Bret Easton Ellis Thinks You’re Overreacting to Donald Trump
Bret Easton Ellis, whose first book of nonfiction, “White,” is an interlocking set of essays about America, says he isn’t interested in politics and wants to just give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
When did people start identifying so relentlessly with victims, and when did the victim’s world view become the lens through which we began to look at everything?” So begins Bret Easton Ellis’s take on, of all things, Barry Jenkins’s film “Moonlight,” which he describes as “an elegy to pain.” Ellis’s first work of nonfiction, “White,” is an interlocking set of essays, combining memoir, social commentary, and criticism, on America, in 2019; more specifically, it’s a sustained howl of displeasure aimed at liberal hand-wringers, people obsessively concerned with racism, and everyone who has not gotten over Donald Trump’s election. His targets range from the media to Michelle Obama to millennials (including his boyfriend). Ellis also defends less popular people, from Roseanne Barr to Kanye West, whom he perceives as having been given a raw deal by the mob.
For those who follow Ellis on Twitter, none of this will be particularly surprising. He has gotten involved in several online controversies, including one that stemmed from him calling the filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow “really overrated” because she is “a very hot woman.” The more interesting question is how much of a departure this material represents from his fiction. When Ellis was in his twenties, he published three novels—“Less Than Zero,” “The Rules of Attraction,” and “American Psycho”—that are considered some of the most biting and lasting satires of Ronald Reagan’s America. But their protagonists’ materialism, misogyny, and amorality, along with Ellis’s early Brat Pack persona, have persistently raised questions regarding the depth of his social critique. “American Psycho,” about an investment banker and serial killer (who happens to worship Donald Trump), has been described as a masterpiece of postmodern literature, but it’s also been condemned by prominent feminists.
In recent years, Ellis has continued to publish fiction while also writing screenplays, including for Paul Schrader’s “The Canyons,” which became notorious for its troubled production. Since 2013, he has hosted the “Bret Easton Ellis Podcast,” on Patreon. Ellis and I recently spoke by phone. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how people respond to allegations of sexual assault, whether the President is a racist, and why he finds liberal outrage so annoying.
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[–] 17964223? ago
https://www.bitchute.com/video/yNuMm64KShjM
[–] 17964023? ago
https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=_yM7Xe3HrT8 :
This has been an automated message.
[–] 17963620? ago
Looks like it's time for a tor ban again.
[–] 17963619? ago
That's one based faggot, I think we all agree.
[–] 17963604? ago
Nobody actually identifies with "victims", its just appealing to the underdog is the most effective rhetoric to undermine the Neoliberal establishment by appealing to the idea of universal human dignity.
[–] 17963602? ago
JUST FUCKING LOOK AT THIS SHIT
https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Bret%20Easton%20Ellis%22&src=tren
ALL THE FUCKING ACCOUNTS ARE BLUE CHECKMARKS ATTACKING THE GUY
[–] 17963606? ago
everytime
[–] 17963607? ago
This is not about Trump.
[–] 17963599? ago
https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Bret%20Easton%20Ellis%22&src=tren
https://archive.fo/AiiAq
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/bret-easton-ellis-thinks-youre-overreacting-to-donald-trump
[–] 17963600? ago
>>13114184
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This has got to be the worst shilling I've ever seen, saged and reproted
[–] 17963601? ago
Read it to see how these fucks go after anyone that does not support their leftist mental illness.
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[–] 17963598? ago
All of them, no. When you think back to these couple of years, is your large takeaway that the left was too critical of Trump?
It’s not just the left. There seems to have been this hysterical overreaction that can be solved with voting him out of office. And I don’t know whether this pain and turmoil people have inflicted on themselves have gotten them anything. I just see a lot of people who have turned themselves inside out.
It seems to have caused a lot of people self-harm, and I don’t know where it gets anybody.
You are a novelist. You write about the human condition. Do you worry about the self-harm of people who see things like child separation and have no emotional response?
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.
It was much more interesting to me to write this as a nonfiction book, in terms of pulling this stuff from my podcast.
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.