liked them better when I didn't have to hear about their exploits".

Geoff Matthews said...

Liked the gay baby panda line as well.
Couldn't help thinking that they have even more problems breeding than pandas.

ricpic said...

Clenched...tightening...must make the gays' favorite form of "lovemaking" quite painful. Or maybe that's the point.

Sam L. said...

He is so confuuuuuuuuuused!

Trashhauler said...

Ugh. Am I allowed to say that? Just ugh.

Captain Curt said...

Ellis needs to learn to tow the line.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Ugh.

Fred Drinkwater said...

Ellis's tome is the disgusting version of the Joke That's
So Funny That It's Fatal (cf. Monty Python). DeSade, for instance, may have come up with the starving rats, but I'll bet deSade (that gormless hack) didn't have the ART and IMAGINATION and GUTS to add in the chainsaw, nailgun, and acid.
Took me years to bleach that dreck out of my head, and I was only exposed to a few paragraphs.
Ellis can go to hell.