GENTLEWOMEN PREFER WOMEN: REFIGURING DOROTHY
AND HER FRIENDSHIP TO LORELEI
By
MARGOT R. REYNOLDS
A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
2005
Copyright 2005
by
Margot R. Reynolds
To my grandparents: Betty and Karl Stopper
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank the University of Florida and the Department of English for their support of
my work. In particular, I am thankful for assistance from Dr. Susan Hegeman, Dr. Kim
Emery, and Dr. David Leverenz. Their instruction, comments on writing, and
professionalism elevate my work.
I thank my mother, Donnetta Reynolds, and my grandmother, Loetta Kopita, for
their continued support of my education and growth. Their generosity in the material,
emotional, and spiritual realms sustained me during this process. Also, I would like to
thank my colleague Melissa Mellon for encouragement. Friends like Joanna Zwanger,
Allison Knight, Kim and Glenn Sloman, Jennifer Kryshka, Ian McCain, and those
unnamed contributed to my sanity and my thought process during this project.
I thank my partner and fiancé, Krystian Lagowski, who continually supported me
through my graduate work, in all its facets. His humor, good nature, and positivism were
essential checks to my sometimes serious nature—a silly joke goes a long way.
I thank all those women, and men, before me who insisted on women’s rights,
including the right to meaningful and productive higher education.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………………………………….iv
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………....…......vi
CHAPTER
1
CONSIDERING DOROTHY IN GENTLEMENT PREFER BLONDES (1925)
…..………………………………………………………………………................1
Introduction………………………………………………………………………..1
Introducing Dorothy and Gender Trouble: A Review of Literature….……...……4
2
A STUDY OF DOROTHY IN QUEER
TERMS…………………………………………………………………………..16
Dorothy’s Agency: Performativity or Performance?.............................................16
Looking Through The Lens of Performativity……………………………….…..22
Queering Dorothy: Establishing the ‘Brunette’ as the Outside of Normative
Gender…………………………………………………………...……………27
3
GENTLEWOMEN PREFER WOMEN: A STUDY OF A PRIMARY FEMALE
FRIENDSHIP……………………………………………………………………33
LIST OF REFERENCES…………………………………………...……………….. 51
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH………………………………………………...……….54
v
Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School
of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts
GENTLEWOMEN PREFER WOMEN: REFIGURING DOROTHY
AND HER FRIENDSHIP TO LORELEI
By
Margot R. Reynolds
December 2005
Chair: Susan Hegeman
Major Department: English
My article focuses on issues like gender and identity construction relevant to cultural
progress. In particular, I concentrate on Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) to
reveal the difficulties associated with gender through the lens of queer theory,
particularly in regard to friendship, work, and matrimony. I begin by evaluating the
central characters, Lorelei Lee and Dorothy, through contemporaneous and recent
criticism. Notable authors like Edith Wharton and William Faulkner’s felicitous reviews
encouraged my notation of the absence of criticism about Dorothy and her relationship to
Lorelei. Thus, I shifted the focus from the character of Lorelei, popularized by literary
critics and popular culture as the Blonde, to Dorothy in order to discuss her subject
position as queer and the women’s friendship in terms of its centrality to the performance
of gender. My argument for viewing Dorothy in queer ways invites her readers to
consider both the appearance and subtlety of gender, class, and normative behaviors.
These considerations afford her readers an opportunity to contemplate issues like status,
vi
identity, voice, family, motherhood, beauty, friendship, history, traditions and spirituality.
I elucidate on these issues through defining concepts like performativity and
performance—which situate gender and other identity markers like sexuality as socially
constructed and thus mutable rather than essential. Dorothy’s friendship to Lorelei, I
argue, showcases how the women prefer each other to men because their relationship
does not rely on essential definitions of gender and sexuality. Furthermore, Dorothy’s
agency is responsible for the stability of the relationship and, often, their mobility.
