Vidal VS Mailer - A Battle of Wit! | The Dick Cavett Show
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- The infamous feud between novelist Norman Mailer and writer Gore Vidal comes to a head in a battle of wit, sarcasm, and condescension with the audience and Janet Flanner (reluctantly) in the front row.
Who do you think "won" this clash?
Date aired - December 1st, 1971 - Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, Janet Flanner
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Dick Cavett has been nominated for eleven Emmy awards (the most recent in 2012 for the HBO special, Mel Brooks and Dick Cavett Together Again), and won three. Spanning five decades, Dick Cavett’s television career has defined excellence in the interview format. He started at ABC in 1968, and also enjoyed success on PBS, USA, and CNBC.
His most recent television successes were the September 2014 PBS special, Dick Cavett’s Watergate, followed April 2015 by Dick Cavett’s Vietnam. He has appeared in movies, tv specials, tv commercials, and several Broadway plays. He starred in an off-Broadway production ofHellman v. McCarthy in 2014 and reprised the role at Theatre 40 in LA February 2015.
Cavett has published four books beginning with Cavett (1974) and Eye on Cavett (1983), co-authored with Christopher Porterfield. His two recent books -- Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets (2010) and Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic moments, and Assorted Hijinks(October 2014) are both collections of his online opinion column, written for The New York Times since 2007. Additionally, he has written for The New Yorker, TV Guide, Vanity Fair, and elsewhere.
#DickCavett #NormanMailer #GoreVidal #JanetFlanner #WomensLib #Feminism #Writers #NewYork #Awkward #Liberals #Conservatives #TheDickCavettShow
Who do you think "won" this clash?
Flanner without question. With humor and old school class. Plus the fact that Mailer was verbally whipped by a woman made it more satisfying. You just know he was burning inside. Cavett rightfully had his shots at Norman as well. And Gore masterfully kept his comments to a minimum and let Norman bury himself. In addition points added to an audience who could hold their own too.
Trump
@@yuntakukai1002 bro who tf are you?
Why, not for the first time did Mr. Mailer proved himself to be a *diva* . You don win against divas, you endure them. There's a degree of the easy win by letting the diva rattle away that is just *too* easy to be counted as a win. In that sense Mr. Vidal may have won, but it was a victory achieved by leaning back and quietly marveling as the only thing he really had to do.
I think Mailer is absolutely insufferable. I only wish he were still alive to see how his star as a writer has dimmed (not that his bloated ego would allow him to acknowledge that). I think of three words when I think of him: Jack Henry Abbott. Mailer was a misogynist, and his books will fade into obscurity. I think Cavett “won.”
Mailer once punched out Vidal at a party.
When Vidal got up, he said, “Once again, words fail Norman Mailer.”
source?
madProgenitorDeity They are many biographies that have covered this.
@@MrUndersolo which ones?
No it was a headbutt backstage during this very show when he said that.
@@madProgenitorDeity that took 10 seconds ... For more obscure subjects I agree tagging w links is a better way to go, but a topic like this is kinda easy to be your own researcher .... www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/gore-vidal-and-his-bitter-feuds/
Mailer looks like Bilbo when Frodo won’t give back The Ring.
P4Pgoat C.J.Watson spot on!
haha
Damn. Almost identical. Seriously.
He does!
your comment made me laugh out loud
Can you imagine Jimmy Fallon with these two? Nervous hysterical laughter saying “come you guys. HAHAHAhahaHa knock it off haHaaahha!”.
Jimmy Fallon? Jimmy Fallon who never read a book in his life Jimmy Fallon who does not have a intellectual bone in body No I cannot Jimmy Fallon shallow vacant stooge of the philistine establishment
or any of the late night hosts. It would have been good to have had Christopher Hitchens as the referee.
"Let's play Pictionary, gang!"
"How do you like my Norman Mailer wig??!!"
jimmy fallon and his ilk will be brought up on cultural crimes to humanity
one day.
George Alexander right.
Perhaps you’d like two more chairs to contain your giant intellect
Wasn't that just brilliant?
That was so perfect.
Hahahaha
Dick Cavett is a class act.
😂
Wow, this is one of the most intense interviews I’ve ever seen I’m liking this one.
The twist: There was no audience, just voices in Mailer's head.
Come on baby, let's do The Twist ~ it goes like this... interview
Alternative title: “Norman Mailer ABSOLUTELY DESTROYS himself”
I had a chat with Dick back in 1980 in line at a bank on 75th and Lexington. He had a sailor hat on like Gilligan. I recognized his voice first. He was in front of me chatting with the person in front of him. Very nice man!
I ran into him at a casino and recognized his voice first also. We tossed some jokes back and forth. Witty guy.
Gore Vidal was so smart keeping his mouth shut and just letting Mailer look like a fool.
As Norman said, “He's a good politician”.
Not really, Vidal exuded slimy and insufferable without a word.
"Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake"
-Napoleon Bonaparte
@@MrWhiskeycricket I'll elaborate. Vidal was a disgusting pederast. And just so you know that this isn't an unfounded accusation, he admitted himself that he was attracted to adolescent boys. He traveled to Bangkok regularly, and I think you can figure out what he was doing there.
@@MrWhiskeycricket You won. 👏🏻
I love when people spoke like this. Even the insults and arguments.
Some of us still do.
Can anyone imagine anything this good, his REAL happening on a current late night (or anytime) talk show?
