
Somehow I Became Respectable - shange
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/05/21/somehow-i-became-respectable/
======
acomjean
Compared to our current politics, John Waters is kinda respectable. I saw him
at a university auditorium a couple years ago. Entertaining. Plus he was great
on the Simpsons.

Time seems to take the shock out of things. Maybe its the non-stop access to
interesting things on the internet and photos and videos of everything taking
the rumor and imagination out of things.

GWAR's shows were mythic but now we have a nice wikipedia entry explaining it
all. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwar).

~~~
jedberg
It's funny that you mention the Simpsons, which itself used to be so
counterculture that you were a bad parent if you let your kid watch it.

Now it's so mainstream that they can't find a plot that offends people
anymore, not so much because they toned it down, but because society caught up
to the Simpsons.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
>they can't find a plot that offends people anymore,

I doubt that is true. I bet that it is more like the people they offended
could not really do much about that offense other than yell about it which
just made the sows writers more popular in Hollywood.

Now, if they come up with a plot that offends, they are likely to get de-
platformed and lose their ability to find a job in Hollywood.

------
simonebrunozzi
> Somehow I became respectable. I don’t know how—the last film I directed got
> some terrible reviews and was rated NC-17. Six people in my personal phone
> book have been sentenced to life in prison.

This is one of the most interesting and intriguing "opening" I've read in a
long while.

------
lifeisstillgood
Radical is merely common sense, thirty years early.

I still want to turn Serial Mom into a Netflix series

~~~
cgh
This is one of those "I want to subscribe to your newsletter" comments.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I have just been planning on setting up a newsletter - just got the "idea"
right. So thank you - a nice comment online at just the right time - you've
put a smile on a wrinkly old face :-)

------
nessunodoro
"Personality disorders are a terrible thing to waste."

I need a Waters-only fortune module.

~~~
contingencies
FWIW added to
[https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup](https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup)

------
whatshisface
If you really want to shock everybody, and become a highly respected artist
known for redefining the modern gallery in ten to thirty years, you should
probably paint some nice landscapes or portraits.

~~~
cm2187
Or a pro-Trump statue. That would reliably get you kicked out of every art
gallery.

~~~
croon
Shocking can become respectable in the future. Shockingly stupid can't.

~~~
whatshisface
50 years ago they were saying the same thing about "shockingly vulgar." Maybe
culture will go in a direction you don't support, and you will end up as one
of the nay-saying voices lending a counter-cultural air to the stupidadaists.

------
sp332
Alice Cooper said years ago that he couldn't shock audiences anymore. Shock
just seems not to be a thing audiences do now.

~~~
acollins1331
I'm sure if you bit the head off a bat it would shock a few souls

------
pwinnski
I also don't understand how John Waters came to be seen as respectable, but I
suppose it might help some people to hear that a lack of respectability, or
even acceptance, is not always permanent.

Sometimes it is, but not always.

~~~
mieseratte
At least among the well-heeled and the culture-class that Waters cites as his
markers of acceptance. Should you take his films to a Baptist lock-in you will
surely be in trouble.

Widespread acceptability of formerly fringe-lifestyles and a rejection of
socially-conservative values ranging from widespread availability of high-
grade marijuana to drag-queens showing off their twerking capabilities at
public libraries. It's in, it signals you're not "part of the system."

In a way it reminds me of the path that "shock rock" has taken, from Alice
Cooper to Marilyn Manson and beyond. There was a good show on the history, I
believe "Metal Evolution," which featured an interview with Till Lindemann of
Rammstein who remarked, when asked about what he could do to shock at this
point, "Suicide on stage." Which I think is a fair statement from a band
famous for simulated sodomy on-stage. Perhaps they should try the real thing
for sport.

~~~
cgh
When I was a kid, Metallica was widely seen as completely crazy (this is the
Kill 'Em All to Master of Puppets era). "Big kids" who listened to Metallica
were vaguely threatening and best avoided. Now even those early thrash
monsters are considered to be classic rock. Metallica is eminently
respectable.

There is some extreme metal that will never be mainstream or widely listened
to but that mainly comes down to the amount of work that's required to listen
to it (Deathspell Omega) or the purely misanthropic production quality
(Darkthrone's Panzerfaust, an album I adore). This sort of music is "shocking"
in the sense that most people assume bands make music because they actually
want people to listen to it.

