TimesTalks: Bret Easton Ellis

Join us for an evening with Bret Easton Ellis, the critically acclaimed author of “Less Than Zero” and “American Psycho.” Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to hear Ellis discuss his first work of nonfiction “White,” described as an incendiary polemic about this young century’s failings, e-driven and otherwise, and at once an example, definition, and defense of what “freedom of speech” truly means. In White, Ellis eviscerates the perceived good that the social-media age has wrought, starting with the dangerous cult of likability.
Filmed live at TheTimesCenter by Suite Spot.

[@petermorris1898]

One of the few public figures who sees things relatively clearly and is more honest and adequately courageous, rather then eager to be liked

[@drinkingpoolwater]

"it's not a good thing to be trending" wow what a thing for this generation to ponder. such a meditation.

[@in6087]

I actually like this interviewer and the sort of chemistry they end up having together

[@stanboyd2761]

My boy Bret looks like a lobster! I hope some folks in that crowd learned a thing or two, everything he said in White was spot on. Most of my millennial peers just don't want to hear any of it, strange times we are living in..

[@aliiigxrl1587]

millennial progressive liberal woman here and I still AGREE. he came with the cold, hard, perhaps at times inconvenient, truths about modern society that a lot of us just don't want to face.

[@stfdef]

My literary HERO!!....Wish i knew he was gonna be in NYC before today. LOVE the NEW book so far!!!!

[@kelman727]

What’s heroic about him?

[@jeeed6390]

28:25 “the depiction of misogyny is not an act of misogyny”. The idea that some topics can no longer be discussed has run its course. I give comedy the kudos for ultimately smashing the rigid logic of pc culture.

[@briansimerl4014]

"Triggering Millennials is like eating frosting"

[@warmflash]

I lived in nyc from 82 - 90 • when I go there now I can’t wait to leave • Brett is right • It’s like being on the set of Blade Runner •

[@JockoJonson17]

Excellent interview. 👍👍👍

[@Nicky.Slunsky]

I love how he makes fun of his boyfriend in like every interview. :D

[@Spineloro]

Smart and honest✨sweet combo❤️✨

[@HettiedeKorteDiplomaat]

Twitter is a sewer.

[@hbrien]

Not so long ago the "Interviewer" would be an older person asking the young author/ artist about their life, message, and/or impact. "Are you are a rebel or a revolutionary?" "What is your message?", "What are you trying to say?". There are hundreds of these interviews that have taken place over the years on television, radio and print. Examples can be seen on CSpan, and KZbin. The interviewers are many : Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley, William F Buckley, Oprah and the list goes on and on. But script is now completely flipped. The Gen-X "old man" is having to explain himself to the young Coastal Elite "journalist" The young Coastal Elite "journalist" is "trying to understand the mind of this rebel". I feel like like I am in bizarro world. My brain, like Bret's, i think, is having a hard time processing this. It does not seem real. Last I checked. Puritanism is NOT rebellion.

[@mirandac8712]

And coincidentally (not!) the two best of those you mention - Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley -- have been robbed of their careers.

[@hbrien]

miranda c. are you saying they both deserved to have their careers destroyed?

[@hbrien]

Juxtapose this Times interview kzbin.info/www/bejne/n3W0Xpeheqxjhrs with this Charlie Rose 1994 interview kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2PEZ3qkrtCAjbc

[@mirandac8712]

@@hbrien I am very much extremely _not_ saying that. We are living under the temporary control of totalitarian neopuritan ideologues. Maybe Bret's going to help.

[@jamesrowsell9346]

what the fuck are you talking about? they have a relationship already so it makes sense, he knows her. Also, if you read him, the term coastal elite is pretty fucking fitting.

[@BULL.173]

I find it unnerving that this interviewer is proving Bret's points for him without even realizing it. I mean seriously, what's wrong with this picture? A guy in his mid 50's having to explain the fundamental of free speech to a journalist in her 20's. Shouldn't it be the other way around? It's scary how far we are regressing as a society. This is a generation of educated fools. Of narcissistic authoritarians who see themselves as the arbiters of objective reality. Bret has the right to offend you, deal with it. You don't have the right not to be offended. You'd think these "smart" elitists could understand something so simple.

