Dear Mr. Bruni,
At first I thought I wouldn't pay attention to your little publicity stunt of a review. But the more I think about it, the more riled I get. The whole thing is just so disgustingly self-congratulatory, even for you. First of all, you want to review a steakhouse in a strip club so you can show us all how goddamned "punny" you are, fine. But talk about the food! You talk about the food for maybe 25% of the article and the rest of the time you spend ridiculing the strippers, who apparently don't know the difference between an M.D. and a Ph.D., who offer to strip and are met with silence. Come on! Making fun of strippers is so fucking low and easy and cheap. You humiliate them all over again for all the world to see in your review.
You're pretty coy about your sexuality in the piece, so much so that some of the people who've been discussing the review in the blogosphere don't know that you're not straight. It's almost like you're trying to show all the straight guys how straight you can act, how good you can be at objectifying and laughing at the strippers too. You may not get a rise out of seeing those women, but does it make you feel good to make fun of them for not being able to spell their stage names? That whole "buttery nipple" exchange -- did you write that for your straight male readers, to give them a little show and get them off? Did you think it was kosher for you to objectify the women just because you're not objectifying them for your own sexual gratification? You want to ridicule, why not talk about the men who go there? (I went to a strip club once, and the people I pitied the most weren't the bored female dancers but the men staring into the punani like it was going to talk back to them.)
And Pete Wells, what was with the fucking slide show? Is the Dining section now playing the role of Page 3 in the Gray Lady? Did those half-clad women help me better understand what a great cook Adam Perry Lang is? Are we going to get slide shows of Mario Batali's orange fuzzed calves next time you talk about his sausage?
Fine, I am a frigid old maid who will never step foot into a Penthouse club for a steak, precisely because those kinds of displays just aren't good for my digestion. But I'm part of the readership. Lots of women are part of the readership. Lots of women go out to dine. And for me, that's a place I'll never go to. How can you review a restaurant that the majority of the female half of your readership will never step foot into? It's okay for a magazine like Esquire to cover it -- that's a men's magazine. But the New York Fucking Times? Marian Burros, Melissa Clark, Julia Moskin, Florence Fabricant, I wonder what they all think about this. I'm disgusted, and if they're not disgusted, I'm disgusted on their behalf.
Ultimately, it comes down to this: When are we going to have a reviewer who wants to talk about food more than he wants to talk about himself?
Ganda
ADDENDUM: It's interesting to think about this review in the context of his role as Panchito, journalist/member of the George W. Bush inner circle. Both are cases of glorifying and excusing bad frat boy behavior, the one having much higher stakes than the other. Still, the integrity of the criticism feels compromised by this need to impress the brotherhood; the reporting gets lost behind the desire to entertain, to write something the guys will have a laugh about. It's playing the role of bemused outsider while really endorsing bad boy behavior with a nod and a wink.
Well said, Ganda!
Amen, Sister!
I read that review yesterday and threw up in my mouth a little. I despise Frank Bruni. I cringe when I hear him on WQXR--and yesterday's review was no different. I'm loathe to say it, but I'd have preferred to read an Amanda Hesser review-- a whole catalogue of them instead.
You know, Anne, I was just thinking the very same thing!
I've no idea who Bruni is and I don't care. And why should it be of the slightest interest to anyone whether he's gay or straight? Who cares? In this context it's utterly unimportant, trivial.
You know, your anger (it seems to me) at the existence of lap-dancing clubs and the like and your perception of the exploitation of women therein has led you to commit the significant writing sin of not focussing, of flailing around, of letting your emotion get in the way of your talent and, in doing so, losing the opportunity of properly influencing others.
I read Bruni's article. It's well written. Sure, he takes some cheap, unpleasant even, shots at the working women. But that MD/PhD scene you took such exception too is written with economy and style, paints well the scene and the characters. People are dumb. People are shallow or pretentious. A writer's job is to show such things and Bruni actually did that, coloured and illuminated his picture of what it was like to eat there. And as a matter of actual fact the piece ran to 1700 words of which 1,000 were about the food/restaurant, nearly 60% (and that's allowing nothing for the colour of which I spoke).
