SIMONIZED -- The Wit & Wisdom of John Simon- Page 3

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/10/05 at 8:16pm

He is a "gay hater" because he is a closeted self-hating homosexual pretending to be a septaugenrian puSSy hound.

Updated On: 6/11/05 at 08:16 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 5/10/05 at 8:29pm

Simon hates everyone including himself. As far as greed, it permeates every aspect of theater. If people stopped buying $ 4 water (which probably costs them $ .25 cents ) & stopped buying all the crap they sell in the lobby, prices of those would come down quickly. The same thing goes with ticket prices. Enough people stay away, they will get the message.

The movie industry is hurting as people are starting to rebel @ high ticket & concession prices & are staying away in droves. $ 15 to see an IMAX movie is a bit much

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/11/05 at 1:44pm

A few more Simon quotes from Riedel's column today:

Of Liza Minnelli in "The Act," he wrote that she had a face "like a beagle, a nose en route to becoming a trunk and a chin trying its damnedest to withdraw into the neck."

Of Diana Rigg, he said: "She is built like a brick mausoleum with insufficient flying buttresses."

And of Sandy Dennis, he said: "She has balanced her postnasal condition with something like a prefrontal lobotomy."

[sabrelady]

Posted: 5/11/05 at 3:46pm

Well let's just light a few matches to get rid of the bad smell and hope for a better batch of theatrical criticisim. Bitchiness & a personal agenda are not enough to be rewarded w a perpetual forum to vent your views. Good riddance!!!

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 5/11/05 at 4:43pm

Nobody mentioned when he referred to Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer for ANNA IN THE TROPICS as an "Affirmative-Action Pulitzer". Probably true, but still offensive.

[robbiej]

Posted: 5/11/05 at 4:57pm

Or when he referred to myself and my castmates of FAIRY TALES as 'a cast bereft of talent and looks.'

I'm having new taps put on my shoes so that when he's dead, I can do a timestep on his grave.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 2:10pm

Jon Robin Baitz on Simon's firing:

"So John Simon was fired.

He was usually basically respectful towards me. I wrote a letter to New York about him some years ago, about how all that cruelty was a reflection of something larger in the city, a neo-nastiness that had become institutionalized and said something about how he had squandered his considerable credibility. They published it. He reviewed subsequent plays with the same interest -- sometimes pro, sometimes con. He loved my first play in NY, "The Film Society", and never liked anything as much. And would write that. Again and again. I wondered if he was right for a little while, and then let it go. He did (by choice) become a joke and it was an old one. I don't like to kick him when he's down; he gave benumbed New Yorkers what they wanted. A crack, a swipe, an occasional swoon, but mostly theatre goers of a certain age and tax bracket read him to see who got run over that week. Hey, I thought, who cares what it feels like - you do your show, you take your licks.

At a certain point one would cringe at the odd need he had for beauty, conventional 19th century beauty. He was sort of like the 19th Century French painter, Ingres, a little stiff, too many vertebrae. Who didn't know that he became a circus act, really? But the real question is this: Sometimes I wondered what it might have been like if he'd actually become a force for good; coercive as Ken Tynan or inspirational like Clurman or rigorous like Rich. There was something of the token European about him, and more than a whiff of talc. I guess I thought that it's gotta be a grueling job, and there's so much falsity and meretricious bull**** you have to see, that it would finally take a saint not to turn into a bit of a brittle vulgarian, as he did. The theatre needs geniuses to criticize it; it needs passionate advocates and firebrands, not to mention writers of gorgeous prose. He, instead, opted for parlor tricks and reruns."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/2005/05/john-simon-parlor-tricks-.html

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 2:13pm

David Mamet of Simon's firing:

"I have just heard that John Simon has been fired from the post he long disgraced at New York Magazine. In his departure he accomplishes that which during his tenure eluded him: he has finally done something for the American Theatre."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/david-mamet/re-john-simon.html

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 1:08pm

From his final column today:

"Dear readers, this will be my final New York column, and it has been a thrilling ride, if “ride” is the right word for 36 years and eight months, which is considerably longer than the Kentucky Derby. I have seen administrations come and go, and have found all of them congenial and fun to work for. On the whole, I have been left to my own devices, which I consider best, although a helpful guiding hand from above is not bad either.

