Althouse: "It could’ve been handled in the most amazing, loving way. Talk about your journey and keep it to that."

June 6, 2017

"It could’ve been handled in the most amazing, loving way. Talk about your journey and keep it to that."

"That I would’ve had great respect for. Don't talk about — in a real negative way — like everything was like I'm such a bad person. There’s lies that are printed in a book that lives there for the end of time, so your children are going to read this book about their grandparents and have a story that’s fabricated, that’s in print, and is a fabrication."

Who knows what's fabricated? I can't keep up.

It's entirely possible that Caitlyn Jenner wrote a book trashing the Kardashians with the collusion, acceptance, and encouragement of the rest of the family in the pursuit of the shared goal of setting up reality-show scenes like the one I'm quoting above.

It does make a pretty great scene:

That's acting to some extent, but who can tell? I have no base line to know what these people would be like in a completely unscripted setting.

Can you imagine having your most gripping emotional moment in lighting that fabulous, with your makeup done that flawlessly?

30 comments:

David Begley said...: Drive them out.; 6/6/17, 8:12 AM
Ralph L said...: My makeup is always flawless.; 6/6/17, 8:16 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: "... a story that’s fabricated, that’s in print, and is a fabrication.""

Isn't Caitlyn's current gender identity a fabrication?

fab·ri·ca·tion
ˌfabrəˈkāSH(ə)n
noun
the action or process of manufacturing or inventing something.

I am Laslo.; 6/6/17, 8:24 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: I'm uninterested. could only stand about 7 seconds.; 6/6/17, 8:31 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I'm uninterested. could only stand about 7 seconds."

I think there's something mysteriously riveting about the video. But also creepy. We're in the uncanny valley between real and fake.; 6/6/17, 8:33 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: "We're in the uncanny valley between real and fake."

That's the area in-between a woman's breast implants.

I am Laslo.; 6/6/17, 8:36 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Also I think "talk about your journey" is very funny.

"Journey" is such a cliché. I think it's good that Caitlyn didn't write a "my journey" book. The best memoir really would be something that serves the reader above all and doesn't cater to the feelings of the real-life characters the writer encountered.

William Faulkner wrote:

"The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies."

David Foster Wallace wrote in "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart":

"Obviously, a good commercial memoir's first loyalty has got to be to the reader, the person who's spending money and time to access the consciousness of someone he wishes to know and will never meet. But none of [Austin's memoir's] loyalties are to the reader. The author's primary allegiance seems to be to her family and friends...."; 6/6/17, 8:40 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "That's the area in-between a woman's breast implants."

Did you notice this in Dylan's Nobel speech (released yesterday):

"John Donne... the poet-priest who lived in the time of Shakespeare, wrote these words, "The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts. Not of two lovers, but two loves, the nests." I don't know what it means, either. But it sounds good. And you want your songs to sound good."; 6/6/17, 8:42 AM
JackWayne said...: The Kardashians have morphed into The Truman show. What was real is now fake. What was fake is now real:; 6/6/17, 8:45 AM
tcrosse said...: The Rich can be squalid, too.; 6/6/17, 8:49 AM
J. Farmer said...: Hasn't trashing each other and airing their dirty laundry for public consumption been the Kardashian/Jenner business plan for 10 years now?; 6/6/17, 8:51 AM
whitney said...: I can't believe I watched that. You have great power Althouse.

And I would feel very discombobulated if I ever had to refer to my father as 'She'. Maybe that's the point; 6/6/17, 9:00 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: As with any video or movie, this is the best of about ten takes. I wonder what the first take was like?; 6/6/17, 9:03 AM
Fernandinande said...: Rene Saunce said...
I'm uninterested. could only stand about 7 seconds.

