{"id":99,"date":"2006-07-10T16:19:07","date_gmt":"2006-07-11T00:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/godammit.com\/archives\/2006\/07\/morbid-interest"},"modified":"2006-07-10T16:27:30","modified_gmt":"2006-07-11T00:27:30","slug":"morbid-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/morbid-interest\/","title":{"rendered":"Morbid Interest"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"glassman.jpg\"$ <\/a>
\nI have come to think of Joel-Peter Witkin as the embodiment of a certain brand of Hipsterism that really bothers me. I guess it\u2019s a sort of celebration of morbidness that strikes me as pretentious, not to mention annoyingly predictable. What Hipster worth his or her Nick Cave CD\u2019s doesn\u2019t love Joel-Peter Witkin? \u00a0 Once you tell me you love Joel-Peter Witkin, you\u2019ve told me everything I need to know about you. (e.g., you love Nosferatu, Freaks, Quay Brothers, Bunuel, zombie movies, etc.) \u00a0 I have tried to discuss this idea with my husband, who is usually adept at nipping such conversations in the bud by exclaiming \u201cWhy do you ask me these things!\u00e2\u20ac? This time, I persisted. I knew he knew what I was talking about, even though he pretended not to.<\/p>\n

I posed the question as something like: \u201cWhy do Hipsters have to like Joel-Peter Witkin?\u00e2\u20ac? But he forced me to rephrase it several times, until it became: \u201cWhy do Hipsters love things that are either morbid or shocking?\u00e2\u20ac? Finally, after relentlessly badgering him, he explained it. \u201cHipsters are supposed to be sort of an outlaw element, so they like anything that smacks of outlaw culture.\u00e2\u20ac? Well, bingo. I didn\u2019t marry him just for the one thing, you know.<\/p>\n

So today, while continuing to ponder the Joel-Peter Witkin thing, I looked at some of his photos online, and sure enough I was annoyed, repelled, somewhat intrigued, but mostly disgusted. I read an interview with Witkin, where he describes his search for a nice male corpse, somewhere in Mexico. He spoke of love and redemption and mortality. Good themes, all of them. Then he spoke of humor: He thought it was funny how in complaining about his photograph of someone putting a penis into an empty eye socket, some outraged letter-writer had mistaken the penis for a potato. Ha ha! Good one, Joel-Peter! Still further down the page, you could click on a nice ad from Witkin, who is seeking a young blind woman with cloudy eyes, as well as a young armless woman to model for him. He offers in return a free print from the photo session.<\/p>\n

You know what\u2019s next. My personal message to Mr. Witkin: \u201cJoel-Peter, go fuck yourself!\u00e2\u20ac? \u00a0 I know he would, if only he were deformed in some way and could photograph it.<\/p>\n

Beyond this attack on one perpetrator is a larger issue I found articulated by an editor of Photovision magazine. In the last quarter century, he notes, the world has moved from the \u201cabsurd age\u00e2\u20ac? to the \u201chorror age.\u00e2\u20ac? For all I know, this has been stated already in the New Yorker and everywhere else; but for me it\u2019s kind of a fresh idea. It feels true. After September 11, the tsunami, Katrina, and the freely available videos of people getting their heads chopped off, we are all traumatized, whether we think so or not. We have been exposed to horror non-stop now, and it\u2019s harder every day to shock us. Darfur, child soldiers, child amputees, sobbing earthquake victims, teen sex-slaves, prison torture, reality TV, it never ends.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still capable of being shocked. And I don\u2019t want to be exposed to any more horror than is necessary. I don\u2019t know where the age of horror will lead. I can\u2019t blame it on Joel-Peter Witkin, but I can cite him as a poster boy for the era. And I can turn in my Hipster card if that\u2019s what it takes to renounce him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"