The US has grave problems.
THIS is glorious live television of a bygone era! Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal (and Dick Cavett) are LEGENDS!
It haddened occurred to me that this went out 'live'!!
That really adds to the sense of a bygone era!
Ive never seen 2 men argue with such class and diginty.
At least they're still talking. DC is still compelling TV. I love the episodes with Orson Welles sharing stories. Truly brilliant. Thanks to DC and the team for making these available.
goes at vidal: loses.
goes at cavett: loses.
goes at audience: loses.
Big time. I have to admit. Cavette surprised me. “Are you in awe of the creative ability?”
goes at flanner: loses
he got burned so badly, even I need a skin graft from just watching.
He lost all the battles, but won the war. All eyes on Norman.
Norman Mailer playing a character named "Norman Mailer" and everyone, including you, buying it utterly: wins.
I picture a young C Hitchens absorbing all this as so much mother's milk.
This wouldn't have broadcast in Britain so it's unlikely he would ever have seen it.
Hitchens was in his twenties when this aired.
@@ThalassicMeasure Right you are, my bad. For some reason I thought he was born April '59, not '49. Thanks for clarifying. I'll edit my comment (which still works with him in his early '20s, as he was, or my counterfactual where his arrival on the stage was delayed by 10 years).
@@DeepScreenAnalysis As the kind person has pointed out, he was actually in his early '20s, so with that revision, one can now imagine (or "picture", to keep things consistent) him taking a break from his studies and work to take a merry jaunt across to what would become his adopted home.
hitchens and gore vidal were tight friends (gores apprentice dolphino) then hitchens insulted gore "in vidal local
then enemies-- on you tube their history
Imagine a show of the intellectual caliber of Dick's show being popular, or even making it on air, on a major network in the age of the Kardashians, the Bachelor, and Real Housewives! DEVO was right, we are devolving at an astonishing rate
Mailer went on the show drunk and made an ass out of himself. That sums up the entire show. It got really tiresome fast.
He was sober in this appearance compared to his appearance with Ali
Watch this, Lis. You can actually pinpoint the exact second his heart rips in half. 14:28
I feel as though this episode formed a background to my earliest childhood memories.
this level of conversation would NEVER happen in 2024. Kudos to Miss Flanner in her delivery of "I'm becoming very, very bored!"
Mailer looks like he wanted to hit her.
"Perhaps you'd like two more chairs to contain your giant intellect ". Best line delivered from a talk show host. Ever.
Why don't you fold it five ways and put it where the sun don't shine." absolutely shocked him!
@@kfrerix9777 🤣🤣 that killed me
Norman was a bit full of himself.
@@bigtex4058 He even wears boots to give him some height.
LOL
"Perhaps you would like two more chairs to contain your giant intellect." -Dick Cavett for the win.
I would like whole Madison Square Garden
dick always wins. He was and still is a fucking genius. lol :)
@@ThommyKane His best was '' I apologize to any of your followers for calling them a bigot, who are not a bigot''
Kevin Lewis - I thought Cavett’s comeback about cribbing the ass shoving retort from Tolstoy was the sharpest and the audience didn’t quite get it.
@@maddymud he was erudite AND witty - how many in his field can claim either, let alone both, today?
(ok Stephen Colbert so sorry but still not QUITE the same thing EVEN given that great Eliot reference you gave us the other day)
Dick Cavett’s show is such a national gem. Many of these historical figures are long gone and we can mine these shows for historical context and research in pop culture even. Just fascinating.
Yeah, I am addicted to these. I honestly can’t remember how I first stumbled upon these. I had no idea who Dick Cavett was. Now they pop up all the time and I have to watch them. This one I’ve seen like 10 times and had to study Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal’s history a bit because it’s so fascinating.
I wonder if something similar could be recreated today.
Absolutely true. I'm not American, on my 30's and from Portugal. So, different language, time and background. I somewhat sometimes end watching a Dick Cavet interviews with celebrities/famous people that I'm interested of learning.
For instance, the classic Ali and Frazier episode, the Orson Welles, etc. I really appreciate the the witt and the way Cavet gives the guest to truly speak.
"Look, you're going to be having dinner with Groucho tonight if you don't beat it!"
Wish the country had that same level of intellectualism today. It sadly does not.
Honestly, the fact that this was left to go on as long as it did, is a testament to Dicks true dedication to open and free speech. Beautifully handled.
“There is nothing so stupid as an educated man, if you get him off the thing he was educated in.”
Will Rogers
Doctors are well-educated people. Would you call them "stupid"? Thats a ridiculous quote
@@trentrez6643 Obviously some doctors are stupid. Also you missed the point.
@@jamstonjulian6947 The "point" is educated people are only knowledgeable about 1 subject. A ridiculous notion
@@trentrez6643 I think you're taking it very literally and still missing the point, which is that even the most intellectual or educated of people can appear foolish when going outside their remit, which many intellectuals are wont to do because of their ego. And "educated" in this instance is a byword for intellectual, not literally anyone that has had some education.
@D JL No it isn't. Read what you wrote. Take out the word "not" in "subjects they are not educated in" and it will make sense.
Gore: *doesnt bring up wife stabbing *
Norman: oh so your just going to bring up that time I stabbed my wife huh, that's so unfair you jerk!
@Theocritus I must have missed it.
