That's an excerpt from "Today’s Young People Need to Learn How to Be Punk" by John Cameron Mitchell, the filmmaker (notably of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch").
The expression of the French Jewish Surrealist is something you can work out on your own, no? Key words: "during the Nazi occupation."
I want to focus on "closeted bisexual." Mitchell's father was married to his mother, so how does he count as closeted if he just kept quiet about who else he's sexually attracted to? That's the general practice among married people, not to speak out about your interest in anyone other than your spouse and not to do anything about it. It might be a more poignant case if the man married a woman but only felt attracted to men, but this, we're told, was a bisexual. Presumably, he was attracted to his wife. Where's the closeting in restricting your sex relations to your spouse? It's not as if heterosexuals feel free to speak out and act out about their sexual attraction to others. No one admires these adulterers for "coming out of the closet."
Anyway, John Cameron Mitchell is reporting on his speaking tour, interacting with students. He told them: "Your homework is to stop canceling each other, find out about punk, and get laid while you’re at it.... Punk isn’t a hairstyle; it’s getting your friends together to make useful stories outside approved systems. And it’s still happening right now, all over the world." He says, "MAGA has adopted an authoritarian style of punk that disdains what Elon Musk calls our 'greatest human weakness,' empathy. But O.G. punk, while equally free of trigger warnings, is constructive and caring."
Anyway, John Cameron Mitchell is reporting on his speaking tour, interacting with students. He told them: "Your homework is to stop canceling each other, find out about punk, and get laid while you’re at it.... Punk isn’t a hairstyle; it’s getting your friends together to make useful stories outside approved systems. And it’s still happening right now, all over the world." He says, "MAGA has adopted an authoritarian style of punk that disdains what Elon Musk calls our 'greatest human weakness,' empathy. But O.G. punk, while equally free of trigger warnings, is constructive and caring."
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99 comments:
John Cameron Mitchell understands that the incoherences of his beliefs and experiences are irrelevant. All that is needed to get the attention he craves is the conclusion: Orange Man Bad.
"...it’s also about having your buddies’ backs, no matter their gender, sexuality or race.
In Vietnam there was tremendous racial tension between blacks and whites. But if you've read any of the plethora of memoirs/interviews with infantry, all that sh!t got laid aside when ojt in the bush on patrol. Keeping one's azz in one piece depended upon it.
Transgender (e.g. bisexual) is trendy, and while the individual is relevant, the spectrum has no redeeming value to society or humanity. Homosexuals are an impure, exclusive model of bisexuality.
Where's the closeting in restricting your sex relations to your spouse?
Presumably, he didn't.
If the hero father was a heterosexual, white male, he would not be qualified for the role of hero. He had to be shoe-horned into an oppressed identity group.
Was his father closeted or outspoken? The dad seems like a guy who used people to get what he wanted, which is mostly to get laid. His dad did seem to have some faithfulness to others, but not to any single individual, which I guess is the theme of the day.
It's sad the way these boring old people can't grasp that they're no longer transgressive, and their politics is no longer an act of rebellion.
I was hearing 'Trump is punk' ten years ago. Maybe even on this blog.
Part of the disconnect is that punk was a working-class movement in Britain and Europe, while here it was for bored upper middle class kids. That's why DC was such a big center for it.
JSM
"to make useful stories outside approved systems."
Wow that's really...inspiring...
In matters paradoxical, he was the very model of a modern major general!
JSM
His inclusive transgender father would be excluded from playing gay games in progressive social clubs. The traditional behaviors and protocols have not changed, other than in parades of empathetic dissonance where human rites are performed with an illusion of human rights, and the individual is a bloc act in a regime pursuant to Diversity classifications.
"Claude" in France can be either male or female, like Pat or Chris over here.
"MAGA has adopted an authoritarian style of punk that disdains what Elon Musk calls our 'greatest human weakness,' empathy. But O.G. punk, while equally free of trigger warnings, is constructive and caring."
Wishful thinking. Punks might be leftist or rightist or apolitical or confused but constructive and caring they never were.
I remember the movie SLC Punk. Much ranting about Reagan. I got the feeling that the main character just thought he was a punk because he was a lonely Democrat in 1980s Utah. I also hope the kids at Sarah Lawrence College had a lot of fun parodying the movie.
Punk is about the sheer joy of freedom, and mocking everyone and everything that gets in the way of that.
I have never known the secret sexual preferences of my heroes, including my dad, and on Mothers' Day, I especially don't want to.
it’s getting your friends together to make useful stories outside approved systems.
Useful to who and for what? For political persuasion?
Logical arguments don't seem to change anyone's mind.
