Ah, the original "I don't know her."

@diogo.souza.santos

2 жыл бұрын

LOL

she wiped the floor with him wow. love her!

@belleofkilronan8565

3 жыл бұрын

As do I.

@hayleyanna2625

2 ай бұрын

Truly.

“Are we not speaking English?”

@fellowcitizen

3 жыл бұрын

The original Samuel L Jackson

She is a kick. Love her! Glad as hell I wasn't the one interviewing her!!

@pppatsy

9 жыл бұрын

I'm sure you would have asked better questions given your appreciation of her!

I was literally rolling my eyes the entire time. You get the brilliant Susan Sontag to sit down and do an interview with you, and so many intelligent questions you can ask about her view of the world and the many works she's published and you choose to ask her "did you really say what you said a few weeks ago?" Ugh, what a waste of time

@nightwish1000

Жыл бұрын

he asked if what entertainment today quoted was what she really said...big difference. btw, i passed her grave in Paris this afternoon and i'll have to return with a pen in order to scratch/critically correct the antiwhite bullshit some of her fans dropped on pieces of paper put on her grave.

@firouz256

5 ай бұрын

You have no time context neither do you know Camille Paglia! It is sad

@hayleyanna2625

2 ай бұрын

I agree. She was superb.

I loved her no bullshit approach. Honest, ego on the side.. just being herself

@felix-ve8jk

4 ай бұрын

Just being herself. A Jewish immigrant communist 😍

Susan is our queen of literature

He fails to realize something about Sontag which Jonathan Cott from Rolling Stone figured out quickly; Susan speaks and thinks in measured paragraph.

@user-ec5ik1gp7v

Ай бұрын

I was thinking the same

This is what I absolutely love about Sontag...Because he has an article to publish, this guy wants to write his(and social) preconceived notions about her, and he really isn't hearing what she's saying....her direct, clear, and honest response here is what I so admire about her, and her work!

@bosnbruce5837

9 жыл бұрын

dancewomyn1 Honest responses? Clear? Direct? Never heard of Paglia? Hahaha riiiiiight. Lets not kid ourselves - she's honest, clear and direct as any self-absorbed, paranoid septuagenarian.

@robertplautz9722

7 жыл бұрын

nailed on the head! Susan sees so many worlds, but she states that the world he wants to discuss is not one of them. one only knows what one is familiar with. she says she is busy, reading and thinking and writing, and delineation, definition, contemplation on popular culture is not her interest. he's lucky enough to interview her, and rather than focusing on today's headlines, he should use his precious time to explore with the author her works, to go into depth about them. what a tragic missed chance, and what a waste of Ms. Sontag's all-too-precious time

@nadinebrown7644

5 жыл бұрын

@@bosnbruce5837 Camillle isn't an important figure to real feminists. Why would serious feminists ever pay attention to that contradictory mess.

@nadinebrown7644

5 жыл бұрын

@@bosnbruce5837 Camillle is only taken seriously by MRA, incels idiots like you. The world doesn't revolve around Camille

@bosnbruce5837

5 жыл бұрын

@@nadinebrown7644 I do admit of being an incel and practicing celibacy. As much as any seafaring pirate - mostly in between the ports ;) As for Camille I don't think she shits gold, and whole _protect the boys and males and husbands_ notion is actually disgusting to me. In that regard, she was Jordan Peterson before JP. But she won me by her honesty. Unlike the Susan here who didn;t say one honest, spontaneous thing in the entire interview, and is instead measuring every breath she takes.

If she didn't like vague questions she should have started talking about all of these supposedly fascinated topics she's apparently aware of, such as neurology.

That was the spikiest, most bad-ass interview I've ever seen. Bravo.

@pauldagostino9222

2 жыл бұрын

Why, cuz she's just being a bitch the whole time? That makes her "bad-ass"?

She was so amazing, so brilliant and curious about everything. The mind of a true intellectual is always seeking. Thomas Jefferson wrote that "education is not an accomplishment but a lifelong process." I agree with Kim Sisto Robinson, "she was a kick!" I would have enjoyed listening to her but too intimidated to say more than "hello" to her.