Gore was sneak dissing , he was ahead of his time lmaoo
I think Vidal was hinting at it in a way that would have been pretty obvious at the time. I think that is a form of dishonesty. It might win people to your side in an argument, but intellectually, it is dishonest.
What about Mr. Boroughs playing William tell with his wife?
@@devo196047 Well, then he played Mailer incredibly well. Because Mailer jumped the gun. There is no way to say what were Vidal's intentions. And he can easily act as he did not have that in mind. Because either Mailer paved the way or Vidal made him do that.
“Perhaps you’d like two more chairs to contain your giant intellect.” 😂😂😂
"And your flabby butt".
" and ego."
Very funny
Yes, a great line!
With Mailer and Vidal playing these outrageous characters, this was the best line of the show. I'm ever in awe of Dick Cavett.
This clip is like The Jerry Springer Show for intelligent people.
Loved Cavett's show.
@Frank Lemarin Oh come now, Mailer wasn't a complete fraud. You don't think he is likable at all? I agree Vidal would be unknown today, or he would have to be a history professor
Well done.
All of their intellect is pretense. I am the ONLY intellect on the planet. ;-)
ha ha ha so funny!
Vidal: Well, I'd like to get into some of Norman's writing here, ah, let me--
Mailer: EVERYONE KNOWS I STABBED MY WIFE EIGHT YEARS AGO ALRIGHT?!!!!!!!!
I wasn't going to talk about that
..gold
That was definitely the part of the interview where I knew Mailer lost it.
Absolutely hilarious
Tell me, Sean, why you had to misquote Gore in order to make a nothing point.
Sharon Jensen “These two”? How did Vidal behave like a child or worse?
Cavett is the best talk show host ever. He's keenly intelligent, witty, has done his research, is fully prepared, allows his guests to speak without constantly interrupting them, is impeccably polite, and maintains a relaxing, respectful atmosphere for his audience.
The absolute best.
And, evidently, not a pusillanimous man. But one with pride and honor and the instinct to defend both.
Carson looks like such a stuffed shirt next to Cavett
@@prince.mushroom Completely different …an apples and oranges comparison. If you’ve actually read Cavett, you’ll know he often called his former boss for advice. They were actually rather tight given their in-common Nebraska upbringing.
He's no Dave
Dick Cavett was the greatest host in the history of American television.
Dick Cavett is too underrated these days
Jimmy Fallon would have asked them to play a game of charades.
😂😂😂😂
People don’t watch Fallon for intellectual stimulation. They just want something to giggle at as they doze off.
Jimmy Fallon in the same room as Mailer and Vidal would be entertaining, just to watch Fallon squirm and flounder like a beached trout... the cringe would be record-breaking.
@@nolanolivier6791
.... And the sad thing is that Fallon is a genius and a saint compared with the other hyper-partisan sociopaths and narcissists like Jimmy Kimmel, Amy Schumer, Steven Colbert, Trevor Noah, Jim Jeffries and Samantha Bee... None of them are funny to regular people. They serve no other purpose than to continue the spread of left wing propaganda deep into the night(because it's not enough to see it all day long on the "news" networks)! Left wing indoctrination should be 24/7/365!
Which is fair enough as none of his guests are even half as thoughtful. Those guests are merely plastic eye candies.
'We all know I stabbed my wife' just casually thrown into the conversation lmao
William Boroughs played William Tell with his wife. What happened to America's celebrities? ANSWER: America.
Yes noticed that😅
Dick Cavett was great because he didn’t just use the talk show as a promotion machine. He was interested in people’s ideas and he let them explain.
Yes, that was impressive. No "it's me & all about me" at all.
@@jpgrumbach8562 Well except for Mailer's rhetoric lol
A shallow liberal snob , and here firmly on side with Vidal
I don't agree. He nicely positioned himself with the "good guys". It would have been more interesring and brave if he attempted to create some sort of balance.
His interview with Dali showcases an interesting alternative to that perspective
He conducted himself well here though
Absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to even imagine a chat show like this now!
It's all Hollywood "actors" for 3 minutes, then the next one.
This is FANTASTIC!!!
Yeah this long form is gone from television but it's common now on podcasts.
Very well put!
That's why you should have stopped watching TV 20 years ago and simply just have actively searched for content online.
You raise an important issue about the changing of the times. In a recent podcast interview between Bill Maher and Dana Carvey, Dana remarked that Johnny Carson was the perfect Tonight Show host for his time and Jay Leno was for his time as well. Dana then when on to say that in Johnny's day, he'd have a writer on his show, often toward the end. But when Jay took over, that tradition stopped. Dana said that in Jay's era--and today's as well--audiences would get bored if a writer was the guest.
@@ralphadamo1857 Well that is the problem with American society....
This is the epitome of “Never interrupt your enemy while they’re making a mistake”
Well said.
Except for the occasional sick burn.
very precise, my friend.
Agreed.
Was that Sun Tzu?
Four egos walk onto a stage...and that only describes Mailer.
Lol
You would imagine they’d all need to hide underneath a trench coat, but his big head is room enough!
👏
Woody Allen in Sleeper_ "Norman Mailer donated his ego for medical research". 😆
I have no idea who this woman is but I absolutely love the way she conducts herself. She's proof that not every person when they reach a certain age starts to slow down mentally
Janet Flanner was a brilliant journalist who lived in Paris during the rise of Nazis and fascism, and came up with the "Hitler as the vegetarian, non-smoker non-drinker - and yet a monster. I too want to know more about her. Her papers are in the Library of Congress.
