Looking Good, The Adonis Complex, and The Vagina Monologues
Chris and Jodi,
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StumbleUponIt's not for reasons of gender alone that we all seem to be dividing this discussion into two separate parts, even though the division does occur along gender lines: Of the three books under discussion, The Vagina Monologues clearly lies on one side of the divide, the only one of them laying claim to literary or artistic merit. The other two, which are remarkably similar to each other in a number of ways, occupy that hazy, modern middle ground between social science and self-help.
Which suggests, despite the areas of overlap the three books share, that rather different criteria apply from one group to the other. With Eve Ensler's ... what? Book? Play? Performance piece? In any event, with Eve Ensler's product, we're implicitly asked to judge it as a work of art, even if its actual significance is rather as a social artifact. On the other hand, when we discuss the male body image books, we're much more likely to be addressing the issues they raise than the qualities of the books qua books.
The most remarkable and important thing about The Vagina Monologues, and the reason, I'm convinced, it's such a success, is its title. Without in any way questioning Eve Ensler's sincerity--all the evidence suggests her motives are as pure as her skills are deficient--the title is a stroke of marketing genius. Simply getting the word "vagina" out there, in advertisements in the New York Times, in respectable reviews, and in cocktail party chatter and discussions of the mayor's wife's employment prospects, guaranteed the play the kind of attention PR agents would kill for. Prior to the play's appearance, I doubt if I heard the word "vagina" spoken aloud more than 10 times in my entire adulthood. Whereas now it's like MasterCard, everywhere you want to be.
But oh, what a disappointment the play itself is. I have no doubt there is a series of world-class monologues to be written about vaginas--and about penises and anuses and even nasal passages, for God's sake--that could reveal something fundamental and disturbing and new about the human condition. I don't mean this ironically, incidentally; I began reading The Vagina Monologues with high expectations. But what a letdown! It promises us revelation, and it gives us ... nothing. Less than nothing. Its sentimentality in matters other than vocabulary is almost Victorian. Its whimsy is leaden. ("If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?" Give me a break! The answers are altogether banal, incidentally, although it's worth noting no one suggests a hair shirt.) Its morality is bizarre (the celebrated "Coochi Snorcher" monologue, which, we are told, regularly brings audiences to raucous standing ovations, first bemoans heterosexual child abuse, and then actually celebrates lesbian child abuse.) It belabors the obvious and the self-evident and keeps patting itself on the back for doing so.
OK, let's all agree that women have periods, babies, orgasms. Most of us sort of knew that already, at least at second hand. And many of us already feel a certain awe about these phenomena. So please, tell us something new about how you experience them. Give us a sense of them we may not have had before. Shock us, surprise us, offend us, titillate us, educate us, amuse us, move us. But don't just stare into your speculum and assume you're making art.
Does seeing the piece performed reveal merits invisible to those of us who merely read it? This is possible, I suppose, and Jodi's posting suggests as much. However, I wonder if it isn't just as possible that the social aspects of such an event, the rock-concertlike excitement along with the celebratory group ethos, actually camouflage some of its weaknesses.
The evening Jodi describes is fascinating, an amazing and (at least to me) incomprehensible phenomenon. All these famous, distinguished, accomplished women yelling "cunt" in public to a cheering, echoing throng: Is the appeal of this so gender-specific that men shouldn't judge it or even try to understand it? Clearly, something tribal is occurring, some ritual that draws strength from its own repetition. But does that validate the play? No more, to my mind, than a rowdy midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show turns that camp monstrosity into a good film. And I even question the role the play per se performs in the resultant delirium: Most of that delirious throng goes to the theater with the decision to get delirious having been made well in advance. It's part of the experience. It's part of the show.
A few final words about The Vagina Monologues as a book since it is in that form that we are reviewing it. It does not give good weight. The play itself occupies only 122 pages, with large print and very wide margins. You can read it in less than an hour. The rest of the volume contains Gloria Steinem's remarkably fatuous introductory essay, an embarrassing and self-serving collection of congratulatory letters from viewers and participants in various productions of the play, and an essay about V-Day, part of the campaign against violence directed at women with which, for no obvious reason other than--again--marketing savvy, the play has become associated. At $12.95, the phrase "rip-off" doesn't seem inappropriate.
Tomorrow, the guys get theirs. Till then. ...
Best,
Erik
This week, Chris Caldwell, Jodi Kantor, and Erik Tarloff examine three books about body image: Looking Good, The Adonis Complex, and The Vagina Monologues. Click here for a word on our format. To read this discussion from the beginning, click here. 