~~~
lb1lf
Totally different genre, but German industrial/art/whatever band Einstürzende
Neubauten has a song titled 'Hör mit Schmerzen' (Listen with/in pain) - which,
as far as titles go, is pretty descriptive.

(I love the Neubauten, by the way - but I will admit to preferring their
output from Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T. onwards - where at least fragments
of melody can be heard... The debut Kollaps is... Well, challenging.)

------
rinchik
Ah he's a classic! The bold moves, the rebellion! He's a symbol of LGBT
"revolution". The acceptance of what was previously considered unacceptable.

There was only one, unique place in history for his genre and he took it.

------
romaaeterna
Didn't this man direct the movie with the child rape mattress and the
unfeigned consumption of dog feces?

He didn't become respectable. His mental illness became mainstream.

I wish I knew how this happened. Maybe the mechanism was a combination of
internet porn and the destruction of real life social spaces. Maybe it's
something else. But people should perhaps spend some small fraction of the
time that they spend freaking out about the weather, and use it to freak out
just a little about how we are going to survive the next 50 years as a
civilization with a functioning social and political system.

~~~
tomlockwood
Did you know in Rome they didn't really have a rigid conception of
heterosexuality? There were really only active, and passive partners in the
sexual act. That was the distinction that mattered, and Hadrian was just seen
as having "Greek taste". Also romans shat in public prolifically, as seen in
the many pieces of graffiti warning people against doing it near shopfronts
and people's homes. People shouldn't romanticise what they don't understand :)

~~~
romaaeterna
Where did that comment come from? Greeks and Romans? Is it because of my
username? I'm afraid that it was chosen because it's the name of a popular
beginner's Latin textbook, not for misplaced Romanticism.

However, I will say that reading the classics in their original Greek and
Latin has added a lot of sanity to my life, and I would recommend it to
anyone. Your own conception of Greek and Roman sexuality is highly
romanticized, and would fall away with a course of general reading.

This is not to say that I would hold the ancients forward as examples of
"sane" societies. Generally the opposite, in fact. General societal sanity is
a post-Enlightenment condition.

~~~
tomlockwood
> Your own conception of Greek and Roman sexuality is highly romanticized, and
> would fall away with a course of general reading.

What do you think I'm romanticising? Can you mention a specific point? Also I
didn't mention the actual aspects of Greek sexuality - just how Romans viewed
Greeks. If you want to discuss Greek sexuality I'm happy to. You wanna discuss
Phaedrus or The Republic, or the Sacred Band, or something else? Would be
lovely to revisit postgrad.

Waters is indeed a very sane post-Enlightenment thinker, steeped in and
derived from the sanity of the civilisation he is a product of.

~~~
romaaeterna
> You wanna discuss Phaedrus or The Republic, or the Sacred Band, or something
> else?

Sure. How much Plato have you read in Greek? What do you think, for example,
he means by ὑπηρετεῖν when applied to χαρισάμενα παιδικά?

> Waters is indeed...steeped in and derived from...

This makes me suspect what the answer to "How much Plato have you read in
Greek?" was, and exactly how much that postgrad degree was worth.

~~~
tomlockwood
So you can't say what I'm romanticising. Understood.

------
4ntonius8lock
"First the establishment will ignore you; then they laugh at you; then they
crack down on you and then you become part of the establishment." Someone

I'm glad everything he represents is now accepted. I remember watching Pink
Flamingos in the early 2000s when I was discovering cinematography and
understanding the industry and it's evolution. It has shock value, but it was
deeper than that. When I saw his film, it reminded me a little of Warhol in a
way.

I'm actually glad the acceptance is so quick, just 13 years ago the United
States federal government arrested someone for 'obscenity-related charges' in
film production, though admittedly it was considerably more disturbing footage
than what John Walters ever produced. *

I truly wonder what's the next set of values to go through this process. By
definition we can't know what they are and speculation has a terrible history
of accuracy, especially if it is what we know as the truth (as defined by the
majority, i.e. the establishment)

Also wonder if as technology accelerates the rate of social change, so will
the typically generational cycle speeds of acceptance of new ideas.

* Danilo Croce [https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2007/June/07_crm_410....](https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2007/June/07_crm_410.html)

~~~
satori99
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you
win."