She's vapid
@@steveernst6342 Her collected works are available " Paris Was Yesterday, 1925-1939" and her biography Genêt by by Brenda Wineapple are both worth a read.
@@steveernst6342 how utterly pathetic that we didn’t get to hear more from her, with her inctedible history and intelligence, while Mailer blathers on like the useless drunk that he was…
@@4Mr.Crowley2she was also best friends with Hemingway and knew all the Parisian painters and writers of the lost generation. Also her first writing job consisted of helping invent film criticism in 1912
"You two act as if you're the only ones here. They are here. He's here. I'm here, and I'm quite honestly becoming very, very bored.."--KUDOS TO MS. FLANNER!!!
she's a somewhat forgotten legend - an awesome woman, and here clearly showing her fundamental lack of egotism but still, a deliciously shrewd interjector lol
I see Vidal really connecting with her in this. He just can't help but smile.
love it
Well, she is the voice of the people that just like social routine. The reason this interview is still remembered and even watched years later by people that are appalled by it, is because the routine was broken.
@@neaituppi7306 That's very interesting . It a shame the routine is back . This interview is just amazing . I love it .
That little kiss she blew at him after that line was absolutely devastating
This is so bizarre. Just schoolyard bickering with a thesaurus.
End Boss A fitting epigraph for the episode would be, "I'm rubber, you're glue; whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you."
This is NY, and the E Coast chattering establishment writ large...always has been.
End Boss it's so funny how much hot air and ego can convince the public you're an intellectual when in reality most of this is just insecure windbags vying for some sort of Oscar wilde-esque supremacy in snarky rebuttals
"Just schoolyard bickering with a thesaurus" LMAO
@End Boss: Perfectly put!
Norman Mailer doesn't shake his hand in the beginning, that's a shit thing to do even if you don't like the person.
yeah, be a man
Mailer was (evidently) very, very angry with Vidal, to the point of approach a loss of self control.
No, it's an honest thing to do
I might hesitate to shake Vidals hand if he washed immediately before, but both have reall interesting points.
@@thinredline2795 I can understand not shaking a man's hand if he slept with your wife but if he was just doing his job...kinda makes a fool out of ones self.
Norman Mailer took some criticism for being married 6 times and having numerous mistresses. In his favor, however, of all these women, he only stabbed one of them.
"We all know that I stabbed my wife," Mailer said casually and leisurely.
Heroic, honestly, when you put it like that 😅
If you wondering why we don't have talk shows guest like this, think about why we don't have audiences to appreciate them.
naw. It's the shows because the people at the top of these networks only ditched these shows for advertising dollars.
I think this format has moved to RUclips and podcasts instead of network television
And the reason we don't have audiences to appreciate them is because the media companies have had a hand in dumbing-down the General Public
That's kind of an ass backwards way of analyzing it. But it IS valid. The talk show hosts have to dumb everything down nowadays for most of the viewership but on the other hand, it seems to me that the average celebrity really doesn't have anything interesting to say anymore. Also, most people watching the talk shows are unable to concentrate on anything for any more time then it would take for an explosion to happen. People need to be stimulated constantly and not in the intellectual way. It's supply and demand both ways. Idiotic talk show hosts will probably bring in dumb-ass viewership. Nowadays, unless someone is a Lib-Tard, they wouldn't be too interested in watching Jimmy Kimmel. Why is there such a huge cap between the talk show hosts of today and icons such as Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson?? It's not even close and that's sad.
or a society that produces them...
"I'm becoming very
very bored"
~ Janet Flanner
was a class act
*blows kiss* hahahah
Yes, and Mailer was insufferable!
@@kayzyr9442 he stabbed his wife!!!!
@@RawOlympia Just looked it up. His wife was almost killed, and Mailer only got 3 months probation 😳!!
A tiresome well harrowed septic old ditch.
Mailer demonstrates how thin skinned he was and Vidal goads him in the same manner which led Buckley to almost punch him. Janet and Dick initially not taking sides until they did was a great comic relief. This was an interesting presentation, the likes of which we unfortunately haven't seen in ages.
Thick skinned, I think the opposite actually, that's how he got so goaded
Thick skinned, I think the opposite actually, that's how he got so goaded
"Small mind, no manner"
"Don't be autobiographical all the time" lmao
@@TheModjack Wtf are you even saying.
That was a read
@@superman-lp9ct I guess he was trying to quote Gore at 6:55
@@superman-lp9ct lol... you need a little bit more calm in your life my man
Rawan Tafech
Matter not manner
' Don't be autobiographical all the time ' is brainy for ' I know you are but what am I '
@@chriskent3640 Same here lol. I thought that someone else would comment on it and here I am ;-)
6:50
He had at least three of them this show. Vidal was off his game and under pressure from a drunk dude, credit to Mailer.
😊
"Small mind. No matter."
"Don't be autobiographical all the time."
Damn! That was savage!
we can be at least certain about one thing...this -in part- is where the Hitchens' wit came from
Yes, the "I know you are, but what am I?" of literary feuds.
Barrel Shape well contrasted.
was just watching a roast battle in comedy Central but that was brutal
@MastodonManiac Interesting Mailer says no manners when every person in that room would describe Mailer that way but not Gore Vidal.
Mailer complaining that he got no time to speak, never stops talking.
