Norman Mailer discusses his protagonists and their penises

[thenfm]

keeping stupid cunts in check: MANHOOD101. COM

[AgonyInCrisis]

It takes 100 years for some truths and truisms to present themselves. Courage cometh with knowledge. Killing idiots called Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon, won't stymie anybody's population-decimating agenda. These are our little pigs and their piglets and their testes and knobs and delicious feet, knuckles and blood...the plenty-good surprises to make linoleum, epoxy-resin and pudding...

[AgonyInCrisis]

The extraterrestrial alien influence must be acknowledged in discussions concerning morality. The U.S. government is trading stolen children for technology.

[shahilagh]

AMAZING, 1971!! Yes, Women did their Best !

[MsIthinkthereforeIam]

a great woman. direct, intelligent, she won'y take any shit from anyone. how liberating.

[PBSmithy]

Greer looks very lonely these days. Perhaps she should have had a family! Oh well, at least she has her books about topless adolescent boys to keep her company!

[Kailing45]

It doesn't matter that he was denying that he was writing about himself, or even if he wasn't writing about himself. The depiction of the character reflects the male conceptualization of sex and their sexual organs. Even perhaps the female conceptualization, i.e. that one person conquers another and that the penis is a weapon. Does that sound nice to you???

[KenoisRob]

Winner and still champion. Women's lib? It's been a shell game for 20 year. As long as a politician backs abortion the feminists will back him--even if he engages in harassment ala Bill Clinton. Girl power? Katy Perry will chant it back to you. Is Sex and the City women's lib? Greer has not been relevant for years--the era of her boy Karl Marx (she insisted she was a Marxist and an anarchist--good luck with that) is over and so is hers. Mailer will be read in 2100. She will be in the dustbin.

[janelasdedeus]

Sorry Norman... but an author's characters are reflections of unconscious aspects of his own personality. It is a psychological defense to deny this reality. RIP... I enjoyed your wit immensely.

[shazam20007]

she always was smirking ugly

[MsIthinkthereforeIam]

@shazam20007 so? she is NOT A model. She is an intellectual, something to do with BRAIN activity, you know? You are a misogynist (doesn't matter whether you're a woman or a man, still a misogynist) and you're trying to put her down because she's not beautiful....?!? Not all women want to be little tarts to please traditional, scared men or coward, passive women like you.

[1WhoSeeks]

For the record, Germaine Greer is considered a bitter old bag in her native Australia. No one wants to listen to her anymore.

[molly4711]

please speak for yourself.

[mrbuttknock]

@1WhoSeeks Germaine Greer is the feminist who included men. For the record, she isn't bitter, she's a pioneer.

[MsIthinkthereforeIam]

@mrbuttknock  well said.

[TENNSUMITSUMA]

i dont get what this is about and it doesnt see like what the more info panel says

[Conail23]

norman mailer is a blowhard! hehe, this still cracked me up though btw

[richardsasso]

Go NORMAN!!!

[ScientificalnessUSA]

It's too late to shoot Mailer as

he's croaked by natural means.

[seans10]

I'm surprised Mailer wasted his time with these people.

[DrBPhD]

I don't think Normal Mailer saw it that way. He probably even had a very good time there.

[smokasomeweed]

only a women would confuse reality and fiction haha poor pathetic leeches stop leeching of us men you wear jeans and shirts cause we did first. you surf or snowboard cause we did first make up your own shit cause you suck at our games

[toolateforcofee]

I'ts like how everybody calls Mark Twain racist for writing Huck Finn.

[MetaMorphy]

Sorry, but not being able to distinguish between what a character is saying and what the author believes is REALLY FUCKING STUPID.

[stenw17]

Mailer was a famous elitist and misogynist. There's very little reason to believe that the characters in question did not share Mailer's voice, whether consciously or subconsciously.

"I don't hate women, but I think they should be kept in cages." - Mailer

For the record, I am male, and a huge fan of his work.

[ianpender]

humour, anyone?

[badpseudonym]

@MetaMorphy That's a really important point, and one that needs to be kept in mind (otherwise people would be questioning, for example, Nabokov's attraction to children, rather than that of his protagonist in 'Lolita'). So that argument doesn't hold. Howeeever, Mailer does remain a disturbing case because he actually was violent towards women himself - he stabbed his wife in the neck for christ's sake!

[emochuu]

wow germaine was hot

[septip123]

i'm having some trouble with Harlot's Ghost. Should I quit and pick another of his?

[Helke23]

Personally, I think Mailer was more substantive as a journalist. So if you haven't read "Armies of the Night" or "The Executioner's Song", the only fiction I could recommend to you would be "Barbary Shore" or "Why Are We in Vietnam?".

Did you end up finishing "Harlot's Ghost" after all?

[ozruby]

I agree. Mailer wrote best when he could force himself to step outside of his own (somewhat overheated) ego.

Executioner's Song is an amazing book, with a dynamic trajectory that's realized by a flat but poignant telling of (mostly) horrendous events via a series of wildly shifting character perspectives. It's long but more than worth the effort.

Armies of the Night is also great, and a person can learn quite a bit about that era of the 1960's by reading it.

[tidalwave1978]

If you're a boxing fan, I'd recommend The Fight, which covers the Rumble In The Jungle. It's non-fiction, but it's stunning.

[Rasscoco]

I think Norman Mailer was the greatest of them all!

[Rasscoco]

It is all a game!

[jebediah046x]

germain is such a godess, and thats why men hated her, she was completely sexy but untouchable

[DermochelysCoriacea]

oh yes!

[haupper]

"Dear Lucy Commissar..." (!)

[ftwsmp]

You could take a woman's view of that Germaine, if you were actually a woman.

[TheoBurke]

Mailer is in top form here, and there wasn't another writer willing to tackle Feminism as straight on as he did. Prisoner of Sex is a wonderfully fucked up document of his own notions of what being a straight male artist requires , and in his defenses of Miller, Lawrence and Genet develops a bracing aesthetic. He was the fool and the asshole much of the time, but these issues mattered to him. Truth mattered to him, and I'm glad he was around for so long to yell shit when shit was served.

[WKRPinCINN]

mailer also was always looking for a fight onstage/in public; loved shocking tender hearted liberals with bold statements. watch him on buckley or cavet, he is always ready to spar.

[JMotnger]

I am sorry a like his books if I had time to read, but I don't think he understands anything about penises.

[VooWa24]

Is there a breed of human being more humorless than your average feminist? They're so...what shall I say?...combative, edgy, pissy, ungiving. Looks like Mailer was more than a match for them.

[Bumblybee256]

I think you lack a certain understanding of what it is to feel oppressed, told you're inferior. Many black people take racist comments against blacks very seriously. It's no different and white males joke about it cos they've no clue.

[booteeny24]

Ancient Evenings is HOT, Mailer did a hell of a job on that one!

[WKRPinCINN]

Mailer was a genius (literature wise, that is), and although he can really psychobable the hell out of any argument, you cant help but think he has a good stand while he does it.

[seans10]

I liked the Prisoner of Sex. So Mailer got at least one interesting book out of this, ahem, period. But other than that, I think he wasted his time on this sideshow. I great "special feature" for this dvd might be a clip of Mailer headbutting Gore Vidal, who no doubt had it coming.

[WKRPinCINN]

him stabbing his wife too, maybe?

[seans10]

I don't believe that little event was on tape.

[htheyoutubr]

wtf. i dont get whats so funny