Bret Easton Ellis on identity politics
I’ve never read anything by Bret Easton Ellis before. One reason is that I don’t like fiction all that much unless it’s fabulous, and I definitely don’t like violent fiction, which by all accounts American Psycho (Ellis’s most popular novel) is:
American Psycho…[was] published in 1991. The story is told in the first person by Patrick Bateman, a serial killer and Manhattan businessman. The Observer notes that while “some countries [deem it] so potentially disturbing that it can only be sold shrink-wrapped”, “critics rave about it” and “academics revel in its transgressive and postmodern qualities”.
Most definitely not my cup of tea.
And that was the sum total of what I knew about Bret Easton Ellis until today, when this Rolling Stone interview with Ellis caught my eye.
This is not what I expected to see:
Q: You tweeted that you were done discussing politics with liberals at dinner. Is it because everyone plays the role of knee-jerk shock and outrage?
A: Completely. I live with a Trump-hating, millennial socialist. I am not, as my boyfriend will tell everyone, political. I’m interested in the theater of it, how each side plays the game, and how the media has morphed with it. I have never seen liberals be more annoying than they are now. These last few weeks really were a flipping point for me, with the depression over the Supreme Court and the way the detention centers were being spun by the liberal media. It’s obviously a game. Here’s Rachel Maddow crying on TV, and pictures of Trump detention centers. My stepfather, who is a Polish Jew, had his entire family wiped out when he was an infant. Throwing around words like Nazi, Gestapo and comparisons to Weimar Germany is like, “Really guys? You’re going there?” I’ve had enough. I think there’s a reason why the #WalkAway movement is getting it’s ten seconds of fame, because there’s a real reaction toward the stridency of how Democrats are expressing their disappointment. It’s turning a lot of people off.
Q:As a gay man, what if your right to marry is suddenly taken away? Doesn’t that anger you on a primal level?
A: That is suggesting that I believe in identity politics, and that I vote with my penis. It’s suggesting that immigration, the economy and other policies matter so much less than whether I can marry a man. It’s not something that I worry about, or is on my mind. That’s the problem with identity politics, and it’s what got Hillary into trouble. If you have a vagina, you had to vote for Hillary. This has seeped into a bedrock credo among a lot of people, and you’ve gotta step back. People are not one-issue voters. I am not going to vote as a gay man, and I don’t think the idea of us not being allowed to marry is going to happen. Pence has his issues, but Trump is not an anti-gay president in any way, shape or form. I also have gay friends who support and voted for Trump, based on certain policies. It’s not just about being gay and being able to marry.
Refreshing common sense. But common sense seems much less common these days than it used to be.
I said it wasn’t the sort of thing I expected to see, and that was because although I knew very little about Ellis except a vague recollection of reviews of his book and the movie based on it, I’m so used to people in the arts toeing the complete liberal/left line. He’s in the arts. But he certainly doesn’t toe the line. Nor does he seem to be any sort of Trump supporter, either (although he’s a bit cryptic about that, saying only this: “yes. Bateman [Ellis’s fictional serial killer] adores Trump, and his idol is president.” Doesn’t sound like much of an endorsement, though.
But thinking about it further, maybe that “transgressive” aspect of his work is responsible for Ellis having the “f-you” attitude that allows him to speak his mind without worrying about the PC crowd. As he says in another part of the interview, “My work really rubs people the wrong way, and my social persona has rubbed people the wrong way. I have to be true to myself.”
Interesting.
Ellis enjoys being a contrarian and shocking his rich friends on the Left. That’s why he wrote American Psycho, which was dropped by (I think) Simon & Schuster because some of the editorial were appalled, or felt pressure to be appalled.
That’s not his most characteristic book, by the way. I actually reviewed Less Than Zero, his breakthrough novel when he was 21. In the mid-80s, the publishing industry was looking both for youth and for attractive females. (Postcards with her photo were passed out along with Susan Minot’s book Lust. Darcey Steinke’s Suicide Blonde was promoted similarly.) In any case, I happened, through connections I won’t reveal, to see and read the version of American Psycho that its publisher dropped, before it was picked up I believe by Sonny Mehta at Knopf. Supposedly it was heavily edited forthwith.
Most of his other novels have been about rich college who get into drugs. There’s a lot of untraditional sex and romance is very rare, as is any kind of traditional morality. He writes about the L.A./Hollywood milieu wherein everything is corrupt. It’s probably accurate enough, to some extent — and it’s also what people on the outside want to believe.
His books are not stupid, but they’re also not very “deep.”
I know someone who knows him. Supposedly Ellis as a podcast that entertaining and witty. He’s maybe something like a new Truman Capote, without the annoying manner and voice.
Equal, not “=” (political congruence). Not just homosexuals, but all transgendered (i.e. mental/orientation or physical), and beyond. Civil unions without ceremony and #Judgment.
That said, #TooManyLabels has been busy reducing men to their penis, women to their cat in the hat, indoctrinating and corrupting adolescent and prepubescent boys and girls, and denying life to fetuses, offspring, babies that are deemed unworthy or a profitable colorful clump of cells.