[@sebastianmittelman4071]

Loved it, but some of the Q&A people stepping up to the mic need to edit their questions down - we ain't here for them, we're here for Bret!

[@09nob]

typical Millennials.

[@zufgh]

That first guy's question was bad enough, but the pretentious tone in which he asked it was even worse.

[@Bec_love]

Love him. Not afraid to point out the emperor is naked 👏 keep triggering those millennials

[@kelman727]

mars girl If you’re the kind of person using the word ‘triggered’ in everyday conversation, you’re a bit of a joke.

[@Clackthor]

Ok Boomer

[@Lemont321989]

I don't completely agree with him, but he obviously shows openness to debate.

[@robertbektas1810]

On what points?

[@quietreader]

Legend

[@malcolmlarri9073]

Interviewer was excellent

[@briannxx]

Hahahahaha good one

[@ztrewq9]

starts at 1:41

[@7bigapple]

the interviewer looks like she's going cry. no one gave her a "trigger warning" about Bret.

[@December151791]

She had to say, "White."

[@zaphyra-]

Big Black is amazing

[@At-homeworkouts]

She's a wonderful interviewer.

[@amjoshuaf]

She's not. She's a harpy, seeking to send the man off to the guillotine with a smile.

[@SafetyPropaganda]

I love Bret deeply, listen to every listen of his podcast, have read all his books. He was my gateway towards transgressive fiction. Without him, I doubt I would have eventually come to Dennis Cooper or Kathy Acker or Gary Indiana. Basically, my favorite stuff. Nevertheless, I often ardently disagree with him. I'm a Marxist, after all. And sometimes I feel like pulling teeth when he wants to talk about politics and not address things like the rampant poverty and economic inequality that have resulted in this full blown political shit house. It's not about Trump, it's about the things that have allowed Trump to rise. I think politics, if engaged with, requires some base level research. Nevertheless, I worship him as an artist, and it is important to engage with intellectuals of opposing viewpoints. I love Houllebecq as well, even if I feel his take on Islam to be totally eurocentric and wrong.

[@dmartig1]

He doesn't talk politics and he doesn't talk issues. He makes it clear that he is neither interested nor understands most politics. He addresses the social norms and practices of the day as he has always done in one way or the other.

[@XtreemMetalManRedToTheBone]

Houllebecq would only be wrong if he says the West should invade and "tame the savages" If he wants people to assimilate in France, he's correct.

[@JockoJonson17]

He parodies absurd cultural trends. This is no different.

[@Graenelolz]

hey man just wanna say I absolutely adore your very open and ultimately pro-artistic freedom attitude. Hope you‘re out there kicking ass.

[@metahduh4003]

The Velvet Buzz Saw:"We are trending" LOL!

[@VolatileDisposition]

American psycho was a great book with no question, of his writing talent and skill. But I’m in native New Yorker about his age and we never liked Trump, but we just thought he was cheesy and harmless back down in the 80s, a lot of us were just drive down to Atlantic City sometimes every blue moon, no one could take him seriously with all the need to put his name in giant letters. When he was a dirtbag in a time on New York City was full of dirt bags and we just never expected him to actually go beyond that, we didn’t even know much about the TV show that the rest of the country was watching, and maybe people like me were not paying attention to the Jerry Springer audience and wondering who they were? And that’s why it all makes sense now - even though it’s still nothing short of lunacy.

[@johnnymarlin819]

Such a legend, are cool relief from woke culture.

[@PeppyOoze]

stewart lee's had a lot of work done..

[@ccacy1978]

Im here

[@pierpaoloperilli]

It s a game, no surprise.

[@bigernh1]

As for the interviewer I dont care for her, this guy I like handles himself well. He is real and this woman is clueless

[@bigernh1]

Sorry babe im signed on your account my views are mine and mine alone Jamie Vass

[@amjoshuaf]

Most everyone is clueless these days.

[@metahduh4003]

Always do a background check on the journalists.

