Camille Paglia

Paglia is an incredible attention whore and narcissist. He desire to be contrary has twisted her brain like a pretzel. She is smug, argumentative, long-winded and insufferable.

I hate discovering someone I like takes her seriously. The BernBros, Jill Stein-bots, and Hillary Haters lap her up....and look how that worked out.

Who is this Paglia troll we've picked up? Every few weeks a new thread, when the old one should be easy to find.

Is she a played-out haggard shrew or Blathering Harpy of today's culture?

Does she cut her own hair? What's the point of dyeing your hair if your cut looks that bad?

You know someone's really over when DL can't even be bothered to slap around one who's said as many dumb things about gay men as Paglia. So funny that the great contrarian inspires yawns in all her targets now.

Didn't she say something about black women being immune to abuse and rape because they "owned" their sexuality? I remember reading that. Unbelievable.

I still don't know her.

I think I put it best.

I don't remember that R6, but I remember bell hooks ripping her for saying she loved being around black women because she could just go "WOOOOO" and express her sassy get down self with them. It's in that essay she wrote about Paglia. CP also said something creepy about how when you see a bunch of black children on a porch in the inner city they are all so relaxed and tumbling over each other, i.e. black people including children are hyper sexual. So the comment about black women taking sexual abuse in stride fits in with the whole groovy noble savage idea Paglia has. She's lucky no one on Woke Twitter knows or cares who she is.

She speaks about the AIDS crisis with a weird detachment as well, basically saying welp, that's Mother Nature for ya, like everything about gay men is just a TV show for her enjoyment. She seems to see life itself that way.

Nowadays the only people who still quote her are conservatives who love having a dissident gay or feminist to trot out. She was right that the third wave is trash, but herself contributed to the shallow, neoliberal sex poz ideas behind it.

Could she say okay any more than she already does, okay?

R9 "Woke Twitter" wouldn't be smart enough to keep up with her anyways

Her first book 'Sexual Personae' was a revelation for me. One of those books that forced me to re-think things, to re-evaluate, to size things up differently. Her later contributions to different magazines and things haven't been on the same level, and she's sort of believed her own publicity at a certain point. I will never dismiss her, but now read anything she writes with a huge grain of salt.

She's into weird shit that doesn't really seem important or particularly interesting - on Salon.com, she couldn't stop talking about how amazing some Latin female singer is - how revolutionary and innovative the singer is. It was just kind of random and weird. She sounds like Roseanne Barr these days - just out of whack and not really focused.

OP is correct....Camille Paglia is the Sauerkraut of today's culture.

If Paglia were a pop star, she'd be Toni Basil.

She's garbage and a raging, crazy bitch.

R15 You mean Cyndi Lauper

Can you imagine her being your professor? Talks a mile a minute.

She is a totally unmedicated manic bipolar, right?

She's manic. And Italian.

And clever. And it's good to listen what's happening outside our own Echo Chambers.

LOL, I love it when the DL drags Camille!

Channeling Judy with the hair?

R1, your knee-jerk insertion of politics, and divisive Democrat party politics, in a discussion having absolutely nothing to do with those things, edtremely fucking trollish. STFU.

R23 cutta bitch!

[quote]I hate discovering someone I like takes her seriously. The BernBros, Jill Stein-bots, and Hillary Haters lap her up....and look how that worked out.

No, we don't. Sure, we love it when she bashes Hillary, but all her positions are conservative, and we're more left-wing than her AND YOU.

Myself, I think she's just a dumbed-down Nietzsche wannabe.

She has not ben relevant since the 1990s.

I was in college when she was at her peak “fame”. She warned that women have a responsibility to avoid date rape. As a young lady, it seemed reasonable. But now I am thinking 🤔 maybe she was wrong.

But because of her statement I internalized blame for some of my sort of date rapes.

It’s exhausting listening to her.

What R12 said. Absolutely.

Sometimes Paglia just nails it and does so in the most surprising way. And other times, she's just hot air wasted on a phony exploration of a worthless topic and produces nothing of value or interest.

But she's an academic. And about half of the academics I've known are redolent of Paglia's weaknesses and her strengths. She's just more focused than any of them on self-promotion. None of which would be possible with the real success, academically and commercially, of her early work. Without that, she would be just one more self-absorbed Ph.D., most of them boring young people in America's backwaters.

The key is reading her work. Not just her magazine squibs and blurbs. Video is worthless, except to make you dislike her. She's annoying. The printed page provides a much needed filter. But sometimes she's insightful.