I have never been so enraged by an interviewer. Now I totally understand why some people would go around describing Sontag as "arrogant" and "snobbish" because some people are deserved to be treated like this. How many times does she need to say "can you ask me a straight question" until you get it and say what's really on your mind? What's with all the equivocations and double negatives and innuendos?!

I love Susan Sontag. That's so great that she's onto a nineties superficial journalism agenda."I'm not a performer." Who would want to be reduced into small categories?

I think she's just being honest. Genuine. Real. You cannot, as an interviewer, sum up or reveal to viewers nearly anything about a person in a short interview. Many interviewees play along, give up meaningless 15 second "sound bites" in order to keep the pace moving and further their agenda, usually self promotion. Which is, they package up bullshit for an eager and hungry audience. I'm sure, although I couldn't know, her agent asked her to do interviews. Seems she'd rather be reading a book. I don't think she's under any obligation to protect this man's feelings. She's giving him her time, and she's giving him her true reactions to his artificially journalistic questions.

@ilPitproductions

6 жыл бұрын

the honest, genuine, real logical conclusion would be to not do interviews.

@richardbutler4528

5 жыл бұрын

@@ilPitproductions The only reason she did it was she had a book to promote.

@ptah162018

2 жыл бұрын

@@ilPitproductions Why not? Why shouldn't she do interviews? Why do you turn it around like her annoyance was on her while it was completely understandable - the interviewer was obviously not prepared or was deliberately antagonizing her. If he had read 'Notes on 'camp', he would have known she doesn't think in high/low culture terms (one example). He is obviously not interested in asking her questions about her work, which she is there for. If you interview a writer, you ask questions about their work or about how their work relates to the world, things like that. If an interviewer poses questions not related to the work, you can expect a writer to get irritated or angry. And rightfully so.

He was trying to goad her into a cat fight with Paglia over pop culture and she knew it. I wish I could see the whole interview rather than just the cut up parts like this. The editing is really choppy and intended to just focus on her getting incensed at his moronic questions.

I love how the interviewer keeps asking the same questions over and over again.

"And you know I don't. I've said it in countless interviews." LOL.

What’s amazing about this interview (imo) is the fact that he asked Sontag about a quotation allegedly by herself, delivered to another columnist from an innocuous but salacious source of gossip (entertainment weekly). And Sontag is visibly flummoxed. I imagine a critic of her standing could not genuinely comprehend the level popular entertainment had devolved from the 50s and 60s. And if Sontag were alive now, I believe today would really be a big shock. A lot has changed in even the last 20 years culturally. And I do not believe in a good way….think about it, is there really any literati anymore like Sontag, Capote, Vidal, Mailer, Vonnegut, Wolff? It’s sad but I feel today’s celebrity set is just not nearly as interesting, deep, and focused on thinking before speaking. And today it feels like the self help/ego/get rich quick authors are the only ones who transcend the written page into the social columns….the stark contrast being the names I had mentioned prior whom (for the most part) seemed like fallible human writers with real frailties, vices, and travel stories.

I admire her answers. She's sticking to her guns and refusing to enter into a conversation which turns experience into quotables. She is also someone who famously said she paused over the difference between writing "fast" or "rapid," so clearly the idea of 'top of the head' answers to big questions turns her off.

ps: when you watch this followed by Paglia's manic & trashy response you start to see just how chill & sophisticated Sontag really is.

@mahalianewman3163

3 жыл бұрын

I'M WATCHING PAGLIA RIGHT NOW. ridiculous, truly highlights Sontag's serenity

hahahahaha...she's fantastic... a real piece of work ....i love her

she isnt arrogant, she is just super refined and poignent in exactly what is going on. It's like looking at an artist's work and wondering how they got there. it starts off as an idea, and gets refined so far to the point that you say "what the heck?"

@lampad4549

9 ай бұрын

I think that is arrogant

This is one of the worse ill-prepared interviews I have ever seen. To make matters worse the questions are full of double négatives... No wonder Sontag got annoyed. Furthermore I agree with her refusal to act as a pundit. Bright woman !