Ultimately, my paper aims to show how Dorothy and Lorelei’s relationship in Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes provides an important source of valuable reflection and insight about
gender, sexuality, and agency.
vii
CHAPTER 1
CONSIDERING DOROTHY IN GENTLMEN PREFER BLONDES (1925)
Introduction
Also among us was a blonde who was being imported to Hollywood to be Doug[las
Fairbanks’] leading lady in his forthcoming picture. Now this girl, although she
towered above me (I weighed about ninety pounds) and was of rather a hearty type,
was being waited on, catered to and cajoled by the entire male assemblage. If she
happened to drop the novel she was reading, several men jumped to retrieve it;
whereas I [a brunette] was allowed to lug heavy suitcases from their racks while
men sat about and failed to notice my efforts. Anita Loos, “The Biography of a
Book,” Introduction to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 1963 (xxxvii)
How many of them, do you think, will ever know that Dorothy has something?
William Faulkner, Letter to Loos, February 1926 (Blom 39)
Between 1912 and 1981, Anita Loos wrote screenplays, plays, novels, and shortstories; she has also produced stories. In particular, her works, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1925) and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1928) reveal her difficulties associated with
gender, particularly in regard to friendship, work and matrimony.1 Throughout these
works, and most especially in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she addresses these issues
through the figures of Dorothy and Lorelei—two flappers extraordinaire. Those few
critics who address these texts privilege Lorelei, her function as a flapper and as a Blonde
femme fatale, or study the text historically, as a document of the jazz age and of early
twentieth-century capitalism. Often these works are referenced from a biographical
perspective, considering Loos’ life experiences. Few scholars have considered these
1
“The Biography of a Book” (1998 ed., xxxix).
1
2
texts from a queer perspective influenced by the methods of feminist literary theory.2 My
work begins with a shift in focus from Lorelei to Dorothy in order to discuss her subject
position as queer and the women’s friendship in terms of its centrality in regard to the
performance of gender. This investigation rests on the provocation that these two texts
negotiate gender roles, social roles like class, and female sexuality. Utilizing Judith
Butler and Patrick Johnson’s arguments about queer theory and performativity, I will
show that Dorothy, and the relationship between her and Lorelei, uses a critical, and often
humorous framework through which to imagine altered identity roles associated with a
female subject position, including the aspect of sexuality. Further, I will argue that
through humorous quips, Dorothy’s attention to agency and her relationship with Lorelei
offer readers of these texts opportunities to consider American norms, particularly as it
relates to female friendship and sexuality.
Using ideas drawn from gender studies and performance studies, I contend that
Dorothy’s relationship to gender or her "preferences" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and
the subsequent text’s treatment of womanhood, matrimony, motherhood, and geography
offer a queer perspective that reworks patriarchal notions of the aforementioned concepts.
I designate Dorothy’s actions and perspectives as queer because she refuses rigid identity
and normative behaviors. Through her relationship with Lorelei, Dorothy offers a
flapper’s perspective on the experience of appropriating masculinity while at the same
time using this same experience to establish a relationship that resists norms. In other
words, these episodes, like sharing company, becoming educated, employing ribald
humor, and redesigning notions of romance underscore rigid norms—thus becoming
2
For a feminist critique of the famous film, loosely based upon the book, see Arbuthot and Gail Seneca,
introduction: xvii.
3
citations of gender performativity. 3 This theoretical device reconsiders notions of what
constitutes ‘acting up and out’4 for individuals. While a queer theory framework for rereading these texts may seem unfamiliar to readers, I argue that it comprises a powerful
site of potential world-making.
My paper emphasizes Dorothy’s adroitness in reworking gender and social
relations between individuals. When assessed this way, these texts and characters are a
significant resource for women, activists, and scholars interested in contemplation of
subversive cultural productions like literature. My argument for viewing Loos’ texts in
queer ways invites her readers to consider both the appearance and subtlety of gender,
class, and normative behaviors. These considerations afford her readers an opportunity to
contemplate issues like status, identity, voice, family, motherhood, beauty, friendship,
history, traditions and spirituality. Loos writes,
The world and its ways have changed a great deal since Lorelei Lee made her first
appearance on the scene. Recently during a television interview in London, the
question was put to me: ‘Miss Loos, your book was based on an economic
situation, the unparalleled prosperity of the Twenties. If you were to write such a
book today, what would be your theme?’ And without hesitation, I was forced to
answer ‘Gentlemen Prefer Gentlemen.’ (xlii)
The intention for Lorelei’s character, and by association, Dorothy, generates wide-spread
appeal because she is accessible as a stereotype, but their actions in the text belie
3
These considerations also expose how both women, and, in particular, Dorothy, recover from trauma
related to identity and normative changes through humor and social acuity. This argument offers an
opportunity for further discussion about Loos’ texts and how her treatment of modern gender roles extend
beyond her contemporary context. And, it correlates to 21st and 22nd century discussions about
psychological responses to trauma, which, in these texts, relates to the genre of journal writing.