Thats how those types usually are...they cry foul while knocking someone down
Ya got that right !! Mailer is clearly itching for a fight !! The mature thing to do would be to just ignore what he thought Vidal was saying or writing about him !
LOL.
When you're not charismatic enough for your ego.
-- BIngo.
That totally nails it. Mailer was a legend in his own mind and was furious no one else every agreed with him! All the energy he wasted being a general arsehole, had he used that energy wisely, then he would of been truly great!
Perfectly put
Succinct.
Vidal would have loved this.
I think that Norman Mailer was very commanding and interesting in other interviews but he is no match for Gore Vidal who was the King where ever he went.
He's so narcissistic that he's surprised the audience is hostile to him.
Look at the big picture...MAILER IS A SAVAGE
@Diana Curry that may be correct indeed. However if he wouldn't have acted like that this video wouldn't have as many views as it does. It's just good TV. Kanye west is very similar to watch
He wasn't really surprised at all. Rather he welcomed the hostility and very very few would have the courage to
address the audience as he did.
@@davida.4933 I don't think he welcomed it, he comes across as deeply insecure.
Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if he had been a big pro wrestling fan at some point in his life & as a result relished the chance to be the best loud mouthed public villain he could when it presented itself
Norman Mailer dragging out 2 minutes of information over 24 minutes. Intellectual flannel, filled with artificial, pretentious language designed to impress and show how 'superior' he is. I agree with Janet, very boring.
Mucker!
The most intelligent people can say a lot with few and simple words.
I missed where Janet Flanner actually spoke: @4:38-6:13
@@stephenmcinerney9457 She's too busy dodging bitchy comments from Mailer -haha
He querulously attacked everything but the substance of the discussion. Even when he was talking to the woman in the audience, he nitpicked on her use of the word "guest" instead listening to her point.
48 years old! Mailer looked liked a senior citizen.
Everyone looked older back then. The hair, the terrible makeup, and likely smoking and drinking.
Hard living.
No they didn’t
No one can beat The Naked & the Dead excepting Dos Passos who went all in with Nixon. His writing just terrible by then.
@@stevencramsie9172 And much higher testosterone levels......
When you have to go back to the 70s to find intellectuals on TV...
Another example of my theory that America peaked as a society in the 70's and mid 80's and has been on the decline ever since...towards demise.
The intellectuals are on RUclips...
@@leonardodalongisland Not just America tbf.
the game for decades has been to transfer wealth up, reduce regulations, oppress and discourage the people into fatigued compliance. Get rid of the Fairness Doctrine and put nothing in it's place, add in the 1996 Telecommunications Act and further consolidate the media into a few powerful and monied hands, repeal the Smith-Mundt act and voila
@@leonardodalongisland I would agree. The middle class peaked in wealth in the 70s. After that wages dropped, pensions evaporated, and the corporate power grew exponentially.
I had no idea Norman Mailer was such an asshole but he could have at least shook hands with Gore Vidal like a gentleman.
Mailer needs another chair for that gigantic chip on his shoulder.
Hehe true.
OOF
Janet Flanner is the low-key winner of the segment.
And the cookies were her prize
I know she just one-punched Mailer at 12:40
She was very charming and witty i agree
Love her so much! When she says "oh dear god let's not go back to that again" 😂
Mailer: "small mind, no matter"
Vidal: "no don't be autobiographical all the time"
Damn. Lol
Believe that is going straight to the memory bank. Straight razor sharp.
Most of Vidal's "retorts" seem to consist of variations on, "I know you are, but what am I?"
@@watts111 I thought I was the only one who noticed. These comments are driving me crazy. People are so impressed with smarmyness they dont actually listen to what's being said.
@@jonglenister3268 exactly
@@jonglenister3268 sometimes swarmyness suffices to entertain
“And I’m very very bored.” That’s legendary
Who's the snobby broad?
Mailer comes across so awfully that you have to wonder if its performance art (a la Andy Kauffman)
No. He was just half in the bag and out for revenge
This show makes me want to hop in a time machine and go back.....Janet Flanner was classy and incredibly fun, Norman Mailer was fascinating and the most intelligent and interesting brat in history.....and then Gore Vidal who managed to be at once completely brilliant and hysterically funny....not to mention the always charming, gifted, and humble Dick Cavet. I hate that not one of these amazing souls have a current contemporary......sigh. 😍❤️
Absolutely. They don't make em' like that anymore.
I ABSOLUTELY agree!
Uh…check out Graham Norton for amazing talk show hosts. Albeit he’s more of a UK one than a US one.
@@flanplan5903 Norton draws his guests out with humor. He's as talented and witty, in some respects, as his famous guests. He gets respect. Whereas a Fallon or a Kimmel are boobs who pretend to be talk show hosts.
you over egged mailers pudding rather....
This entire video is a masterclass on Narcicistic Personality Disorder.
@VV I heard no substance from Norman.
@VV Have you actually read any of Norm's books? I've never seen him interviewed before but he certainly seems to reflect his work's self indulgent and superficial nature, written by a Fitzgerald wannabe whose literature really hasn't aged all that well.
@VV
The only thing Mailer said, is exactly what you said:
"People don't understand me because I'm so much more intelligent than they are." He said nothing of substance. Insulting people, using polysyllabic words, acting defensive; this is not the way to win a debate...frankly it's not how a normal, well adjusted person acts.
