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Victor/Victoria: A Meager Vision

By Catherine Podojil

If you haven't seen Victor/Victoria yet (and haven't talked to someone who has), you're probably filled with all kinds of positive expectations. I certainly was. The reviews I saw were universally full of praise. The film purports to illuminate some of the serious and comic ramifications of a situation in which a straight woman successfully masquerades as a man who is a female impersonator, when in fact it is a ripoff from beginning to end.

The story, briefly. Robert Preston plays Carol

Todd, a gay entertainer currently out of work, who runs into Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews), a straight singer also down on her luck. In a series of contortions that defy description, Andrews ends up dressed in Todd's lover's clothes and looking quite the androgyne. In a fit of imagination born of approaching starvation, Preston hacks off her hair, and suggests that he "sell" her as a gay Polish count at a club specializing in female impersonation. They will be rich and famous and no longer hungry. (Someone should tell filmmakers that making extreme hunger the key to a comic scene is damned insensitive.)

The Real Queen Christina

By Beverly Anne

The 1933 movie Queen Christina, with Greta Garbo, was shown recently at the New Mayfield Theater. What a disappointment to the Lesbians in the audience, who saw very little of Christina's Lesbian lifestyle. Indeed, much of the movie was male fan-. tasyland. The only hint of Lesbianism is near the beginning of the movie. Christina asks Ebba Sparre, her lady-in-waiting, to join her for a weekend in the country. The holiday never materializes, and Christina spends the rest of the movie mainly in male company.

For wimmin who would like a more truthful account, please refer to Women Remembered, edited by Nancy Myron and Charlotte Bunch. The article "Queen Christina, Lesbian Ruler of Sweden," by Helaine Harris, gives us a much different interpretation.

One historical fact that is glossed over in the movie is Christina's relationship with Ebba. The director/producer, not admitting to their real relationship, quickly removes Ebba from the story. In true male fashion, the movie portrays an argument between Christina and Ebba over an indiscreet remark Ebba makes to a man, presumably her lover, about Christina. This is the last we see of Ebba. Not so in the Harris account.

Here is an excerpt form a letter Christina wrote to Ebba: "I have seen the most beautiful and the most charming members of our sex. I can claim with even greater assurance that I have seen no woman who can compete with you, for you are charming above them all. And now tell me whether there is any comfort for an eternal separation. But even if I must face the fact that I may never see you again, I am equally sure that I shall always love you".

The article continues: "It is clear that Christina knew that she loved women and so did not want to marry, although she was very discreet. It seems that Christina did not consider her lesbianism abnormal, but she felt that she had to contemplate a future for her country-an heir or successor. Since she would not marry and produce an heir, she decided as early as eighteen that she must abdicate. She frankly admitted that she felt such a repulsion towards the marital state that she would rather choose death than a man'. She went further on to state that she would 'never submit to being treated the way a peasant treats his field when planting seeds'."

Christina was a strong and æble queen. During her reign, she made peace with Sweden's neighbors even ` though her all-male court opposed her peace efforts. In 1648, the same year as the peace settlement, her court persisted in urging Christina to marry. Charles Gustavus, her cousin, was now the most popular candidate. Christina mentioned to him in a private interview that she might recommend him to the court as her heir. Charles did not want to be her successor, though; he wanted to marry her. Her abdication ef-

forts were halted again and again by the same court that opposed her peace efforts. The people of Sweden especially begged her not to leave the throne. It was not until 1654, at the age of 28, that she was formally allowed to give up the crown.

Harris writes, "Charles gave her a sum of money and, still convinced she was a 'real womail' at heart, gave her a jewelled hairpin. That night Christina ordered her valet to cut off her hair. Ebba Sparre did

Greta Garbo as Queen Christina

not leave Sweden with Christina, and little is known about their parting. There is only one letter left written to Ebba from Christina in Rome, imploring her to 'fly into my desperately longing arms'."

"Christina became a well-known well-known celebrityadventurer throughout Europe-one who associated with Jews and wore male attire. Jews at that time were not considered at all equal to the Christian Europeans and a woman who wore pants was almost unheard of. She lived the rest of her life actively, almost always with a finger in European politics, urging peace and acting as a personal diplomat between European powers".

She also amassed quite an art collection, one of the best in the world at that time.

As a leader, Christina was not at all power-hungry. As Harris sums up, "She brought peace to Europe, proving herself one of the ablest political stateswomen of all time. This then was the real reason why she had to abdicate. A male society can. not stand to be ruled by a female monarch who has female values. Most of all Sweden could not tolerate, in the long run, having a queen who would not fit into the woman role—marrying and producing a male heir-and who was clearly a lesbian. But maleidentified historians will never admit this".

"Much is to be learned from her including the way in which she viewed European politics and the premium she put on peace. Queen Christina left an important political legacy for all lesbians to study".

One night as Victor/Victoria is performing, she catches the eye of King Marshall (James Garner), a gangster from Chicago. At the act's end, Andrews reveals that she's really a male. But Garner knows better: he couldn't be having the feelings he's having for a-gulp-man! His jealous girlfriend, though, is delighted. Leslie. Ann Warren plays a super feminine ⚫ stereotypic gun moll that most women will find painful to watch.

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The rest of the film is a series of largely unfunny goings-on. Activity substitutes for substance, slapstick for wit or even thought, and we all come up the losers.

A few points bear extending. First of all, as soon as she moves and opens her mouth, Julie Andrews destroys all possibility that we might take her as a figure of androgyny—that mysterious combination of cultural male and female. She's Mary Poppins/Maria/Eliza Doolittle, which is fine for those films, if totally irrelevant here. A Dietrich she's not. And in the absence of Dietrich it's too bad Director Blake Edwards hadn't the imagination to take this all the way and cast David Bowie as Victoria Grant, Then the audience would have had to confront all their feelings about male/female identity along with the characters.

Secondly, the setup for Garner to confront his feelings about being attracted to another man is never explored. All the wonderful possibilities that could have developed as Garner wrestles with his sexual identity are lost as he cops out-he sneaks a peek at Andrews as she is bathing, proving to himself that she is a woman, and eliminating the problem. Garner is really a disappointment. He's done some nice subtle things around maleness in a handful of movies and in his television series. But you'd never know it to see him here.

Third, the friendship between Preston and Andrews could have been so much richer, particularly when Preston admits that he's attracted to Garner, too. An imaginative writer and director could have done wonders with this surely common enough real life situation-a gay man and a straight woman both in love with a straight man. However, apart from a few toss-off comments, Edwards doesn't touch it with a ten-foot pole, probably because he wouldn't know how. Preston is left comforting Andrews when things aren't going well for her, and being largely alone, a safe stereotypic view of the middle-aged homosexual male.

And the resolution. Andrews forgoes her success and returns to womanhood and Garner, leaving her role and costumes to Preston, who does a painful parody of Victor/Victoria's big number to close the movie. He deserves better.

To wrap it up, there are all sorts of violent little sidebars in the film which add nothing except to confirm our view that Blake Edwards has all the subtlety of a Marine Corps sergeant.

I have no objection to Edwards showcasing the talents of his wife, Julie Andrews. They are considerable. I take great exception to his choosing an area of concern to millions of human beings—the questions of sexual identity and behavior, sexual preference, and the relationships growing out of these considerations—and encasing them in the constrictions of his meager visionf. And I charge the critics who should have seen through it.

If you do, see Victor/Victoria (and see it at a budget showing, please), watch for Graham Stark as the waiter. Stark, a close friend of the late Peter Sellers and veteran of some of the Pink Panther films, is a joy to watch. He also seems to have the best lines.

May, 1982/What. She Wants/Page 7..