ABSTRACT
Andy Warhol’s film My Hustler is a structurally queer film in that Warhol queers the operations of mainstream narrative cinema, offering like many independent films an alternative narrative agenda. The film rejects the hierarchy of looks in more traditional narrative films. Instead of allowing for power differentials between characters, Warhol parades his cast before us as equal items in a buffet, available as figures of identification or types to ignore depending on the whim of the viewer. The result is a film replete with erotic itchiness, a state Warhol achieves not only by refusing to relinquish the look to any one character but also by abjuring any sense of a narrative climax.
