Insightful and Entertaining, Fran Lebowitz Brings Her A-Game to UCSB Campus

Author, social commentator, and zippy conversationalist Fran Lebowitz was well matched by interviewer Jeff Greenfield (a former CNN Senior Analyst and current Santa Barbara resident) at Campbell Hall last week in a lively UCSB Arts & Lectures discussion that ran the gamut from national politics (“Having to think about politics every minute is something they do in Russia,” said Lebowitz), stupid people (“There are stupid people in every race and every gender”), and media consumption (“I’m not going to listen to these morons because other people do,” she said in reference to the Joe Rogans of the world). 

Lebowitz attributes both of Donald Trump’s victories — against Hilary Clinton and Kamala Harris — to sexism, and in one of the most mind-boggling facts of the night, discussed her media consumption as being entirely off the grid. It seems almost impossible these days, but the 74-year-old Lebowitz said, “I don’t have a cellphone, I don’t have a laptop, and I don’t have a network connection. My phone is in my apartment, where phones should be.” 

She also does all of her writing in longhand, including The Fran Lebowitz Reader, a perennially entertaining collection of essays that’s been published in nine languages.

And yet, for all of her luddite-leaning, grumpy-old-woman posturing, her sharp wit and unfiltered opinions clearly resonated with people of all ages in the audience. Reflecting on youth, she said that riding the subway in New York, the only people reading books are in their 20s, “which is the only hope I see for the future.” 

In addition, “It is much better to be a girl NOW than it was when I was a girl. And it’s better to be gay. It’s better to be Black. Those things are better,” she added. 

Reflecting on her current state of mind, Lebowitz said,  “It’s a lot more fun to be in your 20s in the 70s than to be in your 70s in the 20s.” The second part of the evening was a Q&A that began with her stating, “I am now going to answer questions from the audience in an entertaining fashion.” She proceeded to succeed rather swimmingly, talking about how much she loved her guest role as a judge on Law & Order (“The second I got on set, I put on the robe,” even if her screen time was hours away) and the Supreme Court (“They shouldn’t even be called the Supreme Court. It’s an insult to Motown”).

Of course there was more politics (“we’re the conservatives now, we’re trying to conserve democracy”), and more on technology (“I’m not against it, I just don’t care about it” and “it seems to me that with the Internet and social media is that junior high never ends”). She also talked about  Hunter Biden (“basically he should have been in jail since birth”) and Elon Musk (“My main feeling about Elon Musk is that I’m so happy he’s not Jewish. He’s a South African white nazi and he’s also an immigrant. So let’s start with him.”). 

Expanding on the theme of immigration, Lebowitz said, “The roundup of immigrants is one of the most disgraceful things I’ve ever seen in my life. … Immigrants may not be the smartest people from where they’re from, they may not be the most successful, but they are the bravest.” 

Asked what she wished she knew when she was younger, Lebowitz said, “Most of what I wish I knew when I was young, I still don’t know.” Adding, “Knowing a lot of things is not exactly a path to happiness.”

When asked about her ability to influence people, Lebowitz said, “I actually, it turns out, have no ability to affect anything. The kind of people who are affected by writers are not the kind of people who need to change.” 

And finally, when asked for advice, the decades-long sober Lebowitz said, “If you’re thinking about giving up drinking, now is not the time”