Stephen Fry on language, philosophy, religion, sexuality, family, and...

February 19, 2015 11:20 AM

Several years ago (2011?) Stephen Fry sat down for an internet interview with the members of Big Think. The result was an eloquent off-the-cuff laying-out of Fry's background and outlook on life, full of gems of insight and advice. You can watch highlights of the interview by scrolling down here, or you can watch the full hour-long shebang via YouTube.
posted by hippybear (26 comments total)

Sorry, no transcript is available.
posted by hippybear at 11:20 AM on February 19, 2015

Sorry, no transcript is available.

/sets off QI klaxon

Go here and click on "Show Transcript", just under the video description blurb.
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:36 AM on February 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

Speaking of QI, it is finally debuting on BBC America tonight, and there was a cute video about it earlier.
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:38 AM on February 19, 2015 [4 favorites]

Awesome, Celsius1414! I missed that completely. Thanks!
posted by hippybear at 12:09 PM on February 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

He left his long term partner for a younger, hotter guy and I've been unable to enjoy his work as much since:(
posted by discopolo at 12:12 PM on February 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

00:35 is quite appropriate.
posted by smidgen at 12:29 PM on February 19, 2015

Discopolo: I mean, fair enough. I'm wondering if you have some evidence that I'm ignorant of to assert that the reason was that the new guy is hotter and younger, though? That's a pretty personalized bit of information if you have it. If not, comes across as pretty judge-y and shitty.

Relationships end and new ones begin all the time. That there is a cultural distrust of both gay men and rich people when it comes to relationships with people younger than themselves is something we shouldn't really be echoing in my opinion.
posted by lazaruslong at 12:43 PM on February 19, 2015 [8 favorites]

Also worth pointing out that Fry's partner is deliriously head over heels in love, and so is Fry.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:28 PM on February 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

discopolo: "He left his long term partner for a younger, hotter guy and I've been unable to enjoy his work as much since:("

I've been unable to enjoy his work since he responded... ungracefully to being called out on his transphobia, and since he joined Dawkins in bashing Islam.
posted by these are science wands at 3:20 PM on February 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

He left his long term partner for a younger, hotter guy and I've been unable to enjoy his work as much since:(

This--not Fry's behavior, but this particular reaction to it, is one of the reasons I'm against gay marriage.

The status of marriage as a social norm gave a lot of support for the idea that lifelong monogamy is the natural model of human relationships; divorce, therefore, is a sign of failure, and likely a moral failure of one or both of the partners.

Much of the political activism around marriage equality I observed embraced this, arguing that gay people, like everyone else, naturally aspired to wedded bliss. The celebration of promiscuity and the notion that people should stay in relationships only as long as they wanted to didn't fit with that scenario, and so the history of gay liberation as a challenge to the prevailing (and stifling) hegemony of marriage was abandoned.

If Stephen Fry has a young, hot boyfriend, good for him.
posted by layceepee at 3:54 PM on February 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

I don't know exactly why, but Stephen Fry always impresses me. I find his combination of intelligence and (seemingly, anyway) honest thoughtfulness compelling and rare.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 4:04 PM on February 19, 2015

The celebration of promiscuity and the notion that people should stay in relationships only as long as they wanted to didn't fit with that scenario, and so the history of gay liberation as a challenge to the prevailing (and stifling) hegemony of marriage was abandoned.

Some people just want to be together, even if it's "stifling" compared to promiscuity. Isn't the real point that gay people deserve the right to choose being boring and miserable just like straight married people?
posted by Celsius1414 at 4:31 PM on February 19, 2015 [6 favorites]

I'm pretty comfortable celebrating promiscuity and wanting to get married. While both may begin with propositions, they aren't mutually exclusive.

You being against gay marriage deserves exactly the same response to straight people who are against it: if you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married.

And don't, seriously don't, stand in the way of those of us who do. I get to pick and choose the terms of my liberation; you don't.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:40 PM on February 19, 2015 [6 favorites]

Some people just want to be together, even if it's "stifling" compared to promiscuity. Isn't the real point that gay people deserve the right to choose being boring and miserable just like straight married people?

