Among the recent conflicts I’ve been facing as a TV consumer is whether or not I want to watch The Shards. There’s been a handful of series that have crossed my radar that I’ve considered, but this one has stood out for a few reasons. The most notable being that, as a fan of Ivy Wolk, I have to believe there will be some fun to be found in the young supporting cast who go on wild, debaucherous adventures. There’s also the fact that, at his best, producer Ryan Murphy has stimulated the trashy drama for most of the 21st century.
Never mind that I have been climbing down from the fence more and more in the past five years, refusing to go along with his shenanigans because, despite the lighting in a plastic bottle that was American Horror Story, most of these just don’t look good. The one new show of his I gave a chance (The Beauty) turned out to be a laborious mess that I quickly lost interest in. What could The Shards possibly give that would redeem itself after such a catastrophic nosedive?
For one, it’s based on a novel. This, in theory, means that Murphy would be more limited to his whims, even though that hasn’t stopped many book-to-TV adaptations from taking major liberties over the decades. With limited exposure to the actual marketing for Hulu’s latest, I’ll finally admit that more than Wolk, more than Murphy, the reason this show has piqued my interest is that it reminds me of an old friend, someone who I used to spend time with every week as I put in my headphones and discovered what was on his mind.
As far as misguided voices go, most would point fingers at figures like Joe Rogan as the one who cornered the market on harmful podcast conversations. While I am unsure whether my years listening to Bret Easton Ellis could compare to the manosphere, I can recognize how hearing certain rhetoric could ultimately shape you into believing views that are, at best, antagonistic and, at worst, likely to make you lose friends.
Few authors fit that bill better than the man who rose to popularity in the 1980s with a series of novels detailing the party lifestyle with a nihilistic glee that made him seem like the bad boy. My first exposure to him was the American Psycho (2000) film during the window I considered Christian Bale the best actor of his generation. There’s no denying that the dark comedy is sublime, and the horrifying blend of fantasy and reality created something perplexing for a young 20-something who was still in love with transgressive cinema, where the radical outsider was still appealing and able to exist solely as escapism. It made me ask… who is this guy? Knowing that the book went further into the grotesque, I immediately put it on my list.
I have yet to read “American Psycho.”
Even so, the dominoes were starting to be set up for at least curiosity in who Ellis was as a person. Timing worked out so that, during a period where I was actively perusing every major podcast that was released, he came out with The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast. Almost immediately I became intrigued. Maybe it was because the first guest I heard was Kanye West (different time), but he had exciting guests I wasn’t seeing elsewhere. These were conversations that felt like creators digging into their craft and really understanding what it meant to produce something. This was also around the time of the notorious film The Canyons (2013), so there were constant updates. Lindsay Lohan needed a comeback. Paul Schrader wrote Taxi Driver (1976). Again, a perfect fusion of talent.
As time went on, the show stuck around in my weekly listening to the point that it was in my ultimate favorites alongside WTF with Marc Maron and The Cracked Podcast (Jack O’Brien years). In hindsight, it’s strange that I listened that much to him because he was very much a contrarian at heart, getting mileage out of how much he hated Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and, despite being dead for many years, a feud with David Foster Wallace that would pop up randomly like Vietnam flashbacks. For as much as the interviews were adequate sources of entertainment, I had to ask myself… why did I care so much?
When you’re young and not fully processing the value of independent thought, you are more susceptible to messaging. Ellis had long been considered a bad boy of fiction. Given that we were both writers, I figured that was enough reason to trust his opinion without giving a second guess. He had gone through the wringer and knew what he was talking about. He had that pithy Truman Capote quality where the gossip was delivered in a hushed tone with a smug sense of superiority. It’s hard to understand why I thought he was a supportable underdog in 2013, but hearing his process for writing novels resonated. He would share his inspiration for every novel, which, again, meant it landed on my list.
I have yet to read “Lunar Park.”
More than any quality that could be plausible for why I’d listen, the one thing that stood out was his opening monologues. Whereas Maron’s sounded ramshackle, Ellis had a composed quality that convinced me he had spent the entire week editing the draft so it could be as eloquent as possible. He was intoxicating as a speaker, able to persuade me into holding onto his every word as he rambled for several minutes about whatever was on his mind. There was almost no need to go beyond the first 20 minutes because this was what I came to hear: unfiltered opinion of a man who, despite dating someone closer to my age, was very bitter against the perceived sensitivities of Millennial audiences.
This is where the toxic nature of his prose begins to hypnotize as something more dangerous. Given that this was in the years shortly following his 2013 launch, it’s easy to see him as fitting in the conservative box, the type of person who rallied against young people’s safe spaces and the belief that they were constantly winning participation trophies. Some part of me is convinced this was all a byproduct of his books being filled with cruel protagonists who defied niceties. Whether or not he was sincere, his podcast presentation felt a bit too joyful in dropping a few extra parentheses to give a snarky “snowflakes” whenever he needed to accentuate a talking point that amounted to his perverse, “Welcome to reality” thesis.