Why are stories so much more persuasive than logical arguments?
John Cameron Mitchell doesn't sound like a deep thinker.
Hectoring young people to be punk sounds like an un-punk think to do.
Characterizing someone else's sexuality is naive or dishonest. If Mitchell's dad was faithful to his mom, then what evidence does he have that dad was a "closeted bisexual"? All sorts of circumstantial evidence could just mean that Dad liked to spice things up.
+1 bagoh20 @9:48am… 👌
I know! Let's do the punk taxpayer this time! Nobody has empathy for us slaves, so fuck 'em!
If we really buckle down and get punk, come next April 15 that unempathetic monster will be penniless. (OK, OK... It's already penniless, but bond yields will go to zero.)
No more money for war. No more money for peace. No more money for law and order. No more money for John Cameron Mitchell.
You've been punked was a comic theme with deceptive motives and gay appeal.
Age old problem with Punk; it's great when people just do it, but as soon as people start trying to direct or control or market it (and they always do) it stops being Punk.
Guess Mitchell hasn't figured that out yet.
The context is missing in the Musk citation. Does Mitchell know that and is lying or is he just ignorant about it?
Musk: There's a guy who posts on X who's great, Gad Saad?
Rogan: Yeah, he's a friend of mine. He's been on the podcast a bunch of times.
Musk: Yeah, he's awesome, and he talks about, you know, basically suicidal empathy. Like, there's so much empathy that you actually suicide yourself. So, we've got civilizational suicidal empathy going on. And it's like, I believe in empathy, like, I think you should care about other people, but you need to have empathy for, for civilization as a whole, and not commit to a civilizational suicide.
Rogan: Also don't let someone use your empathy against you so they can completely control your state and then do an insanely bad job of managing it and never get removed.
Musk: The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit. They're exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response. So, I think, you know, empathy is good, but you need to think it through and not just be programmed like a robot.
Rogan: Right, understand when empathy has been actually used as a tool.
Musk: Yes, like, it's weaponized empathy is the issue.
"Hectoring young people to be punk sounds like an un-punk thing to do."
Hectoring young people to be punk sounds like hauling coal to Newcastle.
"If Mitchell's dad was faithful to his mom, then what evidence does he have that dad was a "closeted bisexual"? "
Well, if his dad was just a straight, hetero white guy, he'd have to recognize his dad's racism and privilege. And how could anyone respect, let alone admire as a hero, someone like that?
So there's that.
Evolved empathy is a gateway meme to narcissistic indulgence. Principles matter. Principals matter. #HateLovesAbortion
This guy could be lying.
In this case, Claude was female, and Marcel (a man's name -- I think) was also female, and they were a couple. There already is a play about them by an English writer. Mitchell has been making presentations or performing monologues about them over here. It's unclear if that's the play he's talking about or if he's writing a multi-character drama.
"Closeted" means not "out." From that I conclude that one can be closeted and celibate, or closeted and having sex with everything in sight, so long as you don't tell family, friends, and co-workers about it. Does Mitchell make clear which category his father was in? Also, was John Cameron Mitchell named after the guy in the Timex commercials?
like Zaphod, Cameron's father, is just some guy, you know,
Johnny Rotten is now MAGA. Real punks have no use for limp-wristed lollygagging.
Open relationships under a GNUvel license where the community... the world is my brothel. They do exist. #NoJudgment #NoLabels
Ah but there's something "special" about being closeted I suppose. OTOH you could call a discreet philanderer a "closeted adulterer". And what do you make of the French, both male and female, who indulge in cinq a sept?
War! What is it good for? Absolutely... something.
A gay military is or should be an oxymoronic expression of pride and joy.
All's fair in lust and abortion is a progressive meme from a liberal loo... nacy.
"Empathy" today seems to come with strict and unhealthy limits on who is or who is not allowed to exist.
empathy does not mean agreeing with the Sin, it is about getting someone to a place where they renounce it,
At some point, his closeted Father must have either come out of the closet, been exposed through some indiscretion, or have been outed by someone. Otherwise, the son is just speculating.
Your homework is to stop canceling each other, find out about punk, and get laid while you’re at it.
It comes as a genuine shock to see college students increasingly compliant and conformist. In my day we forcefully rejected college administrators as in loco parentis and forcefully affirmed we would say and think whatever the fuck we wanted.
Tag incoherent, as Ampersand observed.
to quote mcluhan from 'annie hall' you know nothing of my work'
Men who want to be women. women who want to be men - are often very unstable.
So his father supported Gays in the military and then pretended to give some objective reason for doing so, but actually it was just because he was getting a little Gay Sex on the side. Sounds dishonest.