She was excoriated for her thoughts, probably in Sexual Personae, about the predatory sexual nature of men and women's responsibility to themselves to be aware of that and make appropriate choices around it. She was clear that if all you teach your daughter before you send her off to college is, "No means No," you've put the young woman in danger. Paglia wrote that "No" is not always understood to mean "No" upstairs at a frat house during a drunken party. Just don't go up upstairs at a drunken frat party and save yourself that particular problem. Maybe just don't even go to the drunken frat party. Brett Kavanaugh, Sam Judge, and Christine Blasey Ford just extravagantly proved Paglia correct.

Milo Yiannopoulos thinks she is a genius, and that is all the evidence I need that she is a waste of time and someone whose ideas must be harmful.

Then you are an idiot, R30.

She wrote in a book that “man-boy love” was accepted in ancient Greece and should not be demonized today.

No wonder Milo loves her.

@R22 Looks like she’s in a Carson Mc Cullers phase

She voted for Jill Stein.

Both brilliant AND insufferable, as R12 and R29 have stated so well. I do love it when she fangurls about pop-culture trash, such as her paean to RHONJ's Jacqueline Laurita:

[quote]There was this incredible moment in this season’s culminating episode where they’re all fighting in the parking lot after the Posche fashion show at a Cuban restaurant in West New York. And there’s Jacqueline standing there alone in her sparkly black outfit and drop-dead strappy gold high heels. She looks like a Polynesian idol with her face frozen and tilted upward. It’s a classic Hollywood moment, all internal turmoil under that mask. She looks magnificent!

The Anna Nicole quote is divine.

The performing flea of trendy academia.

She is brilliant... Sexual Personae is a rigorous piece of scholarship and has made more of a contribution to humanity than any of you virtue signallers bitching about her in this thread.

You're right R38. Virtue signallers are so tedious to listen to.

I ignore 30% of the DL posts for their tedious Virtue signalling.

[quote]She voted for Jill Stein.

So did I.

She can drive you crazy--remember when she discovered the thrill that was Sarah Palin? But in Sexual Personae she makes Renaissance literature exciting. Very few people can do that.

I enjoy her about 50% of the time. The other 50%, she's completely batshit.

I used to like her, but as I've aged, her 'wind-up' commentary seems more and more theatrical. I was also put off when she said in an interview that Obama was responsible for the racial divide in the country. So, after nearly 300 years of White dominance and supremacy reinforced with slavery, Jim Crow segregation and out right racism....his eight years of managing the White House are the reason for the racial divide in America? As a Black man this really offended me. I used to look to her for dialogue and discussion on different issues,. but not now, she needs to go back to the drawing board and stop with all the theatrical tricks.

She's OK. She made her mark. Like a cat in heat. Respect.

Insightful but unhinged.

Beyond that, I'm with R10: Her verbal tic (the word "okay") makes her nearly unlistenable.

She's batshit about something things, yet brilliant about others. I do appreciate that she celebrates strong and vibrant women, which is becoming rare . Nowadays, the American media seems to despise strong women but love whiny little suburban girls who can't handle their own dating lives.

I would love to hear Camille Paglia riff on the topic of vocal fry.

R29 , I basically agree with you, but I think some of the negative aspects you noted are just her eccentricities that many super smart people have.

[quote]She voted for Jill Stein.

[quote]So did I.

I'm guessing you don't have children who will suffer the effects of the turmp presidency (Paglia has one child), so you are a conscience free trump enabler.

She's not brilliant. Whoever called her a narcissist had it right. In her hay day, she was bitching about how she wasn't a cheerleader in high school. But now, dear reader, she's thin and beautiful and the cheerleaders are fat.

But let me guess, you who think she's brilliant have never actually read her stuff.

People are frightened to praise anything about her because they think it will get them tarred and feathered.

Isn't she the one who once said that if civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts?

Sheesh, what an asshole.

I adore her art criticism, though her recent books on poetry and visual art were a little shallow. She wrote those for a general audience unfamiliar with those topics, so it’s understandable. She sees humanity and magnificence in art, something missed by modern theory like deconstructionism and the trends it spawned.

She comes off as crazy because much of her social commentary is framed as a response to American culture generally (and, indeed, sometimes she encourages that perception). It is not; it is a reaction against academia, the humanities in particular, where her rants about political correctness and liberal dogma have more credence. And by liberal dogma I mean whatever currents produced figures like Mattress Girl and Trigglypuff, objects of derision here and elsewhere. She calls out academic political posturing as elitist, self serving, self important, and out of touch, and she is right. But that’s not the American political landscape or the reality of most Americans, and her commentary is easily decontextualized and coopted by conservatives. In truth, however, she does encourages it. Her arrogance is astounding, and she is a natural polarizer and provocateur.

