Skip to main content

Reply to David Edelstein's apology

Link to his apology over his Wonder Woman review. I'm Harpoon. 

Harpoon:

You might be genuine about the "mouthiness," but wasn't something like this applied recently to Hillary Clinton, to her great disadvantage?... surely you must be aware of this. She was a pant-suited warrior who took no one's guff, and a lot of people saw a visage like the overwhelming mother of their childhoods, and fled to Bernie or to the vicious man -- that is, Gloria Steinem's take. Strikes me that in explaining how to you the term expresses only clear-cut admiration, you're expunging some things from memory that can't be all THAT repressed, given the nearness of the election, so you don't find you've trespassed into the unforgivable -- demonstrated unconscious fear of the castrating woman. I sensed your own dis-ease, not just your admiration, here. 

There is S&M though, isn't there? Chris Pine's in a chair, wrapped around in rope, powerless to do anything but comply. That's pretty much him and his army mates the whole movie. She's the "S," and they and much of the male audience are the "M," enjoying their uselessness in comparison to the phallic woman, who, joyously!, has seen enough good in them to decide to serve as their all-powerful protector. 

- - - - -
margot101:

David, just because you're a liberal who believes in women's equality and understands some basic principles of feminism doesn't mean you're never culpable for problematic behavior. 

Also, people aren't just upset about this review, but your whole history of describing women and actresses in your reviews. Remember when you described 10-year-old Emma Watson as thus? "The prepubescent Watson is absurdly alluring to those of us who always went for bossy girls; when she fixed her sharp brown eyes on Radcliffe and said, “Harreh, do be keh-ful,” my heart did about five somersaults." Jesus. 

Harpoon:
@margot101 Culpable? Who the hell is going to admit to being culpable when it means admitting to finding a prepubescent alluring. What's the standing judgment awaiting people who admit to that? Isn't the idea better to create, therapeutic trust, rather than encourage more active self-censoring?

margot101:
@Harpoon Super hot idea: Have NYMag editors actually do their job and stop letting him get away with this stuff. There's a whole editorial staff that could vet his reviews, advise him not to publicly admit his attraction to a child, take out all of that "lively" stuff about what actresses he finds bangable, recommend therapy. Novel, isn't it? 


pierre:

@margot101 @Harpoon LOL this is what a born cop sounds like.

margot101:
I can't believe my suggestion that critics stay away from sexualizing children is receiving objections in the Vulture comment section

Harpoon:
@margot101 Hillary Clinton was right that most of America is suffering from serious disorders, but not so great in seeing it only as something they're all culpable for --  end the loser beasts! The liberal ability to explore what are genuine psychological disorders rather than character defects/inner evils, is being trumped by some intrinsic need to smash people down. Jessa Crispin suggested that we're using them as "sh*t containers" we can dump anything we don't like about ourselves into, that can't defend themselves or rebound back at us because THEY ARE psychically deplorable -- so surely this isn't in fact what we're doing! Which too is a pathology that needs remedying.

You weren't suggesting, you were admonishing, attacking... character-destroying -- that's what I personally objected to. In such an environment, which is everywhere now, no one is going to visit their therapist about their weird fascination with bossy 10-year-old girls and overwhelming militant women. It'll never gain conscious recognition, but in some sublimated, perhaps collectively shared (how many men found bossy, 12-year-old Hermione alluring?), public way, gratification will be found.   


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Discussion over the fate of Jolenta, at the Gene Wolfe facebook appreciation site

Patrick McEvoy-Halston November 28 at 10:36 AM Why does Severian make almost no effort to develop sustained empathy for Jolenta -- no interest in her roots, what made her who she was -- even as she features so much in the first part of the narrative? Her fate at the end is one sustained gross happenstance after another... Severian has repeated sex with her while she lay half drugged, an act he argues later he imagines she wanted -- even as he admits it could appear to some, bald "rape" -- but which certainly followed his  discussion of her as someone whom he could hate so much it invited his desire to destroy her; Severian abandons her to Dr. Talus, who had threatened to kill her if she insisted on clinging to him; Baldanders robs her of her money; she's sucked at by blood bats, and, finally, left at death revealed discombobulated of all beauty... a hunk of junk, like that the Saltus citizens keep heaped away from their village for it ruining their preferred sense

Salon discussion of "Almost Famous" gang-rape scene

Patrick McEvoy-Halston: The "Almost Famous'" gang-rape scene? Isn't this the film that features the deflowering of a virgin -- out of boredom -- by a pack of predator-vixons, who otherwise thought so little of him they were quite willing to pee in his near vicinity? Maybe we'll come to conclude that "[t]he scene only works because people were stupid about [boy by girl] [. . .] rape at the time" (Amy Benfer). Sawmonkey: Lucky boy Pull that stick a few more inches out of your chute, Patrick. This was one of the best flicks of the decade. (sawmonkey, response to post, “Films of the decade: ‘Amost Famous’, R.J. Culter, Salon, 13 Dec. 2009) Patrick McEvoy-Halston: @sawmonkey It made an impression on me too. Great charm. Great friends. But it is one of the things you (or at least I) notice on the review, there is the SUGGESTION, with him being so (rightly) upset with the girls feeling so free to pee right before him, that sex with him is just further presump

When Rose McGowan appears in Asgard: a review of "Thor: Ragnarok"

The best part of this film was when Rose McGowan appeared in Asgard and accosted Odin and his sons for covering up, with a prettified, corporate, outward appearance that's all gay-friendly, feminist, multicultural, absolutely for the rights of the indigenous, etc., centuries of past abuse, where they predated mercilessly upon countless unsuspecting peoples. And the PR department came in and said, okay Weinstein... I mean Odin and Odin' sons, here's what we suggest you do. First, you, Odin, are going to have to die. No extensive therapy; when it comes to predators who are male, especially white and male, this age doesn't believe in therapy. You did what you did because you are, or at least strongly WERE, evil, so that's what we have to work with. Now death doesn't seem like "working with it," I know, but the genius is that we'll do the rehab with your sons, and when they're resurrected as somehow more apart from your regime,