Self-immolation has never been hotter!
Metaphorically speaking, anyway.
Scandal has become the new western, and the new slasher flick, a cultural genre so familiar and unalterable and frequent that only the names change. Or, as Northwestern University professor Laura Kipnis puts it in her new book-length inquiry on the subject, “How to Become a Scandal,” blind spots are “an epidemic,” both for those scandalized and the hungry audience, which reacts with “shock and surprise each time a new scandal breaks.” Or, as Kipnis asks, “What’s more routine than buttoned-up officials caught in steamy sex scandals and moralists who don’t live up to their own morality codes?” And really what’s so shocking about a famous quarterback allegedly sexting nude photos? Or Snooki being arrested for public drunkenness? In New Jersey?
Transgression, disgrace, redemption, oblivion — the whole self-destructive cycle, from public denial, to groveling, to “Dancing with the Stars,” to the sweet hereafter (Us Magazine), is such a part of 21st century life that it’s something of a scandal itself that there hasn’t been a serious consideration of scandal.
Until now.
Kipnis, who grew up on Chicago’s South Side and in Evanston, is less interested in fleeting scandellettes than sweeping morality tales (“downfall, disgrace and ruin”). A provocateur — best known for 2003’s “Against Love: A Polemic,” which argued a compelling case for adultery — Kipnis spends pages on the telling facial expressions of infamous frenemy Linda Tripp. She defends disgraced author James Frey. And generally, she methodically deconstructs scandals, while sympathizing and reflecting on the thin line separating each of us from our worst selves.
The following is an edited version of a longer conversation:
Q: Do we like scandals because we’re harsher — because society is harsher? Or is it just a form of entertainment?
A: I think it goes both ways. The blogosphere is incredibly vicious, yes. But at the same time, Eliot Spitzer has a CNN show now. He’s looking good for a second act. I was just thinking, as much as I want to see some structure in scandal, it can be a bit of a free-for-all.
Q: Then you do think there are second acts?
A: There seem to be, definitely. And there are more second acts now because we are more forgiving because we don’t know what the moral codes are at the moment. I started to think about some of this after I wrote the book. Eliot Spitzer on CNN is a second act. John Edwards, though, doesn’t seem due for a second act anytime soon. And it’s a complicated equation who qualifies.
Q: I’m trying to picture the math.
A: It’s the gap between the self they represent and the self they turn out to be.
Q: If you are perceived to be likable and your scandal is distasteful, you’re less likely to be forgiven than if it’s an act we could conceivably expect of you.
A: Yes, but one of the problems with Edwards was that he kept lying, whereas Spitzer came clean right away. (The likelihood of a second act) does have something to do with the protocol of the public apology.
Q: That said, maybe our focus on celebrity and their every minor scandal downplays the lasting importance of every scandal. We’re quicker to move on.
A: That’s part of it. But also there is such intense interest in private lives because of all the access we get to celebrities now — it’s like they’re our friends.
Q: So do we see Lindsay Lohan as a friend? Or a character playing out a role?
A: Both, I would say. She’s familiar to us because there is so much access to her but then there is this desire to distance ourselves. She has worn out her welcome as far as downfall goes. There is too much repetition. We are uncomfortable with the out-of-control elements. We’re also impatient for resolution: “Get a grip,” we say, as if this person could.
Q: How did David Letterman survive?
A: He was savvy. He knew there was no point in trying to keep a secret. He refused to play this game. He just announced it. And why not? The person out of the loop here was the guy trying to extort him, who thought Letterman could be shamed, as if we live in a culture where shame was still operative.
Q: Letterman was arguably one of the guilty parties here, though.
A: That depends. None of the women involved came forward. He is not accused of harassing anybody into sleeping with him. He is accused of violating a recent norm: You are not supposed to sleep with your employees. But anyway, I have issues with morality codes like that.
Q: He denied us the most satisfying part of scandals — that moment when the person explains him- or herself but just digs themselves deeper into a hole.
A: You’re talking about self-deception, coupled with a lack of self-knowledge.
Q: Right, and that’s how Mark Sanford ends up “hiking the Appalachian Trail” to hide an affair.
A: Remember somebody like Spitzer had a good deal of media coaching. He knew to repeat a story over and over. With (South Carolina Gov.) Sanford, the unscripted quality was mortifying. But emblematic. He seemed to be playing out a narrative on a public stage. There was a performance quality.
Q: Which brings to mind your chapter on Lisa Nowak, the NASA astronaut who drove all night, across states, supposedly wearing a diaper to save time, only to confront a romantic rival?
A: I thought there was a kind of narrative to that too. It was almost a revenge story.
Q: But she wasn’t consciously playing out a narrative or a storyline.
A: Some element of her was. This is all speculation, obviously, but one part of her didn’t seem to know what the other part was doing. The rational part is an astronaut, making a checklist of what to bring on this trip — a trip which, on another level, was completely bonkers and irrational.
Q: You mention in your book that she wasn’t actually wearing those infamous diapers she has become known for.
A: As far as I can tell, she wasn’t. There were diapers in her car and the police somehow released this information (about her wearing them) to the press, but it’s not in any of the court records I saw or the police transcripts I saw. Her lawyer had this press conference denying she ever wore diapers. The diapers were toddler-size, her kid’s diapers, but it didn’t matter — the detail was delicious. And it was so metaphorical — a loss of control, incontinence.
Q: You grew up in Chicago. Do you remember any local scandals from when you were a kid?
A: There was this one thing, yes. Now it’s more common (to hear about hoarding), but there was this story in the Sun-Times about this family found to be living in, like, six feet of garbage. I was hooked by this. It was one of my initial encounters with the weirdness of human beings. I still have that clip all these years later. It’s yellowed. I was thinking of opening my book with it, because the question it brings up is so relevant: How could you let it happen?
Q: And also: What is it that people tell themselves that allows them to do these things?
A: Exactly. The whole family was complicit. The mother, the father, the kids. They all agreed to keep a big secret.
Kipnis will speak at 6 p.m. Wednesday at 57th Street Books, 1301 E 57th St., in Hyde Park. (She’s also appearing Nov. 6 at the UIC Forum, as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival.)
cborrelli@tribune.com
