Comments on: Bad Novelist Makes Poor Word Choices, Makes No Sense: Film at Eleven

By: C

Sat, 09 May 2009 01:42:58 +0000

I read the G&M nonsense the other day and was *hoping* someone other than an MRA would comment on it. (All I could come up with myself was an endless string of rude words.) Thanks!

By: I Am Lazy; These People Are Awesome « “Blargh!” and Other Sentiments

Fri, 08 May 2009 03:45:12 +0000

[...] first can be found here at Pursuit of Harpyness, one of my new favorite internet hangouts. It is authored by the witty and [...]

By: kelsium

kelsium — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:29:49 +0000

I’m home sick from work today and have been rereading the Tiger Beatdown archives to keep my brain functioning. Anyway, I happened upon this in Sady’s analysis of John Updike’s A&P and I thought that I would share since it’s so applicable here:

“Desire is not misogyny. Misogyny appropriates desire and promotes the myth that one cannot exist without the other; then, because people like desire, it promotes the myth that people who oppose misogyny also oppose desire; thusly, it communicates that misogyny is itself desirable because it makes pleasure possible.”

By: kithkin

kithkin — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:58:42 +0000

I love that Eggers quote. I think he is a mediocre writer but a wonderful person and that quote is definitely representative of the latter half of that picture.

Alyssa, I cosign 100% on the notion of being more concerned with looking bad than being bad. How childish that seems to me.

By: Spark

Spark — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:52:39 +0000

Look, I enjoy male sexual desire in novels and in real life as much as any literate hetero woman. It’s not male sexual desire in-of-itself, it’s how it’s done. For instance, I would read William Styron’s version of the phone book, but SOPHIE’S CHOICE was, for me, a failure because the guy’s desire was totally channeled through misogyny (to the point where he fantasizes about rape) and the book seemed to condone it. As a reader, I checked out and couldn’t enjoy it. I’m feeling the same thing right now about THE QUIET AMERICAN–though arguably that book contains a critique, but emotionally, blah, I have to force myself to finish the last 40 pages.
What I would say to Russell Smith, and William Styron, and 100 other Dude Novelists, is Reader /= Male and your penis is not intrinsically fascinating.
Sorry if that’s a little OT, but I had to get it off my chest!

By: Alyssa

Alyssa — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:43:27 +0000

I do see the point that when a person is learning how to not be misogynist or racist, they are going to make mistakes, and being called a misogynist/racist can be stunting to someone who is just starting to learn.
However, this is clearly a case of him wanting to continue being misogynist/racist without owning the label. He is clearly more concerned about the label than being a misogynist/racist. Unfortunatly, this is an argument I’ve been seeing a lot recently, and it is infurating. It seems conservitives have finally figured out that being misogynist/racist is a bad thing, but they have no interest in changing; they just want everyone else to stop pointing it out.

By: PhDork

PhDork — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:18:07 +0000

Smith is a bang-on representative of the reason I rarely read contemporary fiction: bad thinking, bad writing.

By: sarah.of.a.lesser.god

sarah.of.a.lesser.god — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:13:56 +0000

Oh for the love of…

I have no issues with “male desire”. But when that male desire is defined by subjugating women in the name of achieving pleasure for the man, then fuck yes I will have an issue with that. Because that is misogyny. Oh, but don’t listen to me. I went to a womyn’s college.

By: kelsium

kelsium — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:10:20 +0000

@kelsium: Oops. Consistent use of plural fail.

By: kelsium

kelsium — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:09:17 +0000

Yep, men who use “Women/myn’s Studies” as an epithet, even in an arguably self-deprecating way as Smith uses it here, automatically forfeits his right to offer any analysis on the concept of misogyny and have it taken seriously. Nonsensical blathering aside.