OnlineHost: Welcome to George Online! We are here LIVE with Camille Paglia,
Author of "Sexual Personae" and "Sex, Art, and American Culture". She is
currently a Professor of Humanities at the University of the Arts in
Philadelphia. Welcome Camille!
We'll now take questions for Camille Paglia.
ProfCP: Hi, great to be here!
Question: Camille, why hasn't NOW stepped up to the plate and said anything
about the Dick Morris/Call Girl scandal? You'd think they'd be livid.
ProfCP: The total hypocrisy of NOW was also shown by their odd silence over
the Paula Jones case. Funny, how selective the feminist establishment is
about sex scandals!
Question: Hi Camille, excuse my ignorance. So what's NOW's gripe with you and
what is your gripe with them?
ProfCP: Betty Friedan founded NOW and even she has been expelled by them! NOW
should have been much more oriented toward ordinary women everywhere.
Instead, it became a prisoner of a lawyer-heavy, arrogant, bicoastal elite.
They are like the Politburo of Stalinist Russia!
Question: Ms. Paglia, what books are on your nightstand and beyond "Sexual
Personae," which books should be on ours?
ProfCP: Nothing is on my nightstand, since I am a passionate TV watcher at
night! I devour not serious fiction--ugh! that genre is finished--but
celebrity biographies and political history and archaeology.
Question: What do you think of Melrose Place?
ProfCP: Melrose Place is a fairly ordinary night time soap that is nowhere
near as hot as the daytime soaps were in their heyday. I love The Young and
the Restless and have been watching it for 23 years.
Question: Youve been looking so glamorous lately. Who does your hair and makeup? You have surpassed even the old Gloria Steinem's hip look.
ProfCP: I look like a complete hag! Where in the world have you seen me? It's
true I have been experimenting with a teeny little blonde rinse this past
year, but what's a girl to do? I'm 49, folks!
Question: Camille Rules! First I must ask you what do you think of the Rosie
O'Donnell Show
ProfCP: Rosie's show is the biggest overhyped pile of tripe I've seen in
years! For heaven's sake, she's so strident and forced, it's unbearable!
Queen of Nice--give me a break! Oprah still rules--in fact I'll be on Oprah
on Sept. 19 - it was taped during the Democratic Convention, so I got a chance
to see Miss Hillary give her big speech live. And then I met Our Patron
Saint, JFK, Jr. at his little soiree later.
Question: I want to know why you write about sex?
ProfCP: I have been studying it since before it became fashionable. At the
Yale Grad School, for example, where I was from 1968 to 1972, I was literally
the only person in the humanities departments doing a dissertation on
sex - hard to believe now, but I was a real pioneer and I took the career hit
for it. It was considered tacky, low, not serious - my dears, I was
absolutely scouring the Yale archives for every bit of dirt on homosexuality,
sadomasochism, transvestism - you name it. That is the basis of the research
for my first book, Sexual Personae, which was my dissertation.
Question: Does it upset you that of all parties, that no one has chose anyone
but a white male as a presidential or vice-presidential candidate?
ProfCP: It's very disappointing, as I think that Christine Whitman really has
what it would take to be the first woman president, and she would have made a
fine vice-presidential pick. I love the way Gerry Ferraro, whom I adore, has
become so seasoned with time and truly developed into a statesman. I think a
lot of strong women are coming along, however, in both parties, and we'll see
a change soon.
Question: So Camille, if you could were in Congress and could introduce
legislation today, what would it be?
ProfCP: I would legalize drugs and stop this insane waste of money in the
so-called drug war. It is absurd to think that any government can ever stop
an international trade that satisfies people's desire to automedicate their
brains. We should take the money that's going down the drain in interdiction
and put it into inner city schools and universal health care.
Question: What do you think is the cause of the incresed incidence of male
impotency?
ProfCP: Men are shrinking, I've told you all this a thousand times! When
will you wake up? Testosterone needs encouragement in order to operate at
peak intensity! This is why my third bestseller, Vamps and Tramps, opened
with a celebration of the penis!
Question: What is an ordinary woman?
