Andy Warhol Would Have Loved Sarah Palin -- the Ultimate Soup Can

[babylonsister]

http://www.alternet.org/election08/99417/andy_warhol_would_have_loved_sarah_palin_--_the_ultimate_soup_can_/?page=entire

Andy Warhol Would Have Loved Sarah Palin -- the Ultimate Soup Can

By Patricia J. Williams, The Nation. Posted September 19, 2008.

What Warhol did with Mao Zedong and Marilyn Monroe is precisely what the Republican Party has done with Sarah Palin.


Andy Warhol would have loved Sarah Palin. She really is the ultimate soup can. For anyone who never quite understood the point of an art form in which the iconicity of a mass-produced object becomes an end above and beyond its contents -- well, welcome to the fame factory.

Warhol is known for having minimized or even disguised his expressive role in the works he produced; yet he re-presented banal commercial images in ways that were playful and captivating despite their erstwhile familiarity. His explorations with the "kitschy," the "cheap" and the "ordinary" involved small cognitive surprises that were at once obvious and subtle: He'd disclose a pattern of layered color or he'd shift scale in a way that upended conventional meaning or he'd reiterate an image so emphatically that "mass" production was revealed as obsessive. What Warhol did with Mao Zedong and Marilyn Monroe is precisely what the Republican Party has done with Sarah Palin.

The morning after Barack Obama's speech at Invesco Field, I was giddily high on happiness hormones. "Beat that, ridiculously unpopular Bushites," I thought. "Kumbaya, my Lord," I sang, as I checked out of my hotel and hailed a cab to Denver airport.

The first sign that I had entered hell's handbasket was the grim little smile on the taxi driver's face. The second thing that hit me was the sound of his radio, which was very, very loud. It was tuned to Rush Limbaugh. Palin had just been presented in a press conference as McCain's running mate. She was reciting what would soon become a familiar litany: I am your average hockey mom. I worked my way up through the PTA. Here are my children -- Trigger, Trapper, Plucky, Pillow and Plum (or that's how I heard that rat-a-tat blizzard of names the first time around). Most remarkable was the vampiric over-voice of Mr. Dittohead himself: Limbaugh was interjecting wickedly throughout Palin's speech, delivering the talking points that would become well-burnished clichés by the end of the week. "I want to see Sarah Palin age in office," he said, with a leer in his voice. "Imagine Hillary watching this," he said with naked longing. "Imagine if Hillary had won the nomination. She'd lose against this woman." Limbaugh was having quite a cackle: "I'd love to see Hillary right now..." he said over and over again.

snip//

In the few weeks since Sarah Palin has become a household name, she's often been glibly compared to a Barbie doll -- and certainly her lack of knowledge of the Bush doctrine, or her comments about not knowing what the vice president does, make me wish she'd been recalled as fast as that talking Barbie who complained that "Math class is tough." But I think the analogy is more apt when thinking about how Palin has been mass-marketed. As Barbara Johnson says, "The packaging is part of what the consumer buys: not only can Barbie not stand without the box, but in it she is positioned for maximum effect. Some dolls come in boxes that almost function like mirrors: the commodity is surrounded by a gleaming aura that adds glamour to its appeal."

This is the secret, too, of purportedly unscripted reality shows like American Idol and America's Next Top Model. None of those shows are about enduring talent or fame that lasts more than fifteen minutes. Week after week, they crank out the "winners," the "survivors," -- the soup cans. The consuming public seems oblivious of the degree to which its "idols" are not even uniquely American but manufactured by global franchises with local versions sold in countries all over the world. That kind of commercial manipulation, it seems to me, is exactly the template for Sarah Palin's pull in this election. That so much of the public is willing to buy it is something I find much more disconcerting than lipstick on a pit bull; to me, it looks frighteningly like Karl Rove in designer glasses and a skirt.



Patricia J. Williams, a professor of law at Columbia University and a member of the State Bar of California, writes The Nation column "Diary of a Mad Law Professor." Her books include The Rooster's Egg (1995) and Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race (1997).

