In describing the character of Julian in the 1980 movie American Gigolo Ann Manov says “…he represents that brief, proto-Reagan paradise: a little stupid, a little evil, but kind of cool.” It’s unclear what “proto” means or what President Reagan has to do with this era–let alone this movie–as he was elected in November of 1980 and took office in January of 1981. In point of fact, when this movie was being made in 1980 it was the “stupid…evil…but kind of cool” era of Jimmy Carter. This seems to be another tiresome instance of a partisan writer desperate to insert a smear against a politician they dislike into an article, however unconnected that politician might be to the subject matter.
This seems to be another tiresome instance of a partisan writer …
I am showing my years but the term “proto–Reagan” is apt to describe a phenomenon which, although it preceded Reagan, came to define the era of his presidency — regardless of whether one views him in a positive or negative light. The post-war narcissism of Western culture took a sudden and dramatic upward turn with the free–market schtick at turn of the seventies and eighties. Hippies gave rise to yuppies and it was “me, me, me” wherever one looked throughout the subsequent decade.
We can see clearly how this continues in the full–blown globalism of the present day but it is better addressed with the question of “who am I?” as opposed to “what can I get?” — mainly because there is increasingly less to define the individual, culturally, politically and certainly economically.
I tend to agree, but let’s just try to ignore it for a change; the main thrust of the article was very perceptive. I note however that someone else defends the term ‘proto-Reagan’ and he may be on to something – it is maybe ironic but the economic reforms of Thatcher and Reagan did tend to turbo charge a particular and rather visible form of selfish deracinated materialism.
The problem of course is that a seemingly political reference immediately risks turning off half the audience.
So here we are talking about whether Reaganism was good, bad or mixed rather than the complete ‘woke’ takeover of every art form!
Last edited 1 year ago by Andrew Fisher
Paul K
1 year ago
Excellent piece. Thanks.
Andre Lower
1 year ago
…and that is why people with any notion of taste are simply ignoring the whole lot of recent “cultural” production. So there is this divide between those who are aware that quality cultural offerings exist and those who aren’t. Pretty much a mirror of what happened to the music “industry” over the past 30 years or so. In general terms, what the woke movement is achieving is the reduction of the relevance of popular culture, which their moral hysteria prevents them from noticing. Serves them well, and should make their lives even more boring than they are right now.
Last edited 1 year ago by Andre Lower
Toby B
1 year ago
This is very good. Sharp analysis, great writing.
Deborah H
1 year ago
Great piece! I couldn’t help reading it with the Critical Drinker’s Scottish accent.
B Davis
1 year ago
Is anyone actually surprised?
Post-Woke, the world is redefined as Oppression. And the world’s denizens…the 117B who have ever lived…they are split between Oppressor and Oppressed. What else is there?
So when you can look at 10,000 years of history and see only Victimization, Inequity, and the long-stifled, overwhelming need for Self-Expression and Safe Spaces… OF COURSE Schrader’s “American Gigolo” must be re-imagined per current dogma. In the Soviet Union of the 30’s, they called this Stalinization of art, ‘Socialist Realism’. Mao defined it as art that ‘served the people’. And Hitler confiscated everything which didn’t thus serve and called it ‘Degenerate’. This no different.
The Julian Kay of almost half-a-century ago could not exist today. Too White… too masculine…too self-assured….too heteronormative… too everything. Would Target hire that character to sell a new clothing line? Would ESPN want Julian to comment on the Game? Would the View want to interview him? Perhaps, but only to castigate and demean.
In the meantime we await American Gigolo #3… in which Julian becomes a BIPOC TransMan struggling for acceptance as a DragQueen StoryHour Performer in Winnetka.
“Cover me with kisses, baby Cover me with love Roll me in designer sheets Just make sure you’ve obtained provable Affirmative Consent and are appropriately Gender Fluid.
Brett H
1 year ago
I’m in a lot of pain, and I’m sorry.
R Wright
1 year ago
Weak men written by even weaker men and diversity hires.
