Reviewed by Evelyn Hartogh


The adoration and scholarship surrounding the idea of the ‘Diva’ led journal Camera Obscura to devote two issues on the subject.  In issue 65 Fabulous! Divas, Part 1.—their next diva collection will be in issue 67—the focus is on the way in which the diva is constructed by her difference (fabulousness in its older meaning of the unusual, almost magical sense of the word) and opposition (often outright defiance) to the mainstream culture (the herd).  From the cinematic stroppiness of Angela Lansbury and Judy Garland, to the challenges to heteronormativity of gender-bending Sylvester, and the challenges to racial stereotypes by Josephine Baker, the Fabulous! Divas issue collects a series of celebratory articles and reflections that champion the political impact behind the surface glamour.

Highlights of the issue include Jeanne Scheper’s keenly researched investigation of Josephine Baker’s negotiation of the civil rights movement via her public image.  Like so many artists before (and after) her, Baker found far greater harmony and prestige in Europe rather than in her birthplace of the United States.  Many of the contributors make mention of the uber-diva herself Marlene Dietrich and it is worth noting Dietrich’s early twentieth move to the United States to escape Hilter’s Nazi Germany mirrors Baker’s move to France to escape racism in the United States.  Certain similarities can be drawn between Dietrich and Baker’s absence from their homelands, especially since Baker’s absence from the United States was at the height of the (often violently opposed) civil rights movement.

Readers who are eagerly awaiting the 2008 Australian debut of the Tony award-winning musical Wicked will do doubt by fascinated by Stacy Wolf’s article on the show’s female cult-following and how this demographic has led to critics dismissing the show’s artistic importance.  The de-valuing of the female tastes, and the way in which the defiant diva celebrates a hyper-femininity, complete with ostentatious adornment and displays of emotional excess, form a recurrent theme in this issue.

The diva, in her many manifestations, from the space-age Grace Jones to the grunge icon Courtney Love, is constructed as an almost divine figure that represents and articulates the desires of her worshippers.  This mythological status of the diva is acknowledged in the journal’s introduction in which the Blessed Virgin Mary is situated as the pre-eminent diva of Western culture.

No examination of the fabulous beasts of diva-dom would be complete without an exploration of the cult-status of soap opera stars.  Joan Van Ark, star of Knots Landing and other soaps, is the focus of Nick Slavato’s article about how Van Ark both denies and re-enforces the stereotypical diva’s narcissism.  Van Ark’s online interviews and her reaction to her fan-base, along with her self-confessed desire to be seen as a ‘real’ actress rather than simply a soap star with model good looks, all act to create an image of a star whose many protestations of not being a diva have made her all the more so in the public’s eyes.  Van Ark even once parodied her “the diva doth protest too much” image in the episode One False Mole and You’re Dead of The Nanny when she guest starred as Marge Lange, an ageing soap star desperate for Broadway success.

A particularly enjoyable article, for myself and other hairstyle-obsessed people, is Julie Levin Russo’s study of the reactions and interferences regarding strong women’s haircuts.  Characters such as Starbuck (Katee Sackoff) from Battlestar Galactica and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) from Law and Order: SVU, have both attracted a lesbian following on the basis of their short hairstyles and independent female characters.  The link made between short hair and lesbianism was noted earlier by the producers of Star Trek: Voyager who attempted to make as feminine as possible the many hairstyles of Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), the first female captain to take a lead role in the science fiction franchise.

As many articles in this issue point out, the hair of the diva is of prime importance and acts to express her power and embody her glamorous beauty.  Or, as my talking Nanny doll says, “the bigger the hair, the smaller the hips look”.


Camera Obscura - Fabulous! Divas 1 
(October 2007)

Camera Obscura 65, Volume 22, Number 2
Duke University Press
ISBN: 978-0-8223-6678-2
180pp 20-B&W photos AUD$24 ($12 per single issue + $12 postage outside the US and Canada)