I'm a man but, FWIW, I've never been to a strip club and have no plans ever to go so as a location this restaurant is of no practical interest to me either. But such mean aims aren't really the main point of such reviews (except for the insecure or unimaginative perhaps) and as a piece of writing Bruni's article was good.
Attack misogyny and sexism by all means. I'll support you strongly as it's something I've done all my adult life. But do it skilfully with wit and with carefully focussed barbs, with ordered passion. And be accurate and pointed, not loose and ranting. Anything else is a waste of time and talent.
Well, you're right, this was written in a fit of fury but, well, that's what blogs are for.
I respectfully disagree that his sexuality is not part of it. Do you think William Grimes' editor would have let him print a description of a lap dance dessert? I think there's an element of, "Well, it's okay to show these pictures of half-naked women because hey, Bruni's gay!"
I'll probably look at my rant later and want to edit it, but so it goes when you hit publish while your blood pressure's up.
I don't care for the article either, but it's not because the objectifying and the sexism. Strip clubs are places where women are objectified as a career, where sexism is an assumed fact. The unfortunate strippers know what they're doing, and so do the unfortunate men ogling them.
What bothers me is how this situation is exploited; it's a gimmick. Nobody can believe that Bruni went there out of journalistic obligation, and if one did, those first three paragraphs protest too much for his intentions to be innocent. He's like an otherwise quality show that goes into a sleazy slump for sweeps, and that is much more disgusting than anything else happening in the club.
as a writer some people might find him entertaining but his reviews are more often than not nonsense- and this may be the worst yet
Ganda, you rock.
I saw the article too and had my own WTF moment. But then I read on and was just amused/bemused by the whole thing. Especially when I saw the prices for the steaks. That kind of serious money will buy you a whole lot better meal in a whole lot of New York restaurants.
A couple of comments:
The women who work in strip clubs are not, as a rule, "unfortunate". They make a ton of money playing gullible guys for suckers. And good for them.
I am a middle aged guy who has been to many strip clubs (we called them "tittie bars" back then), and to many steak houses, all over the country. I don't go to strip clubs any more -- mostly because they bore me too much to aggravate my girlfriend about it -- but I do eat steak and am ready, willing and able to pay to enjoy it when it's done in a top-notch manner, as Bruni's review suggests is the case in this restaurant.
Having said that, there's no friggin' way I would haul all the way over the the far west side to sit in a tittie bar to eat at a prime steakhouse. I mean, the whole misogyny (sp?) thing to the side, WTF was their idea behind pairing the two concepts. Guys who are in strip clubs are there for the girls. Period. You can feed them a decent buffet (Scores is famous for theirs, FWIW) and they will be happy to shell out 10 bucks for a bottle of beer so they can see some hootchie koo and delude themselves that the girls will go home with them.
Why in God's name would anyone think that putting a top notch steakhouse in a tittie bar was a good idea?
And, I liked your post. I came over here from a link via Eater and have your blog bookmarked. Keep it real and from the heart, and I'll keep reading.
Well said, Ganda. I felt more than a little disgust at Bruni's review and blatant flaunting of the expense account etc. (I had to go back to Luger and Sparks to compare, woe is me boo hoo hoo you glutton) and his whole treatment of the women was more than horrifying.
Getting more and more fed up with The Bruni and the way he takes himself so damn seriously. Could anyone be more smug? Thanks for ventilating him a bit...anyone who has to build himself up at the expense of "dumb" strippers needs to be made fun of waaaay more often.
Buck,
Actually, quite a few strip clubs, topless bars and similar venues across the country offer top-notch steak.
I'm not sure why, but they do it.
Right on, Ganda. WTF is going on at the local paper?
"How can you review a restaurant that the majority of the female half of your readership will never step foot into?"
...and a significant proportion of the male half of the readers too, fwiw.
Stay angry! ;)
One of the best steaks in Portland, Oregon, was at the Acropolis, a strip club. I always thought that was weird, but it was supposedly true.
weirdly it is true, the owner of the acropolis has his own ranch in eastern oregon, and the tasty steaks are absurdly cheap ($4 or thereabouts). But portland has millions of stripclubs (logger party town) and a much different attitude towards them.
Write on, Ganda.