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Popular Culture Review
famous and Ricard begins to lose his grasp on the artist to other more important
dealers, critics, and artists, his loss is framed as that of a scorned lover. In a
scene depicting one of Basquiat’s first one man shows, the artist sells a painting
that he had earlier promised to Ricard to an international art dealer, Bruno
Bischofberger. Ricard, who is eavesdropping on the conversation, can barely
hold back his tears and closes his eyes painfully as he hears Basquiat agree, after
much prodding from Bischofberger, to sell him the painting. Once the deal is
complete, Ricard stornis up to Basquiat and says “you fucking little whore, you
sold my painting.” Rene is inconsolable and storms off telling Basquiat to “fuck
off.” In the following scene and Ricard’s last in the film, the critic, unable to let
Basquiat go, shows up at Mr. Chow’s restaurant where the artist is dining with
the art in-crowd and tears a sketch out of the artist’s notebook as repayment for
the one Basquiat sold to Bischofberger.
In Schnabel’s film, Ricard serves to link homosexuality with
flamboyance and emotionality and to show that Basquiat is not interested in any
type of sexual relations with men. In this sense, Basquiat is not homosexual
because, even though he is not as macho and as homophobic as someone like
Benny, he is definitely not like Ricard. The juxtaposition of Ricard and Basquiat
serves to illustrate the difference between a sort of effeminate man who is a
heterosexual and a really effeminate man who is not. In Basquiat, effeminate
behavior is qualified, distancing Basquiat’s soft-spoken and frail demeanor from
the category of homosexuality while placing Ricard’s over-the-top speech and
behavior clearly within it. Furthermore, Ricard, the character most closely
associated with homosexuality, is presented as self-loathing and is generally
hated by others, including Basquiat, by the film’s end. Hence, this film’s
homophobia as embodied in Rene may explain why queemess is purged from
Basquiat’s characterization. Like Ricard’s gendered persona, his unreciprocated
and unreturned sexual desire also helps to move Basquiat into the realm of
straightness. Although there is some truth to the Basquiat/Ricard dynamic
presented in Schnabel’s film, such as “Ricard truly appreciated Basquiafs
work—and his body” (Hoban 89), the artist’s lack of response to the critic’s
sexual innuendoes is more a rejection of male desire on a whole than of Ricard
specifically. In this sense, Basquiat may not like Ricard, but this is not the basis
on which he quietly endures his flirting. According to the film’s logic, Basquiat
wouldn’t be with any man, Ricard included, and this is a message that is, of
course, false.
That Basquiat would not and did not engage in any type of homosexual
activity is clearly established in Schnabel’s film by the time he and Andy
Warhol begin to become close friends and collaborators. There is, however,
something “vaguely homoerotic” (Adams 3) about their relationship which
dominates the second half of the film. In one scene, Basquiat enters the Factory
saying “I’m home,” as a married couple would do. In this same scene, Basquiat
wears one of Andy’s wigs as both watch a young man urinate on a canvas for
one of Warhol’s oxidation paintings. Schnabel includes several scenes in which