-Mahatma Gandhi (Maybe?)

~~~
4ntonius8lock
No, it wasn't his quote (at least not sourced)

Tons of people have attributed it to him though.

Personally, if I don't have the book and page of a quote, I don't source it.

------
yazboo
I knew John Waters as like a camp figure, I saw Hairspray, heard stuff from
his books and speaking engagements, all of which is cool but not particularly
challenging to the dominant culture. So I understand the respectability.

Then I watched Female Trouble which is a completely insane movie and thought,
this person is out of his mind, I can’t believe they’re letting him go on the
Today Show and that he’s assimilated into square culture, does anyone know
what he’s all about? The question of whether his films would “shock” seems
besides the point, they feel totally electric whether or not the culture has
supposedly acclimated itself to certain things.

------
CptFribble
Acceptance is a function of how deep you're reading from the Big Book Of
Things Too Radical To Say In Public.

The problem is that too far outside the average conception of normality it
becomes difficult to judge if your Radical Thing is net-positive or net-
negative for society. Gay rights? Yes. Legal incest? No.

Some people can tell the difference. Most can't. And that's why "you can't
shock anyone anymore" is exactly as true as it's always been. It's just that
radical art 40 years ago and radical art in 2019 look different. Too different
for John Waters to tell.

~~~
ebiester
He directed a movie where an actor literally ate feces.

Literal shit.

That's still not acceptable in 2019 last I checked. Hell, nearly nothing in
Pink Flamingos wouldn't be shocking today, though much of it (like rape or
animal cruelty) hasn't aged well.

But you've seen two girls one cup. You've seen people dress in fursuits and
fuck, and been fisted, and sounded, and it may not be attractive to you but
it's not shocking. That's what he's talking about.

I'm guessing that a minority of people on HN _haven 't_ seen video of someone
dying in a gruesome manner. Perhaps it was ISIS sawing off someone's head.
Perhaps it was someone falling from the twin towers. Perhaps it was somebody
murdering a homeless man for fun.

It's not shocking. It's despicable, but it's not shocking.

Nazism and white supremacy and racism and misogyny isn't shocking - it's
dismaying, but it's not shocking. It may be socially acceptable, but it's not
shocking. If anything, it's hackneyed.

What is this radical art? _Maybe_ 4chan shocked people a decade ago, but
goatse/gap3 pranks preceded that, at least in my world.

------
bitwize
Hipsters, that's what happened. John Waters has become something of a hipster
schlock icon, a way for millennials weaned on easily available hardcore porn
and rotten.com to connect with a time when things like what John Waters does
were actually shocking and transgressive.

~~~
rhizome
Yeah. Hipsters. Totally non-existent 40 years ago.

------
gaze
A true American hero.

------
Loughla
Honestly, inside me it makes me wonder if we're seeing the cultural movement
toward more progressive ideals, or if we're just seeing the cumulative
generational shift away from what their parents stood for.

Meaning - WWII's "the greatest generation" was a relatively conservative
generation, and it's gone more liberal in terms of social movements ever
since. Are we going to keep seeing this movement toward liberalism, or are we
going to see children rebel against their parents and move toward more
traditional and conservative values?

~~~
mruts
I dunno, it doesn't seem like we are moving toward liberalism. Everyone wants
everyone else kicked off a twitter, everyone wants censorship. Tumblr bans
porn, youtube bans anything people complain about, cloudflare doesn't want to
do business with 8chan, etc etc. These are all incredibly illiberal and having
nothing to do with true liberalism.

Liberalism, fundamentally, is about freedom (negative rights), both economic
and social. The freedom to offend, to abhor, to hate, to disagree, to keep
one's own money, to control one's own body, _to decide himself how he should
live his own life_. This means legal drugs of all kinds, this means legal hate
speech, legal death threats, legal sodomy, legal polygamy, legal bestiality,
etc.