If everything was at the level of indvidual choices, that might be the real point. But I think that analysis doesn't reckon with the power marriage exhibited as a social norm.

It's like someone concerned that a Walmark might arrive in town and drive out local businesses. If you told them it was just about the choice of everyone to either shop Walmark or support a mom-and-pop business, you might explain that the effect of Walmart might be to drive smaller stores out of business, and then I wouldn't be free to choose.

My experience as an adolescent and young adult coming of age in the 70s are early 80s was that I had greater freedom in relationships than heterosexual peers. That's what I think is lost when gay marriage acquires some of the power of the existing social norm that's represented by traditional marriage. It looks to me that Fry's is being judged because he failed at marriage.

Marriage is something different than people just wanting to be together; people can be together without being married. It's the way they are together that makes the difference.

There no doubt are some people who don't find promiscuity stifling, but I think humans generally prefer multiple partners to lifelong monogamy. The fact that the latter became the social norm is interesting, and I think it's harmful.
posted by layceepee at 4:47 PM on February 19, 2015

Marriage doesn't have to mean monogamy, for one thing.

Marriage is something different than people just wanting to be together; people can be together without being married. It's the way they are together that makes the difference.

There's also a whole bunch of legal rights and obligations that come along with marriage that are not possible to obtain in any other way. I'd think that someone who lived through the plague in the 80s would recognize the importance of being able to visit one's partner in the hospital, let alone make medical decisions for them.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:51 PM on February 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

There's also a whole bunch of legal rights and obligations that come along with marriage that are not possible to obtain in any other way.

Can you give an example of legal rights that are impossible to obtain any other way?

I'd think that someone who lived through the plague in the 80s would recognize the importance of being able to visit one's partner in the hospital, let alone make medical decisions for them.

You could make it legal to be able to visit one's partner in the hospital instead of making it legal to visit one's spouse. It's terrible to tell somebody "You can't visit because you're gay." It's just as bad to tell someone "You can't visit because you're not married."

The political battle to win gay marriage wasn't limited to the argument "anybody should be allowed to get married if they choose." It included the idea that "marriage is a great thing and it's terrible not to be able to be married." I don't think that is true, and I think it's harmful to say that it is.
posted by layceepee at 7:41 PM on February 19, 2015

I don't know enough details about Stephen Fry's relationships (previous or present) to make judgements there. Always happy to watch and listen to him, however, even on topics where we disagree (re:Islam).

I didn't know QI wasn't available previously on BBC US - I mostly just watch back episodes on YouTube. Between QI and Mock the Week with Dara O'Briain, I watch a lot of British YouTube shows.
posted by AdamCSnider at 8:27 PM on February 19, 2015

Can you give an example of legal rights that are impossible to obtain any other way?

Many jurisdictions in the USA have enacted laws forbidding people from entering into legal contracts that confer the legal rights associated with marriage.

It included the idea that "marriage is a great thing and it's terrible not to be able to be married." I don't think that is true, and I think it's harmful to say that it is.

Included but not limited to, and one of the reasons it's terrible not to be able to be married is the legal rights aspect. Also, who on earth are you to dictate the kinds of relationships I am and am not allowed to have with another consenting adult?

The difference between you and me is that I give no fucks whether you get married or not. You give many fucks and would rather see me be unable to get married if I want to. That's really gross.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:56 AM on February 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

The difference between you and me is that I give no fucks whether you get married or not. You give many fucks and would rather see me be unable to get married if I want to.

If I have implied that I would rather see you unable to get married, I have not been clear. I'm anti-marriage in the same way I'm a vegetarian: I don't think people should eat meat, but I'm not in favor of preventing them from doing it.
posted by layceepee at 4:59 AM on February 20, 2015

w ones begin all the time. That there is a cultural distrust of both gay men and rich people when it comes to relationships with people younger than themselves is something we shouldn't really be echoing in my opinion.


