Bret Easton Ellis

Social-justice warriors never think like artists,” Ellis declares, as if this is a sentence.

say what you will about the sentence, but it is definitely a sentence.

literalist

well, when you're writing about bad prose...

god i wish there were more interviews like this, ellis is such a fucking self satisfied dope and out of his depth

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/bret-easton-ellis-thinks-youre-overreacting-to-donald-trump

Agreed. Agreed.

Well, you said it—of course you agree. So what you are saying is that everyone can agree assault is wrong, but maybe we are going too far?

so good, man

Ouch. I almost couldn’t finish that, I was so embarrassed for him.

I have... thoughts.

I read the whole thing, which was excruciating. Here's what I posted on a friend's FB thread:

"I’m a fan of his, with reservations post-2013. (He isn’t making it easy.) As I said on someone else’s share of this interview, I’m actually HAPPY this interview happened - because it might help inspire Ellis to shut the fuck up about politics, which he’s admittedly misinformed about (not just here, but on his podcast and social media) and stick to what actually makes him INTERESTING and of value for many of us who follow him - which gets drowned out by the political/cultural stuff, which grabs headlines and has transformed him into an all-around punching bag - his aesthetic perspectives on film and literature."

In the next week or two I'll have a review of White out in the world, which I'll link here when it's up.

my impression is that his fiction, and its portrayal of people who are often decadent and at best morally ambivalent, reflects his actual view of human nature. the validation of his work being successful has made him think that everyone's like one of his characters and doesn't get why claiming real life figures and their behavior falls within acceptable boundaries brings outrage

he's not exactly a writer of stories where characters come to epiphanies about their own behavior although he's due a few of his own

ray is otm, so much of BEE's podcast is old man yelling at cloud / millennial boyfriend. but i enjoy his film commentary, even if i disagree with him most of the time.

We could totally do without him by now, couldn't we?

We could totally do without him by now, couldn't we?

Pretty much, yeah, and I'm someone who loved Less Than Zero, American Psycho and Glamorama (the latter in particular; I've read it four or five times).

Lunar Park is the one... his most sincere & moving prose

I tried Lunar Park but couldn't make it to the end.

he's doing this to get his name in the cycle imo. if this interview goes well, who reads it? almost no-one. instead...

does he express the same dipshitted thought-free views on his podcast for hours every week and in other interviews and in his writing as part of the same long game?

yes

his whole career has been exactly like this

any decade now, he's going to write something that isn't surface-level vapid in its understanding of humans and money, and we'll all be wowed because of his careful cultivation of alternate expectations over the rest of his output

Having heard many of his podcasts I'm always amused that his opening salvo about whatever he saw at ArcLight that week or some snowflake grievance is done with his guest waiting quietly there with him. He'll go in for 10 minutes before introducing them and they have to jump in wherever he is.

10? more like 45

it is a good bit

any decade now, he's going to write something that isn't surface-level vapid in its understanding of humans and money, and we'll all be wowed because of his careful cultivation of alternate expectations over the rest of his output

ok I just read the interview... wow 🥵

You came to the defense of Roseanne Barr, saying that she denied, after tweeting racist stuff about Valerie Jarrett, knowing Valerie Jarrett was black.

Did she say that? That she didn’t know she was black?

You say it in the book.

Yeah, right, I quoted her.

Thanks so much for talking.

It’s interesting to have that back-and-forth pull in an interview. The only problem, however, is that I am not that political, and so, when we have this conversation, and you confront me with certain things like this, I really am, I have to say, at a loss.

what a choad

he’s SO imperious like some regent giving audience to a scribe which is hilarious bc almost no-one gives a shit about him anymore

Seems like the people posting here give a shit about him

I kind of hate that they used that dewy, youthful glamourshot of him in that interview (note: I've never given a fuck about him besides that checkmark on gay men who are terrible misogynists.).

the shtick of saying wrong or irritating things in conversation to get attention, only to reveal you don't remember any particular conversation because you had no real emotional investment in one thing

doing so in print and then shrugging it off as "oh, I guess I wrote that, whatever" to further irritate an interviewer and the audience makes me think he's subconsciously going for next-level jackanapes status

The entire comes off as him having had many decades of therapy but ultimately he just doesn't care because it doesn't affect him personally (except for not being able to fuck his millennial boyfriend in peace). Please buy his book.

otm, that disaffected stance of "I don't give a shit about any of this but it's the only thing anyone around me will talk about. I'll just be contrary so they pay attention to me."

As I posted upthread he was reflective when talking about this when I saw him a decade ago, but since then he’s obviously gone full culture war and decided that he was the wronged party and that he’s never, ever getting over it.

I think I am an absurdist. I think politics are ridiculous.

Maybe don’t write a book about it. Would that be the solution?

[I think the problem is that I don’t necessarily see this as interesting as fiction.

Yeah, I could tell.

lmao

i love isaac chotiner's interviews, he's remarkably good at letting people hang themselves

I haven't been able to track down who they're talking about, but some people on twitter have mentioned that Bret's partner is a boring-ass centrist democrat.

He seems to be a Biden fan, so yes.

Does Biden have a lot of millennial support? Wouldn’t have thought so.

Does Biden have a lot of millennial support? Wouldn’t have thought so.

he's def the choice of boring-ass centrist democrats

he watches Maddow and his name is Todd

otm, that disaffected stance of "I don't give a shit about any of this but it's the only thing anyone around me will talk about. I'll just be contrary so they pay attention to me."

This. He tweaks the left because they are the only ones who know who he is and might give a shit. Trump voters likely don’t give a shit about him; can’t rebel if no one knows who you are.

remember back when ivanka trump was explaining that she wanted a man like patrick bateman

sometimes ponder whether she thinks she got that

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/discovery-todd-michael-schultz

ok, if that's Todd's actual twitter account I found...

...well, I don't really use twitter to be an intellectual, but jesus christ

Him tweeting “come over at do bring coke now” at like 5 in the morning that one time was pretty good tbh

Gloriously scathing review from Anna Leszkiewicz at the graun.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/24/white-by-bret-easton-ellis-review-sound-fury-and-insignificance

Best review yet in nailing how Ellis acts like the detached observer when he's the irrational, outraged one. Funny how David Mamet has done something similar, going from being the guy who was all about the mechanics and math of playwriting to becoming the didactic, moralizing writer he always bemoaned in essays and interviews

https://s.put.re/xaEDHCno.jpeg

My two cents.

https://bookandfilmglobe.com/nonfiction/book-review-bret-easton-ellis-white/