Sunday, December 16, 2007

Nathan Rabin's My Year of Flops: Body of Evidence

Nathan Rabin has been doing this really entertaining, funny series on the Onion where he writes short essays on horrid movies. Sara posted a quote from his review of Body of Evidence this week on Free Form Comments, because she knows how much I like Paglia. Here is the full quote, which I think shows how funny Rabin can be. Click the quote to read the review

I’m not entirely convinced that Madonna wasn’t somehow willed into existence some time in the late ‘70s by Camile Paglia. It’s as if Paglia was sitting around one day and thought “Wow, if only there was one virgin-whore-bitch-goddess-sinner-saint-icon-God who could embody every pretentious idea I’ve ever had. Then I’d be set.” Bam! Suddenly a full-grown Madonna would materialize out of thin air and masturbate with a big black crucifix while dressed as Elvis.

Maybe they can include this film in a Paglia-taught class on, I dunno, Madonna, Androgyny, Gender Subversion, and Sado-Masochism in Popular Culture As a Form of Social Protest as part of an elective credit devoted to colossal wastes of everyone’s time.


I know since I like Paglia I should not like it when people make fun of her, but I can certainly see where he is coming from, even if I am using Paglia's Break Blow Burn as a textbook in my intro to poetry class.

2 comments:

sara d. reiss said...

mebbe...you should 'splain to the peoples who/what paglia is (and why you like here... y'know...the whole bloom thing...) just in case some of us out there aren't familiar as to why this quote is so funny?

Geoff Klock said...

I should, but I do not have time today. Plus everyone has the Wikipedia, right?