^Screening” the Sexuality of Jean-Michel Basquiat
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girlfriends, Suzanne Mallouck, stands as Basquial’s object of beauty and
affection. When Basquiat first sees her, the camera slows down to emphasize her
beauty and his interest in it. For Gina, who is working as a diner waitress at the
time, the feeling is not immediately mutual, but when Basquiat sketches a
portrait of her on one of the diner’s tables using a fork as a brush and syrup as
his paint, she gives the artist an approving smile even though he is in the process
of being thrown out by the owner for having made a mess. That she is taken by
him is verified by how quickly their relationship seems to move. Later that day,
Basquiat returns to ask Gina to go out with him to the Mudd Club, a famous
New York City New Wave venue. Although she declines on the spot, she shows
up at the club in a sexy red dress. That night they sleep together and, not shortly
after that, he moves in with her “after very few preliminaries” (Maslin 1). Her
attraction to him is also marked by all that she is willing to endure in their
relationship. He disrespects her and her property by painting on one of her nice
dresses and on one of her paintings and then by sitting around her place doing
drugs, sometimes alone and other times with friends. When the art dealer,
Annina Nosei, comes by the house to get Basquiat to go to her gallery, Gina
assumes that the invitation is also extended to her; as she is getting changed;
however, Nosei and Basquiat rudely leave without her. Gina also becomes
frightened by the artist’s heroin use; had she not come home one night at the
right time to revive him, he would have choked to death in his dmg-induced
sleep. Gina only leaves Basquiat after she suspects that he is seeing Big Pink, a
blond groupie who Basquiat playfully named and picked up on the street one
day. In Basquiat, the artist’s relations with Gina and Big Pink portray him as a
black stud who Juggles white women until it all blows up in his face.
Even more so than in Downtown HI, the male characters in Basquiat
are important in placing the artist within the realm of heterosexuality. Central to
this process is Benn y, a composite character based on the artist’s real life
friends, A1 Diaz and Vincent Gallo. We first encounter Benny in the diner scene
in which Basquiat meets Gina. Benny has important things to say not only about
Gina but about another character in this scene, Rene Ricard, the art critic whose
piece on Basquiat entitled “The Radiant Child” is said to have brought the artist
fame. Ricard makes a dramatic entrance into the diner, shouting his order,
“Oysters Rockefeller, pour plaisir' to Gina across the diner. Once out of
earshot, Benny, who can see that his friend does not know the critic, tells him
that he “writes for Artfonmf' and is “a fucking rainbow.” To this, Basquiat says
nothing. Benny flirts with Gina when she comes to take their order and, once she
is gone, he tells Basquiat, “Now, that’s entertainment.” Again, Basquiat says
nothing. In a way, both questions hail Basquiat in that his response will tell us
where he stands sexually. Basquiat’s portrait of Gina on the diner table shows
that, while for Benny she is merely entertainment, for the artist she is an object
of beauty and a work of art. Therefore, Basquiat does not have to say anything
in response to Benny’s outing of Ricard to defend or define his sexuality as his
portrait of Gina already does the talking. Later, Benny will put Basquiat in a