As for this French Jewish lesbian socialist breaking into a church and putting up a banner, why should I have this admirable in any way. Can leftists ever get their story straight? I thought all the Fascists and Nazis were oppressing all the Jews in France, but here this woman felt so secure, she could run around breaking into Churches and attacking Jesus Christ.
"Yes, the military vibe could be depressingly macho"
Oh, sod off swampy. You want a non-macho military? That's the Biden-era military where actual men don't want to join. That's the German military since they abolished their draft, where pretty much nobody wants to join. Sure, drive away all the "macho men" and recruit a bunch of green-haired they-thems. Oh, wait - most of those folks won't join anyway, no matter how much you accommodate them? And the few who do aren't physically fit enough anyway?
Reminds me of the fall off of Marvel and Star Wars, where they took institutions that were primarily "cis-male-coded" (as the kids say), and followed the diktats of overly-online wokistas to make their brands more "inclusive" - driving away most of their original fans, and getting virtually no new ones to replace the losses. Because overly online wokistas don't buy movie tickets, and they don't join the military, in any useful numbers.
Be a good punk rocker. Who you want to boink? - Show some personal dignity and keep that to yourself.
Personally - I am sick to death of "worship teh gay" every day/ or you will pay
It's very tired. ... and really rather authoritarian.
You lost me at "...the military vibe could be depressingly macho."
The job of the military is to break things and kill people in ultra high stress, life-threatening situations. Say what you will, but I'll go with the macho group.
And I guess the wife was OK with the Gay sex, as long as he kept it under wraps. which is normal with these sorts of things. In Taiwan its expected for successful older men to have mistresses. But its expected they will be discreet and not "embarrass" their wives by making it too public.
Some how I doubt this son would know "macho" if it hit him upside the head with Sabre. Its interesting how many "Macho" military guys have wimpy sons. Gay or not.
Never leave your buddy's behind.
Memphis had a punk scene back in the day, with bands like Panther Burn and the way-way-way-out of the closet The Glory Holes.
His dull brain perplexes and retards
Bob Boyd said...The context is missing in the Musk citation. Does Mitchell know that and is lying or is he just ignorant about it?
Thanks for the context. This Mitchell guy seems like a total schmuck; I was laughing at him by the time I got to the end of Althouse’s evisceration of his description of his father. But this really ices it.
Mitchell's dad didn't want to feel seen.
Punk is mainstream. Apple has a gender-bending television ad for its iPhone 16. A young man with a feminine hair cut poses for pictures shot on an iPhone by a pudgy woman in grandpa clothes. It's a weird ad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL88A5F9V3k
The water closet was a remarkable invention of anthropogenic intelligence. Most people, with queer exceptions, would argue that what happens in the closet, should stay in the closet.
yes thats a very creepy ad, young man looks like michael mckeon from spinal tap,
that is a byzantine level of category error, one wouldn't know where to start,
Some words have been redefined so often they have no inherent meaning at all. Punk is one of those words. It’s the climate change of attitude.
punk was about breaking with bourgeois norms, when the norms are themselves iconoclastic, there's no point
so conservative or alt right, would probably be norm from this perspective,
the French Resistance, has been portrayed in many means,
most recently they were the model for the Ghorman front in Andor, (they hired almost entirely french actors for the roles,)
" But O.G. punk, while equally free of trigger warnings, is constructive and caring."
That's not the way that I remember the punk movement of the 70s and 80s. I seem to recall a lot of skinheads (and people with mohawks) with big black boots.
Mitchell has obviously never listened to “I Don’t Care About You” by FEAR, which was also covered by Guns N’ Roses.
“Yes, the military vibe could be depressingly macho, but it’s also about having your buddies’ backs, no matter their gender, sexuality or race.”
It’s “having your buddy’s back”, not backside, Sparky.
Who can forget Gelatin Biafra’s ”Holiday in Greecelandia”?
Diversity (i.e. color, class judgment) is a bigoted conception.
Gender refers to sex-correlated attributes (e.g. sexual orientation): masculine and feminine.
The military is no place for gay parades where abortion in self-defense is a routine, somber choice.
I don't get it. In what way is filmmaker Mitchell's father's concealed bisexuality something that is useful to know about? Wasn't his father simply an early-adopter of the Bill Clinton era formulation, "don't ask, don't tell"? Why bring it up, other than to burnish his own 'cred' with inherited coolness from the rainbow folks? Or, as Dave Chapelle would call them, the Alphabet People.
