"Screening^^ the Sexuality of Jean-Michel Basquiat
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band’s performances at the Miidd Club. When Gina walks into the Mudd Club
in her sexy red dress as his band, Gray, is playing parts of the prank call, he
immediately leaves the stage to talk to her, and, with this, his heterosexuality is
established. In this sense, Basquiat is neither homophobe nor homosexual.
While he is willing to makes jokes that reference gay behavior, Basquiat is
presented in Schnabel’s film as someone who would rather not talk about it or
who is not into “that type of thing,’’ if you will, and this is driven home even
more in the way the artist is positioned in relation to Rene Ricard and Andy
Warhol.
Like Benny, Rene Ricard also serves to clarify Basquiat’s
heterosexuality in Schnabel’s film. Ricard is introduced early on in the diner
scene as someone who might be a homosexual, as both his flamboyant behavior
and Benny’s insistence that he is a “rainbow’’ indicate. Basquiat, in scene after
scene, not only builds the case that Ricard is gay by virtue of his flamboyance, it
also builds a case that the critic was immediately and immensely attracted to the
artist. In the scene in which they meet, Ricard pursues Basquiat after seeing one
of the artist’s paintings hanging on the wall at a party that Basquiat has Just left.
When Ricard catches up to Basquiat on the street, he is breathless from the
pursuit and from the man who stands before him. Ricard is truly impressed by
the artist’s work; he tells Basquiat that after he saw his painting he was
“ashamed to own anything.” The film also makes clear that Ricard is sexually
attracted to Basquiat as well. When Basquiat tells him his name, Ricard tells him
“that sounds famous already,” as he licks his lips, pants, and moves his hand
from across his chest to behind his neck. If Basquiat does seem a bit reluctant or
hesitant in this scene to take up Ricard’s offer to go for coffee, it is not because
of Ricard’s sexuality. At one point in their conversation, Ricard, arguing that he
can make Basquiat a big star, tells him, in reference to Albert Milo, a fictional
artist based on Schnabel, “I made that nigger.” Thus, Basquiat, secure in his
sexuality, seems more put off by the critic’s casual use of a racial slur than by
his apparent homosexuality.
Several scenes featuring Basquiat and Ricard in Schnabel’s film are
marked by the critic’s sexual desire for the artist and by the artist’s ability to
ignore or work around such advances and innuendos. In a scene that reenacts
one of Basquiat’s first shows, the P.S. 1 group show in 1981, Ricard,
commenting on the way in which the artist simply nails his work to the wall,
tells Basquiat, “you know me, when it comes to a mounting, the rougher the
better.” Also in that scene, Ricard, excited by the fact that he has Just sold one of
Basquiat’s paintings to Henry Geldzahler, the famed critic and cultural
commissioner, tells the artist, “suck my pussy, you star,” as he kisses him on the
cheek. Any potential queerness that this scene might convey is immediately
dealt with as Gina, once again wearing a sexy red dress, appears to greet the
artist. Basquiat kisses Gina and tells her that she looks “fucking beautiful,” and
Gina, who saw and heard Ricard and Basquiat’s exchange, says nothing of it as
it has no bearing on her relationship with the artist. As Basquiat becomes more