Lesbian rule : cultural criticism and the value of desire

A. Villarejo

With hair slicked back and shirt collar framing her young patrician face, Katharine Hepburn's image in the 1935 film Sylvia Scarlett was seen by many as a "lesbian" representation. Yet, Amy Villarejo argues, there is no final ground upon which to explain why that image of Hepburn signifies lesbian or why such a cross-dressing Hollywood fantasy edges into collective consciousness as a "lesbian" narrative. Investigating what allows viewers to perceive an image or narrative as "lesbian," Villarejo presents a theoretical exploration of lesbian visibility. Focusing on images of "the lesbian" in film, she analyzes what these representations contain and their limits. She combines Marxist theories of value with poststructuralist insights to argue that lesbian visibility operates simultaneously as an achievement and a ruse, a possibility for building a new visual politics and a way of rendering static and contained what lesbian might mean.