I told the students stories. My hero was my father, a closeted bisexual Army major general who, in the 1990s, argued in favor of gays in the military by reminding people that they’ve always been there. Yes, the military vibe could be depressingly macho, but it’s also about having your buddies’ backs, no matter their gender, sexuality or race.
But humans, it turns out, are bound by nothing but imagination, while things like common sense take a back seat. There's no limit to the sorts of antics and shenanigans that people will get up to, and here's the thing: You can make this stuff up.
Grifters, like Donald Trump, live to tell lies in order to increase wealth and to bask in the world's attention. Dad and Uncle stories are important to build an image of personal brilliance. Yeah, "my dog's bigger than your dog!"
Narciso: “the Ghorman front in Andor”
Yes, a couple of actors from Un village francais have key parts. And the showrunners made up a French-sounding language for them to speak.
The Star Wars people are doing a lot of hommages these days - there was a Quadrophenia-style antigrav scooter gang in Mandalorian. Of course, reverencing the cinema of bygone days was the main point of Lucas’s oeuvre. Or it could just be a sign of a dying franchise. See, eg, every Star Trek show that does a bunch of holodeck eps toward the end.
JSM
Punk is everything I like, and nothing I don't like.
I'm old enough to remember when it was common to suggest that Hitler was gay-adjacent, given some of his buds, like the flamboyant (it was always flamboyant) Goering, or the frontkaempfer Roehm.
And it was not meant as a positive insinuation.
I agree with your "closeted bisexual" take. Just buy your wife a strap-on like the rest of us do.
I mean like I've heard other married bisexual men do.
Not that I've discussed this with other married bisexual men.
Byother I mean other than you. It would not make sense for me to refer to married bisexuals other than myself, as I am 100% a flaming heterosexual.
Frank Zappa...
Flower Punk
This explains a Helluva lot…
https://x.com/goddeketal/status/1921558762684367174
There's something about John Cameron Mitchell's self presentation, with its emphasis upon the neded for empathy and freedom, that is reminiscent of the start of modern liberal progressivism in the 1960's. Vanguard movements begin with appeals to universal values such as dignity, tolerance, empathy, and reciprocity of rights, and evolve toward demands for control over those who are outside the vanguard.
Between AD 313 and AD 380, we went from the legalization of Christianity in the Edict of Milan, to its institutionalization as the official religion of the Empire in the Edict of Thessalonica.
There's your daily Roman Empire thought, guys.
Constructive Caring - you know - like taking orders from the oh-so enlightened and caring LEFT - and burning everything down that you hate.
Like a Tesla dealership.
Free LaShamu McIver (D) now!
https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/1921217033825644967
A testament to social progress with transgender totems. Happy Mothers' Day.
You know what would show me that the Democrats have empathy for poor people around the globe? If they didn't support endless sanctions, endless wars, and violent regime change operations in any country where we don't currently call the shots, or which could potentially push back on our "rules based order."
There is a saying about living by the law, or living by rules, if you have a gun, and your neighbor has a gun, well, you live by the law, if you have a gun, and your neighbor does not? Well, he lives by your rules, whether they are codified into law or not.
Every time a country tries something to climb out of the poverty we impose around the world, well, their leaders "must go."
So let's not hear any garbage about "empathy" from the people who supported Joe Biden for president. Always their propaganda consists of accusing their opposition of whatever skulduggery they are currently engaged in, in this case, it's keeping a large part of the world engulfed in war. It's like Islam, there is either "Dar al Islam" or land that has surrendered, or "Dar al Harb," those are *our* rules, but we never get tired of accusing the Muslims of this, even as we train, supply, and cover for Muslim terrorists in service of our geopolitical ends routinely.
There are an estimated 8.2 billion people on this planet. We would be far more faithful to Christian charity if we worked to bring them peace and prosperity in their own homes, instead of sanctioning them into submission.
narciso said...
yes thats a very creepy ad"
It's no coincidence that Apple doesn't allow comments on its YouTube channel.
“My hero was my father, a closeted bisexual Army major general who, in the 1990s, argued in favor of gays in the military by reminding people that they’ve always been there.”
On the other hand, as a general in the 90’s his military experience of “always” didn’t include any wars that America actually won. During WWII one of the few positives of being gay is that it was an effective way to avoid the draft.
When do they get rid of the term "bisexual" , since it asserts the existence of just two sexes, and replace it with something like "ambisexual," —OMG, it spellchecks. Of course they have.
Per Jaq: Every time a country tries something to climb out of the poverty we impose around the world, well, their leaders "must go."