@georgemanko436

2 жыл бұрын

I like her answer simply: “i’m not a performer.” as tho she’s supposed to have canned answers to commonly asked questions.

I'm here because I just finished reading Reborn and boy is she different from the person I pictured

Unique vision of an interviewer drowning and not being thrown a lifeline. Brilliant. Where are these thinking people now?

you'd be shocked by how much weed she smoked, and how much sex she had, among other things that ppl believe will turn you into a docile vegetable. but when you have bite, you have bite, and frankly it's refreshing to watch this in the age of non-stop Colgate commercials.

@katiagh8744

4 жыл бұрын

Lush Retina, really? That’s just makes her one of us, right?))) Sex with women i guess?

Ooohh, and that voice. The tone, the calm. MMMmmmmm.

Ahhh Susan! lol What an interview!

I absolutely love her!

she is very strong!!!

Brion Gysin used to call her Susan Snotrag.

that was uncomfortable

@christinetrzcinski4561

8 жыл бұрын

+richard Taylor indeed I guess he was trying to get her to criticize "pop" culture and she wasn't going there because she doesn't go there I think he handled himself pretty well though. and she backed down a bit as well

Ms. Sontag is like the college professor where the brightest minds in the class get B's because the professor is so ungrounded and non-specific. Her thoughts can be followed no more precisely than can human eyes track a flying bat at night.

@Burps___

9 жыл бұрын

Maybe with your mind.

@dancewomyn1

9 жыл бұрын

@coolkayaker1....What!? Clearly your skill in concentration is sorely in need of repair. Sontag's work actually suffers most from her almost obsessive need to be clear. Clarity is completely what she is about! Not sure how long you've been following her, but I have to disagree wholeheartedly with you.

@Burps___

9 жыл бұрын

I respect your opinion. My comment was about this interview, her rather vile opinions, her "chip on my shoulder: attitude, her scatter-shot rationale, not her published writing. :-)

@dancewomyn1

9 жыл бұрын

Agreed... This interview in particular is a tough one because she is being extraordinarily resistant, and yes self important in all of her answers. (I think it's a manifestation of her known discomfort with interviews) Having said that, I don't think this interviewer's approach was right for who she is, meaning that to ask questions about pop culture, and quoting from entertainment weekly was bound to press all the wrong buttons.

@Burps___

9 жыл бұрын

You make some valid points. Yes.

"Down with television" Nice :-)

i love how the ultimate conclusion is "BUT she's got a best-seller on her hands!" so damn clueless aaaaaaaaaaaaa

Of course the writers she admired also happened to be her own friends (i.e. Hardwick, Barthelme, Pinckney). I do love this woman deeply... I just read S. Nunez's "Sempre Sontag" and loved her all the more! Paglia was right about her, as in one of the other ways to adore Sontag was for her "public theater." I couldn't agree more. (See Paglia's "Vamps & Tramps" included therein a memoir of her encounter Sontag. Not superior to Nunez's, but will get you writhing on the floor with laughter!)

00:45 🇺🇸 listing 🇺🇸 writers she reveres and admires 01:56 👍 'I'm sorry, are we speaking English' 👍 03:55 'you have another agenda' Sontag to interviewer 05:05 'I'm not a pundit ... I don't have soundbites...' 05:56 'I'm not a performing artist'

Susan Sontag fue, es y será una de las mujeres con el mejor cerebro del Mundo Contemporáneo en Occidente. Cualquier entrevista que haga que baje a los fangos de rivalizar o criticar a otros que lo han hecho con ella, es realmente una provocación insulsa donde ella simplemente no entra. No hay referencias a su obra. No se le pregunta acerca de sus fuentes inspiracionales, de sus reflexiones personales. Hay una ausencia absoluta a su creación intelectual... Ese tono cierto es, es un tanto soberbio, un tanto pretencioso, pero hay que entender que una entrevista es un conjunto de preguntas ideadas muy minuciosamente, y sobre todo, CONOCER la obra y pensamiento del entrevistado, y no ir mendigándole una crítica hacia otra señora que la ha atacado. Eso es vulgar. Y Susan Sontag de todo cuanto pudo ser, justamente lo que nunca fue es precisamente éso, vulgar. Susan Sontag es PRECIOSA y MARAVILLOSA. Ella y su obra, su obra y ella. Ambas son un sólo cuerpo. Saludos desde España.