Thirty-six-plus years is rather like a marriage, falling as it does midway between a silver and a golden anniversary. I don’t know what the exact term for it is; perhaps divorce time. It is entirely possible that there is such a thing as a time for renewal, both for 37-year-old magazines and an 80-year-old critic. Longevity is a staple in my family, and I—though conceivably not the best judge of this—do not see a decline in my brain or writing hand. But I realize that new starts can be beneficial even to old (elderly? mature? experienced?) critics, and, as David Mamet has confirmed with the title of one of his movies, things change.

So this is a fond farewell to you, my readers, in whatever spirit you read me. We may yet meet at some other crossroads; in any case, I have enjoyed your sensed company, whether you wrote me fan or hate letters, or neither. Keep up your interest in this column and in the Theater with a capital T, which, as you and I know, is bigger than all of us."

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/arts/theater/reviews/12004/index.html

[riv]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 1:27pm

Good bye, John. Best wishes.

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 1:47pm

I'm going to miss the bitter queen. Some of his reviews , while nasty, were great to read. And while not right all the time, lots of times he was right on the mark and said things that needed saying.

Bye Bye John and thanks for the laughs, especially - "The Radames, Adam Pascal (formerly of Rent), boasts of not having had a single singing or acting lesson, which proves incontestable."

It's funny because it's so true.

Posted: 5/16/05 at 1:59pm

If his writing in the past reflected the amount of humanity and humility of that little snippet, I might actually miss him.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 3:54pm

He is truly a tact-free individual.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 6/11/05 at 2:37pm

Here's little follow-up (from a gay perspective) on the Simon firing incident and his subsequent hiring by right wing publications. From Bay Windows:

"But he's baa-aack - and so, no doubt, is his bigotry. Simon has found a new job at Bloomberg.com, and a monthly column at (where else?) the archconservative Weekly Standard. And while these gigs may be far less visible than his perch at New York, the Weekly Standard appointment, at least, tears away the thin veneer of apolitical objectivity that Simon once pretended to. At the Standard, he'll be the latest hood ornament on the engine of the neocon culture war - a kind of Sean Hannity who can quote Herodotus - and his contempt for all things homo will be a selling point rather than some embarrassing emotional gap.

No doubt he's eager to return to his vicious old form; ironically enough, Simon had become somewhat closeted in recent years, as he was at the start of his career in the mid-sixties, when he clothed his homophobia in an erudite aesthetic disdain. (The multi-lingual Simon is a Harvard grad.) An early target was then-closeted playwright Edward Albee, who blithely replied to one blistering review, "Mr. Simon's disapproval of my plays has been a source of comfort to me over the years, and his dislike . . . gives me courage to go on."

By the late seventies, however, Simon had begun to flirt with an open, if slightly ironic, homophobia and even anti-Semitism, calling the now-forgotten Show Me Where the Good Times Are "a faggoty Jewish musical". Joseph Papp, the Artistic Director of the New York Shakespeare Festival, had been protesting his rants for years, but soon his voice was joined by many others; in 1980 an ad appeared in Variety (with some 300 signatures) calling for Simon's removal, and describing his writing as vicious and racist. Still, the critic carried on, reaching something of a career low in 1985, when he called P.J. Barry's Octette Bridge Club, an AIDS drama produced at the height of the epidemic, "faggot nonsense" in the pages of New York. The bigotry was amplified when gay entertainment columnist Liz Smith revealed in her column she had overhead him on the show's opening night carping, "I can't wait until they all get it and die; then I won't have to see any more of these plays."

The response was swift. A delegation from the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights met with New York editor Ed Kosner, who in a bizarre fit of misplaced loyalty, stood by Simon. But the homophobe was chastened, still on occasion grumbling about "the homosexual play" (on television, to gay New York Times critic Ben Brantley, no less!), but also being careful to fawn on a few gay-themed successes (such as The Laramie Project). He must have been all too aware the tide was rising against him; Tony winners began acknowledging - and even kissing - their partners on stage in the 90s, and the lead critic for the Times was now an openly gay man. A larger question had begun to loom: how was it possible for a homophobe to remain a viable critic, when the leading playwrights of the day were Tony Kushner and Edward Albee (both of whom Simon routinely savaged)? The coup de grace occurred when New York hired the very-out Adam Moss as its editor. Finally, Simon found himself reporting to a faggot. Clearly, the lavender writing was on the wall - and just last week, it was announced Simon would be replaced by Jeremy McCarter, another Harvard boy, and late of the New York Sun.

