Ian Ganassi

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SOME THOUGHTS ON SAME TITS BY JAMES TATE

Same Tits

It was one of those days. I was walking down the St. and this poster glassed in a theater billboard caught my eye. A really gorgeous set of tits. It was noon, hot as hell outside. So I said what the hell, paid my $2.50 and went in. Got a seat all by myself right in the middle. The curtain opens: there’s the same poster by itself in the middle of the stage. I sat there sweating. Finally decided to get the hell out of there. It was still noon, hot as hell outside.

--James Tate

I remember reading a comment that a prominent critic made about this poem, to the effect that it was a simple-minded exercise in textbook surrealism. I would submit that there is more to this poem than meets such a critic’s eye! “Same Tits” is a beautifully funny, terse, and condensed expression of the intelligent male’s experience of the consumption, or attempted consumption, of pornography. More specifically, it is a description of this experience on the part of a certain type of male — a male who is intelligent enough to realize that pornography is not very intelligent; intelligent enough to have ambiguous and ambivalent feelings about pornography; intelligent enough to realize that it is a very complex product of our culture; but a male who is also sufficiently intelligent, sufficiently male, sufficiently sexual, and sufficiently a consumer of popular culture to recognize that pornography (like its sister prostitution) is probably a necessary evil, and to be vulnerable himself to what is alluring about it.

It’s easy to date this poem as having been written before the explosion of video and cable TV, which has made it possible to consume pornography in a relatively private way. This poem was clearly written during the time when “seedy,” rundown movie theaters, especially those that used to be very classy, say, in the forties (when many movie theaters also had proscenium stages), had become dedicated porn theaters. It could easily have been located on lower Second Avenue in Manhattan, sometime in the mid-late seventies or early eighties. At $2.50, the ticket was perhaps half the price of a mainstream movie, and that lower price was a blatant indication of the status of porn flicks at the time. The casual tone of the poem, which implies that the poster takes the speaker by surprise, indicates that he probably is not in Times Square, where the porn industry was ubiquitous and “in your face” at the time. One would expect such a poster in Times Square, and would be very aware of the presence of the porn industry. Also, the consumption of pornography in Times Square would more likely be a purposeful act. These facts make it less likely that the spectacle in question is a live show. Also $2.50 would be a low price for a live show.

So what kind of day was it? It was the kind of day on which the kind of male described would be vulnerable to the temptation of transgressing the boundaries of propriety in a minor way and checking out a porn flick. An over-sexualized day -- on which one felt “horny,” and also had nothing better to do. A summer day which was hot both in terms of actual temperature and in the metaphorical sense of sexual excitement. The kind of day on which the combination of these factors produces the mixture of embarrassment and excitement (and resultant anxiety) that makes one think in abbreviations (“I was walking down the St.”).

The latter part of the poem is a perfect description of both the feelings of shame and embarrassment attendant on consuming pornography, especially in a public place, and the nature of pornography itself, which is inextricably linked to those feelings of shame. The shame/embarrassment actually begins with “So I said what the hell.” The decision to enter the theater is, however pedestrian, a desperate act, one that feels like hell, just as the heat of the day feels like hell. And because of these feelings, consuming pornography in this way, by oneself, feels very isolating. Thus the speaker takes a seat right in the middle of the theater, all by himself, almost as though he were onstage himself, being watched (by the tits?). In choosing this seat he is taking great care not to sit near anyone else, because that person is probably the stereotypical “pervert,” wearing a raincoat and a concealing hat and sunglasses. And while on a hot summer day one might decide to see a movie because the theater is air-conditioned, sitting there confronting the poster the speaker is sweating. The speaker’s heat sweat has turned to anxiety sweat. Finally, he decides “to get the hell out of there” (“hell” again), and discovers that the anxiety resulting from his horniness and embarrassment has had the effect anxiety often has, of making time seem to move very slowly (“it was still noon”).

Finally, the whole experience has not provided one bit of pleasure or even relief for the speaker. He’s exactly where he started out, or perhaps a little the worse for wear. And this is where the poem describes so well the nature of pornography. Pornography is a simulacrum. It promises unmitigated pleasure, but it never really delivers. Granted that it serves a necessary function, it is ultimately an empty substitute for sex. There is rarely any real beauty in it, any esthetic value or real satisfaction, and obviously there is no intimacy. It is the ultimate tease in the sense that it simply exacerbates desire and frustration. It is only interesting from the point of view of sexual arousal and the immediate need for onanistic gratification. The nature of a pornographic movie is to be plotless. Usually there is some empty shell of an attempted plot, but essentially it doesn’t matter. And one hates the absence of plot, because the absence of plot points out the stupidity of the movie. Yet one resents the intrusion of whatever feeble attempt at plot is made, not only because it too points out the stupidity of the whole enterprise, but because it metaphorically obstructs one’s view of the sexual activity. Rather than showing us the “beauty of human sexuality,” the cliché that is so often used to justify it, pornography actually seems to highlight the stupid aspect of the act of sex, when it is divorced from emotion. Fucking by itself is not really very entertaining to watch. Of course the poem may be referring to “cheesecake” type pornography, consisting of images of women, with no men, performing lewd acts or simply strutting their stuff. But this type of porn is certainly no richer emotionally. It lacks some of the stupid elements of a full-blown narrative porn flick, but highlights other stupid and/or ugly elements (such as scars on the women’s breasts where they have had breast implants).

Ultimately, pornography is nothing more than a static image of a “gorgeous set of tits” sitting there motionless on an empty stage. Once one has seen that, one has seen (more or less) all there is to see. (Although clearly there is a significant percentage of the population that consumes pornography as entertainment, considering it has become a multi-billion dollar industry.)

As is true so often in Tate’s work, humor is the modus operandi that gives the poem its force and unity. In this case the humor is not wild and extravagant, or hilarious and silly; it’s a quieter kind of humor, more allied with wit, but also characterized by the familiar and vernacular nature of its language. One could almost imagine it being told to a friend over the phone. The tone is one of bemusement. But by being casual and charming, it manages, in a very short space, to fully describe a cultural and emotional phenomenon that is central to the sexuality of our culture.