Norman Mailer discusses his protagonists and their penises

A short clip from the terrific documentary "Town Bloody Hall" (available at phfilms.com), which chronicles Norman Mailer's raucous debate with a group of feminists (Germaine Greer is featured in this clip) at NYC's Town Hall in 1971. Here he is asked about the names his characters give their penises.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Norman
• Mailer
• Germaine
• Greer
• feminism
• Town
• Bloody
• Hall
• verite
• cult
• film

[MetaMorphy]

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

[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.

[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!

[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.

[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.

[MsIthinkthereforeIam]

@mrbuttknock well said.

[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???