In my self-published novel, Looking for Nirvana (which can be found at http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/looking-for-nirvana/8258814), one of the characters is an eating-disordered, high-fashion model named Dextra Hardy. Her roommate comments that Dextra’s motto should be, “No penetration please, I’m only skin deep” because Dextra’s world begins and ends with how she looks. What matters to her is not the quality of her character, her intelligence, or lack thereof, or anything else for that matter. If she looks good, she is good. If she looks fabulous, well, even better.
Years ago, when the The Andy Warhol Diaries were published, I suspected that I was one of the few people in
What drew me to Warhol was that I thought, well, he’s an aberration. No one could truly be that self-absorbed. No one could be so desperate for attention and fame that he would essentially mock art while aspiring to be an artist. Would he? It was crazy, a kind of anti-Existential despair covered over by bright colors, silk screens and layer-upon-layer of pop culture that dissolved into a sort of nothingness that became somethingness. It was crap that sold like crazy once the people who have more money than brains decided that a
Andy, in his many wigs, using his own urine for color in his paintings – yes, that is so yesterday, folks – his Factory, his endlessly boring films where people do nothing and say less – well, he was so far ahead of his time. So much so that few people believed him when he prophesized, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Even he referred to himself as deeply superficial.
Andy was so shallow he had great depth. Which is why he became the inspiration for the creation of my Dextra Hardy character. I took the superficiality of an Andy Warhol, who was only skin deep, combined it with the fashion industry, which only covers the skin and so isn’t even skin deep, added a dash of quirky character traits, and voila — Dextra Hardy, my perfect comic foil for the religious, sheltered, dutiful main character, Gloria Zadig.
Why pick on the fashion industry? It’s simple, really. So much of American life has become about the utterly superficial, the external, the outside, the aspirational, the celebrity culture, the thinness of, the designer worn at the Oscars of, the several thousand dollar handbag of, the jewelry of, it’s like the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire all over again. While the wealthy are indulging, the middle class is declining, and soon no one but the very rich will be able to afford the luxury brands to which we are encouraged to aspire. Why would anyone care what a skinny celebrity wears? Yet, people do. But, why?
That is what I asked myself when I created Dextra. Pick any age, any culture, any century, and women will always want to be fashionable. If everyone is wearing corsets, well, you’re going to stuff yourself into a corset even though you can barely breathe. If no one in polite society wears a dress above the knee, so be it, until the fashion changes. If celebrities are thin, then women are supposed to go on diets and starve themselves down to a Size 0, or 00, or 000. In pursuit of brilliant self-presentation, they’re wasting away to nothing. All the while pumping up their breasts with silicon or saline or whatever seems safest at the moment.
Having lost my mother to breast cancer when I was only 10 years old, I aspire to keep my breasts, not augment them! Having been fat, I aspire to lose the weight and keep it off. As the French say, and who could imagine they are right about anything, but anyway, as the French say, “At a certain age, a woman has to choose between her face and her fanny.” Too thin is aging. Pleasantly plump is actually quite nice.
Back to the genesis of all of this. When I first discovered Warhol, I truly felt he was a brilliant subversive who was so selfish, so self-absorbed that he could only be an aberration. Once his 15 minutes had passed, his painting, his lifestyle, his greed for all material things, his need to be seen, to be famous would all go away and become dated. Yet, it hasn’t. His art increases in value and desirability. His story is told and retold. Why, exactly, is that?
The telltale signs of a civilization in decline are easy to spot if one studies history. Do young people actually study history anymore? They seem to be growing ever more ignorant in an ever-increasingly complex world. They are so busy texting, phoning, messaging and meshing with their peers that they rarely take time out to think, to contemplate, to weigh important issues. They are literally bored when they sit still for five minutes without some sort of technology in hand. This explains the phenomenal success of Twitter and Facebook. How easy it is to envision Andy Warhol Tweeting on a daily basis, or updating an outrageously popular Facebook page. He would have loved it. It is a world that can revolve around “you” 24/7, which is what he wanted. See me, pay me, but do not know me, could summarize the Warholian philosophy.
And, it is exactly that, the see me, pay me, but do not know me that led us down the path to perdition. What is reality TV except an expose or an exposing of the superficial, the untalented, the self-promoting, the narcissistic to an ever-bored public that is convinced that “those people” are somehow more successful, more self-indulgent, more important than the rest of us? The sad fact of all of these reality shows is that the people who aspire to be on them are the least interesting among us, which means that they have become an ever-revolving door for the fame whores who constantly check themselves out with Google searches, tips to the media, calls to the paparazzi, or Tweets to their fans.
Why are these nobodies in the public eye? Because they have the media savvy and deeply-rooted narcissism to get themselves there. A talent for self-promotion for having no talent will do wonders in this day and age. Andy Warhol understood that and went about it in an artful manner. At least he had an artful manner.
In today’s world, the fastest route to fame is making a sex tape. In other words, a source of shame and humiliation is now the key to instant celebrity. What kind of culture, or lack thereof, would think that displaying one’s naked parts while partaking in various and sundry sex acts would lead to any sort of positive attention, let alone wealth and fame? Yet, that is how it is. Nothing is done off stage anymore, absolutely nothing. Everything is for public display, and everyone is for sale.
In my favorite Warhol diary entry, Andy is in church, on his knees, praying for money. A bag lady walks into the church and asks him for some spare change. He is furious and offended and brushes her off. How could someone who is actually in need, who is probably hungry and homeless have the temerity to ask him for money? Warhol had great wealth, yet it was never enough. He had fame and notoriety, and yet, it was never enough. As another character in my novel says, “There is nothing, there is only excess.” Andy would have agreed.