The flaw with Mailers mentality - and apparently yours - is that he thinks anybody who disagrees must just be an ideological drone who can't think for themselves. When everybody agrees on something, it's worth having a moment of internal reflection.
You have to remember that the women's liberation movement they are discussing is very distinct from the feminism of today. Mailer was against basic women's rights, and instead of admitting that this was wrong, he assumes that everyone else must have bad motives. That's next level narcissism.
Thinking that everybody else must be idiotic, or possessed by political motives; instead of entertaining the possibility that he might just be wrong.
@VV
Never once did I say that I’ve got it all figured out. Never once did I say that I’m an intellectual. I’m pointing out the obvious: Mailer made a fool of himself here.
@VV you told the other person that he doesn’t have the capacity to understand what Mailer said. If that’s not calling another person stupid, or bringing down the conversation to ego, I don’t know what is.
Dick Cavett is still alive, he's currently 86. And he's appeared in a whole bunch of movies and TV shows as himself!
Saw a pbs docu on his house burning down and being rebuilt out on Long Island. He became a widower, sadly, too.
Forrest Gump!
Mailer embarrasses himself badly. He’s looking for attention. Not very clever here at all. The lady is much more clever. Vidal understands the situation. Cavett is terrific as usual.
I wonder who she is
@@elinorregina , Janet Flanner, who wrote "Letter From Paris" under the name "Genet" for The New Yorker for many years.
There was much more nuance
So well said and so well put ! You are completely "right on" with your observations !
Chill anon.
Mailer was such a pretentious egomaniac.
"How to make friends" by Norman Mailer.
“I have to tell you a quote from Tolstoy?” Cavett was the best.
Janet Flanner was in Paris with the "lost generation" writers, wrote for the New Yorker for decades, and Mailer shows her no respect at all
whereas I think Vidal knew this, got her and just connected with her in "spirit"
Mailer's weaknesses were just exacerbated by their fundamental dismissal of his crap.
Oh, she handled herself alright.
that bit where she was thumbing through the pamphlet
hahahaha
classic
Mailer could only wish to be so caustic and yet also so inoffensive
Mailer's misogyny would not allow him to show respect.
Her talking in the background was rude and annoying.
Cavett "perhaps you'd like two more chairs to contain your giant intellect' lol perfect.
Don’t think Mailer realized that Vidal is winning by staying silent.
Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake. Even Buckley fell prey to this.
Vidal is winning because Mailer is whining with a defeated intellectual violence
It's the punch Ali never threw.
Vidal was a smarter guy, Mailer was a good storyteller. Amis said you have to be a bit Forrest Gumpy to write fiction and a very intelligent/ sharp to be a great polemecist.
@@Bnio Maybe, or he didn't need to throw that punch. Talking with your hands is enough.
Three brilliant guests, a genius host and a lucky audience. I wish tv chat shows nowadays was so honest and real.
I don't think that audience knew how lucky they were because they were as dumb as a fucking Rock
mailer: i have a complicated mind. you know it's so complicated that gore has said with some justice that my work is becoming unreadable. it's the one thing in his critique that i agree with.
jimmy fallon: HAHAHA wow! you agree with that? complicated! complic-HAHAHA! oh my gosh that's so crazy. HAHAHA i love that. gore's, like, freaking out over that right now!!
freakish how I understand this comment. also tragic
one word man I'm 19 and it's nuts to see this in comparison to the tv I grew up with. jealous!
Oh God, this HURTS
Cavett is an ass who sucks up to what's popular. Mailer rules. Listen, all you libs, you deserve what's coming in our dystopian future. Except it ain't the future, suckers.
@v- r-m
Hi v-r-m,
Live a long life.
Vidal was such a master at softly helping idiots make fools of themselves in public I love it. And Janet Flanner just sitting there throwing shade at Mailer, this segment is a gem.
Vidal also nursed feuds for the sake of publicity.
Mailer is the idiot? You should reevaluate yourself
@@ThatGuyMalasartes He certainly made an ass of himself in THIS appearance.
Gore Vidal is a Jussie Smollet. A Jodi Arias. A Nick Cannon. A Stephen Colbert. A Joe Biden. A Donald Trump.
You love the words of a snake. I can only imagine you're vaccinated.
This whole clip is fascinating for me. Just the entire interaction between Gore Vidal and Dick Cavett, Mailer talking over everyone else, the audience heckling Mailer, the insults between everyone, the uncomfortable atmosphere, Mailer’s almost bragging nature about stabbing his wife, Janet standing up to Mailer respectively.
The only thing different between this hot mess and a junior high schoolyard fight is the number of syllables in the words used.
I listened to Mailer's delight in expressing his distain, his disgust for "intellectual pollution," a term he possibly invented and certainly revelled in, constantly using it as if he could not get enough of it, and he vulgarly accused Vidal of being guilty of it. I felt that it was self-defining, that Miller accusing others of it was a fine example of the pot calling the kettle black and typical of a narcissist personality.
@@elisabethpine3420 You don’t get it, sorry to say.
Vidal is a backstabber. Mailer was intending to hash out in person what Vidal was doing through the pen, demonizing Mailer by way of countering his thoughts, both in print. An intellectually cowardly behavior.
And you could see that play out right here in this treasure of a clip.
Mailer is laying his cards on the table ... while Gore ( what an apt name ) was playing to the audience’s naïveté.