ProfCP: Meg Ryan, that boring little squirt, is an ordinary woman. Next
question!
Question: I love you when you're on Politically Incorrect. How much of that
show is rehearsed or scripted? What do you think of Bill Maher?
ProfCP: Bill Mahar has been a very important figure. After Dennis Miller, he
really has been the first comedian to break from the Hollywood-New York
liberal lockstep in comedy, I find Mahar to be a very independent thinker who
cannot be categorized politically. I've been on that show for two consecutive
programs just one on one with Bill, but I'm pretty sure they don't really
rehearse. Listen, Letterman is completely scripted - it's notorious in the
industry. I've never been on that show, but I would absolutely hate it. They
make you go over all your remarks, both sides. Nothing is spontaneous. It
makes me sick. Johnny Carson never did that.
Question: Do you feel that the media tries to box your views into something
consistent with tradiional "steinem"feminism?
ProfCP: The media was totally under Steinem's influence for 20 years, and I'm
the one who finally broke it. Christina Hoff Sommers has also helped with
her exposes. I don't feel boxed in by the media, because it's only dissident
figures in the media who were able to finally free us from the stranglehold
of the old school feminist establishment.
Question: Hi Ms. Paglia...I saw a short documentary film about you a couple
of years ago in the San Francisco Gay/Lesbian Film Festival. Is that
available on video or anything so that I might share it with other people I
know (I found you absolutely fascinating and riveting).
ProfCP: I'm not sure which one you're talking about--but the Monica Treut
"Female Misbehavior" is indeed available on video. I'm not sure if the two
Glennda Orgasm videos are universally available yet, but contact Glenn
Belverio - Glennda, you know - in NYC.
Question: So, what do you watch at night ?
ProfCP: I love Entertainment Tonight, followed by a tussle between Hard Copy
and Crossfire, then there's the spate of 8 PM movies that compete with A and
E's fabulous biography series. Then it's onto Larry King, followed by Mary
Tyler Moore or I Love Lucy - on and on until 1 AM. Then I have to get to bed
since I teach early in the AM!
Question: Who would you like to vote for and why?
ProfCP: I'm a Clinton Democrat. Despite my criticisms of the
administration - I despise the White House staff, for example, and I've been a
bit tart about Miss Hillary - I totally support the Clinton-Gore issues.
Question: Who do you think are good women role models?
ProfCP: Historically? Or now? My great inspirations were Amelia Earhart and
Katharine Hepburn. I've also liked Ann Richards of Texas and as I said, Gerry
Ferraro is peachy!
Question: Ms. Paglia, I was converted immediately the first line of SP - "In
the beginning was nature." What audacity! Have you decided on the first
line of your next book?
ProfCP: That hast been completely decided yet, but I want to thank you for
the divine observation that no one ever, ever, ever makes! I have constantly
said that that first line of Sexual Personae contains all of my thinking and
furthermore that it signals that I am a SATIRIST, since I am parodying the
Bible! But of course no one ever catches that, since my critics, especially
at Harvard, are illiterate!
Question: What do you think about the mainstream's subtle absorption of gay
and androgynous images? For example, Madonna, Calvin Klein, Bennetton...the
list goes on...
ProfCP: This has been a slow process over 30 years that began with my
generation in the Sixties. But it can be shown, as it was by the great gay
film critic, Parker Tyler, that Hollywood has been pumping androgyny into the
Western mind for most of this century.
Question: Camille you're the reason I even buy the Advocate nowadays, why the
change of heart? That magazine still revolts me!
ProfCP: NEWSFLASH to you all! I resigned from the ADVOCATE this week in a
great huff! There's a new editor there--their first woman--who doesn't know
her apples from her elbows. It all blew up over her mishandling of a cover
story interview I was supposed to do in NYC last Friday with Dennis
Rodman - my quirky double.
Question: Having enjoyed your writings I decided to take a women's history
class (I'm the only male) and already I'm getting the impression that NOW is
not unique, in terms of representing upper middle class women. Is this
correct?
ProfCP: NOW is just a clique of special interests. It doesn't speak for all
women or all feminists.