We are so far away from this world of liberalism and freedom that it makes me
sad every time I think about it. In fact, I feel like in the past few decades
we are getting farther away still.

~~~
tombert
Youtube didn't "ban" "anything people complain about", they just demonetized
it and stopped recommending it as frequently. Still not great, but they're not
taking your soapbox away, they're just not paying as much for it.

What would you suggest companies like Cloudflare do exactly? There have been
talks of 8chan being accessory to literal terrorism; do you think that they
really want to be hosting that stuff? Isn't it part of Cloudflare's free
speech to say "we don't want to be party to this"? Isn't it a very liberal
position to say "all these private companies can do business with people that
they want to"?

Now, I'm actually totally willing to entertain the discussion that these
corporations are so big that they should be either broken up and/or treated as
utilities, but that seems to fight against classical liberalism.

EDIT:

Also, in the United States, it wasn't that long ago that marijuana possession
was an enforceable crime in all fifty states, which is slowly going away. I
wouldn't bring this up, except you mentioned drugs being illegal as some sort
of evidence that we're becoming less liberal, despite the fact that cannabis
legalization has been happening and expanding.

Not exactly sure how legal bestiality fits into liberalism; if you view the
animal as a thinking entity, wouldn't having sex with something unable to
provide consent be a violation of liberal principles?

~~~
mruts
Youtube has removed many videos pushing subversive views[1]. Do I agree with
these views (maybe I do, I haven't seen the videos, but I doubt it), no. But
that's beside the point. And you're right, youtube and 8chan don't want to be
hosting that stuff. If I had the power I would like to think I would act
differently, but I understand that the teleological purpose of a company is to
make money and if I was in a similar situation, I might fold as well.

And, like you said, classical liberalism is about freedom, for both
corporations and individuals. I certainly don't think that censorship on these
platforms should be illegal or anything. I'm just disappointed, I guess. I
feel like the world is moving in the wrong direction. I always thought the
internet was going to empower everyone and subvert centralized power
structures. In some regards, it did and it still does. But these subversive
upstarts are now the new centralized power structures and it seems like the
next wave of subversion and decentralized has not happened yet and may not
ever happen.

It troubles me that the very same people arguing about a women's right to
choose are slamming facebook and youtube and twitter for allowing people to
express their opinions. It troubles me that these same people don't recognize
the rights to buy and use drugs or consume pornography. The political axis of
most people seem two multi-dimensional: They like some freedoms and want to
take away others. But the way I see it there is only one dimension: oppression
and tyranny on one end and free speech and individualism on the other. Social
and economic freedoms go hand and hand, which is something both conservatives
and liberals both seem to be confused about.

Health care isn't a human right, housing isn't a human right, forcing
businesses to transact with you if they don't want to isn't a human right. The
only true human right is to live one's own life free from tyranny and
oppression. To do anything that doesn't impinge upon another human's right to
do the same.

> Not exactly sure how legal bestiality fits into liberalism; if you view the
> animal as a thinking entity, wouldn't having sex with something unable to
> provide consent be a violation of liberal principles?

