Much ado about SCUM
December 6, 2007
In a story on the Andy Warhol retrospective currently showing at a gallery in Queensland, The 7:30 report just incorrectly said that Andy Warhol was shot by a woman from a “bizarre group called the society for cutting up men’.
WRONG!
Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol, did not belong to a group called The Society for Cutting up Men (SCUM).
SCUM was more or less a hypothetical organisation dreamt up by Solanas in her essay The SCUM Manifesto. SCUM was a concept, a literary device, not a real group that Solanas was a member of. Her shooting Andy Warhol had nothing to do with SCUM. She thought Warhol had ripped her off. Solanas was unhinged, but SCUM was not real.
There is so much hysteria and myths around Solanas and that essay. The right-wing men’s rights movement in particular have a serious preoccupation with it. The work is completely misunderstood. It’s not literal. If any body actually bothered to read the whole essay they would find that it is highly critical of women as well, and capitalism.
If you’re curious you can read more about my take on SCUM.
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