Letters

Most readers agree Pauline Kael wasn't a homophobe -- but dissenters are heard from. Plus: Kansans and moderate Democrats respond to our interview with Thomas Frank.

Jul 1, 2004 | [Read our excerpt from Craig Seligman's book "Sontag & Kael," "The Gay Attacks on Pauline Kael."]

I second everything Seligman wrote in his article. Kael's reviews meant a lot to me when I was growing up gay in the country in Arkansas; anyone who accuses her of homophobia just isn't a good reader.

This was the woman who, in 1961, ridiculed Time magazine's vitriolic reaction to "The Victim" by saying "it's as if they were afraid heterosexuality couldn't hold its own in an open market." I can't help but think that Vito Russo and other critics were show-tune queens who got pissed off because Pauline ripped the godawful "West Side Story" a new one.

-- Mike Russell

This is really a crackerjack argument, the Salon excerpt from your book, that is (which I feel I must now promptly buy). I'm 20 years old, also gay (also from Louisiana, actually, I live in New Orleans), and have been reading Kael since I was 18. You touched on something I found profound and otherwise uncommented upon.

In college I took a queer film class where we watched "Chasing Amy." In hindsight, the inclusion of this movie made our professor pretty radical. Perhaps you can imagine the reaction of an adamant group of queer girls in the class -- they were wholeheartedly furious that a gay professor would teach a gay class to gay and non-gay students and address a film that wasn't like all the others, especially one from a heterosexual (white!) director using heterosexual actors. Most (but not all) refused to even consider that including a Kevin Smith film among a dozen others at least gave an interesting point of view that could enrich discussion.

The same lesbians who were ready to burn copies of "Chasing Amy" went gaga over "The Incredibly True Story of Two Girls in Love." When this happened, it made me wonder what Pauline Kael would have to say about each film. (I only began reading what she wrote after she had died, and cannot tell you how much I wish I could read reviews of movies that have come out since.) I feel almost certain that Kael would have belittled "Chasing Amy" for its idiocy, though complimented its strongheadedness, not caring for it as a whole. And I feel even more certain that, had she even bothered, she would have ripped "Two Girls in Love" to shreds. The most ridiculous turn of events was that the passionate queer girls in my film class rendered themselves incapable of viewing dyke movies critically, a point of view that the truly radical Kael never would have stood for. Was the movie kiss kiss, bang bang? seems to be her first question with every single review. Did it give me what I go to the movies for? Thus activism, or politics or ideology, compared to her more basic and noble standard of criticism, seem wholly superfluous criteria upon which to base one's reaction.

I, too, never have found Kael to be homophobic, though she often leaves me irate and feeling tricked. (I used to be nuts over "West Side Story," but after reading her review of it, I cannot watch it without rolling my eyes, which still makes me feel like I've had something stolen from me.) Neither was I aware that other gay people found her offensive. How can queer scholars blackball a critic who acknowledged her autobiographical prejudices so openly, and explored her own reactions so profoundly?

-- Casey Creel

Craig Seligman should leave Pauline Kael's words to speak for themselves. Denigrating and attacking her critics -- in a sense, attempting to invalidate their own possibly well-thought-out views -- serves no one. Kael's work is available to be read in its entirety; readers should be left to draw their own conclusions. Seligman sounds like an apologist and simultaneously tries to assure us there never was any wrongdoing. You can't revise Kael's intentions and dismiss the context. She is a product of her time, with all the good and bad connotations that it brings.

As a gay man, I've always felt Vito Russo's "The Celluloid Closet" did far more harm than good. To this day, the notion of "whitewashing" still exists as a critical criteria in the minds of some gay men, triggering a rejection of anything that makes them less than heroic, even at the expense of their own humanity and history. But Russo's work -- however much a product of hysteria at the time -- served its purpose, raising awareness of derogatory stereotypical representations of gay men and women. However, the gay community -- as an audience -- has yet to appreciate the freedoms that Russo's labor brought and still clings to its own self-consciousness as an artifact.

-- Sean O'Neil

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