She is the sum of her contradictions. She was an out butch lesbian in the ‘60s when being so was much more difficult. She is a pro-religion atheist. She says that she learned how to be a woman from drag queens. And, if you really read her, it is all pretty consistent and holds together, and it’s not just media stunting. She is interesting at least.

Paglia has already been marginalized. She became prominent through shock, but that wears thin

R8: is this bitch on speed??? JHC. sorry but i couldn't read 50+ replies here. STFU you old bag.

I enjoyed her in my youth. I was, and remain, very liberal and feminist but I enjoyed her take on many subjects even if I didn't agree. I think those saying her time has passed have a point but not because she has nothing to say. Paglia was a troll before everyone knew what a troll was. A truly great troll actually gives a damn about what they're talking about but also have the ability to recognize the inherent absurdity in arguing a point that should be as plain as day. Most people don't have the skill or the intellect to do this in a meaningful way. What we have now are people whose goal is to simply be provocative. There is no point other than to inflame and even then it is only our emotions that are triggered.

I don't find her remotely brilliant either. She's just a lazy contrarian. A lesbian who says homosexuality is unnatural, a feminist who says abortion is murder, an atheist who speaks of nature as if it was an intelligent, sentient God, etc.

And as you can see, her contrarianism always pulls her closer to right-wing positions. She's a liberal in label but a conservative in stated views. That's all her supposed originality is based on.

She does have an impressive command of the cannon -- of classic literature references -- which she abuses to give her banal opinions an air of thoughtfulness that they don't truly possess.

Her most interesting thoughts are often borrowed from Nietzsche or Freud. So if you're taken by her, read their books instead. At least they will give you more social and cultural capital than her writings. Nietzsche is also a great writer and his books read well even in translation. The same I can't say about Paglia.

Madonna tolerated her for a few months and then kicked her to the curb for good. Camille won't ever get over it. She's said tons of things that would offend any self-respecting gay person, but I'm not going to hunt them down and post them for you. Research that subject yourself.

OP, I can just about stand seeing Joan Crawford at this hour of the morning on the front page of Datalounge. I should not have to see the face of that withered crone Camille Paglia.

F&F.

OP... Socrates was a critic of his time. He demonstrated that all the people who wielded power in Athens, were not the sages Athenians made them out to be. He also insisted that culture needed to be reformed so people could attain genuine happiness.

Paglia is the opposite. Like all conservatives, she want us to believe everything is fine -- capitalism is great and doesn't need any fixes, and happiness and success are just a matter of working like a mule for your bosses.

Madonna's a fucking idiot. Camille Paglia was her biggest champion and Madonna got her mixed up with Susan Sontag.

Fuck off, you crazy old dyke.

Camille has been over since the 90s. She needs to crawl back into the sewer and die.

Hearing all the criticism from DL makes me like her even more.

This creep is still alive?!

Does her pussy stink?

R65 me too

R54: Hi Milo. We Still Hate You.

She's like Trump in that she says so much stupid shit it's hard to keep up.

This (from 2008) didn't age so well:

"I had thought for many months that the flap over Obama's birth certificate was a tempest in a teapot. But simple questions about the certificate were never resolved to my satisfaction. Thanks to their own blathering, fanatical overkill, of course, the right-wing challenges to the birth certificate never gained traction."

And even less so:

"I like Sarah Palin, and I've heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is -- and quite frankly, I think the people who don't see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn't speak the King's English -- big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns -- that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World."

Psst: don't tell Paglia that Third World Feminism has been a thing for several decades. And most of those women think the US "pro-life" movement is a load of misogynist bullshit.

She has a sour grapes view of blonde women. It’s telling.

That’s pretty much all I remember about her writings from the 90s.

She's so fucking stupid.

Do you have a particular instance to back up that assertion R72?

R73: Did you not read R70's post? That's all you need to know about this troll and the way she has no idea of what she's talking about.

Here's another example of just how fucking stupid she is (and how much she panders to misogynists):

PLAYBOY: Do you support the men's movement?

