Synopsis
Norman Mailer and a panel of feminists — Jacqueline Ceballos, Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston, and Diana Trilling — debate the issue of Women's Liberation.
Town Bloody Hall
1979 Directed by D. A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus
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"As an added benefit of our deliverance from a tyrannical authority in our choice of sexual partners or in our methods of pursuing sexual pleasure, I could hope we could also be free to have such orgasms as, in our individual complexity, we happen to be capable of."
Though officially billed as "A Dialogue on Women's Liberation", the off-the-rails April 1971 panel debate at NYU’s Town Hall chronicled in D.A. Pennebaker's and Chris Hegedus' Town Bloody Hall stands primarily as a testament to the monumental egocentricity of Norman Mailer. As both host and participant in the dialogue, Mailer takes every conceivable opportunity to reorient the discussion to his widely publicized Harper's article-cum-book The Prisoner of Sex, wherein he unleashes a…
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Criterion Collection Spine #1039
A Battle of the Sexes styled debate about the women's liberation movement stuffed with condescending retorts, satire, and intellectual jargon. So time to whip it out, and measure those vocabularies and witty remarks.
"Well, you ladies are very patronizing too. We're all stuck-up snots. How's that?"
Having never read Norman Mailer's 'The Prisoner of Sex', watching Town Bloody Hall was like showing up for a political debate class without having even looked at the reading assignment ahead of time. Based on the arguments made I would like to think sexual politics have come a long way since then, but what do I know ... I'm a dude.
Mailer puts his foot in his mouth on several…
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“There are good reasons why there are very few good lady critics around.”
Four feminists spoke on April 30, 1971: Jill Johnston, Diana Trilling, Jacqueline Ceballos, and Germaine Greer. Norman Mailer was the host. The whole time, the entitled Mailer acted emasculated any time he didn't get his way; he brought down the women any chance he got with the excuse that he thought he was "cute". His behavior would get him canceled today.
Guest appearance from Susan Sontag was very welcome.
10/10 rating for the feminists
1/10 rating for Mailer -
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"as usual, you don't understand what I'm talking about Elizabeth"
NOBODY DOES IT LIKE NORMAN.
An absolute thrill ride, Mailer standing as the the worst possible outcome of the brocialist, giving a performance that would be considered hammy in the eyes of Vince McMahon. He's all convenient clarifications, constantly trying to weasel his way out of logic traps borne from his own mind, more Jake LaMotta than Ali as he takes blow after blow, but still manages to squeeze in a haymaker here and there.
A fascinating portrait of women's liberation at the time, with everything from Ceballos's second wave reductionism that embraces alienation as the logical endpoint (even outright stating marriage should become a business contract with insurance policies,…
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51. Watch a film with spine #1000 or higher
Progress: 6/52
Sexist Debate-lord Norman Mailer Gets BRUTALLY DESTROYED by Woke Feminists (insane) (omg)
Throughout this documentary, Mailer consistently fails to provide a sensible coherence of his arguments, and its easy to see why. He comes from an extreme place of deep-seated sexism, and the dude doesn't even try to hide it. Hell, he might not even realize it. It's easy to assume that his prejudice against the Women's Lib movement in the early 70s stems from a constant perpetuation of his personal biases, but whats even more disturbing is the fact that he's the "moderator" to begin with. The irony of it is laughable.
The world has…
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normal person: “disgusting! how could that whole panel just let him bully them and say such degrading things!”
Me: “damn....this and a blunt? wow, vibes.”
8.0/10
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'For years and years I’ve been wondering, Mr. Mailer, when you dip your balls in ink, what color ink is it?'
Honestly worth suffering through the shitty camerawork to see Norman Mailer get absolutely ripped to shreds
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Norman Mailer takes an already funny script and is riffing on a level that is freaking sublime
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For the first ten minutes or so, I was worrying that maybe Pennebaker (in partnership with Chris Hegedus, as usual) was gonna miss for once. He seemed out of his depth - his camera didn’t seem to know who or what to follow. But it turned out to be, of course, another fly-on-the-wall banger.
Very much worth seeing as an artifact but I beg you, please take heed of the trigger warning that it is truly WILD the level of misogyny and homophobia you will hear coming from that hack incel king mailer’s mouth.
Germaine Greer gives the best speech - one I’d love to quote a whole two minutes of here. But later in life, she outed herself as…
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With the exception of STOP MAKING SENSE, this is the closest any film as ever come to actually feeling like you are there in the room.
Really made me wish I was alive in the 70s. Norman Mailer is an asshole, but at least he’s smart. If an event like this happened now, it would be on like The Joe Rogan Podcast and every woman would get a million death threats on Twitter.
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charming insight to a wildly fascinating, deliciously entertaining evening of compelling speeches especially from Greer whose astuteness and witty remarks carry most of the documentary