I'm half as cool at 14 seconds! 14 long seconds of people reciting their soap-opera lines.; 6/6/17, 9:08 AM
LilyBart said...: A Kardashisan advising restraint and discretion?; 6/6/17, 9:13 AM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, between you and Dylan I went off to Google and Wikipedia to research Sestos, which was the name of a city besieged by Athens and defeated circa 472 bc, and Abydos is a city in Egypt that was old when the pharaohs were ruling the land. Hmmm. Oh! Abydos was also the name of a city in modern Turkey that was under Spartan rule during the Peloponnesian Wars. Still doesn't tell me much about why Donne mentioned them, except that in those days one studied Greek and Latin by reading Herodotus and Cicero, instead of taking courses in "studies."; 6/6/17, 9:20 AM
robother said...: I can only hope that when OJ is released, the Kardashians will welcome him back into their lives. He could fill the hole that Bruce's mysterious departure left. It would make for a satisfying closure of the karmic circle of America's Reality TV experience that began with the slow white Bronco chase, lending a whiff of Greek (well, Armenian) tragedy to the family drama.; 6/6/17, 9:22 AM
LilyBart said...: Its funny how family members view what happened to them differently from each other. I really began to understand this when talking to my sister about things that happened in our childhood. We saw the events so differently even though we grew up together and were close in age. We both looked at each other and said, "Really? That's what you think happened?"; 6/6/17, 9:23 AM
Sebastian said...: First-time viewer here. The mom makes sense. The kid too: it's insane. And in non-artists "ruthlessness" is just being an asshole.

Postmodern question: will the text of the "memoirs" have a longer life or impact than this video? What's really forever these days?; 6/6/17, 9:41 AM
john said...: Jeff Probst, the God of All Reality, corrected an interviewer once by saying what he was doing was "unscripted drama".

I knew someone who for several years was trying to get on "Survivor". He had all the attributes: young enough, a buff shaved body, an agent, proximity to casting calls, acting courses, a personal trainer, local TV commercials, a singing coach. Never got to the finals. He was as real as you could get.

There is as much reality in reality TV is there is crabmeat in Krabmeat.; 6/6/17, 10:00 AM
Martin said...: It's all spin and marketing and manipulation. Every syllable, every shot.

Why would anyone think it anything else?; 6/6/17, 10:55 AM
Earnest Prole said...: Burn a portion of the time I have left on earth on Caitlyn and the Kardashians?; 6/6/17, 11:03 AM
MikeD said...: I can't imagine caring enough to have any interest in caring about them. Since retirement Althouse has too much free time, it would seem?; 6/6/17, 1:36 PM
BN said...: I have searched for but cannot find the episode of the Kardashians' guest appearance on the "Trailer Park Boys." Does anyone have a link?; 6/6/17, 2:38 PM
Portlandmermaid said...: The emphasis on fabricated, as in it's awful, is a bit rich coming from people whose livelihood is based on fabrication; 6/6/17, 5:38 PM
Earnest Prole said...: All right, I caved and burned a minute and a half watching this, and saw something quite interesting that had nothing to do with the Kardashians. The daughter presents her mother with a sophisticated understanding of multiple truths a la Rashomon, or Kuhn, or Dylan:

“The weird part is, I don’t think it’s purposeful lying. I think she really just thinks that’s what happened . . .”

The mother, either deaf to what her daughter is saying or threatened by it, calls Caitlyn Jenner’s truth a fabrication, her daughter agrees, and insight is snuffed out.; 6/6/17, 6:05 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: Big Mike, In classical history, Sestos (in Europe) was the home of Hero, and Abydos (in Asia) was the home of Leander, separated by the Hellespont. He had to swim across the Hellespont each time they wanted to meet; Fate was not kind, alas, since she was a priestess of Aphrodite, a jealous goddess if ever there was one. This was also where Xerxes built his bridge to carry his forces into Europe, as Herodotus describes in his Histories.; 6/6/17, 8:52 PM
William said...: It's heartening to see that a post about cat whiskers has inspired more comments than a post about the Kardashians. There's hope for our civilization.; 6/6/17, 8:58 PM
JAORE said...: I must admit I don't know much about the Kardashians. What little has spilled into my brain pan includes:
Kim was a locally well known party girl. She was half the cast of a sex tape. This was the well spring of her fame.
The rest of the family has jumped on the Look-At-Meeeee band wagon and have become rich airing their family laundry.
Bruce was tossed to the curb by Mamma.
Bruce reentered the fray by becoming Caitlyn - the ESPN bravery award winner(?).

Now, NOW the family is upset because Caitlyn writes a book with passages designed to gather attention?

If I have missed anything of redeeming quality from this mis-begotten clan, please don't inform me. All the above was garnered by the K clan being thrust unbidden into my view.; 6/7/17, 7:33 AM
Brigitte said...: She's so nice and much smarter than anyone thinks...

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Brigitte, trainee @ http://www.darwintsun.com; 6/8/17, 6:12 AM