PAGLIA: I think it's absolutely necessary. It's no coincidence that Tim Allen's book is vying with the Pope's for the top of the best-seller lists. He is one of the voices of men who are looking to define masculinity in this age. Robert Bly does this, too. We have allowed the sexual debate to be defined by women, and that's not right. Men must speak, and speak in their own voices, not voices coerced by feminist moralists. Warren Farrell, in The Myth of Male Power, points out how much propaganda has infiltrated the culture. For example, he says that the assertion that women earn so much less than men is bullshit. The reason women earn less than men is that women don't want the dirty jobs. They aren't picking up the garbage, taking the janitorial jobs and so on. They aren't taking the sales commission jobs that require you to work all night and on weekends. Most women like clean, safe offices, which is why they are still secretaries. They don't want to get too dirty. Also, women want offices to be nice, happy places. What bullshit. The women's movement is rooted in the belief that we don't even need men. All it will take is one natural disaster to prove how wrong that is. Then, the only thing holding this culture together will be masculine men of the working class. The cultural elite--women and men--will be pleading for the plumbers and the construction workers. We are such a parasitic class.

JUST 4 QUESTIONS PRIOR:

PLAYBOY: But what about the women who stay home and are still suffering?

PAGLIA: The problem is the alternative handed to them by feminism. I look at my friends who are on the fast track. They are desperate, frenzied and frazzled, the most unhappy women who have ever existed. They work nights and weekends and have no lives. Some of them have children who are raised by nannies.

And for shits and giggles, here she also blames women for their own rape and abuse at the hands of men and says AIDS is nature's punishment against slutty gay men.

The people calling her stupid are feeble minded. They are the reason Trump got into power.

I don't know much about her. Her quotes that R70 and R76 highlighted don't make me think she is smart. Just another "liberal" contrarian.

I wonder why those who champion the conservative status quo always act like what they do is some sort of revelation, when in reality it's just the same old, same old.

Actually R76, the reason that Trump got into power is because there aren't enough people capable of seeing through the horseshit that people like Trump and Paglia spew.

Oh, and because they love their bigoted nonsense.

So many stupid people who can't see Paglia or Trump for the obvious shitheads they are. Incredible!

It'd be nice is posters here could actually give thoughtful information instead of just adolescent abuse.

Holy shit - can't you read?

Says R80, whose posts in this thread contain nothing of substance.

Susan Faludi knew women but knew nothing about men. Camilla Paglia knows nothing about anyone she can't see in her bathroom mirror.

Cpag has a bonkers style that is impossible to imitate and she is very very funny-- sometimes on purpose and sometimes because her writing is so overcooked and ridiculous. (Which still counts as on purpose.) She is a total blast to read, and she has a smart or at least interesting insight fairly frequently.

But she is a COMPLETE loon. And it's not just her politics-- even her pop culture criticism is frequently quite insane. (See: her bizarre worship of Brazilian pop star Daniela Mercury?) She is a very gifted writer and is not stupid, but anyone who takes her at all seriously is an imbecile.

@ R84 I like the "Cpag" abbreviation. It makes her sound like a virus that causes gastro-intestinal distress, which she does. Keep up the good work!

I had to leave work early because of stomach cramps, and I spent the whole night on the toilet. Doctor diagnosed Cpag! God, the streams of hot shit coming from Cpag are unbelievable! Who can take all this shit?

Hilarious how people are trying to paint Paglia as a moron. Just read any of her work, it will blow your feeble little minds.

R87 is in that category of deplorables who are easily impressed with $.50 words.

She's kooky about some things but she makes some brilliant points about others. One thing Paglia consistently gets right is the pathological infantilization of Wasp,suburban American females, until they hit about 40. They are treated like children in this society,devoid of any responsibility for their own sex lives and choices. She was very astute in pointing out how insane it is that young women are demanding that campus professors and employees involve themselves in the dating and sex lives of young women. These are supposed to be places of education and higher learning, not organizations of sexual hall monitors. She's correct that you see nothing like this in Europe. I also appreciate her discussions of classic films, movie stars and pop culture. She really has an appreciation for art, form, and sensuality that is rare in today's uptight puritanical world of academia.

Bump

Camille, stoping bumping your thread.

Was Sontag just being a cunt when she said she didn't know who Camille was?

r88 She's more knowledgeable and well read than you ever will be.

Didn’t she dump her girlfriend to be a groupie for the Brazilian singer?

R94: I always thought the "wife" up and left her after she got sick and tired of all the bullshit. Can't say I blame her...

R93 actually thinks that's a sick burn on a anonymous website.

I've always appreciated Paglia's take on pop culture, she can be very funny.

Her new essay collection just came out.

The Brazilian singer is utterly, totally straight, which makes this even crazier.