[Bluenorthwest]

1. Andy would have loved Barack Obama

This is bullshit. Insulting to the memory of a great artist And a gay man. Palin is viciously anti-gay. Andy would have hated her guts. Warhol loved this country and he loved above all things the personal freedom of our diverse society. He was not an 'empty' man. Those Soup Cans the author thinks she understands were a warning against the very consumerist crisis we now face, against the vapid politics and false nourishments this society likes to wallow in. A warning against Palin, in fact.
Andy Warhol would have detested Palin, and McCain, and Bush. He would have donated the maximum to the Democrats and to Obama, from his vast personal fortune, made as a capitialist in America. Andy and his friends would have opposed McPalin with every fucking fiber of their beings.
This article is in fact a pile of sexist tripe, by a woman who does not understand Andy's work, and sees him in fact as an object, not as a person. She says Andy would do to Palin what the author is doing to Andy. Patrica J Williams is insipid and carries a big giant prejudice somewhere within a huge and unrelenting ego. Her brain can not grasp Andy' talent, apparently.
Andy Warhol would be supporting Obama, in every possible way. For this woman to dare speak for the dead, and claim that he would have loved a candidate that wishes to remove all rights from GLBT people is insulting, sexist and it is in fact intellectual imperialism. Andy made his own voice clear, and he does not need hack to put words into his mouth that he would never in a million years have spoken. This is like saying Dr King would have loved David Duke.

[babylonsister]

2. OMG! It's an opinion piece and the writer's interpretation. Get a grip!

What makes you think your opinion is more valid than this writer's?

[Bluenorthwest]

5. Andy was a gay man....

Andy was not a self hating person by any stretch. Andy is someone I knew slightly. Start saying decent gay Democrats would have supported this vicious woman and I take issue. Get a grip? Andy was a human being, not a device to be used to make a point.
Andy would have hated Palin, and done everything is his power to stop her and McCain. So you are saying that the writer's opinion is that Andy would have betrayed himself and his entire tribe for Palin love? The headline is insulting, and false. It is not an opinion, it is a flat out lie. It is an insult to the character and integrity of Warhol and of his community.
Saying a gay man would have loved an anti-gay activist is insulting. This woman's opinion is based on nothing but her own desire to make use of Andy's name to make a point he himself would have hated.
And you know, you posted her opinion, and you got mine back. If you did not want a reaction, why post at all? She has her opinion, that a gay man would have loved a gay hater. I disagree and find that notion insulting. Which is more valid is not for me to decide, but for those reading her crap and then my reaction. Of course logic and historical fact are on my side, crap anyone can read in a book or online.

Andy would have loved Barack Obama. Michelle Obama he would have swooned over. Palin he would have hated and mocked and opposed.

[babylonsister]

6. You're trying to make this into a gay issue when it's not. nt

[glinda]

3. totally agree with you

he would have avoided her like the plague.

[Alcibiades]

4. That's the whole point of her article

Perhaps you misunderstood it. The author did not literally mean that Warhol would have loved Palin: she means he would have "loved" her as a perfect example of the ethos he was criticizing in his art.

She's not even being sarcastic. How you could read the above and think that the author actually thinks Warhol would have endorsed Palin in any way is beyond me. :banghead:

[Bluenorthwest]

7. The headline is misleading

And the author did a poor job if that was the point she was attempting to make. I posted to make sure that people understand that Andy would have supported Obama, adored Michelle, and loathed Palin and McKeating.
If the author wants to use real people as rhetorical devices, she should be respectful enough to make her point very clearly. In my view she failed to do so. Her whole piece is just an excuse to say Warhol, Soup Can, Palin. Frankly, that point was already made by the Soup Cans, lo those many years ago. The attorney writing this added nothing. And she did that poorly. My opinion. Sue me if I play too long.

[Alcibiades]

8. No, that's fine

I liked it, but I get your point. Sometimes folks write on at length because of some silly little analogy that occurs to them. I liked this one, but understand why you might not. :hi: