"American Psycho" and "Glamorama" author Bret Easton Ellis is no stranger to controversy, so when people complained about Art Tavana's overshare of an essay in "LA Weekly" it was up to the "Less Than Zero" scribe to defend Tavana's honor -- or "id," as that's probably the more accurate assessment of what spoke through Tavana as he penned that piece.
Writing about the cover of Sky Ferreira's debut album, "Night Time, My Time," Tavana noted that many who saw it "couldn't help but reminisce on the past, on Madonna's defiantly atomic boobs -- the two knockers that altered the course of human history." Feminist critics reacted to this blatant objectification, which upset Ellis, who took to his podcast to declare that pretending "that looks or that hotness, whether you're a guy or a girl, shouldn't make you popular, is one of those sad politically correct stances that make you question the validity, the reality, of politically correct thinking."
Central to such thinking, at least to Ellis' mind, are discussions about "the male gaze," which apparently don't need to occur anymore since it exists. "When I hear self-proclaimed feminists complaining about the male gaze yet again and hoping that it will -- what, go away? be rerouted, contained? -- I'm thinking, 'Are these women so deluded that they are bordering on insanity, or have they just not gotten laid in the last four years?'"
It's unclear why he specified "four" years, but that's between Ellis and his vision of feminism, which is admittedly a little anemic. "[I]n our society, social justice warriors always prefer women to be victims," he said, characterizing the equal rights movement as a "hall of mirrors loop they find themselves in when they're looking for anything to get angry with."
"[B]ecause the little Nazis policing language have a new rule book about how men and women should and should not express themselves about their desires," Ellis added, "this allows Jezebel and Flavorwire to write their own childish responses, placing Sky in the delicious position of victim."
Listen to Ellis' entire podcast, of which this rant was merely the amuse-bouche, here.
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