Question: Is JFK as good looking in person as in print?
ProfCP: I have to say that he is an Adonis--and I have never used the term in
my life - I mean, aside from referring to the real Adonis of Greek antiquity,
of course. His skin is the most beautiful dusky color - it's the Bouvier
heritage, probably. And he was so nice, it was unbelievable. Jackie did an
amazing job with those two kids.
Question: Serious question: Why are we gays wasting our time trying to get
gay marriages recognized. Shouldn't we be concerned only with the legal
aspects of gay unions?
ProfCP: The legal arm of gay activism has been very inept in how it handled
this controversy. It should have been focusing on the inequitable favoring of
conventionally married couples, so that the facts were all out there for
people to see. I myself feel that the word "marriage" is a red flag and
should not have been used. It is clearly not fair that I am in effect
supporting all the spouses and children of my colleagues at my university in
terms of access to health benefits, when my own lover cannot have them. It's
about time the actual statistics on these matters be reserached and
publicized. We must have equality before the law. Modern governments have in
fact drifted into favoring religiously sanctioned or defined marriages--we
need a far more searching critique of how and why that happened. But it must
be done with respect for traditional religious values. I am always appalled
at the juvenile tone that gay activists take when they discuss religion. That
alone has doomed this particular battle and it will make winning full gay
rights much more difficult.
Question: What do you think of female dominance or submission?
ProfCP: Naturally, I am for female dominance! I love being dominant, but
never at home, where I am ruled by Alison, as is only proper. Women should
never submit in the public sphere - except of course to Sharon Stone.
Question: Camille, if asked, would you pose nude for a men's magazine?
ProfCP: Absolutely not! But it is on aesthetic and not moral grounds. If
you've got it, flaunt it. But the reverse is also sadly true.
Question: Do you feel that the erotica genre is experiencing a resurgence as
a result of the net? What are your thoughts about how the net affects sexual
topics?
ProfCP: I love the way the Net has ground the Dworkin-MacKinnon faction's
face into the dust. Yeah, they thought they'd gotten rid of porn and were
making inroads by getting the men's magazines out of the convenince store
chains and by sanitizing our porn videos, but here came the Net and bam! the
perverse human sexual imagination came roaring back! Love it!
Question: When is Part II of Sexual Personae coming out?
ProfCP: I've been slowly revising it but being very careful not to go too
fast, as it's the sequel and deserves my respect for the material.
Meanwhile, haven't I given you all a ton of stuff to read in the meantime?
Question: What do you think of all those new whiny women rockers?
ProfCP: I have just written a very tart piece for Guitar World that will be
out in the November issue in which I said that none of these new women
rockers can hold a candle to Deborah Harry, Pat Benatar, Heart, Patti Smith
in her heyday, Crissie Hynde, or the GoGos. Elastica, for example, is such a
joke - it's embarrassing that anyone would think that band can rival Pearl Jam
or Live or Van Halen. And Courtney Love is such a blob - a musician she's
not! And as for Tory Amos - don't get me started. What a wuss!
OnlineHost: We have time for one last question for Camille Paglia.
Question: I read you editorial a few months ago where you explained how in
touch the President was with his feminine side. Do you still find this to be
the case given his recent actions against Iraq and his performance in the
election campaign?
ProfCP: I'm not very happy about the way we're dropping missles on an Islamic
country. For heaven's sake, then we wonder why our passenger planes are
being blown out of the sky? I have no confidence whatever in the motives for
this stupid reawakening of the Iraq crisis, which conveniently got Dick
Morris out of headlines. We went into this without our allies - do you
realize how painstakingly that alliance was put together by the Bush
administration? This White House staff is inept beyond belief. Look at our
Secretary of Defense as well - he looks like Mr. Rogers, barely out of his
neighborhood. I hardly think this is the cool, collected, masculine face of
our military!
OnlineHost: Thank you everyone for showing up, we had many great questions;
sorry we couldn't get to all of them. Thank you, Camille for coming online to
answer our questions.
ProfCP: Good night, everyone!
Copyright 1996 America Online, Inc.
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