Still, those who only a few days ago were happily doing the cha-cha on Simon's professional grave are now settling in for yet another long, insulting haul. No doubt the juvenile taunts - aimed largely at actresses who don't appeal to him sexually - will return en masse. Intriguingly, even these zingers have often been aimed at divas beloved by gay men. Liza Minnelli, for example, was "deserving of first prize - in the beagle category," and Barbra Streisand was "the kind of thing that started pogroms."

What a riot. Meanwhile the haughty hetero rarely critiqued the male body quite the same way; would he have said of Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman what he did of Diana Rigg - that she was "built like a brick mausoleum with insufficient flying buttresses"? Perhaps he'd have liked to, but feared physical assault - although even his female targets sometimes struck back. After one vicious review, actress Sylvia Miles famously dumped a plate of food over his head (the entrée in question has been variously reported as spaghetti, goulash, and steak tartare).

But ready-to-wear tartare was hardly enough to slow down la Simon. Perhaps nothing is; even the consensus that his critical acumen is all but lost seems lost on the old dinosaur (recent reviews included doubts on the otherwise acclaimed drama The Pillowman, but a rave for the family musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). Clearly Bloomberg and the Standard aren't buying his insight; they are, instead paying for his prejudice. It's perhaps fitting that a career dedicated to humiliating others should end in humiliation itself."


Simon Article in Bay Windows

Updated On: 6/11/05 at 02:37 PM

[riv]

Posted: 6/11/05 at 3:33pm

Since John was writing film reviews for the National Review decades ago, why does the Weekly Standard job tear any "thin veneer" away? Perhaps both publications are in the habit of believing in freedom of speech a bit more than the censorship Bay Windows (whatever the hell that is) would prefer.

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/11/05 at 3:35pm

John Simon has spent his entire career crying out for attention. His childhood must have been horrific. I have always maintained that he was conceived by Addison DeWitt and Pauline Kael while they were on a romantic drinking binge in Mobile, Alabama.(No offense to the City of Mobile intended. I have been there and it's not half-bad.)

Note: Will the posters on this site who throw metaphorical spears at my comments on a regular basis please refrain from inquiring if I am indeed John Simon?

Updated On: 6/11/05 at 03:35 PM

[romanov]

Posted: 6/11/05 at 8:23pm

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 6/11/05 at 8:27pm

You could fit his Wit & Wisdom on a piece of confetti & have room left over

[kjklo]

Posted: 6/11/05 at 9:16pm

Entirely fitting that he'll now be writing for a Rupert Murdoch publication.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 4:09pm

I thought this might be appropriate here.

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/94570.html

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 4:16pm

I've been debating buying this. It's been on Amazon for a couple of weeks and if a used copy pops up for less than $20 (no need to give him a sale), I think I'll have to grab it.

Updated On: 8/16/05 at 04:16 PM

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 8/16/05 at 4:22pm

John Simon's a bit of a beeyotch, isn't he? Those reviews didn't seem like just reviews; some also came across as personal attacks. I have nothing against reviewers, but I do have problems with mean, spiteful people.

[buffyactsing]

Posted: 3/17/06 at 10:19pm

Indeed, there is a big difference between being critical (even harshly so) and being an ass.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 3/18/06 at 12:07am

You would wind up with a blank piece of paper

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/28/06 at 5:43pm

"Famed critic John Simon has joined the Broadway.com editorial team. Starting today, Simon will pen Etcetera, a regular column focusing on the newest and most notable books, movies, CDs and DVDs.

"John is a legend in the world of theater and film criticism," Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek said. "As a longtime fan of his work, I'm thrilled to have him on the Broadway.com masthead." Simon kicks off his column with reviews of the world premiere recording of Michael John LaChiusa's See What I Wanna See and Steven Suskin's book Second Act Trouble: Behind the Scenes at Broadway's Big Musical Bombs.

Since 2005, Simon has been contributing New York theater reviews to Bloomberg News. Prior to that, he was the chief drama critic for New York Magazine for 37 years.

Simon's reviews for Bloomberg can be found every weekend at www.bloomberg.com."

http://www.broadway.com/Gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=526778

Updated On: 3/28/06 at 05:43 PM