Repressive Desublimation

One disadvantage to living in the sticks not emphasized by the Porchers is that it deprives the blogger of being able to provide cutting-edge analysis of new films. So I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t seen Whit Stillman’s DAMSELS IN DISTRESS yet. That doesn’t prevent me from discovering on the web various tidbits of dialogue from the film. Here’s one that shows the failure of bourgeois libertarianism to even achieve true bohemianism by undermining one of what had been one of our enduring sources of artistic excellence:

VIOLET: Have you chosen a topic for your paper?

FRED: Uh, “The Decline of Decadence.”

VIOLET: You think decadence has declined?

FRED: Definitely. Big time. Major, major decline.

VIOLET: How?

FRED: “How” or “in what ways”?

VIOLET: Either.

FRED: Okay, take the flit movement in literature, or homosexuality—

VIOLET: What?

FRED: Homosexuality. It’s gone completely downhill. Right down the tubes. [He makes the sound: “Whchht.”]

FRED: Before, homosexuality was something refined, hidden, subliminated, aspiring to the highest forms of expression and often achieving them. Now it just seems to be a lot of muscle-bound morons running around in T-shirts.

[Violet looks a little shocked.]

FRED: It’s pretty disillusioning.

[Violet pauses in thought for a long moment]

VIOLET: Are you gay?

FRED: Not especially. But in another era, it would have had more appeal. Now, I just don’t see the point.