Kind of a Big Deal by Saul Austerlitz

Author:Saul Austerlitz [Austerlitz, Saul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

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Ron and his crew are misogynists with flutes, sex pests with faux-book-lined walls, their ugly impulses sheathed in cocoons of almost-classiness. The movie’s language also toggles between pseudoclassical erudition and down-and-dirty coarseness, with its protagonist switching at will between thinking of himself as a romantic and a scholar and presenting himself as a no-holds-barred male chauvinist. Anchorman is a fake bookshelf stocked with odoriferous scents, its air of fake scholarship poisoned by the deliberate mustiness of its characters’ profound defensiveness.

When Ron feels cornered, he turns once more to the gap between the sexes for comfort, seeking to band with the boys in order to fend off the threatening charms of women. Veronica is attempting to eject Ron’s tape, seeking to displace his moment of unearned glory with her Protestant work ethic, which has gotten her named co-anchor.

Ron and Champ prank-call Veronica from an empty office in an effort to get back at her. Champ stares out from behind some cheap-looking off-white vertical blinds, his face a mixture of anticipation and dread. “Hello, Veronica, this is Mike . . . Rithgen from the network,” Ron starts. “You’ve just been promoted and you’re going to need to move to Moscow. Why don’t you just start cleaning up your desk, and we’ll see you in the morning. We’ll pick you up in a van.”

Ron proves himself ill-equipped for the fabulist’s first task: making up a believable fake name for himself. He strikes out at offering a plausible story, getting bogged down with irrelevant details: Why the van? Veronica, unsurprisingly, is hardly fooled: “What did you say your name was?” Ron cannot remember as far back as fifteen seconds ago, and his name comes out even more garbled this time: Is it Rutnithin now? Ron tells her again to start cleaning out her desk, and Champ begins to chuckle to himself, overcome by mirth at the thought of Veronica in the Soviet Union: “She might want to get a coat.”

Ron and Champ enjoy the prospect of male bonding through cruelty, reminding Veronica that she is unwanted. The humor, though, primarily stems from how crude and unsophisticated they are. Ron repeats Champ’s suggestion, and we cut back to Veronica’s perspective, hearing just how clearly audible Champ’s chuckles are over the telephone. She looks over to her right and tells him, “I can see you.” Then, as if to emphasize her point, she lowers the telephone receiver away from her mouth and shouts across the room, “I can see you.” Ron is rattled: “Shoot, she knew it was me.”

Veronica’s phone rings again. Ron and Champ have not shifted their position at all. Champ is still clutching the blinds with barely repressed glee. Ron is adopting another voice, a bit more robotic and adenoidal than his network executive. “This is your doctor. I have your pregnancy report here, and guess what. You—you got knocked up. So you should probably get out of news.” Women’s bodies did not belong in the news, did not belong in

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