GRETA GARBO AND THE CREATION OF IDEAL BEAUTY

In this paper I analyze the extensive discourse on Greta Garbo, Hollywood's major female star in the mid-twentieth century.  I focus on the complex reaction to the masculinity and femininity of her image and her attempts to reveal and conceal her trans-gendered persona.  She was, I argue, a major representative of what I call the "Art Deco" woman of the 1920s and 30s--a figure I distinguish from the flapper, with whom the "Art Deco" woman is often confused.  Garbo also represented a continuation of the "bisexual continuum" that runs through the history of Western representation, beginning with the sculptured figures of the ancient Greeks.  The ubiquity of that figure suggests that bisexuality is normative behavior for many humans. 

Above all, I will analysis the negative discourse on her--a counter-hegemonic discourse that focused on her ethnicity, her appearance, and her acting.  She was attacked for being Swedish, for being ugly, and for being a "clinging fool" as an actress, rather than an independent performer.   The discourse on Garbo, read in terms of the views on appearance in her own day, de-centers our assumptions about the history of beauty.  Was it solely the result of her refusal to give interviews, appear at public events, sign autographs, or be photographed by any photographer she hadn't approved?  It offers new insights into the history of women, gender, and sexual identity in the twentieth century, and it tells us a good deal about the nature of "Hollywood's mystery woman."