Just finished reading Edie: An American Girl for the 3rd or 4th time. GREAT oral history by Jean Stein and, after reading Please Kill Me, another oral history (about US punk rock), it's interesting to see the difference between a well-done and a poorly done "oral history." The former offers a historical background and some spiritual insights into the subject from the interviewees; the latter does not.
Unfortunately, I think the well-written Stein bio about Edie Sedgwick (1982) contributed to a non-deserved "cult of Edie." In real life, socialite Edie Sedgwick hung around Andy Warhol and his louche Factory for a year or so, and the two garnered much media attention by appearing in public together. Warhol was attracted to her social status and her willingness to do anything for his cameras, and she was slumming and looking for attention. I think they both got what they were looking for. (I don't think Warhol abused her. She was already a party girl in Cambridge, Mass., before she moved to NYC to seek a bigger audience, more attention.) Post-Warhol, Edie went back to California, hung out with bikers, continued to sleep with every man available, and continued to do massive quantities of drugs, before overdosing in 1971.
Personally: I dislike Edie's mushy face and her skeletal bulimic body. I dislike her sloppiness and drugginess. I dislike her "help-me-I'm-a-waif" persona. I dislike her utter lack of talent. I dislike the fact that she thought she was intrinsically important, when in fact she was only important to the media (and Andy Warhol) because she was a socialite making a cheap spectacle of herself.
No comments:
Post a Comment