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eye WEEKLY November 3 1994
Toronto's arts newspaper .....free every Thursday
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COVER STORY (BOOKS) (BOOKS) COVER STORY
PREVIEW
CAMILLE PAGLIA
Friday, Nov. 4.
U of T Reading Series.
MacMillan Theatre, Edward Johnson Building, U of T. Sold out.
CAMILLE ON A HOT TIN ROOF
Professor Paglia explains it all
by
MALENE ARPE
Once again Camille Paglia has laced up her combat boots and is cracking
the whip over the heads of limp liberals everywhere.
The 47-year-old self-styled societal castigator and author of Sexual
Personae: Art And Decadence From Nefertiti To Emily Dickinson, and Sex,
Art And American Culture, has a brand-new collection of essays on the
market. Vamps & Tramps (Random House, $19.95 paper) is a barrage of
outraged chastisement, cultural comment and plain common sense, dealing
with everything from the allure of the penis to the education crisis.
And, of course, feminism.
In the central essay, "No Law In The Arena: A Pagan Theory Of
Sexuality," Paglia writes: "Let's get rid of Infirmary Feminism, with
its bedlam of bellyachers, anorexics, bulimics, depressives, rape
victims and incest survivors. Feminism has become a catch-all vegetable
drawer where bunches of clingy sob sisters can store their mouldy
neuroses."
On the phone from Philadelphia, where she teaches at a local art
college, Paglia has nothing but scorn for the "white bourgeois ladies"
who make up mainstream feminism and who did not take kindly to her when
she made her entrance into public debate some five years ago.
"I was shocked at the reaction to my work. And I noticed right away
that there was definitely a class difference in the response to my
work. That is, that it was the white upper middle-class feminists that
were the most hysterical about my opinion on date rape and so on, while
working class women, OK, would always tell me that they agreed with me.
They would say ` You're absolutely right,' OK, and they would encourage
me and so on, and that is why I call my feminism street-smart or
street-wise feminism."
Paglia has a problem with women who scream rape and sexual harassment
at the slightest provocation and refuse to take responsibility for
getting themselves into bad situations. She thinks the Anita Hill case
was ridiculous and that Mike Tyson was railroaded.
"They want it all. They want to dress like Madonna, they want all the
freedom and liberties. They want to be constantly praised and told they
are future leaders. At the same time, the slightest thing that bruises
their feelings, they go running and crying to somebody. It's absolutely
outrageous."
It is not a question of blaming the victim to say that violence against
women does not happen in a vacuum. Paglia maintains that we cannot, for
example, look at wife abuser O.J. Simpson as a man just going berserk.
She thinks there was a psycho-drama being played out for years, a drama
that Nicole Simpson was very much a conscious part of.
"What I'm trying to get people to realize is that there is a war
between the sexes going on, but it's the result, not of male power and
female victimage, but of female power and male anxiety at that female
power," Paglia says.
"Women have got to realize the power they wield over men, and the way
that men's unattractive behavior and sometimes violent behavior is
often the result of this power that women have. If women can be
re-educated about the power they have, they will understand much better
how to control situations that lead to battering or lead to rape."
Paglia, who now lives with a female partner, but who has dated both men
and women, thinks that there is a secret to making men behave.
"I began to see that the male ego is very frail. I used to think when I
was young that men were big egomaniacs and obnoxious and horrible, but
I began to see how frail it is in fact. Every day, every day, they need
to have their egos stroked and maintained and women are constantly
doing this, and I began to see that women are controlling the men, and
that women have this maternal affection for men, realize their
weakness, realize their desperation.
"The successful heterosexual woman understands this mystery and she
pretends to be submissive, but in fact she is totally controlling. And
men know this. All men know that they are being controlled by women. So
the feminist account of male power is so wrong, so wildly wrong, OK."
STAR STAR
Rolling Stones fan, Spy magazine advice columnist and insatiable
television consumer Paglia, who has become somewhat of a pop culture
icon herself, is an academic who jumped out of the ivory tower and
headfirst into the mainstream debate. She professes a love for
sensationalism and Hollywood, and at the same time warns us that we are
doomed unless we learn our classics. The works of dead white male
artists are as relevant and important as the rock music she loves.
"If one absorbs great culture it is vividly in one's mind. That's what
I'm trying to give to young people. You have to understand human
psychology. Human psychology is filled with darkness ... it just seems
to me feminism threw out psychology, just threw it out 20 years ago and
that is the problem now that we have an over-politicized sexual system
which does not make sense of all of human behavior, and that young
women are actually being harmed, OK. They're senseless and they cannot
predict anything that is going to happen with that nice young man they
go out to date. They cannot imagine that he can turn into a raving
maniac by dark passions."
Paglia is afraid that the American education system is being undermined
by well- meaning liberals, resulting in graduates who cannot read and
write.
"We give them condoms now. The schools have turned into these social
welfare centres. I totally oppose that. It's considered here that if
you're for gay rights then you're for condoms in the schools. And I'm
one of the few that says that is ridiculous. I'm an educator and I'm
sick of this kind of distortion of the educational process by these
outside philanthropic tyrants. They're fascists. They're commissars. I
totally don't approve of this rainbow curriculum thing."
There is a closed-mindedness of the American left, she says. An
inflexibility of thought that caused Paglia, an out lesbian, to be
branded misogynist.
"There is a solipsism on the part of the white middle-class in this
country, and people in Europe are simply more sophisticated. Not only
are they more sophisticated about sexuality, but their political
consciousness is far more advanced. People in Europe are more capable
of understanding that there are more than two views on politics. People
here are either left or right. You're liberal or conservative. When I
came on the scene and criticized liberalism, they all called me a
neo-conservative, and I said, `Don't you understand that liberalism can
be critiqued from the left?' "
It doesn't look like the firebrand that is Camille Paglia is going to
die out anytime soon. There are too many things crying out to be dealt
with.
"I'm just trying to re-educate the young people here. It's a big task,
but someone's gotta do it."
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