@jeanpaul7972

9 жыл бұрын

izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-the-truth-is-that-mozart-pascal-boolean-algebra-shakespeare-parliamentary-government-baroque-susan-sontag-267944.jpg

I think sooty and sweep should have interviewed her

Savage interview

,..go into a corner and think for 3 days, says much about this one...

Something about her reminds me of a female Anthony Bourdain

@mahalianewman3163

3 жыл бұрын

maybe he's a male susan sontag. she did live 20 years before him

@spectralv709

3 жыл бұрын

@@mahalianewman3163 that's true

At 1:50, the SHADE. I live!

The interviewer really annoyed me with his questions, until he asked a direct question about does pop culture interest Sontag and then Sontag annoyed me! It's a direct question, but she complicated it. It seemed to me a simple question within simple parameters ("Sure, there's some Rock and Roll I find interesting, and on a level with traditional literature. I was impressed by that musical, and I can mention one Hollywood movie I thought significant"). Instead she couldn't respond that way. The rest of the interview went the same way. If I were the interviewer I would have cut the interview short. "Since Ms. Sontag chooses not to respond to interview questions within an interview format, I regret to say I have to terminate this segment of our broadcast." I have read interviews with towering intellectuals, such as Jean-Paul Sartre where he responded to even the most mundane questions.

@kreed1004

10 жыл бұрын

guess she didn't perform the way you'd have liked

@kreed1004

10 жыл бұрын

Kevin Reed besides this guy is the Perez Hilton of 1992, to use a pop culture term

@rexviper8

9 жыл бұрын

She thinks of the question as something that might get blown up to proportion. Like many media outlets out there, if she does answer it directly... she can be cited as to favor that specific kind of genre; which most definitely undermines most of her works. You'll understand why she answered the way she did if you know her stance regarding media in general.

@haggis655

9 жыл бұрын

You'll understand why she answered the way she did if you know the meaning of the words tendentious and pretentious. She's in an interview format. She agreed to the interview format. She's on television. What the hell does she expect? Einstein, Derrida, Roland Bartthes, Jean-Paul Sartre would have answered a question like that more directly and I have read interviews in which these folk did. What else does an "interview" (i.e. inter-view, between views) format MEAN, but an exchange of views, a finding of common ground. "Isn't it MOVIE music?" "Well, yes, but don't forget, great composers of the past, such as Grieg or even Beethoven, composed incidental music, which is the same thing; such as Mendelssohn's music for "A Midsummer's Night's Dream," which has now passed into classical culture of high esteem." In the same way, Shakespeare included songs in his plays, with popular melodies (Greensleeves) of the day, to entertain the masses. Yet today we puzzle over some of those songs as "high art." THAT is the way you answer a question like that, on the terms in which it is presented, in the format in which it is presented. One doesn't puzzle over meanings, such as,. "Well, I really don 't make distinctions like that," when distinctions like that is precisely the point of the question. I consider my mind at least as complex as Sontag's, but I would have no problem answering a question like that. Ironically I have engaged in similar puzzling over "pop" v. "high" or classical culture. Since we all know that what was once popular culture later became high culture, whether Shakespeare, Dickens, jazz, the cinema, Warhol's Pop Art, even Rock. One day students will complain to their parents, "Do we HAVE to study boring subjects like The Beatles?" Of course, The Beatles have long since been studied as "serious" music (as has Elvis, the Blues, etc.), but I refer to "boring" too. There have been more "serious" books written on Elvis than on many so-called figures of "high culture." Nonetheless I would KN OW what the hell an interviewer meant by an antithesis of high (or "serious") and pop culture. It's called "pragmatic criticism." What the average person MEANS or INTENDS by "a Western," a "Musical," even if they can't quite EXPLAIN what a Western is ("Gee, there's a gunfight, a horse, a saloon, dust," etc.). She's being tendentious, argumentative, and ultimately pretentious. But if you want to entertain a contrary belief, that of course is your prerogative.