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Might I arrogantly offer a piece of advice to older men? in my humble opinion women are attracted to two important characteristics….. Men who actually prefer the company and consortia of women to their menfolk, and men who don’t drink!
Richard Ross
1 year ago
Could pedantically pick thru quite a few awks in this piece (“bowlderized?”) but some gems of phrases too, like “sex workers…embody an inscrutable mixture of saintly victimhood and feminist triumph” and all in the service of an insight worth pointing out. Thank you!
polidori redux
1 year ago
This Oresteia sound a gas. Are you sure that it isn’t being played for laughs? I once watched a performance in Greek. We all laughed in the wrong places.
That reminds me of going to watch An American Werewolf In London in a provincial town in Sweden (can’t remember exactly where now) whilst backpacking.
The film had subtitles for the majority of the locals whose grasp of English wasn’t great. Me and my mate laughed out loud at the appropriate places but the rest of the audience started to get annoyed and often missed the all-important lines at the bottom of the screen as they turned round to “Shhhh”.
There’s one scene where the protagonists enter an inn out in the sticks. Everything goes quiet; the locals look disapprovingly at this intrusion by strangers. My mate and I left the cinema before the end of the film…
A long time ago, when I was young, a Swedish girl took me to see a Swedish comedy. There were no subtitles (we were in Sweden). I laughed when she laughed. Why? Because she was beautiful.
Arie van Kreuningen
1 year ago
“Latest absurd iteration of the media’s anxious, obsessive search for trauma, victimhood,” The movie Blonde also comes to mind, a ‘fictional’ retelling of the life of Marilyn Monroe. They reduced Norman Jean to a sexual punchball who is almost drowned as a child, raped, abused, undergoing abortions, exploited (by powerful men of course), undergoing forced f******o (by the most powerful man, the president), and ultimately ending her life in about 80% of the screen-time. The director Andrew Domnik stated that her suicide was “the most important thing”. Of course, suicide causes her to sit on the golden throne of ultimate trauma and victimhood, why look at other parts of her life? That her life offered so much more, that she is still a household name because of her talents, that other people or actors who committed suicide aren’t nearly as famous (which means she had much more to offer) – is easily forgotten.
Jane Awdry
1 year ago
Excellent piece. Apart from *precarity* which is not a word.
In describing the character of Julian in the 1980 movie American Gigolo Ann Manov says “…he represents that brief, proto-Reagan paradise: a little stupid, a little evil, but kind of cool.” It’s unclear what “proto” means or what President Reagan has to do with this era–let alone this movie–as he was elected in November of 1980 and took office in January of 1981. In point of fact, when this movie was being made in 1980 it was the “stupid…evil…but kind of cool” era of Jimmy Carter.
This seems to be another tiresome instance of a partisan writer desperate to insert a smear against a politician they dislike into an article, however unconnected that politician might be to the subject matter.
Correct. It’s beyond tiresome.
I am showing my years but the term “proto–Reagan” is apt to describe a phenomenon which, although it preceded Reagan, came to define the era of his presidency — regardless of whether one views him in a positive or negative light. The post-war narcissism of Western culture took a sudden and dramatic upward turn with the free–market schtick at turn of the seventies and eighties. Hippies gave rise to yuppies and it was “me, me, me” wherever one looked throughout the subsequent decade.
We can see clearly how this continues in the full–blown globalism of the present day but it is better addressed with the question of “who am I?” as opposed to “what can I get?” — mainly because there is increasingly less to define the individual, culturally, politically and certainly economically.
Ann Manov captures this beautifully.
I tend to agree, but let’s just try to ignore it for a change; the main thrust of the article was very perceptive. I note however that someone else defends the term ‘proto-Reagan’ and he may be on to something – it is maybe ironic but the economic reforms of Thatcher and Reagan did tend to turbo charge a particular and rather visible form of selfish deracinated materialism.
The problem of course is that a seemingly political reference immediately risks turning off half the audience.
So here we are talking about whether Reaganism was good, bad or mixed rather than the complete ‘woke’ takeover of every art form!
Excellent piece. Thanks.