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Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: All right, calm down everyone. Let's just say, the Fray reflected the Book Club. Strong words, strong feelings, and a lot of comment on sex, relationships and vaginas. And on childbirth, some of it from those who are never going to experience it. Yes, that Natalie Angier post (below) did provoke comment. Yes, the views held were somewhat, but not wholly, gender-predictable. Yes, having an opinion on what women think during childbirth is apparently a valuable debating skill. Yes, we at the Fray keep remembering how much we enjoyed those tips on making grilled cheese sandwiches that came with the John Le Carre Book Club a few weeks back.
Some nice posts below. A good discussion on phallocentric writing started here. And it was a relief that all Goatgut wanted to tell us tell us was that it's Visa which is 'everywhere you want to be'; whereas Mastercard is 'priceless'.]
Chris Caldwell says:
Demented perspective?!? Demented perspective??!! For the nearly two hours of delivering my kid, the only goddamn thing I thought about was my vagina, and my anus, too, because they felt like one and the same conduit throughout the ordeal. As Shulamith Firestone put it, childbirth is "like shitting a pumpkin," and for the average heaving vagina in labor, the baby counts for nothing until it has been expelled, ejected, dumped! Which takes forever! And then you still have to push out the placenta! Eve Ensler has it exactly right:
Chris Caldwell must have been watching a C-section
--Natalie Angier
(To reply, click here.)
I think the Adonis complex is lodged firmly (excuse the pun) in the upper-middle class. The upper class can woo and succeed on money and collections alone. The upwardly mobile, however, need an extra edge. Or perhaps I'm completely wrong, but has anyone ever studied whether non-college college-aged women are as susceptible to eating disorders as those in college?
Btw: what's the problem with the Vagina Monologues? They may not work as literature, but I don't know of anyone who's ever seen them (I haven't) and not enjoyed it. I also understand that a couple of rapists and Bob the Curious are the only males that show up, but isn't the whole point that it is not about men? I mean, who but the most cynical of Hollywood producers would insist that some vagina-loving men be inserted to counterbalance the vagina-hating ones?
--Fletch
(To reply, click here.)
Christopher Caldwell asks, "And what kind of sad person prefers power to romance?" Well, any person who has no power, or any person who has only a very indirect kind of power. Frankly, the power versus romance thing sort of smacks of the ethics versus a full stomach. Only the people who have the basics (and power is a basic for a human being, regardless of gender) have the time to focus on the nice things like romance. Is it sad that people lack these basics? You bet.
--Dea
(To reply, click here.)
Jodi Kantor and Katha Pollitt seem to see The Vagina Monologues as simply a female counterpart to something that men have always done--publicly exploring their sexuality and taking pride in their bodies. But where exactly do they see all this male celebration of male anatomy and male physiological functions? (That's why I've always thought Steinem's "If Men Could Menstruate" essay was the height of silliness. After all, men can masturbate, but it's hardly something that has been traditionally celebrated in our culture.)
Yes, one can find some passages in D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and Norman Mailer exalting the generative and creative powers of male genitalia. (In Sexual Politics, Kate Millett cites a hilarious Lawrence passage on the mystical powers of balls.) Still, this is fairly marginal stuff. Kantor cites Portnoy's Complaint and There's Something About Mary as male parallels of sorts to Monologues. But these works, in facts, are expressions of sexual shame, not of "penis pride."
Since I haven't seen or even read The Vagina Monologues, I don't know whether or not it has a lot of male-bashing...I have to wonder, however: doesn't it bother Kantor and Pollitt that the play celebrates an adult woman's seduction of a 13-year-old girl? The girl is even shown saying, "if it was rape, it was a good rape." No need, I think, to ask anyone to imagine what the reaction would be if this was an adult male seducing a 13-year-old girl...
--Cathy Young
(To reply, click here.)
I take issue with the writers' assertion that women do not like the bodybuilder's body. The pictures to which the women so negatively reacted probably were of professional bodybuilders in full contest mode. Most men would never think that this level of size would attract many women. But show those same women pictures of professional fitness models, or Chippendale dancers, and the reaction would be quite different. These are men who are in reality very large and very defined, just not as much as the guys who do anabolic steroids for the whole off-season. Think Brad Pitt in Fight Club and you know what most men in the gym are trying to achieve. Please do not tell me that women do not find it attractive. Since I have been working out significantly, my dating prospects zoomed through the roof.
Oh, by the way, the female orgasm plays can play a role in impregnation: the woman is more likely to be inseminated after an orgasm, so don't say that it has no reproductive function
--Bruce Garrison
(To reply, click here.)