Tennesse Williams to Gore Vidal While Skeet Shooting with JKF in 1958: ‘Get That Ass!’

[LuvNewcastle]

[link:|


In 1958, while working on the screenplay of Suddenly Last Summer, Gore Vidal took Tennessee Williams to Palm Beach to meet Senator John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie. Vidal knew Jackie because they shared the same stepfather, the much married, much divorced Hugh Auchincloss. Williams had no idea who the Kennedys were, but the young couple were certainly familiar with the famous playwright. The four drank cocktails and did a little skeet shooting — Williams was a better shot than the senator from Massachusetts. When Kennedy stepped forward to to take aim, Williams whispered to Vidal, “Get that ass!” Vidal told Williams he shouldn’t cruise our next president, then repeated the remark to Kennedy. “Now that’s very exciting!” said Kennedy with a grin. Williams later told Vidal, “They’ll never elect those two. They’re much too attractive for the American people.”

http://www.gorevidalnow.com/

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Weird. Just read that essay offline in Palimpsest....

...one of Vidal's numerous collections of essays. About two weeks ago.

Didn't know Vidal had a website. An added +. Thanks.

K and R to promote high-order thinking on lgbt forum.

[LuvNewcastle]

2. I was reading something about Gore Vidal yesterday and

I decided to Google his name. I was pleased to find the website as well; Vidal's one of my favorites.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Well hey.... there's this video on Youtube where one actor plays Vidal and ...

... the other plays William F Buckley.

So they're reenacting a famously-famous clash that took place on nat'l tv during the 1968 DEM convention and............

[LuvNewcastle]

4. I saw that posted here the other day and

I wondered why it was posted. I didn't think it was amusing.

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. It wasn't posted to "amuse".

Beefcake threads are posted to amuse.

It was posted to connect the present to the not-all-that-distant past. (1968)

As well as to the distant past. (Wilde)

As well as to the Renaissance. (Michaelangelo.)

As well as to antiquity.

It was posted to make people think.

[LuvNewcastle]

6. You do know that Gore Vidal didn't make that

big pro-pederasty speech on the air, right? He called Buckley a crypto-Nazi, Buckley called him a queer and threatened to punch him and that was about it. If the original footage had been posted or if the actors had done a factual portrayal, I guess that would have been different, although I still wouldn't see much point in posting it here. The speech he gave made Vidal out to be like Jerry Sandusky or something. It wasn't funny or, for that matter, thought provoking at all.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Of course. Here's he original clip:

The Wilde quote is a dramatic dream sequence-type add-on. ( in the banned post you refer to above.) It's verbatim from his sodomy... not "pederasty" trial:

>>"The love that dare not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as the "Love that dare not speak its name," and on account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so the world does not understand. The world mocks it and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.>>>

In the quote, he's clearly talking about adult "men". ( Quick count: I see five times "men" or "man"; no "boy" child" "youth" etc.) So... he's not talking about sex between men and children or between men and "youths" ( i.e. adolescents.) And neither is the fanciful youtube re-creation video.

The trial stemmed in large part from Wilde's relationship w. Alfred Douglas... which they began when Wilde was 37 and Douglas was ... it is variously described... at least 20 and possibly as old as 22. The relationship enraged the sensibilities of Douglas' patrician family and much of Victorian society but less because of the age disparity of the two (adult) men than because of its homosexual nature. Had a thirty-seven y.o. heterosexual man had a relationship w. a 21 y.o. woman, would we be talking about this now?

Yes... I understand the sensitivity to the topic of "older" and "younger," as well as certain complexities in the Wilde criminal trial ( and in Wilde himself) but let's not let that confuse us as to what exactly is being discussed in the banned video or what Wilde actually said at trial.

It's NOT... repeat NOT ...about adult men having relationships with underage men. And, NO Gore Vidal in real life had nothing to do with the Wilde quote.

[LuvNewcastle]

8. So that video was posted in order to

facilitate a discussion about relationships between older and younger men? That's a hell of a way of going about it. Why not just post the Wilde quote with a comment? All that little 're-enactment' did was make Gore Vidal look ridiculous. If the intent of the makers of the video was to make people think about their attitudes on older/younger gay relationships (and I still don't believe that to be the case), it was a miserable fail.

I've been told that I have a weird sense of humor on occasion, so I understand how at times one might have a rationale about the worthiness of a post while others fail to see any worth in it at all. Some people have blind spots about what might be acceptable ways to approach a subject. Sometimes a person just doesn't see what might be glaringly obvious to others; offending others is often not done maliciously. When I make such a mistake and I'm made aware of it, I make a mental note not to do that sort of thing again. No biggie. I've accepted the fact that I'm a little weird and sometimes a bit of embarrassment comes with the territory. It might be a good idea if the person who posted that video did the same.

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. Ok. I agree w. this part of your post:

>>>No biggie.>>>

Let's move on.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

10. I don't know why you thought a fake video with Vidal ....

..... ending up getting pummeled while whimpering is funny?

I alerted on it, btw.

I said it in the alert and I'll say it again. That was a right-winger's gay bashing wet dream. Why you posted it is beyond me.

That's the thing about right-wingers. They need an alternate reality to get them through their day. An alternate reality of history (the reasons for The New Deal and Medicare etc.), the present (taxes are higher than ever etc.), and what would happen in the future if certain things like tried and true economic policies were enacted (stimulus, card check etc.). Not to mention anti-bullying laws gay marriage etc.

See. The thing is, their hero WFB, got his ass handed to him and took it like the punk he is. He snarled his teeth and called Vidal a name but he took it. There WAS no beating because punks like Buckley are all talk. As I suspect the asshole who created that video is an all talk chicken-hawk.

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. Fascinating.

So your objection has nothing at all to do w. the alleged "defense" of pederasty that some people ( I can't really believe there were that many) saw.... or professed to see.... in the banned video.

You simply object 'cause you see the joke or put-down as coming at the expense of Vidal... and not of Buckley.

Well.... it turns out the videographer is a 26 y.o. or so Brooklyn-based ( I guess you might call him "avant garde&quot serial you tuber. Lot's of stuff posted there....most of which is hard to describe , let alone, interpret.

What I can say, with reasonable certitude ( I just perused a half dozen or so) is.... "the dude ain't no right winger."

Plus: for the record: I never said... or thought... the video was "funny". I explained my motivation in posting it... such as it was... further upthread.

For the record again : I don't see it in anyway supporting or endorsing Buckley, homophobia or gay-bashing. I see it doing precisely the opposite. It's a parody of Buckley and his inability to counter Vidal's ( and later Wilde's) argumentation. Even you yourself see this:

>>See. The thing is, their hero WFB, got his ass handed to him and took it like the punk he is. He snarled his teeth and called Vidal a name but he took it. There WAS no beating because punks like Buckley are all talk.>>>

OK... it's a a sort of Rohrshach. As with so many things in life, we bring our own experience and preconceptions and project those onto ambiguous stimuli. What bugs me , though, is how easily .... especially under the new rules... this forum falls into a "torches and pitchfork" mentality. I'm not sure the answer to that is more bureaucracy, more "juries" and more "hosts."

I keep thinking of The Oxbow Incident whenever I think of the "improved" DU 3. This episode is a case in point. (Though, admittedly, I haven't been hanged. So far, anyway.)

I really wish people would spend less time thinking about how to get other people and other POVs banned and spend more time honing their own arguments and skills of persuasion.