Core Post 5 - Judy Garland as a Gay Icon: A Star is Born as a case study

Richard Dyer states again and again that the gay community has, whether consciously or not, always identified with Judy Garland – as her characters on screen, as an actress, as a personality. He highlighted three key qualities she embodies that resonate within gay culture: ordinariness, androgyny and camp. Dyer makes many references to Garland’s performances throughout her life and details how her own transformations in star image have all reflected these qualities. What I found interesting when comparing this article to A Star is Born is that her character, Ethel Blodgett/Vicki Lester, also encompasses all three of these characteristics.

When it comes to ordinariness, Garland’s character seems to fit right in – at least on the surface. Firstly, the name “Esther Blodgett” is hardly glamorous in any way: the very first tie Norman Maine learns of her full name, he can’t help but comment that it couldn’t have been a star moniker. Interestingly, her name is so average that it is surprising. Before Esther meets Norman, she is (what she believes to be) an ordinary looking girl with ordinary dreams – she is a “plain” looking girl (as confirmed by the fussing of make-up and hair artists when she is brought in for her screen test) who had worked years to get to be part of a mildly successful band. It takes a very unordinary person – the famous, volatile Norman Maine, to point out that despite her outward ordinariness, she has extraordinary talent inside.

Garland’s androgyny in the film is extremely pronounced. This is most notable in the characters that Esther plays on screen. In “Lost that Long Face,” she dresses in an asexual ragamuffin costume (her body is hidden underneath baggy clothes, her wig is a short and messy crop) gesturing in exaggeratedly unfeminine ways. In the “Born in a Trunk” medley, she sings passionately to the audience in a tuxedo. She even assumes the male role in the relationship, both professionally and emotionally. For example, when Norman proposes to her, she playfully, but pointedly, rejects him because he needs to “change his ways” – a distinctly masculine thing to say. Furthermore, the fact that she becomes the breadwinner for the family, a traditional male role, leads to the main conflict: her androgyny is almost too male-skewed, and this makes those around her – and to some extent, the audience – uncomfortable.

Finally, Esther Blodgett is camp. Dyer says, “It is the fact of being able to pass for straight that has given gays the characteristically camp awareness of surfaces, of the social constructedness of sex roles.” Esther’s on-screen persona, Vicki Lester, embodies this exact assembled sexual identity. As stated previously, Esther has essential “male” qualities about her, but all of this is covered up when she performs as the ultra-female image of Vicki Lester. Just as gay men are able to pass as heterosexual, Esther is able to pass as completely feminine. Camp is also self-referential, even self-deprecating. When play-acting “Someone At Last,” Esther almost mocks the hopelessly romantic feminine dance moves she displays, even stating, “You know, I get pretty girlish in this number.” Thus, true to camp, she unmasks the social construction of gender.

All of this, and additionally the fact that this story is about Esther’s struggle, and then comeback (an extremely important facet of Garland’s attractiveness for the gay community), make A Star is Born a film that reads into the “gay sensibility.”

Questions:

1) Garland’s daughter, Liza Minelli, has also become a figure that the gay community relates to. How is she the same/different from her mother? Is she a distinct

star on her own, or is she an extension of her mother’s stardom?

2) Which stars today hold similar positions in relation to the gay community? Do they encompass all three of Dyer’s key qualities, and if so, how are they the same/different from Garland?

3) How do “ordinariness, androgyny and camp” as Garland’s star qualities read in heterosexual culture? Or, does mainstream heterosexual culture relate to her star persona in a completely different way?