A Sublime Blogiversary

Hello darlings, I’m back from my vacay just in time for my one-year blogiversary!   Van and I had a great time on our cruise and also enjoyed ourselves at the gorgeous Mayfair Hotel in Miami, which was wonderful despite the heat.  

Just how much fun did we have?  On the cruise I discovered that minibar bottles of Absolut are an excellent remedy for puffy eyes.  Chilled bottles should be applied directly to the eyelid for maximum benefit.   Unfortunately, Van snapped several incriminating photos of me while I was testing my new beauty treatment.  Note to self:  destroy evidence of debauchery tout suite.

Perhaps it was all the fabulous mojitos, but I seem to have left my brain somewhere in the Bahamas.   So in honor of my blogiversary (and, let’s face it, because I am incapable of composing something new), I’m sharing with you my inaugural post.   Kisses to you, my sublime readers!   

“What Does a Lesbian Look Like?” by Sublimefemme, August 17, 2008

I’ve always loved discovering that beautiful, glamorous women are queer because it’s such a delightful surprise.  I certainly think that femmes are “real” lesbians, but even I find that my gaydar is based on stereotypes most of the time.  In an effort to challenge these stereotypes, I offer up this iconic image of Greta Garbo, which asks (but does not answer) the question, “what does a lesbian look like?”  

In this photograph, Garbo’s face might be described as “a pool to swim in” (to borrow from the critic David Thompson).  Although part of me just wants to swoon over this sculptural face, what especially interests me is how it highlights some of the embodied contradictions of femme identity.  There is certainly something overly precious about this image–if we are to appreciate its aesthetic we must surrender to Garbo’s cool and androgynous eroticism, which is dependent upon being idealized, deified and mystified.   And yet, although she was called the Divine Garbo, her beauty is distinctly human in its fragility.  Her persona is so seductive and haunting because it is both fragile and strong, veiled and expressive, distant and intimate, masculine and feminine. 

These contradictions are what I love about Garbo.  Parker Tyler famously reminds us that “Garbo ‘got into drag’ whenever she took some heavy glamour part, whenever she melted in or out of a man’s arms, whenever she simply let that heavenly-flexed neck…bear the weight of her thrown back head…   How resplendent seems the art of acting!  It is all impersonation, whether the sex underneath is true or not.” In short, Garbo performs queer femininity as drag, and in so doing calls into question what we thought we knew about the look (and act) of lesbian gender.