@JohnnyArtPavlou

5 жыл бұрын

Haggis, I have a feeling Oscar Wilde would give the same kind of interview. To drop the mask is to be afraid of what might go with the mask when it is removed.

Chris Lydon oh dear. 20 minutes in a room with this woman there are so many other questions you could have asked her that would have enriched the world.

Love Susan Sontag

Well, that escalated quickly.

I’m fascinated to know why she found her time in Oxford ‘boring’ ( her word)

She owned the interviewer...

@ryebread7905

5 жыл бұрын

No one owned anyone.

Sontag possessed one of the greatest intellectual minds of all of human history. Her uncanny ability to acquire and interpret knowledge is prolifically unmatched in the field of literature. Her ideas and her works are reflective of truth, social awareness, and representative of equality for impoverished and repressed writers the world over. Morality is a very dangerous thing, no matter how it is presented as a mediator of truth. The process can be riddled with deceptions.

*it's the Volcano LOVER. Whoever uploaded this sounds about as well informed as the interviewer in this video.

Imagine living with that?

Don't light candles to anyone. If respect and admiration is not enough, there's something wrong with you. Let's stop thinking that you need to "light a candle" to deeply respect someone. You don't need that!

She expressing here was Bob Dylan never was able to say though it seems that he felt precisely the same way. But really that's how most of us likely feel. The only issue really is the idiocy of many journalists.

This interview..

I am surprised she didn't get up and leave after these stupid questions

@telebob

4 жыл бұрын

I am surprised Lydon didn't leave too, thinking this bitch be nuts.

I think the reason Sontag may seem like she’s being purposely difficult is because she has integrity. Journalists like this guy are spoiled with interviewees so obsessed with attention that they’re willing to answer any dumb question.

I believe her. Paglia writes about completely different things. Susan was mostly attached to classics. Very different content.

@TedATL1

4 жыл бұрын

Sophie Brown Just classics? So she writes on “camp” and pornography and photography?

Agreed! Down with television

I admire her patience with this interviewer. I would have gone ballistic.

SS - "I have a lot to think about that isn't based on the entertainment culture" CL - "Where do you draw the line between the serious culture and entertainment culture?" SS - "I don't think that way" I would have said this interview was a waste of time, but now I have something to point to if I'm ever asked what 'pretentious' means.

@DarkAngelEU

6 жыл бұрын

It's not pretentious because it's true. Her work is about getting rid of these lines, the subjectivity of them, etc. What she is pointing out here is that he's looking for gossip and she isn't gonna give him any, so when he asks where she draws the line she just says "I'm not like you".

@dalexanderberry4317

5 жыл бұрын

she's obviously not interested in the questions.

it's too serious to be sentimental!!

CAPRICORN QUEEN

@AmandaFromWisconsin

3 жыл бұрын

@@pdottie212fu Astrology doesn't mean shit.

This reminds me a reporter who made an interview to Elon Musk, and had no idea about his way of thinking. Seemed they did not prepared for the interview.

''You've got to get somebody smarter on your program''... well, yes.

Did you really say what you said? :P

Quite clearly, the interviewer had the wrong set of questions for Susan Sontag. But thats precisely why these are also the right questions because of the answers she dishes out. No conventional categories. No ready political opinion. No need to be drawn to the TV for anything. These are thought provoking in themselves, even if more insightful for someone who is not familiar with her work.

Haha the poor interviewer

Well...she is certainly not pandering. The interviewer could have asked her direct questions rather than try and corner her in cliches. But he had an agenda

class

That man made a complete fool of himself.

wow, she had never heard of Camille Paglia? In 1990 I was a not-so well-educated 18 year old lad living in a working class part of Manchester, England...and even i had heard of her. Incredible...i don't believe it.

Both difficult!

He did press the same line repeatedly. But I'm left wondering what question would not elicit a similar withering response. Tell us about yourself? What are you working on? How do you approach your work? Any question can be framed as idiotic,passé, or irrelevant if you are sufficiently pretentious. She was probably pissed to have a mere male interview her.

Hahahah the comments either loved sontag or hated her

@coolieduppy she is not defensive, she just makes a point. and why should she supposed to know each and every mayfly?

annnnd I've reached the educated part of youtube

Fun watching someone wipe the floor with Lydon

He is dense. She is exasperated by his denseness.

Sorry, but I disagree with t fact that she is being rude. She's being Susan. Lydon is clearly and stupidly going down his list of sound bite questions to fulfill his viewers ratings. How can one ask an intellectual what they think about "pop" culture? What kind of question is that? There is no dialogue, no exchange. "Pop" culture is a label term and trust me, I've known a few intellectuals in my life and they hate label terms or to have pull answers out of their ass.

-Did you say it? _(...)yes I did say it. -Meaning what? What one could mean by saying that he doesn't know someone else?.... Isn't that a stupid question that simply reveals the true intentions of the questioner? "Meaning what" suggests that he does not believe that Sontag didn't know Paglia, it's just like publicly calling her a lier and trying to take advantage for gossip and stupid conversation. No wonder from that point on Sontag got angry and began treating him like moron. Those journalistic tricks should always be treated that way. She was in fact much smarter than him to seriously get involved (form that point on) in his stupid questions.

Susan was not giving Chris Lyon a chance and she could have been so much more polite!

@lynneobrophy8267

4 жыл бұрын

I think the rest of these wannabe intellectuals should give it up. She was rude, overbearing, obnoxious and with all she's had to say about EVERYTHING, she could have responded to his questions instead of being an insulting bore.

I sure don't want to make her uncomfortable as this.

I'm assuming Lydon could have done a better job but was so thrown by the barrage that he lost all footing. I love Sontag, but she's incredibly sadistic in this interview. She's even a bit superb about it, but I'm nonetheless left disappointed with her lack of compassion for someone whom she obviously considers her intellectual inferior -- which is a bit silly since almost anyone would be, and she knows it.

@DarkAngelEU

6 жыл бұрын

I think she's so harsh on him because it's supposed to be his job, they're not sitting in a cafe having casual conversation. This is for television and she's right, the guy's a fucking moron.

"I don't know who you think I am." And she doesn't have to. It's his job. He's getting to know in this interview, that's for sure. He should have been embarrassed. She's annoyed by the gilded presumptuousness of his questions. It's the worst. Creating a glass pedestal on quicksand and trying to coax her into standing on it so he can take a snapshot and call himself a great interviewer.

One of her many... sides.

@kreed1004

10 жыл бұрын

AntiCommunist88HH brilliant thanks!

Why did she agree to be interviewed? She was brutal.

ANY INTERVIEWER: (Insert question/observation of your choice.) SUSAN: I disagree with the premise of your question and your question is based on superficial thinking and--excuse me--you have no idea what you're talking about.

She has that poor guy just scared shitless! I understand what she wants to say, why doesn't he?

Gremlins 2 brought me here.

@rsodierna

3 жыл бұрын

how

"I'm not a pundit... I don't have soundbites... I don't think that way... No, I don't and I've said it in countless interviews..." Fascinating interview fail.

What color is the sky in your world?

@rsodierna

3 жыл бұрын

sometimes its grey but it was blue today

How awkward... She doesn't need to be so difficult

He has such awful questions and HE IS FRAMING THEM SO AWFULLY

Googles "Deborah Eisenberg" and expect her to be one of the young writers. Realize this is from 1992..

he certainly irritates her

PS THank you, Susan Sontagg...:)

He should have come in whiteface and kabuki dress, opened his mouth as if about to scream, and emitted a gutteral, existential groan for as long as he was able. She would have responded 'well exactly'.

"Maybe that's the problem" lol 7:00