…and that is why people with any notion of taste are simply ignoring the whole lot of recent “cultural” production. So there is this divide between those who are aware that quality cultural offerings exist and those who aren’t. Pretty much a mirror of what happened to the music “industry” over the past 30 years or so. In general terms, what the woke movement is achieving is the reduction of the relevance of popular culture, which their moral hysteria prevents them from noticing. Serves them well, and should make their lives even more boring than they are right now.
This is very good. Sharp analysis, great writing.
Great piece! I couldn’t help reading it with the Critical Drinker’s Scottish accent.
Is anyone actually surprised?
Post-Woke, the world is redefined as Oppression. And the world’s denizens…the 117B who have ever lived…they are split between Oppressor and Oppressed. What else is there?
So when you can look at 10,000 years of history and see only Victimization, Inequity, and the long-stifled, overwhelming need for Self-Expression and Safe Spaces… OF COURSE Schrader’s “American Gigolo” must be re-imagined per current dogma. In the Soviet Union of the 30’s, they called this Stalinization of art, ‘Socialist Realism’. Mao defined it as art that ‘served the people’. And Hitler confiscated everything which didn’t thus serve and called it ‘Degenerate’. This no different.
The Julian Kay of almost half-a-century ago could not exist today. Too White… too masculine…too self-assured….too heteronormative… too everything. Would Target hire that character to sell a new clothing line? Would ESPN want Julian to comment on the Game? Would the View want to interview him? Perhaps, but only to castigate and demean.
In the meantime we await American Gigolo #3… in which Julian becomes a BIPOC TransMan struggling for acceptance as a DragQueen StoryHour Performer in Winnetka.
“Cover me with kisses, baby
Cover me with love
Roll me in designer sheets
Just make sure you’ve obtained provable Affirmative Consent and are appropriately Gender Fluid.
I’m in a lot of pain, and I’m sorry.
Weak men written by even weaker men and diversity hires.
Might I arrogantly offer a piece of advice to older men? in my humble opinion women are attracted to two important characteristics….. Men who actually prefer the company and consortia of women to their menfolk, and men who don’t drink!
Could pedantically pick thru quite a few awks in this piece (“bowlderized?”) but some gems of phrases too, like “sex workers…embody an inscrutable mixture of saintly victimhood and feminist triumph” and all in the service of an insight worth pointing out. Thank you!
This Oresteia sound a gas. Are you sure that it isn’t being played for laughs? I once watched a performance in Greek. We all laughed in the wrong places.
That reminds me of going to watch An American Werewolf In London in a provincial town in Sweden (can’t remember exactly where now) whilst backpacking.
The film had subtitles for the majority of the locals whose grasp of English wasn’t great. Me and my mate laughed out loud at the appropriate places but the rest of the audience started to get annoyed and often missed the all-important lines at the bottom of the screen as they turned round to “Shhhh”.
There’s one scene where the protagonists enter an inn out in the sticks. Everything goes quiet; the locals look disapprovingly at this intrusion by strangers. My mate and I left the cinema before the end of the film…
A long time ago, when I was young, a Swedish girl took me to see a Swedish comedy. There were no subtitles (we were in Sweden). I laughed when she laughed. Why? Because she was beautiful.
“Latest absurd iteration of the media’s anxious, obsessive search for trauma, victimhood,” The movie Blonde also comes to mind, a ‘fictional’ retelling of the life of Marilyn Monroe. They reduced Norman Jean to a sexual punchball who is almost drowned as a child, raped, abused, undergoing abortions, exploited (by powerful men of course), undergoing forced f******o (by the most powerful man, the president), and ultimately ending her life in about 80% of the screen-time. The director Andrew Domnik stated that her suicide was “the most important thing”. Of course, suicide causes her to sit on the golden throne of ultimate trauma and victimhood, why look at other parts of her life? That her life offered so much more, that she is still a household name because of her talents, that other people or actors who committed suicide aren’t nearly as famous (which means she had much more to offer) – is easily forgotten.
Excellent piece. Apart from *precarity* which is not a word.
How about “bowlderized”?
It’s been in use since at least 1910, friend.
https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/64050894?redirectedFrom=precarity#eid
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