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New York, 5:22 PM
Tue Nov 24
54 posts in the last 24 hours
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05/24/09
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05/24/09
When a woman is attractive and contemptuous it is read as "smart". Doubtful Ms. Grey has the coyly-hidden intelligence for which she is given so much credit. People who are immature think snide/caustic responses make them look all kinds of smart. Think: 10th grade.
Nor is she the first porn actress to attempt a mainstream crossover via "smart" films. There is also the "belittling" and soul-killing nature of doing press for movies to consider. Nothing new to see here, move along.
I call bullshit on her big brain. Also, believing you are smarter than everyone else and that you can read other people and manipulate them with your incredible insight is a symptom of mental illness. F.Y.I.
05/24/09
Seriously, Sasha is someone I would want to be friends with for reals, regardless of her career.
05/24/09
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05/24/09
a) My comment about the uninterestingness of Sasha Grey profiles was intended to find fault in the media, not Ms. Grey, who, for the record, I find absolutely delightful. Frankly, the "OMG a pornstar who's not retarded and has aspirations to do many things in addition to porn!" angle is tiresome.
b) I find this interview incredibly disrespectful, and I do agree that questions like this would not have been directed at anyone outside of the adult industry.
c) The assumptions being made in these comments are pretty horrific--for those of you who've looked at Sasha's IMDB listings and can't find "art" there, ever heard the line about not judging a book by its cover? You might actually want to see the films before you deride her as just another damaged pornstar.
d) For once and for all: Sasha never called herself an existentialist. That line was taken out of context... as are so many things.
05/24/09
I was the one who said there's not much art in her titles, going by the imdb list ([www.imdb.com]). I never called her damaged, let alone expressed "hate," and in fact I wished her well wherever her future lies.
I HAVE sought out some of her scenes: specifically, ones she has won awards for, in Babysitters and Fuck Slaves. Sorry, I don't find them artful. Maybe you find art in Gang Bang My Face, Slam It! In a Slut, or Cum Fart Cocktails 5 -- none of which, admittedly, have I seen. But you're being disingenuous to suggest that it's impossible to judge a porn by its title, director, and box. And it's a bit hysterical to call that assumption "horrific," don't you think?
Also, it's your job to support the industry, so before you call people with critical opinions "haters," you might consider your own bias and resultant defensiveness.
I do agree with you that TAN's questions were disrespectful. I'm sure he lost her from the start with the stupid "seduced via email" line.
05/24/09
a. wasn't that the context i placed your comment in? you finding her delightful, and anything i've said in the interview don't have to be mutually exclusive.
b. such as which questions?
d. yeah, that's debunked in a previous interview. but isn't it a semantic nit?
you're a fan, ok, but how often do the same problems/criticism with her interviews occur before it's not "the media".
05/24/09
Actually, it's not. My job is to write about things that are sexy. I can be--and have been--critical of the adult industry when I see fit.
05/24/09
b. I think Sasha addressed that concern in her answers.
I actually don't usually criticize her interviews, most of them are well done, if a bit too gee whiz for my taste. And it's not a problem with "the media," it's a problem with a culture that sees being involved with the adult industry--or any sex-related field--as problematic or a sign of some illness.
05/24/09
You come along with a humorless statement that contains some vaguely contrarian-for-the-sake-of-being-contrarian position and then expect us to treat it as fact because you frame your argument in terms of tolerance, coolness and sexiness. Then you get testy when others come and try to say where they think you've gone wrong.
05/24/09
05/24/09
Everyone thinks, everyone creates, everyone fucks, and everyone suffers fear and anxiety in the face of themselves and others. There is nothing especially mysterious or riveting about Sasha Grey. Her "art" is a string of cheesy fuck flicks, and her pretensions are childish.
05/24/09
05/24/09
Perhaps one day Miss Grey will be all 3, perhaps she wont, i wont knock or mock her for trying.
05/24/09
I await the book with something less than bated breath, though, because I fear that it's just going to contain the same kind of name-checking and causes célèbres that Americans always confuse with actual cultural, political and philosophical discourse. There will naturally be shocking revelations about the porn industry (but probably tame in comparison with other, earlier accounts of libertinage), some bits shown in to show that the author has been to Barnes & Noble and then some anecdotes about her sexuality as a teenager -- all nine years of them since menarche. All in all, nothing really to write home about -- but then who would be crazy enough to write home about such topics anyway.
05/24/09
05/24/09
i don't care how many different kinds of fucking my favorite authors are into and i don't care how many books the girl who is reverse cowgirling on my computer screen has read. she makes a living and more power to her, but sasha grey being cogent and well-read figures into making good porn about as much as loving anal and getting punched figured into, say, joan didion writing "slouching towards bethlehem".
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05/23/09
One thing I am sure of though, Fuck Email Interviews. I lost a little bit of respect for both parties after reading this, and I think the format of the interview is to blame. Not T.A.N.'s fault I guess, as Sasha was probably difficult to get a hold of. But if this is the best you can bring us, T.A.N., you might as well have scrapped it. (I know, I know, it's all about teh pageview$.)
She's been interviewed plenty of places elsewhere in the past couple of weeks, so I doubt many of us oversaturated media-addicted Gawker readers were really clamoring for more Sasha to begin with. Much less from a site I never go to for interviews in the first place!
05/24/09
You're right: if this is the best interview Gawker could have done, I would've given TAN a killfee and deleted the whole thing.
05/24/09
I assume from the curtness of her replies, though, that a Gawker interview was not high on her list of promotional priorities. Surely the realities of a heavy promotional schedule played a part in the inefficacy of some questions to peel back the layers of masks she wears to find the artist beneath, right?
05/25/09
All of this said, I thought T.A.N.'s questions came off as lazy, poorly worded and pretty shallow. It was like a 21-year old video gamer with very little experience writing or interviewing was suddenly put in charge of interviewing her.
In fact, after re-reading it, those were really fucking stupid questions, for the most part. Poorly worded and seemingly constructed to sound deep and thoughtful without actually being so at all.
05/25/09
05/25/09
05/23/09
This whole thing is, of course, bound up with the (unfortunate) Madonna-prostitute dichotomy, by which, we all know, Americans -- both men and women alike -- like their womenfolk to abide. Sasha Grey plays both roles beautifully, but is neither -- or is she both? She is forced to avoid being grouped into either category because those roles are too limiting for her.
So she can deal with the conventional audience, sure, but she can't deal with the more sophisticated -- read, jaded -- audiences who aren't easily shocked and thus aren't impressed by those games. Such audiences just want to hear what's on her mind. It turns out that it's a little more difficult for her to play to that audience, as we can see from the interview above.
05/23/09
05/23/09
Such audiences just want to hear what's on her mind. It turns out that it's a little more difficult for her to play to that audience, as we can see from the interview above.
Thus far I haven't been overly impressed by her articulateness. That being said, she doesn't work in an industry where that would be considered a virtue (to be totally obvious)--but neither does she seem to embrace any attempt to convey her own point of view in a way that doesn't seem a little downsized. Maybe I haven't read enough of her interviews? I mean, yes, she's a Supr Srs Prnstr, but what does that mean?
05/23/09
Such audiences just want to hear what's on her mind. It turns out that it's a little more difficult for her to play to that audience, as we can see from the interview above.
when an interviewer asks her something beyond "omg u r sooooooo serious and smart can you tell me more about namechecking some intro to modern american lit author???" she turns into a total bitch. there's nothing there. no big deal but quite frankly the whole portrayal of her as SRS SMART PR0N STAR OMG is demeaning to intelligent people, women, and other porn stars quite fucking honestly.
05/23/09
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