David

“Claims to ordinariness and salt-of-the-earth virtue—“slumming it,” as it’s crudely called—are themselves pretentious. The assumption that dropping your aitches or asserting a love of a cheap beer over a fine wine, or processed cheese over a Parmesan, will make you seem unspoiled or somehow more gritty is classic downwardly mobile play-acting.”
― Dan Fox, Pretentiousness: Why It Matters

“Pretentiousness shares with sophistication a lingering sense of “unnaturalness”; something faked, pretending, tampered with. Litvak presses the idea that sophistication is linked to perversion in the sexual sense, and therefore carries with it a latent homophobic charge. The association of sophistication with a form of urbane and knowing behavior gets reinforced “every time advertising and journalism, loathing as they do the pretentious and the trendy, derisively dangle before their audience the perennially unpopular figure of the snooty (i.e., gay) salesman in the upscale boutique.” Pretension implies affectation. People are not acting themselves; rather, their lying urbanity is trampling all over your plain-speaking—and presumably heterosexual—truth.”
― Dan Fox, Pretentiousness: Why It Matters

“Comfort with an art form that uses language comes because we all own it, to one degree or another. Words come from flesh and bone and only require a body to read, write, speak, or listen to them. But language also intimidates people into respect: it is the tool of untrustworthy politicians, of bureaucrats—of those trained in the arts of rhetoric. It can be used to control and crush others; fluency and confidence in language is a symbol of education and power. Perhaps it’s because of this deep-seated respect and fear of language that the media will vent spleen over large sums of money being awarded to visual artists for making images and objects, but never criticize a literary prize for giving thousands to a writer for sitting behind a desk and making up a story”
― Dan Fox, Pretentiousness: Why It Matters

“Sontag holds that camp reveals itself as things age. “When the theme is important and contemporary, the failure of a work of art may make us indignant. Time can change that. . . . Thus, things are campy, not when they become old but when we become less involved in them, and can enjoy, instead of be frustrated by, the failure of the attempt.” Accusations of pretentiousness fade the older something becomes. As works of art or styles of dress recede into the past, the historical forces that shaped them become legible. Familiarity lets us regard them fondly.”
― Dan Fox, Pretentiousness: Why It Matters