When asked by reporters why she hated prolific pop artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol enough to shoot him with a pistol, Valerie Solanas — one of the many young, destitute and desperate people fading in and out of Warhol’s glamorous circle — simply replied, “Because he’s him.” Later headlines would say that Solanas believed Warhol “controlled her life” and that he had “legal claim” over her self-published writing, which she frequently badgered him to read. By all accounts, Solanas was furious with Warhol for refusing to produce her written works for the stage or screen. That assumed motive would follow her until she died in 1988, and beyond, making Valerie Solanas permanently synonymous with the patriarchal idea of the disgruntled woman.
But examined more broadly, Solanas’ reasoning speaks to her belief in the collective futility of men. “Him” is not just Warhol, but all men — members of society obsessed with power and sex, and so deeply afraid that they’ll never have either ever again that their fear turns them into sniveling children or violent animals. Warhol might’ve been different, seemingly unique in his performance of manhood. But when it all came down to it, at least for Solanas, he was just another man ruled by his sex, generous only when it benefited him, and withholding whenever something didn’t.
