Southern and Thompson: The Kings of Gonzo

Gonzo journalism is the rebel sub-genre of new journalism. First being used to describe the article “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved” by Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo journalism is described by Wikipedia as “A style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story via a first-person narrative.” The fact that the reporter is using a first-person narrative breaks one of the four rules of new journalism, but that's the reason gonzo journalism is so fresh and exciting to read. Although Hunter S. Thompson has become synonymous with gonzo journalism, and for good reason, I believe Terry Southern has also made major contributions to this amazing sub-genre of new journalism. Hunter S. Thompson's “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved” completely revolutionized journalism, and due to it's popularity, enabled Thompson to continue to write gonzo journalism, and make a career out of it, for his entire life, until ending his life in 2005. Thompson's article, and this can be said about all of his articles, is that they have nothing to do about the actual event that he's covering and that Thompson himself ends up becoming the event. It's even evident at the very beginning of the article that the story will have nothing to do with The Kentucky Derby. The derby isn't even mentioned until the fourth paragraph, and it's from a man named Jimbo who doesn't want Thompson to act like a “faggot.” Thompson then makes up a story about a Blank Panther riot just to get entertainment from Jimbo. And this makes good entertainment for the reader as well. Instead of bogging us down with boring details of specifications of the race and the horses Thompson interests the reader by bringing a human aspect into his writing. You actually begin to wonder how Thompson is going to amuse you next. Terry Southern's “Twirling at Ole Miss” takes a different approach at gonzo journalism and I believe is a very important piece, of not only gonzo journalism, but of new journalism in general. Like Thompson, Southern's article is all about the writer and their perspective. Unlike Thompson, Southern's article actually talked about the event, a baton twirling competition, though not very much. The details that Southern actually did give about the competition were mostly analogies to something way more deep, which is why I believe this article played such an important role in new journalism. Near the end of Southern's article he talks to one of the “cutie pies” about their costume, “'Do you find that your costume is an advantage in your work?' I asked the first seventeen-year-old Georgia Peach I came across, she wearing something like a handkerchief-size Confederate flag.” This one small, seemingly simple paragraph, and the way the girl responds about how tassels and skirts get in her way, have so many underlying tones of not only the racism in the South, but the way these young women are demeaning themselves for such a trivial, but labor-intensive, talent. And this is just one small, obscure segment of Southern's article that have so many layers of writer subjectivity on a vast array of subjects. The blatant racism and askew view of tolerance is so in your face only one paragraph before the quote I just mentioned when the “immaculate, pink-faced man” speaks his mind on William Faulkner teaching at the university. Almost every paragraph in “Twirling at Ole Miss” is full of Southern's views, even when he's talking about someone else. His writing is so influential that I believe we cannot pass it up when we talk about gonzo journalism. Thompson and Southern do indeed have different writing styles, but to say one is better than another is like choosing a favorite child. You love qualities of both of them. With Thompson's irreverent look on society, and the way he puts himself at the center of the event while mocking popular culture, he is a storyteller of epic proportions. Southern is also a master manipulator, but he makes his intentions painfully clear that you'd be blind not to notice his views being expressed in almost every paragraph that he writes. Both writers are not only intimately involved in their stories, but they become the stories, and this is the heart of gonzo journalism.