by Charles Marowitz
(Swans - June 19, 2006) My theory about Ann Coulter is not so much that she is a coarse, hyped-up, publicity-seeking vixen desperately chasing book sales, nor that she is the personification of a fiery conservative succubus who eats readers of The New York Times for breakfast and spits out the pits, but that she is a woman so painfully conscious of her physical unloveliness that she is psychologically driven to be as outrageous as she possibly can.
We all recognize the oversized, unsucculent, four-eyed sophomore who, being unable to attract the attentions of the opposite sex, cultivates humor and larkiness in order to gain social acceptance. Well, Coulter, conscious of the fact that her glazed, botoxed, scalene-shaped features are enough to wilt the effects of a double dose of Viagra in even the most libidinous of males, desperately tries to divert attention from the fact she is a natural descendant of the Equus caballus family.
Knowing that the motivation of virtually every remark she unleashes is a neurotic attempt to distract attention from her defoliating ugliness should temper the rage that she regularly incites among her enemies. We don't censure the chimpanzee for screeching in her cage, the seal from emitting deafening whelps of self-pity, or the pachyderm from trumpeting her rage in the wild, then why should we complain about Coulter's grapeshot rhetoric? Anyone who possesses the social graces of the Witch of the West and the kind of features that suggest a cruel caricaturist has been at work on her facial epidermis should be an object of pity, not enmity. Freaks of nature have been enthralling since the Middle Ages and in the past we treated gross physical anomalies with derision -- but we don't any more. We quite rightly have sympathy for them -- even, in some cases, pity -- and this is how we should treat Ms. Coulter.
A massive dose of heavy-duty plastic surgery and a four or five year stint in depth analysis would produce a remarkably salutary effect on her personality and, instead of deriding her vulgarity or being riled by her abusiveness, I would like to propose the creation of a charity, the proceeds of which would be donated to Ms. Coulter's physical reformation. I am certain that once the eyes were unsquinnied, the nose remolded, the lips made slightly fuller and the hatchet glance softened, she would be a new woman -- and one we would welcome into the human family.
Until then, of course...
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