Entertaining Lesbians: Celebrity, Sexuality, and Self-Invention
Before the rise of celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and k.d. lang, lesbians were rarely in the limelight and the few that were often did not fare well. Times have changed and today's famous lesbians are popular icons. Entertaining Lesbians charts the rise of lesbians in the public eye, proposing that celebrity has never been a simple matter of opening closet doors, portraying "positive images," or becoming "role models." Gever traces the history of lesbians in popular culture during the...
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Before the rise of celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and k.d. lang, lesbians were rarely in the limelight and the few that were often did not fare well. Times have changed and today's famous lesbians are popular icons. Entertaining Lesbians charts the rise of lesbians in the public eye, proposing that celebrity has never been a simple matter of opening closet doors, portraying "positive images," or becoming "role models." Stars from Melissa Etheridge to Rosie O'Donnell send the message that being out is now acceptable, but how much of the public's acceptance of these stars can be credited to their expertise in self-invention?Gever traces the history of lesbians in popular culture during the twentieth century, including Radclyffe Hall, Greta Garbo, Mercedes de Acosta, Marlene Dietrich, Rita Mae Brown, and Martina Navratilova, to explore the paradoxes inherent in lesbian celebrity. Original and provocative, Entertaining Lesbians takes a groundbreaking look at the risk and rewards of being not just out of the closet, but out in the public eye. Library Journal Readers who pick up Gever's book expecting a gossipy tell-all will be surprised to find instead a thoughtful, wide-ranging discussion of lesbians in 20th-century pop culture that touches on the history of photography, tabloid journalism, theories of mass culture, and the politics of coming out, among other subjects. Famous-and entertaining-lesbians such as Mercedes de Acosta, Jill Johnston, and Martina Navratilova are portrayed at length to highlight Gever's main interest: their strategies of self-representation. She shows how de Acosta (1893-1968), lover to both Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, employed discretion in her affairs but not because of self-hatred, as was so often assumed to be the reason lesbians remained closeted. Gever (communications, Florida Atlantic Univ.; coeditor, Queer Looks) makes the case that up to the late 1970s, the term lesbian was so stigmatized and pathologized that even women who by today's standards were clearly lesbians would have refused the label, for entirely healthy reasons. Her book goes on to show how and why lesbian celebrities have taken a more prominent position in mainstream entertainment. Written in a relatively jargon-free style that should appeal to general readers, this book is recommended for women's studies and sexuality collections, as well as those focusing on communications and popular culture.-Ina Rimpau, Newark P.L., NJ Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Acknowledgments1Introduction: Celebrity Talk, Lesbian Style12Visibility now! The Sexual Politics of Seeing113Celestial Configurations: Aspects of Lesbian Stardom454Going Public: Star Wars in the Liberation Movements815In Retrospect: Legends of Mercedes de Acosta and Company1156Popular Mechanics: Advanced Technologies of Lesbian Celebrity1577Afterword191Notes199Bibliography213Index225
\ Library JournalReaders who pick up Gever's book expecting a gossipy tell-all will be surprised to find instead a thoughtful, wide-ranging discussion of lesbians in 20th-century pop culture that touches on the history of photography, tabloid journalism, theories of mass culture, and the politics of coming out, among other subjects. Famous-and entertaining-lesbians such as Mercedes de Acosta, Jill Johnston, and Martina Navratilova are portrayed at length to highlight Gever's main interest: their strategies of self-representation. She shows how de Acosta (1893-1968), lover to both Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, employed discretion in her affairs but not because of self-hatred, as was so often assumed to be the reason lesbians remained closeted. Gever (communications, Florida Atlantic Univ.; coeditor, Queer Looks) makes the case that up to the late 1970s, the term lesbian was so stigmatized and pathologized that even women who by today's standards were clearly lesbians would have refused the label, for entirely healthy reasons. Her book goes on to show how and why lesbian celebrities have taken a more prominent position in mainstream entertainment. Written in a relatively jargon-free style that should appeal to general readers, this book is recommended for women's studies and sexuality collections, as well as those focusing on communications and popular culture.-Ina Rimpau, Newark P.L., NJ Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.\ \