Much like the virtue signaling Rampage of the Woke now. Vidal was a precursor of their chicanerous tactics ! And look at the effects of that bilious strategy ... they’re driving America into the ground !
@@gherieg.1091 Please - Shirley you can't be serious. Surely, you jest - so spare us.
@@Polo-po I stand by every word I said.
And who is Shirley ? Didn’t you hear I’ve changed my name ?
It's simple. Give Mailer the soap box and he destroys himself.
Mailer was a egomaniac which goes hand in hand with an inferiority complex.
This was fascinating to watch. Vidal didn't have to do thing.
but BOTH are huge liberals
hey, OP
your post was ON POINT
and Vidal always had his writing to turn back to and use as a devastating retort - he KNEW he didn't need to rise to any in-the-moment bait
Who doesn't have an inferiority complex? - and I'll show you a non-existent person.
@@cultfilmfreakreviews Mailer only described himself as a liberal to run around in their circles. His attitude towards women makes Rush Limbaugh look like Woody Guthrie.
I've never seen a clip so full of Oscar Wilde-esque barbs and quips. Legendary.
Coming from Gore no doubt 😅
"Perhaps you'd like two more chairs to hold your giant intellect"
That was the real quip that was hysterical. Nicely done
@@frankpeter6851 I don't think you need any help Frank, we don't really have an honest argument or prize fight going on here because 3 of the participants are too well bred to engage and the other is the self declared Champ and wants to have it out. The dance, as Flanner says, is a bore and I agree.
He puts Mailer's intellectual arrogance into a cocked hat.
TFW too intelligent
"Don't be autobiographical all the time." Booyah!!!
I know you are you said you are but what am I?
That was a brilliant burn. Vidal has an awesome wit.
This comment is much like when we were children, “I know you are, but what am I”?
Norman Mailer's writing style seems to belie a really pretty fragile personality.
Just like Hemingway.
@@ThePiratemachine yeah Hemingway sucks
Are you sure you don't mean *content*, his thematic preoccupations and such? I don't see how style could convey such a thing.
"You know perfectly well that I'm the gentlest person here" he says after talking about STABBING HIS WIFE
I think this writer was Stephen King’s inspiration for Nicholson in The Shining
Oh but he's complex!
This video has introduced me to Janet Flanner. What a treat. Just ordered a bunch of her books.
I don’t know who that woman was but I want to be her when I grow up
I do hope that you don't want to look like her?
@@robertdore9592 do you really think that to someone Who admires her intellect and óptics about Life, like the Girl Who posted her opinión here, looks are as important in Life as they seem to be to you?
Quite a solid Human being.
She´s the granny from the Wendy´s commercial "Where´s the beef".
@@robertdore9592 Not bad legs?!
I honestly never knew that Mailer stabbed his wife.
Holy. Cow.
And he has the gall to opine on women's liberation. He even says to the woman in the audience calling him out that she is the voice of legions. She was. She is. That's how democracy works.
He kindly informed us everybody knows.
His bigger crime was making Maidstone.
Well, in his defense, she wouldn’t listen.
Mailer claims to advocate for women's rights, but ended up with his own wife's blood on his hands.
This debate demonstrates two things; that the public face of our Western culture is in definitive intellectual decline and that even intellectually gifted men still fall prey to egoism, insecurity and pettiness.
lee, & 17 thumbs-uppers: The only person I see & hear falling prey to egotism, etc. is Norman Yucchhhy Mailer!
Agreed
How can you talk about Western culture considerating only American TV, which is always dumb and a sick society?
Man is fundamentally flawed with self destruction. That will never change. And that’s why man will be long gone when this planet finally expires.
Ahhhh but they do it so well Muaahahahahahaha
Mailer might be the cleverest fool I've ever seen. Incredibly articulate, well read, yet incapable of understanding why everyone in the room hates him, or how to do anything about it.
I think you miss the point. Trying to understand it and caring are two different things.
@@ShurlockHolmes You think he doesn't care? You could not be more wrong. Mailer had a massive ego, and the derision of the crowd infuriated him. If he "didn't care" he would not have responded with such scowling, seething anger. He couldn't STAND that they hated him - or, more to the point, that they weren't lavishing him with praise.
My god that woman was class from start to finish
Vidal crushed Mailer by permitting him to demolish himself.
alchemistoxford I love his style, like the famous political sparing match he had with William Buckley 😀
Scott Costa more like the illusion of virtue
Are you kidding? Everyone else up their looks like an pseudo-intellectual hack ganging up on him for quick points. He DESTROYS them toward the end when he addresses the audience, but I bet no one watches that far in in the age of ADD.
@Scott Costa You have one thing in common with Norman Mailer. You're both pompous asses.
@Scott Costa Being against masturbation and contraceptives represents brains and virtue to you? Good thing that, unlike when this show was recorded, most of society has moved on from your archaic and useless beliefs.
I think he’s desperate for people to see him as a Hemingway of sorts.
Yeah on the page that can still be very captivating, in personality wise not so much.
Well, Hemingway was kind of an asshole too.
@@_Peremalfait Yeah but I think Hemingway kind of lived it. His asshole side was always evident and real. Mailer here is looking for some type of special, tough-guy writer validation.
Because that's what they said in the video that you watched?
