SAPPHO'S Name taken in Vain

 

According to the publisher:

Diana McLellan reveals the complex and intimate connections that roiled behind the public personae of Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead, and the women who loved them. Private correspondence, long-secret FBI files, and troves of unpublished documents reveal a chain of lesbian affairs that moved from the theater world of New York, through the heights of chic society, to embed itself in the power structure of the movie business. The Girls serves up a rich stew of film, politics, sexuality, psychology, and stardom.

While the title may sound intriguing, and the book may have generated a bit of buzz, this writer takes issue with the hype given to Diana McLellan's book, The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood.

Discussions of Old Hollywood, especially when fraught with the cultural turmoil of the early twentieth century, tend to lure me away from my predilection for fiction for a while.  The pull of a title suggesting that Sappho would be somehow present in Hollywood, drew me in for a closer look.  Unfortunately, what this reader discovered was a misguided, if not altogether heterosexist, skewed presentation of history. The book, sadly, seemed more like history according to publishers of a Hollywood rag rather than a believable version of history.  I found it unconscionable to use rumored romances between women, that have no verification outside of second hand reports, as evidence.   The "sources" attempted little more than to develop an allure of the provocative. Beyond that, the text seems akin to outing celebrities.  Outing people who cannot respond to the claims seems rather meanspirited.

Bringing up Sappho alludes to love between women, thus setting the stage for a discussion of sexuality.  Whether the sexuality is sapphic in nature, the intention appeared to direct the discussion to sex among famous women.  Discussing the sex lives of actresses is not new; furthermore, it is a facet of gossip.  Within the context context of women and film, sexualizing women has been a a fundamental aspect of Hollywood from its inception.  Typically, it is the masculine gaze that creates the sexual tone and the reduction of actress to object.  As for lesbianism, when a male eye casts upon lesbianism, it tends to make lesbianism sexually arousing (for the male) or as a means to some masculine designed end (e.g., sex without pregnancy).  McLellan casts a similar gaze upon women.  She perpetuates the notion that woman focal relationships of actresses were designed by Hollywood producers or merely temporary relationships in situ of the contract because she did nothing to prove otherwise other than to re-enforce gossip.

Sadly, better portrayals of Old Hollywood and the relationships between women, the industry, and social mores appear in texts that never claim to be anything beyond researched fiction.  Certainly this assessment may appear harsh; however, promoting a text as history while being little more than a fictionalized, cum rumored account of famous lovers, just continues to skew the hidden histories of lesbians.

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