[@Theo-ul8qm]

I find it quite difficult to imagine how someone can be offended by a work of fiction as satirical as American Psycho. Like Bret mentions here, there is such an absurd quality to it, that it almost makes fun of everything it depicts. If anything, it would be the Wall Street guys who I might understand getting offended, because they'd be unhappy at being portrayed as murderes. Yet even that would be misguided, for reasons that are obvious to anyone who has read the book. I perfectly understand some publishers not wanting to associate with a book that depicts such gruesome acts, and some readers not connecting with it. But being offended? I can't really see that.

[@IzabelParis]

3:30 start, ffs

[@anderssongibbs9013]

"Glamora" "Glamorama" ??

[@georgestetson5572]

The interviewer sounds like she absolutely loathes him 😂

[@michaelbonade4667]

Social justice....had to slip in that nonsense term into the intro.......can’t help themselves It’s SAD

[@Flippertickle]

Fuckin' kid trying to school a legend.....this is not an exit.

[@dth420]

The guy with that first question should but reading audiobooks.

[@andrewfleming4027]

This girl keeps trying to find out, "Are you really with the program?" Maybe she'd benefit from reading his book.

[@rogerrandall4600]

"Do you think Donald Trump deliberately mis-spells words on Twitter? To communicate with the "base". " Sadly the opposition to Trump (who of course were a minority) are people like Bret Easton Ellis who is astute enough to identify Trump's whole modus operandi 😂 For me that one facile question summarises a whole presidential term and social era 😂 I love it!!

[@metahduh4003]

His boyfriends name is Tod. LOL!

[@jamesblack8173]

An attempt to rein him in, interviews like this, the consensus trying to process eccentircs. Didn't work did it. Sorry.

[@blondearyanmohawkhairdoski9086]

CHEERS, ELLIS TREADS WHERE FAKERS FEAR TO TREAD; IN TRUTH...PLUS HE LIKES TO PARTY! LOL********************************************

[@Leon-hv4tf]

A brain storm in a bi sagan bore

[@baghead777]

Bret is not Gen X.... He is at the tail end of the Boomers..

[@alexandriaocasional-cortex1242]

baghead777 he is Gen X & you are a triggered millennial.

[@baghead777]

@@alexandriaocasional-cortex1242 I am Gen X and he is a Boomer

[@alexandriaocasional-cortex1242]

baghead777 DescriptionGeneration X is the demographic cohort following the baby boomers and preceding the Millennials. Demographers and researchers typically use birth years ranging from the early-to-mid 1960s to the early 1980s

[@baghead777]

@@alexandriaocasional-cortex1242 Boomers born between 1946 and 1964.. Ellis born March 7th, 1964...

[@williambartholmey5946]

Delineating generations is not an exact science in any way. Bret even touched on this in his Charlie Rose interview 25 years ago. The lines are extremely blurry. His parents were boomers and he developed more of a Gen X mindset. I was born in 1980, but in a smallish city in middle America that was always a couple years behind; I wasn't on the internet and didn't have a cell phone until after I became an adult so I'm much more Gen X than Gen Y.

[@sspbrazil]

He keeps saying he is Generation X, he is not, Gen X is from 1965 - 1979, he was born in 1964, so, he is actually the tail end of the boomers, he also keeps saying he is old, he is not that old, he is only 55, that is not old, though does look 10 yeara olde than he is, he seems to be a bit obsessive with his age and generation.

[@Bec_love]

Woah 1 year off 🙄 seems like you're just as obsessed with generational boundary lines ...yawn

[@sspbrazil]

@@Bec_love that one year makes a big difference I can assure you, I was born in 1966 and my wife in 1964, my wife is far more boomer like than me without a doubt, even I do not feel like a Gen X, never much connected to it nor the boomers, I think 1966 is a limbo year actually and perhaps even 1965. Yawn yourself. Lol

[@briannxx]

Well you really got him with those factoid. Pfffft

[@sspbrazil]

@@briannxx I was not trying "get" him on those factoids, just pointing out that he is off, you should lay off the gassy food.

[@briannxx]

Scott Pelzel lol if leaving a smart ass response to a smug nit-picky comment on KZbin is wrong? Then I don’t wannabe right! Response stands with all do respect good sir