| Description |
On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas shot pop-artist Andy Warhol in the abdomen with a .32 caliber automatic pistol in attempt to assassinate him. Solanas's attack of the artist entered her into biographies, newspapers, urban legends, and American history as "the crazy woman who shot Andy Warhol." Yet, Solanas was more than a "sweet assassin" as some of her admirers called her. Solanas' s attack on Andy Warhol is a cultural event replete with significance that has been largely overlooked. An analysis of the varied constructions of the episode demonstrates the complex sexual politics at work in 1968 America. Both dominant and counterculture media manufactured Solanas as a hysterical madwoman. Some feminists in the women's liberation movement claimed her as an ally and hero, and incorporated her words into many radical feminist organization mission statements and official political theories. Solanas viewed herself as a revolutionary, and thought her Society For Cutting Up Men Manifesto to be a pioneering document of liberation theory. What is at stake, then, in this struggle for meaning is cultural domination: whose interpretation becomes the official sermon? Using Solanas's assassination attempt and its after-math, I will analyze various positions from which Solanas's action and identity were evaluated to demonstrate how gender domination was maintained and confirmed in the context of the late 1960s through the figure of the "hysterical" woman "out of control." Further, I will show that Solanas is an influential figure in the history of radical feminism in America. Many radical feminists used her political ideas as a springboard into actions and theories that shaped the women's liberation movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Solanas's importance in feminist history is largely overlooked, and deserving of reclamation. |