[quote]The Brazilian singer is utterly, totally straight, which makes this even crazier.

Um, NOPE. Daniela Mercury has been married to a woman since 2013.

I know there were accusations of domestic violence against Camille by her former partner.

r96, pop culture is about the level of your knowledge you incompetent fuckwit. Paglia actually has extensive knowledge of ACTUAL culture.

Yes the woman who championed Sarah palin and madonna is clearly culturally astute, R102

She's the bag lady of American Letters.

Link, R101?

Domestic violence? She beat up Alison maddex? Never heard this before.

She’s the old cranky woman who’s ahead of me in line at Rite-Aid who wants all the competitors coupons honored for stuff she isn’t buying.

r103, have you read Sexual Personae? She covers the entire western cultural canon from late 20th century to antiquity. What the fuck is your accomplishment or knowledge base in comparison?

R108 Obviously, NOT CHAMPIONING SARAH MOTHERFUCKING PALIN

"She covers the entire western cultural canon from late 20th century to antiquity."

LOL, no she doesn't. It's ridiculously long, but not that long.

That would be from antiquity to the late 20th century. Propositions matter. I get that you jack off to her, R108. If shallow, vain, and bad writing get you off, do you.

In the 90s she wrote an amazing essay about the state of contemporary sexuality called No Law in the Arena, I'm hardly an academic, but I guess I read it at the right time; it was such an exciting read and it just blew me away. Then I suggested a good friend read it, and she couldn't get past three or four pages.

She credited Jacqueline Kennedy's unwavering focus, leadership and strength in the days that followed JFK's assassination to her love of horses and her equestrian upbringing and training. Always loved that.

[quote] The Brazilian singer is utterly, totally straight, which makes this even crazier.

I looked the singer up and she's now married to a woman. I guess Paglia was onto something.

Only 5 reviews for her book on Amazon and number #987 in sales.

Ovah. But was never there.

Wasn't this sour-faced annoying fame-seeker obsessed with Madonna at some point. IIRC, she was a huge fan.

Paglia was the only cultural critic praising Madonna during her most provocative period and you slag her off? Proves you know nothing about her work.

I heard Paglia speak c. 2001 and she spent most of the evening ranting about and lavishing praise on Madonna and Suzanne Pleshette! Very strange evening. My partner booked the tickets but I think he mixed her up with Fran Lebowitz. On the way home he was very disappointed that she hadn’t talked more about New York in the 70s.

Did she use Microsoft Paint to design her book cover???

Do you mean the book cover that rips off Andy Warhol's portrait of Elizabeth Taylor? That book cover?

Which book cover??

Look up thread at R98

R32. Which book? Why would you throw out something that extreme without even naming the book. Sexual Personae? No....

I bet someone told you that or just made it up because it “sounds like her.”

“These days, especially in America, boy-love is not only scandalous and criminal, but somehow in bad taste. On the evening news, one sees handcuffed teachers, priests and Boy Scout leaders hustled into police vans. Therapists call them maladjusted, emotionally immature. But beauty has its own laws, inconsistent with Christian morality. As a woman, I feel free to protest that men today are pilloried for something that was rational and honorable in Greece at the height of its civilization.”

Excerpt from “Sexual Personae” by Camille Paglia

[quote] Socrates of today's culture?

Be careful when googling Paglia’s quotes - you may literally end up on NAMBLA’s website.

R27, more than one?

Politically incorrect democrats are fine, but she caters way too much to the right.

She's great. I hear she's Epsteins favorite writer. Who doesn't love fucking minors?

She's a crazy bitch and I often don't agree with her, but I love her fierce outspokenness.

r123, her take in her first book is not slanted in the direction that is generally tolerated nowadays, but she is citing historical fact.

She's admittedly a bit nuts and I don't agree with everything she says, but Sexual Personae is one of the most underrated books of the 20th century—her insight in that book is unbelievable, as is her scope and knowledge of human history. It's an amazing, dense, revelatory piece of literature, and I somehow doubt that most of her empty-headed detractors have so much as read page of it.

She's right to slag and snark about what deconstruction and critical theory eventually begat at our universities. And I'm a product of that, but I saw it in action and avoided the silly masturbation as best as I could. I'm fine with Paglia. Far better than some pretentious useless cunt academic like Avital Ronell.

I love her opinions and her writing, but I'm sure she is pedestrian as hell to deal with IRL.

She's a lesbian who hates gay men.

R135 you have no idea what you're talking about.

I will always remember this Wonkette headline.

"Hillary's gross wormwood tits" should be the name of a punk band!