How Did Andy Warhol Influence Society

Artist Andy Warhol was a pioneer of the pop art movement in the 1960’s. He helped to liberate society and crush boundaries in American culture. Warhol’s work paved the way for people to embrace and explore themselves as individuals and break the social norms. Prior to the 1960’s people in America were very conservative on their views on society and what was socially acceptable. People were divided into categories based on class, gender and race. Warhol broke the mold of modern conformity and challenged idealist visions making alienation, loneliness and being an outcast a trend.
America in the 1960s had an ongoing battle with equality within its culture with race, gender and class being the main catalysts. Warhol’s work focused mainly on fame,
He worked with a wide range of mediums and between 1963-1968 produced over 60 films and countless reels of erotic photography. Many of which drew from the underground homosexual culture and openly explored the complexity of sexuality and desire. The topic of sexuality and homosexuality was a hushed one. Homosexuality was considered a malaise and not as a genuine sexual orientation. Homosexuals were seen as deviates and predators and considered a danger to society. Warhol was openly homosexual and he professed that it influenced his work and his attitudes and relationships to the art world. Warhol’s work and personal influence brought sexuality to the forefront making it more sociably acceptable for people to be openly gay. Leaving them free to explore their sexuality more frankly and honestly. With raunchy films and pornographic images being readily available through art it was deemed socially acceptable on some level and even trendy to break the boundaries of heterosexual marriage. Men and Woman were no longer afraid to embrace their sexual identity but were encouraged to exploit it instead. Traditional American values related to sex and marriage was pushed aside and a sexual revolution was