*************
Yes, that's exactly what we did with India, China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Israel.........oh wait---
Lazarus: The "John Cameron" in the Timex comms was John Cameron Swayze ("sway zee") and he was also a network (ABC?/NBC?) news anchor for some years.
China, India: We would if we could. Look what we did to Pakistan, oh and Bangladesh and of course, the Philippines, where we re-installed the corrupt Marcos clan because we wanted bases for the endless wars.
N Korea: Dar al Harb
S Korea: Dar al Islam
Japan: Dar al Islam
Israel: Dar al Islam
Taiwan: What's the plan here? Have them declare independence, have a plebiscite to secede, and recognize them as an independent country? Because Russia and the Donbas and Crimea already did that, and nobody cares. In fact I pointed that out once in a comment on Instapundit where maybe Stephen Greene suggested this for Taiwan, and first the comment racked up a whole bunch of dislikes, then it got deleted, for pointing out a true fact. Nobody in Russian speaking Ukraine want's to be relegated to the tender mercies of a ruling cabal that worships Stephan Bandera.
Pakistan as an ally, has been counterproductive in some regards as mentioned earlier, on the other hand North Korea has been terribly mismanaged by China, you would agree,
'where the people resort to eating bark' well thats something
as mentioned Bandera is respected because he fought the Soviets when few would, he held off the Soviet and Polish Armies for four years, the Company did provide some meager assistance this is where Sloane Coffin apprenticed for a time, but it was largely compromised by Philby,
the US employed the Atlatcl battalion and the Kaibiles, who were not nice guys, to be charitable, to crush the FMLN insurgency, some of the latter demobilized figures, ended up the sharp end of the Zetas, the former operator dominated cartel
the FMLN insurgents, who ended up in power like Funes and
Ceren helped raise up the MS-13 with state support and funding, what Bukele has had to deal with,
Someone has badly misunderstood “punk” if he thinks it was constructive and caring. Iconoclastic, yes, absolutely.
no hes a well credentialled moron,
I was at dinner last night and we were discussing a 25 year old guy we knew who was seeing a 19 year old woman, and a 30 year old guy taking out a 24 year old. My daughter and future daughter in law, both in the millennial age group, were not just disgusted but seemed to think such relationships ought to be illegal. I had to remind my daughter that her grandfather, whom she adored, was 11 years older than her grandmother.
When did this ridiculous Puritanism about the correct age at which to start a relationship come about? It wasn't that long ago that pious liberals were informing us that it was wrong for anyone to be policing who other people loved.
Oops, that was for the cafe thread, but feel free to respond.
"Punk" was many things, some of them utterly at odds with each other. California/LA punk was very different from UK skinhead punk. There was a strand of explicitly antiracist UK punk (see Son Of Oi). LA bands just didn't seem to give a fuck. I'm not saying that as a criticism.
As much as I hate to bring it up, the only pure punk singer was GG Allin.
And narciso is absolutely correct.
Also, bisexuals don't exist. They're gays with training wheels. Otherwise known as "wives."
They're narcissistic sickos.
Hassayamper: "When did this ridiculous Puritanism about the correct age at which to start a relationship come about?" When post-thirty women noticed that the guys their age with steady jobs were dating twenty-somethings, not them.
The major general was Ronald Reagan's host when Reagan visited Berlin. Did we ever find out what his son is talking about? It's said that in the old days, if the military wanted to get rid of you, they'd search the barracks and if they found body-building magazines they'd throw you out for being homosexual. Maybe dad just liked his muscle mags -- maybe too much, maybe not. In any case, it's not our business and not something his son should be bringing up in the media.
"Transgender (e.g. bisexual) is trendy, and while the individual is relevant, the spectrum has no redeeming value to society or humanity." Why not? "Homosexuals are an impure, exclusive model of bisexuality." Why?
Part of the disconnect is that punk was a working-class movement in Britain and Europe, while here it was for bored upper middle class kids. That's why DC was such a big center for it.
No, it was primarily a teen and young-20s youth fad, with a good number of really and disparate great bands, who were labeled under the umbrella of "punk." ("Punk rock" as we came to know it, though previously used as a term by rock critics sporadically from the late 60s, gained its name from "PUNK Magazine," a New York City originated magazine, created by John Holmstrom and "Legs" McNeil, covering the CBGB and Max's Kansas City scenes. The magazine was a MAD-magazine/Rock magazine/Underground comic book mesh.
For once I agree with Robert Cook. He's absolutely right. Viz narciso's brilliant comment at 11:38, one can now view the recently deceased Queen as punk, or at least the bourgeois and national values she espoused, which are now rebellious. Johnny Rotten himself praised the Queen and her values and denounced anarchy before her death.
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