Add in my general concern that reaching my 20s meant that I needed to mature and form a tough outer shell, the decision to hear “snowflakes” every week meant, on some level, that I began to see the world as too sensitive, that there was a need to comply with this Gen-Xer who made his money off of drug addicts and homicidal stockbrokers. Because Ellis had a knack for crafting his perspective with prose that was dreamy and persuasive, it was my version of the more contemporary trend of listening to podcasters who have been accused of damaging the youth’s view of interpersonal dynamics. If there’s anything that differs, it’s that Ellis was mostly just bitching about entertainment and not pursuing some greater concept of masculinity. His diverse roster of guests also gave off the impression that he wasn’t excluding dissenting opinion, even if he was becoming notorious around this time for being a snarky contrarian.
To fill in some gaps, let me share my larger relationship with Ellis’ work. To date, I have only read one of his novels: “The Rules of Attraction.” Whereas I look back on my days of listening to his podcast and wince a little, the same can’t be said for this novel. The structure very much reminds me of William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying,” which is one of my all-time favorites and revolutionized how I saw storytelling. Any book with multiple P.O.V. deserves a little respect from me and, for my money, Ellis had landed on a formula that resonated in the moment. It felt like a college party novel where everything was fast and loose, held together with a strange mix of darkness and deeper sentiment. He may be accused of being heartless, but there are portions of “The Rules of Attraction” that steamroll you. Without going into too much detail, there’s an extended sequence of characters discovering that a friend committed suicide that was one of the most immersive passages I had read up to that point. For a man accused of leaning too far into shock, he had a very murky way of infusing heart.
That is to say I don’t hate Ellis the author, but I think as a podcaster, it’s harder to find motivation to pick up one of those books and see if I can find that same magic. Much like how I was obsessed with Taxi Driver during a dark time of my life, I have to wonder if Ellis needing to tell his audience to toughen up ultimately was for the worst. Was I being much too gullible during a time when the whole world was opening up? I was at the age where the art I consumed had the power to define my greater pursuits (see: “As I Lay Dying”), so was the possibility of nihilism and sarcasm going to make me a worse person?
Part of me worries that the wool has been pulled back from my eyes and I see his novelty for what it is. Despite hours of objective criticism that was useful, was I worshiping somebody who was not for me? It’s doubtful that Ellis would ever like me as a person, so why was I eager to please him? I’m nervous to read “American Psycho” and mostly see a try-hard reveling in complete depravity. I’m no longer engaged with hostility in the same way I was in my early 20s, and I’m generally a fan of breaking down the emotional core of a character – something I’ve never seen Ellis do, whether on the page or in his detailed rants. He’s very cold and didactic. You get a sense of who he is, but there’s never a sense that he admits to being depressed.
For what it’s worth, I did pick up a copy of “Less Than Zero” a few years ago for $1. It currently sits in my pile waiting to see if that mood ever strikes. That doesn’t suggest the immediacy with which I’ll read it, but it’s not high on the list.
If you had to ask what broke the spell, it was something simpler than a theological disagreement. After years of dedicated listening, Ellis announced that his podcast was going behind a paywall. It’s a gesture that I think spoke to how full of himself he thought he was. Knowing I had other options for free, the detox took time to realize a lot of his intentions were at odds with my own. My defense could’ve been that I was listening to a perspective different from my own (which I still do), but I liked Ellis too much to outright dismiss him. Again, the intoxicating way with which he interjected a “snowflakes” made it difficult to not feel inadequate, like I needed to do better. Add in that the 2016 presidential election caused me to rethink a lot of my life and form a deeper view of humanity; the cruelty with which he spoke was no longer cool. It wasn’t escapist when America elected somebody who makes every day feel like the edge of disaster.
Which brings me back to The Shards. It’s based on the only book he wrote since 2010, and I’m unsure if the time frame has been for the best. I don’t know what Ellis looks like in the past decade. I’m aware that he had a notorious interview with Quentin Tarantino (another figure where my opinion has largely flipped) who argued that Paul Dano was an overrated actor. To be honest, that blowback was overblown, but it spoke to how much these two are stuck in the camp of dissent, where they’re praised for having contrarian opinions. Somehow they convinced the public that they were deserving of greater respect, and… I don’t know. Everyone has a right to theirs. I definitely am not mad at them for sharing theirs, but I don’t know that I care to pedestalize them.
My concern with watching The Shards is partially that the modern Murphy trend will dampen any substance I end up liking. Even if this cast is delightful and delivers some of my favorite performances of the year, will it go the way of The Beauty and let me down before the midway point? Even more, does Bret Easton Ellis’ material have enough to offer beyond shock and awe, where it’s not just him giving in to the “snowflakes” mentality and designing this as an excuse to toughen up and take in the transgressive madness? I think of creators who have been cancelled and spend the next phase of their life pandering to the people who want edginess over substance, who are fine so long as it pisses off the participation trophy crowds that never existed or, if they did, not to the levels they fantasize about. Is Hulu’s The Shards capable of existing in sensibility? Will I find the dark heart inside like I did with “The Rules of Attraction”? I don’t know. Given how long it takes me to watch any TV show anymore, I want to make sure that I’m using my time wisely. Short of taking a risk, I’m not sure these are the guys for me.
Comments
Post a Comment