We really shouldn't be echoing when it's funny that Hugh Hefner or that creepy guy from Lost marry really young women? Seriously?
posted by discopolo at 8:22 AM on February 20, 2015

I mean, all it reminds me of is those older guys who pester and beg younger women and exclusively younger women for dates online and in person. I imagine the same thing happens to younger men.
posted by discopolo at 8:33 AM on February 20, 2015

We really shouldn't be echoing when it's funny that Hugh Hefner or that creepy guy from Lost marry really young women?

You can find it funny, or decide that it interferes with your enjoyment of Fry’s work, but if you read the linked interview it certainly shouldn’t come as a surprise that Fry’s boyfriend is a younger, hotter guy.

Much of the conversation is a discussion of Oscar Wilde, who Fry not only identifies as the first of his heroes but also says he shared what I knew instinctively was my sexual preference of my own kind. Wilde, of course, was not only a homosexual but specifically a pederast. He defined it as a great affection of an elder for a younger man. . . it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.

Fry is fortunate that the only pillory he is likely to face is in the court of public opinion, but to decide you don’t like Stephen Fry as much since he revealed this aspect of his personality suggests you didn’t know that much about him to begin with.
posted by layceepee at 8:50 AM on February 20, 2015

But "old rich guy + young hot woman" is problematic partly (maybe even largely) because it's emblematic of a whole system where half of the world's population is primarily valued for their physical attractiveness.

While I don't doubt that some aspects of gay culture may have some problematic attitudes about physical attractiveness, and that some "old rich guy + young hot dude" relationships are none too healthy, in either or both directions, I don't know that it's quite the same level of systemic problem, and it's still not mainstream straight culture anyway. So I don't think that a direct one-to-one correlation necessarily applies.

I mean, you feel what you feel, I'm just not sure that "Hugh Hefner + Playboy bunny" and "Stephen Fry + Steven Webb" (Webb being the young guy he might have left his long term partner for - and really the evidence for that is just timing and gossip, I haven't seen anything where Fry acknowledges that Webb is the actual reason he split with his previous SO) exist in the same cultural context.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:05 AM on February 20, 2015

I was struck, in the video, by how Fry begins talking about language and how he was moved by it at an early age through Wilde's prose, and then he wraps up talking about Fitzgerald and his use of language. In between, Fry's own word choice and sentence construction is pretty amazing itself. It's obvious the man loves language, and I've loved listening to him talk for years, but it honestly never occurred to me that he had actual, nameable literary influences.
posted by hippybear at 9:48 AM on February 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

While I don't doubt that some aspects of gay culture may have some problematic attitudes about physical attractiveness

Congratulations, you win the understatement of the year award. There's an intense amount of body fascism in the queer male world. Even in the bear world, which more or less arose as a reaction to the mainstream body image thing, there's a whole lot of identity policing and who's allowed to call themselves which increasingly finely-sliced subvariant.

and that some "old rich guy + young hot dude" relationships are none too healthy

As you say, they really are very different; there's a long gay history of younger+older men that doesn't really seem to exist in the heterosexual world. It seems to me that on a per capita basis there are far more younger guys who are genuinely--and often exclusively--attracted to significantly older men than there are women who do the same. I think there are also more sugar daddy relationships, too, though. Although they do tend to be understood on some level by both parties as being rather more transient than in the straight world--it seems to me there are fewer trophy husbands than there are trophy wives.

That's not to denigrate women at all; obviously for a long time older wealthier dude plus hotter younger woman was (is) a dominant social structure, and represent(ed) a sort of devil's bargain way for some women to attain stability. As you say though, I think that finding correlations is very difficult, not least because the power dynamics are so different.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:30 AM on February 20, 2015

to decide you don’t like Stephen Fry as much since he revealed this aspect of his personality suggests you didn’t know that much about him to begin with.

Indeed. No one who has read Fry's fiction or his childhood memoir can seriously doubt that there is a significant, or maybe even overwhelming, element of pederastic longing in his sexuality. The same blond, pubescent teenager crops up over and over again under different guises, in works spanning decades. It is clear that this longing is not just an idle fancy, but one of the prime motivating obsessions of Fry's life. It is certainly one of the obsessions he has talked the most about.
posted by howfar at 11:50 AM on February 20, 2015