What’s So Infuriating About Miranda July?

Maybe you read the Miranda July piece in the New York Times Magazine over the weekend? Maybe you have strong feelings about Miranda July? A sample quote, about the narrator of her new film, “The Future”: “A talking cat is exactly the kind of detail that might endear people who are endeared by Miranda July and infuriate people who are infuriated by her. There are plenty of both.” That seemed to be the gist of the article, a largely positive piece that’s as inherently polarizing as its subject (see: the comments section).

Yesterday at The Front Row, Richard stepped up to defend July’s films and her “way with artifice.” I have nothing helpful or intelligent to add about her film work (I’ve seen none of it, and I’ve seen all four “Pirates of the Caribbean” films in theatres—one of them twice—so we can leave it at that). But she’s a “prolific polymath,” the Times reminds us, and of course: I’ve always known Miranda July as a writer. She was taught in my fiction class in college; I own and thoroughly enjoyed “No One Belongs Here More Than You”; I have marveled at the strange, indescribable things she does in her stories, even when those stories are stacked together and you start to see the predictable patterns, strange and indescribable as they are. And then there’s the invariable jealousy, when you hear that it’s completely untaught: “She knew how to spell, but other than that I’m not sure she had a single conventional writer trick in her arsenal,” Rick Moody told the Times. Her first book contains no quotation marks, because she didn’t understand how to attribute dialogue.

What’s at the heart of the backlash against July? People rail against her style, the words “precious,” “hipster,” and “twee,” hitting you repeatedly in the face. But is it mostly just infuriating to see someone succeed across the artistic board? Is that why we’ve lost all patience with James Franco? (That’s actually probably not why. I think that has something to do with acquiring every degree on offer and being insufferably attractive.) If you’re unfamiliar with July’s writing, forget the debate and her status as an “urban bohemian” icon and give a few of her stories a try. We published two—plus a non-fiction companion piece about an early film—a few years ago:

Something That Needs Nothing,” from the September 28, 2006 issue.
Roy Spivey,” from the June 11, 2007 issue.
Atlanta,” from the June 11, 2007 issue.