GLR July-August 2024

ence develop a stereoscopic perspective on our culture, which sometimes proves to be astonishingly empty. For the most part, the depth and complexity of the European or Asian counterpart is replaced by one-dimensional sentiment or else taboo-flaunt ing and carnivalesque fun. Most of what’s churned out for the mass market is made for a society in which education is spotty and “there’s a sucker born every minute.” Even so, we’re fond of our cultural products; they’re relaxed and comfortable and, like Nabokov’s Lolita, kind of sweet in a sly, candid way. And they are often very funny, if only by the intervention of a camp perspective. Frank O’Hara (in the poem “Naphtha”) says: “I am ashamed of my century/ for being so entertaining/ but I have to smile.” As an art critic, O’Hara was loyal to his Abstract Ex pressionist pals, who despised Pop Art and expected him to echo their disapproval. In fact, many of his best poems embody a Pop sensibility, such as “Poem: Lana Turner Has Collapsed!” Uncouth forms of entertainment—cockfights, cat lynching, burlesque, and mudwrestling, for example—have been part of the American reality for at least two centuries. Consider the sideshows (or “freak shows”) that were a regular feature of touring circuses and the Coney Island boardwalk in New York. These shows, a failure in the good-taste department, were the prompt that led to Tod Browning’s 1932 movie Freaks ,whose cast included performers with variant body parts. In response to humanitarian criticism, freak shows gradually faded in the early 1960s—no more “Turtle Girl” or Sword Swallower. Susan Sontag later cited Browning’s movie in her critical re sponse to the photographs of Diane Arbus, whose work has sometimes been praised for its humane empathy and sometimes condemned as voyeuristic. It is arguably both, and the same can be said of Warhol’s use of his eccentric entourage. It’s hardly a coincidence that, as public acceptance of sideshows waned, Warhol’s Factory became, beginning in 1963, the haunt of various misfits, coke heads, maverick heiresses, and drag queens, who sprawled about in the tinfoil ambiance, smoking, drugging, shagging, and making bland, demented, or wry re marks. Warhol observed it all and took mental notes, but never much participated. To mirror was enough. In the decade when “freak out” became an expressive bit of slang and countercul ture types often referred to themselves as “freaks,” the Factory was there to embody it all. § W ARHOL ’ S 1950 S SELF - PRESENTATION , suitable for Serendipity and the milieu of fashion magazines, had been primly fey. His bow ties, tweed, and Mr. Magoo eyeglasses were just offbeat enough to make an arty but not a bohemian impression. All that was discarded in the following decade when he was reborn as Cool Hand Andy, someone hipsters like Lou Reed and Mick Jagger wanted to hang with. But it’s clear that the “freaks” who interested him most were the drag queens: camp figures most of whom were too exaggerated to pass as women. The credible ex ceptions were Candy Darling and Potassa De Lafayette. Drag queens were extravagant simulacra of women that camp sensi bility could revamp as successes in the mode of comedy. As for the argument that labeling them as camp is patroniz ing, consider the fact that their stage names were deliberately adopted for their parodic value. Those names could be witty, as in the case of Holly Woodlawn, which evokes Hollywood as

well as Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. The Factory itself was a sort of graveyard of delusional dreams, given that its denizens (except for Candy Darling, Viva, and Joe Dallessan dro) never managed to achieve much outside its precincts. Warhol took his cue from Ingrid Von Schefflin, who early on renamed himself Ingrid Superstar and began using it as a generic term for others in his faithful flock. Far from certifying actual stardom, the prefix “super” only confirmed that the cat egory was an amusing simulacrum of the real deal. His super stars acquired something like fame by association with Warhol, but finally were famous only for being famous. Meanwhile, cis women who became superstars, like Brigid Polk, Viva, and Ul traviolet, worked hard to appropriate the showboat extravagance of the drag queens—simulacra of simulacra, and as such a rich field for Warhol to explore. In a clip from one of the early doc umentaries about Warhol, Viva is fawning over him, saying how good he is, and that he “sees God in everything and in every body.” She concludes: “They call that art.” The camera zooms in on the artist himself, wearing his very hip sunglasses as he murmurs “Fudge.” The famous Warhol films that his superstars appeared in ( Chelsea Girls , Women in Revolt , Flesh , and Trash ) were di rected not by Warhol but by Paul Morrisey, to whom ideas and financing were given by the remote-control auteur. These films were quasi-fictional and quasi-documentary, allowing the su perstars to improvise around thin, intentionally pixilated plot lines. Warhol seems to have imagined that his films would persuade the regular movie studios to welcome him into the in dustry, but no exec was ever beguiled enough to invite him to Tinseltown. “Underground” as they were, the Morrissey films made money, and by the 1970s Warhol was a multimillionaire, his bundle based on the sale of paintings, prints, portraits com missioned by the superrich, and finally the movies. Where fame and money abound, people of every description flock, creeping out of the woodwork to get a piece of you. Enter Valerie Solanas, the most freakish of them all, who went so far as to gun Warhol down (her version of a film shoot) when he de clined to produce a play she’d written. After the fact, she was asked if she felt any remorse. She said she did—for not having practiced enough to aim higher. That bonkers answer helped qualify her for a long stay in a mental institution, which pre empted criminal prosecution. Meanwhile, Warhol nearly died on the operating table and emerged from the experience with a closed-mouth version of PTSD, whereupon the Factory’s noto rious permeability came to an end. A stern front desk was set up and security features installed. The focus shifted from freaks to business, with a coat-and-tie dresscode for male staff members. Operating as Andy Warhol Enterprises, it now incurred hefty overhead costs, notably salaries for the team, whose members complained of low pay and long working hours. To bring in in come, Warhol constantly drummed up lucrative portrait com missions, directing his employees to help him woo potential customers. Warhol had proclaimed Business as Art but may not have anticipated that running a successful business may involve time-consuming tasks, boredom, and burnout. In the 1970s, nightlife became a key pastime for Warhol, partly because the Factory had become too unfreaky to be fun and partly because gossip-column coverage raised his profile. Besides, rubbing shoulders with oligarchs who liked fashion

July–August 2024

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