I hate Miranda July. So much praise has been flung her way, I'm sure she can handle my disdain. She's been doing art, video and music projects around Portland since the early 90s, working with among others, the awesome Kill Rock Stars. So far, so good. She's also had a bunch of bloggy, on line art stuff. In 2005 she wrote, directed and starred in Me and You and Everyone We Know. Then, in 2007, she released the short story collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You. See, all good stuff. Right.
Sigh.
It's not jealousy. I swear. Yes, in some ways Miranda July is living my dream life and yes, maybe I'm a little jealous. But, that's not it I promise. I hate all of her work. I hate it. I hate her twee little revelations. Her forced creepiness which wants so badly to be depth. I hate her stupid doe eyed face. Okay, that was mean. But - I HATE HER STUPID DOE EYED FACE! I hate her affectless underbaked short stories that seem to me like dated parodies of Raymond Carver and Mary Gaitskill. And not in a good way! I hate her annoyingly smug and self enchanted web projects. Okay. The movie wasn't terrible. I think I liked it when I saw it. But I remember none of it. I just read the plot summary on Wikipedia and it didn't even ring a bell. And I know I saw it. There it is in my Netflix archive. I know I sat on my couch and watched it. But it's all gone.What is it about her that's like fingernails on a blackboard to me? I mean I loathe her. It feels personal. I mean why? She doesn't seem all that different than most of the people I know. Why?
I think it's simple. I don't like her work. I find it boring and empty. And it's being heaped with praise. I feel like shouting, "The emperor has no clothes, people! Helllo!". But I know it's futile. Her work is bathed in the kind of emptiness that enables people to pour their own meanings and personalities into it, there's no there there (to quote a far better artist). But does that make it good? Universal? Or just empty?
I don't know. I just can't stand her.
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5 comments:
I feel this way about Christopher Nolan.
I tend to find that the artists one hates the most are those doing something that's close to what you're trying to do, but different in some crucial way. We never hate artists who are totally unrelated to what we're doing.
I know that's common wisdom, and I usually agree, but - if there are similarities between her work and mine, I'm just not seeing them.
Miranda July is a visionary. You've had sedentary success in life and envy a creation of brilliance just because you didn't create it yourself and now, you're masking it all in a blog full of the words "I hate...". Fucking lame.
Hahahahahaha.
Seriously. Word usage issues, balls. What does "sedentary success in life" mean?
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