@@susieq360 tbf that comparisson was made to many of the novelists immediately after ww2 including vidal
I loved how Vidal never ruffled. His few volleys were executed with precision. He is the only one who did not visibly get upset. He wanted a discussion, not an insult war. Mailer was a deeply disturbed human being. I've never read his work and don't care too. Apparently, he was a great writer with controversial views. I was worried for Ms. Flanner for a moment. Notice how Mailer postured toward her when she told him she was bored with him. That's a tactic abusive people use to intimidate. She had pluck and good for her for not backing down. What a truly sad display of a bitter and broken man.
Vidal and Mailer had a very volatile relationship but when it's all said and done, both men respected each other's writings.
Mailer had issues (as many people do), but there's no denying he was a brilliant artist.
Mailer stabbed his wife.
@@SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand
That changes nothing about what I said.
He lost me when he moved forward with a act of aggressive behavior the display of a truly weak man I'm sure he picks and chooses who he flexes on if you wouldn't flex on everyone you shouldn't flex on anyone
Mailer did not pace himself. He went for the knockout in the first round, like a rookie boxer. Vidal, sitting back, just throws a few jabs until he sees an opening for the knockout. Boom!
Nicely said man.
Really? Where was the knockout?
No... it was more like a fight in battlebots - Mailer was the one with a 75 pound spinner going 300 mph and Gore was the block with no weapons who was going to allow the other to smash himself upon him... and so by doing nothing somehow come away the winner... and this was exactly what was pissing Mailer off and how Gore made his career - pinpricking people and then letting them smash themselves upon him, while never having to prove anything or take any stand. And incredibly (knowing he was going to attack Gore for this) Mailer still came in and did the worst thing possible - attacked him like a wild beast... which made Gore look like the civilized one. Mailer turned the audience off before it even started by refusing to even shake his hand or look at him. Hate doesn't sell, it turns people off.
Steve Bollmeyer Naaah Mailer is raw open and vulnerable and more importantly true. Vidal is so rehearsed and composed it’s clinical in its detached superiority. Mailer tries to be like Vidal. He fails and ultimately that’s what makes him so compelling
@@IrishBog not really...mailer is to desperate...how exactly do you know he is true?
he could just as easy be described as a lunatic..bent on self destruction...i have seen vidal enough to know he is laying back here aware that mailer would self implode.
and yes i have actually read vidals 1200 page book of essays....and know mailers accusations of his intellectual fraud..are false....mailer demonstrates his intelligence here...but again...being far to sensitive to even the mildest of critique...makes him not compelling...but juvenile.
The intellectual version of Roddy Piper's pit.
I was looking for this comment 😂😂😂
As adie hard wrestling fan...Bravo kind sir!
The best pipers pit was when paul orndoff was a guest... loll
A coconut would have livened it up.
Best comment I've seen
He’s 48? He looks 68.
Lots of cigarettes and whiskey can do that.
I thought he was 65. When he said he was 48, I had to play it back 3 times to make sure that I heard it correctly.
@@Saturnia2014 it really does accelerate the ageing process.
Booze and cigarettes.
No one. Like, literally no one:
Norman Mailer: "We all know I stabbed my wife."
Imagine the argument that proceed him doing that. He clearly could not let anything go.
But also 'it's beneath us to think in thick, frozen terms of intellectual pollution [like calling me a male chauvenist pig]' 😂
Geezus, Mailer's insecurities are oozing off my screen. This is pathetic.
Makes for better writers though.
@@ThePiratemachine does it?
Any reaction to being attacked is perceived as the wrong one.
@@johnlorraine204 Did you see Norman's reaction when Gore said that he was 'very fond of Norman' after his initial tirade? If there is any 'right' reaction to being attacked, its doing the exact opposite !
10:45 Janet Flanner, Dick Cavett, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer . The mold of likes of them is forever lost.
Well, Dick Cavett is still here, though no longer on TV, of course.
Norman Mailer appears to be a troubled man who came on the show with a hostile attitude.
@Truth God I question if Mailer had good morals. Read his novel, "Why are we in Vietnam".
I met Norman Mailer many years ago. In his speech he told a misogynistic joke.
@Truth God Generally speaking.
He definitely went through his stages. I’m a fan of Mailer but not during this period. I think he got better by the late 1980’s as he aged. Some of his best works and insights I think are in the 90s. He had a lot of ego to overcome which he finally did.
I think he had a substance abuse problem- Booze and Pot I think. I think he may have gone into recovery for those issues. I also think he eventually apologize to Gore Vidal for what happenned on the Cavett show- him threatenning Gore and they became friends again.
@@JaneFrieman anything is sexist to liberals
Dick Cavett is still alive. I do not know why his show was never brought back. No garbage, no dancing poodles, proper discussion show.
Dick Cavett's show has never been brought back because Americans no longer have the attention span, the vocabulary, nor the intellectual curiosity required to view and digest it.
@@GoodmanMIke59 well said...they need dancing poodles and idiots like Jimmy Fallon
@@GoodmanMIke59 I'd have to agree with that. It was discussions at a higher level, not idiot late night pundits trying (and failing) to show everyone how clever and hip they are.
@@GoodmanMIke59 so are you in that flock by default? Or are you from overseas? a 1st world country? Cause you know that's the closest to the clouds
Because its not marketable. Not when confronted with modern shock programing it doesn't hold a large audience.
This is the best show. I couldn’t stop laughing. This is good tv 😹😂🤣
I'm with you. Lucille Ball and Eve Arden rolled up into one.