Ellis is AC-DC and doesn’t seem to have ever been immersed in the gay subculture. or to have been addled by the idea that he merited applause due to some Special quality.
Was the book less than zero very different from the movie? The movie to my surprise was pretty pro conservative, pretty much about a young conservative yuppie college student productive citizen coming home to save his best friend and former lover from their liberal progressive unproductive gratification focused self destructive life style. but it was a different era debuted at the height of the Reagan era when being a young conservative was the hip thing to do (Family tie). He hated the movie so I guess it wasn’t supposed to be a accurate reflection of he true beliefs.
He’s maybe something like a new Truman Capote, without the annoying manner and voice.
Ellis has been around for 30-odd years. Capote ca. 1981 was spent as a producer of literature and three years from death.
I have loved his novels except for American Psycho, and even it had parts to it that would recommend it.
Dave, the movie was quite different from the novel- a far different tone and structure. Since i had read the novel before seeing the movie, it was quite striking to me at the time. I learned many years later (2010 or 2011) when the author wrote the sequel that he didn’t like the movie at all and refused to see it.
I’ve seen both Less Than Zero and American Psycho films and liked them, especially the first. (Only a little violence and no gore in LTZ Neo, if you care.)
The Trivia on LTZ over at IMDB, though not well put together, addresses some of Dave’s questions. The studio decided at the beginning that the decadence in the book had to be toned down, and the characters a bit more likeable compared to the book.
Ellis initially hated the film partly because he had envisioned all the leads as blondes and they were mostly cast as brown haired. The other thing he hated then and now was the casting of Andrew McCarthy as the quasi-hero which I think is loosely based on Ellis himself. He also said that 20 years later, he likes the film, with the exception of McCarthy.
While neither film is philosophically deep, American Psycho is structurally complex. I always appreciate a novel or film that makes you work to grasp all of things it is trying to say. Which parts of the film are delusion, hallucination, or an accurate self-parody of an investment banker on Wall St?
Didn’t read the book, but the film of American Psycho was a jet-black comedy.
His core data is available online so I’ll do an assessment of his personality chart using sources.
Ellis likes to be, internally, on a big adventure, to explore new and innovative ideas. That is why publishers have issues with him since publishers prefer mainstream and safe things. His confidence is like Trum’s, but without the showmanship, outwards appearance focus. His is more internal and is based on humor or making jokes. He likes new experiences and is straightforward in many respects concerning what he says. He has a tendency towards dark humor, or at least the potential for it, and this can be used to smooth his way when things get warlike or conflict prone based on what he says or does. The new and strange he is attracted towards, at least in part, and does not fear new things as much as say others.
His character liking Trum is a good example of that type of dark humor that is designed to make him hard to predict or read, as well as observing both sides and being neutral. He doesn’t want to pick a side because it would limit his experience.
His inherent fate is tied to fame and fortune, but the negative side of that potential is that his ego can get out of bound very easily and he starts paying less attention to what other people want. This is pretty normal for people connected to Hollywood in some shape or form, although it looks like Ellis has avoided that entanglement for most of his life. He could have been more famous and wealthy if he had sacrificed even more things to Hollywood ; )
One of his peculiar unique aspects is that he uses his pride as a sort of way to reinforce his ethical behavior. Those two aspects are tied together. Given his statements, it looks like he has fulfilled most of that potential by now and has kept the negative effects in check for now.
Peculiar and specific to Ellis is that he has financial issues. Meaning, he seems to have income but has problems either retaining it or keeping it or growing the liquid funds. His marital life is not exactly easy sailing either.
Ellis should have a very strong desire for independence or for control over his life. This is backed by his intuition more than his knowledge, social connections, or economic circles.
His internal mood is not necessarily the same as what he shows on his surface persona either. That tends to change a little bit more often than others. Beneath the outer veneer of his persona, he does not like to kiss up to famous people nor does he like injustice.
This guy has several indicators and reinforcements of certain internal motivations such as freedom loving, justice loving, and so on. It is not based on respect for a nation or the US Constitution. He has some potential to be a politician, a doctor, or an administrator.
He may have a tendency to buy things on impulse, to collect or hoard things that he likes seeing or using for his own purposes. This is centered around the selfish/pride issue, if he doesn’t keep that in check.
His whole persona comes across as daring, not just in his work field. His intelligence and self confidence is well above the average.
On a personal note, I don’t know Ellis from Satan Clause, these are just external sources assessing him. It should be quite accurate, inaccuracies would be the result of my own misinterpretation of certain things as well as the individual’s ability to change himself or his path in life.
People think the DS is spying on them via Facebook? Snorts, wait until people realize what else is going on.
The movie which I loved, and which I think that Ellis thinks is the best movie from his work, was Rules Of Attraction.
Based on that, I don’t think Ellis is AC/DC. I think he’s homosexual. I agree he’s not Gay, though. He has no tolerance for the drama queens cluttering up his circle.
Milo Yiannopoulis is very fond of Easton. I begin to see why.