Word: mametspeak
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Almost none of this is plausible, or even logically consistent. In old Mamet, themes and character revelations bubbled up naturally, almost imperceptibly, out of the rambling dialogue--that miasma of indirection, euphemism and profanity that has been dubbed Mametspeak. The new Mametspeak is more like Mametshout: thematic statements imposed from on high and delivered with an epigrammatic stun gun. Racism is universal and unavoidable. ("I didn't do anything." "You're white.") Justice is an illusion. ("The legal process is only about three things. Hatred, fear or envy.") Free will is a joke. ("Why does he want to confess...
...turning point for Mamet's theater work, it now appears, was Oleanna, his 1992 play in which a college professor's patronizing efforts to help a female student lead to an unjust charge of sexual harassment. Though the staccato dialogue was Mametspeak at its purest, a political agenda drove the characters in a way it never had any of Mamet's previous slimy, but at least self-directed, small-time crooks or real estate sharpies...
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