Review: The Brazen Brilliance of Fran Lebowitz

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents an evening with America's beloved cultural critic.

WORDS Ninette Paloma

Fran Lebowitz has opinions. Fran Lebowitz will share those opinions whenever the mood strikes, which is often. Fran Lebowitz doesn’t really care what you think of her opinions.
If you were already privy to the brazen brilliance of one of the country’s most beloved/feared cultural critics, then her Campbell Hall sit-down with political analyst Jeff Greenfield earlier this month was a relished opportunity to learn what has been on Lebowitz’s mind since the presidential election. For the uninitiated, the evening was a lively introduction to her direct and decisive approach to social commentary, pulling no punches as she plowed through political topics and personal anecdotes in one of the most satisfying exchanges of the UCSB Arts & Lectures series to date.

Expelled from a New Jersey boarding school at age 18 for “nonspecific surliness,” Lebowitz passed a high school equivalency exam and took her certificate across the Hudson to New York City, where she worked as a cab driver, street vendor, and bartender before landing a job as a columnist for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine. By 1981, she had published two essay collections – Metropolitan Life and Social Studies – and life abruptly took a turn for the comfortable.

An evening with Lebowitz might begin with a soliloquy over her disdain for cellphones or “dumb as rocks politicians” or her decades- long writer’s block but always ends in an unpredictable exchange with the audience. Poised expectantly behind a lectern like a gruff oracle, people have been known to seek her advice on everything from overdue parking tickets to senate election predictions, and her answers rarely disappoint.

On this particular evening she showed little patience for the students in the crowd (I wouldn’t say that I dislike the young, I’m simply not a fan of naïveté) and dismisses an inquiry on how to make it as a writer with an off-handed declaration (either you’re born a good writer or you’re not, and no amount of schooling is going to change that). When asked about her thoughts on the current administration, Lebowitz delivered a monologue so razor sharp, her microphone practically bled in response. (She also kept bumping into it as she leaned forward in emphasis, apologizing to the sound engineer each time.)

Truth is, her complexity is utterly endearing. And what might be perceived as rudeness is really just Lebowitz’s deep reverence for honest and transparent dialogue, a concept “never afforded to me as a girl growing up in 1950s New Jersey.” The woman has manners, and respects her audience enough to shoot straight from the heart, no matter the consequences. The ideology surrounding a self-made American was carved from the image of someone just like her: marginalized, misunderstood, and impressively self-possessed – sneering in classic Lebowitz fashion as she strutted off the stage in her Cuban-heeled cowboy boots.