Well, I mean, then maybe we should outlaw animals having sex with each other?
It's not like they give consent to each other.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/business/youtube-
remove-e...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/business/youtube-remove-
extremist-videos.html)

~~~
claudiawerner
>But the way I see it there is only one dimension: oppression and tyranny on
one end and free speech and individualism on the other.

Other people don't see it that way, though, and in fact there are a few well-
mounted defences from philosophers which define that "other" view. You're
arguing for a roughly liberal (perhaps liberal egalitarian) point of view, but
we shouldn't act as though this is the only way to conceive a healthy view of
liberty and freedom. Liberalism isn't the only game in town any more, and it
hasn't been the only game in town (speaking in terms of relief from the
oppression of kings and barons) since the 19th century. It is a valid view
that is commonly held and argued for, sure, but it is by no means the only
coherent view of liberty there is.

>don't recognize the rights to buy and use drugs or consume pornography

Perhaps it's surprising, but there are actually liberal views _against_
pornography, i.e they claim to proceed from core liberal tenets to positions
in which pornography would not be permissible - see Rae Langton's work for
example. In fact, this caused so much of a storm that liberal philosophers
took it upon themselves to try and argue against it precisely because they
viewed it as a threat to some traditional liberal opinions. It may further
surprise you that some philosophers have argued that J.S. Mill himself(!)
would have been against pornography.

>Social and economic freedoms go hand and hand, which is something both
conservatives and liberals both seem to be confused about.

This is actually the core of certain 19th c. German critiques of liberalism.

>The only true human right is to live one's own life free from tyranny and
oppression.

This is simply one opinion amongst many. Negative liberties, like traditional
liberalism, isn't the only game in town any more, even in liberal circles. The
idea that freedom is necessarily _freedom from_ is not supported by some major
liberal theorists (look at Rawls, or perhaps Habermas). The distinction
itself, Eric Nelson argues, may not even be relevant any more.

Perhaps you didn't mean to say that this is what liberty _is_ , but rather you
were only stating your own conception of liberty, so my apologies if so - but
to say that the only other possible conception of liberty is fundamentally
wrong, or worse, that it is "totalitarian" is pretty shabby (as far as
political philosophy goes).

>Well, I mean, then maybe we should outlaw animals having sex with each other?
It's not like they give consent to each other.

This misses the point which is that most philosophers don't consider animals
to be moral agents. Liberal philosophers themselves are divided on the
"rights" of animals, however some prominent theorists argue that the property
relations of animals should be viewed as custodial/trustee ones[0].

Even on free speech contemporary liberal philosophers are divided, but
vanishingly few argue for no restrictions at all on speech, even considering
obvious caveats (like threats of immediate violence). The trouble is finding a
justification _within_ a given free speech principle for certain restrictions
to be permitted. It is a question of why we value free speech at all. For
example, one justification for the primacy of freedom of speech is that
freedom of speech aids discerning truth from falsehood, however how would this
apply to deliberate lies? Surely most upholders of free speech would allow at
least some lies to be uttered. So then comes the next free speech
justification: that speech is inseparable from thought, but that also has its
critics etc. (see Susan Brison on this point)

What I'm trying to say is this: maybe critics of liberalism have a point, and
maybe we ought to rationally investigate why we hold certain liberal ideals
rather than, in J.S. Mill's words, cling to them as dead dogma. It doesn't
take an anti-porn conservative or a pro-universal healthcare progressive to do
that.

[0]
[https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/97...](https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199895755.001.0001/acprof-9780199895755)

~~~
mruts
You know, this is probably one of the best comments I've ever received that
consists of counterpoints to my own. Kudos for your well reasoned points with
links. I really wish the rest of hacker news was as gracious and thoughtful as
you. And this is high praise coming from me!

I disagree with your interpretations about Rawls or Mills, but I very much
appreciate your views.

------
lacampbell
If it helps, based on the first paragraph I don't think the guy is remotely
respectable.

Maybe he just started hanging out around people with lower standards?

------
jfengel
Honestly, John, you were responsible for a massive hit Broadway musical, one
that's entirely acceptable to the out-of-towners after their visit to Times
Square. You didn't "become respectable". You sold out.

Getting gross stuff shown in a modern art museum is hardly an accomplishment.
Manzoni did his "canned poop" thing in 1961. You're gonna have to try a lot
harder than clips from porn movies. Pink Flamingos is still gross. You could
do that again, if you wanted.

Though these days you're competing for attention from everybody on YouTube.
You were an attention whore when it took some real effort to get it
distributed. Now everybody can do it. They'll censor Pink Flamingos to put it
on TV, but I'd be shocked if there weren't a dozen imitators on YouTube. (No,
I'm not going to look.)

Congrats, you lowered the bar on bad taste, and I guess that's enough of an
accomplishment to make you a commencement speaker. But once people figured out
your formula, the bar lowered pretty far pretty fast, and rather than get
ahead of it you let 'em make Hairspray.

~~~
sprafa
Meh. Why so negative? A man makes money after doing some transgressive things
in the past that are considered iconic. Sell out? Really?

~~~
pessimizer
Yes, really. You should assume that people mean what they said.

He should have sold out, though. He's old and he did a bunch of wonderful
things. If he had waited any longer, the cash-out would have passed him by.
Should everyone work forever?

Attending exhibitions of his work as the guest of honor, giving talks at film
festivals, doing lecture/stand-up tours every once and a while for a bit of
travel and excitement; that's the life and a well-deserved victory lap.

He didn't have to sell out, but it wasn't like he was a activist or something,
he was a grotesque Douglas Sirk having a little fun.

