Seeing it for the first time in 30 years, I can’t believe how long it is. Or that I was able to hold the audience’s attention through it all. Am I that good of an actor? That magnetic of a performer?
I edited her manifesto down to about 1 1/3 single spaced pages. The original was 16.
The original can be read here.
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The SCUM Manifesto (Abridged)
by Valerie Solanas
Life in this society being an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civil-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to over throw the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex. The male is a biological accident, an incomplete female, a walking abortion. He has made of the world a shitpile. He is responsible for: war, money and prostitution; fatherhood and mental illness; hate and violence; prevention of automation and conversation; philosophy, religion and morality based on sex; disease and death.
Sex is the refuge of the mindless. The more mindless the woman, the more embedded in the male culture she is. The females least embedded in the male culture are the least nice; those crass and simple souls who reduce fucking to fucking; who are too childish for the grown-up world of suburbs, mortgages and baby shit; too uncivilized to give a shit for anyone’s opinion of them; too arrogant to respect Daddy, the “Greats, or the deep wisdom of the Ancients; who trust only their animal instincts; whose sole diversion is prowling for emotional thrills; who are given to slamming those who unduly irritate them in the teeth, who’d sink a chiv into a man’s chest or ram an ice pick up his asshole as soon as look at him. In short, those who by the standards of our culture are SCUM.
These females are cool. They’ve seen the whole show–every bit of it, the fucking scene, the sucking scene, the dick scene, the dike scene, they’ve covered the waterfront, been under every dock and pier, the peter pier, the pussy pier, they’ve been through it all. You‘ve got to go through a lot of sex to get to anti-sex. Now they’re ready for a new show, they want to crawl out from under the dock, move, take off, sink out.
SCUM will become members of the unwork force, the fuck-up force; they will get jobs of various kinds and unwork. For example, SCUM salesgirls will not charge for merchandise, SCUM telephone workers will not charge for calls; SCUM office and factory workers will secretly destroy equipment. Dropping out is not the answer, fucking up is.
SCUM will kill all men who are not in the Men’s Auxiliary of SCUM. Men in the Auxilary are those men who are working diligently to eliminate themselves, men who, regardless of their motives, are playing ball with SCUM.
SCUM will not picket, demonstrate, march or strike to attempt to achieve its ends. If SCUM ever marches, it will be over LBJ’s stupid sickening face; if SCUM ever strikes, it will be in the dark with a 6 inch blade. SCUM will couple bust, barge into male-female couples wherever they are and bust them up.
SCUM will destroy all useless and harmful objects–cars, store windows, “Great Art.”
After the elimination of money there will be no further need to kill men. The few remaining can exist out their puny days dropped out on drugs, strutting around in drag or passively watching the high-powered female in action, fulfilling themselves as spectators, vicarious livers, breeding in the cow pasture with the toadies, or they can go off to the nearest friendly neighborhood suicide center where they will be quietly, quickly and painlessly gassed to death.
The sick irrational men, those who attempt to defend themselves against their disgustingness, when they see SCUM barreling down on them will cling in terror to Big Mama with her big bouncing boobies; but boobies won’t protect them against SCUM; Big Mama will be clinging to Big Daddy who will be in the corner shitting in his forceful dynamic pants. Men who are rational however, won’t kick or struggle or raise a distressing fuss. They will just sit back, relax, enjoy the show and ride the waves to their demise.