Masquerading as Marlene

At the center of this week’s readings is Joan Riviere’s “Womanliness as Masquerade,” whose basic argument focuses on the idea that women who wish for or display masculine qualities put on a masquerade of femininity in order to “avert anxiety and the retribution feared from men” (35). But when it comes to defining genuine womanliness and the line between it and the masquerade, her answer is concrete: there is no difference, they are the same thing.

Stephen Heath and Mary Ann Doane’s responses point out the major flaw in Riviere’s argument, namely her negation of the existence of femininity while at the same time affirming the existence of masculinity. They also bring her into the realm of the cinema, highlighting the contradiction between masquerade at once offering the possibility of feminine identity and simultaneously taking it away (because this identity is constructed).

What interested me the most about the articles were the continuous references to Marlene Dietrich. Heath heralds her excess and the way she “hold[s] and flaunt[s] the male gaze” (57) and Gaylyn Studlar, connecting with Doane’s ideas about transvestitism, argues that Marlene exemplifies the way costuming can be used to subvert the gaze and traditional gender roles. Referencing Blonde Venus, Studlar places Dietrich in the position of “obtaining power through her knowledge of how others see her”(243). Few images have been more seared in my mind than Marlene shedding the gorilla suit in Blonde Venus. She doesn’t just co-opt a masculine identity, she co-opts the identity of a masculine jungle animal, and then becomes a sexualized object. So in certain ways Marlene seems to defy all expectations. But is she the answer? If I don a tuxedo will I take control of my identity and the masculine gaze? At the same time, there is no doubt that she is constructed as the object of masculine desire. Did she really control her image (think of all the weight she was forced to lose between Germany and Hollywood)? Confusions abound, to say the least. But I do think Studlar has something, because Marlene certainly controls my gaze when she is on the screen.

Reading the arguments of these theorists all at once makes it clear how they so easily tangle and confuse, complement and contradict; the circles continuously intersecting but never coming to any definite conclusions (or solutions). One problem may be their continual reliance on the theories of Freud. While I can appreciate Freud’s contributions to feminist film theory, I think that boiling everything down to Freud’s oversimplifications and generalizations may be a reason why these theorists keep hitting walls. And I’m sorry, perhaps I am incredibly unlearned and naïve, but I don’t want a phallus and I am sick of being told that I do.