4
This expression draws on the AIDS activist movement of the 1980’s, in particular the group ACT UP.
They advocate direct action and skillful utilization of emotions for designing visible responses to AIDS.
For more information, see their website at http://www.actupny.org/ . My use of this expression situates how
these characters use creative, visible action to forward change for each other. See Ann Cvetkovich, An
Archive of Feelings, 2003.
4
authorial intention to suggest queerness.5 Women characters like Dorothy and Lorelei are
valuable for their insight into the culture from which a symbol, the Blonde, and I would
add, the Brunette, were distorted for the sake of generalization and mass marketing. And
yet my reading of this text will illustrate the former point that these characters are not
quite what the appear. This is especially meaningful when we consider how the symbolic
situation of women and stereotypes can be used as literary weapons to undermine
patriarchal practices within literature even if the author had no such intention. Ultimately
my paper aims to show how Dorothy and Lorelei’s relationship in Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes provides an important source of valuable
reflection and insight about gender, sexuality and agency. In doing so, I wish to bring us
closer to understanding how this literary use of queer theory can be useful for reading
texts written by women with power.
Introducing Dorothy and Gender Trouble: A Review of Literature
The reason that there is no story to be told is that none of these stories are the past;
these stories are continuing to happen in simultaneous and overlapping ways as we
tell them. Judith Butler, Undoing Gender (4)
A consensus exists among literary critics and Anita Loos’ contemporaries that
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1928) promoted
the Blonde stereotype, through Lorelei Lee, the key protagonist. This stereotype was
popularized in mass media in formats like film, musicals and so forth. These critics
largely ignore Dorothy in favor of focusing on Lorelei. Critical attention about Loos’ two
books will be modified by a study of Dorothy and her relationship to Lorelei. Dorothy, in
5
In Loos’ introduction, “The Biography of a Book,” Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she takes on all critics
who desire to read the novel in ways that she dislikes. In other words, this text should be read only as fun in
order to poke fun at life, with the end result that everything and everyone is foolish. However, this sort of
authorial intention, although acknowledged by me, does not dissuade new readings outside her thoughts.
5
her own right, constitutes a queer woman because she traverses normative
characterizations of women to develop new identities for herself. Moreover, her character
facilitates an altered understanding of a modern flapper rich with intuition, wit, intimacy,
and nobility. In this examination, I focus on Dorothy’s representation in Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes (1925) and on how her representation in Lorelei’s diary reveals tensions
in the construction of gender –particularly those tensions involving social class, gender
identity, and sexuality. Loos represents Dorothy through her interactions with Lorelei
and various men, as well as her interactions within varying socio-economic social groups.
Thus this perspective on Dorothy (which notably seems to be embedded within the text
via Lorelei's diary) functions to augment the supremacy of Blondes and all that they stand
for. Dorothy’s role as Lorelei’s friend highlights the ways she perceives, with startling
acuity, geographical differences, class, world politics, gender, and humor. Such a position
contrasts with Lorelei and secondary characters in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, who often
perceive the world one-dimensionally. Her knowledge and abilities suggest we evaluate
her relationship with Lorelei because of their co-dependency. This relationship implies
that both women prefer one another to men. Ultimately, their respective differences,
when merged in a union of women, offers relief from codified gender roles and offers
readers the last laugh, on men.
Loos’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes
(1928) found great champions among contemporary writers, readers and critics. Loos’
novels found favor with Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, and Aldous Huxley.
6
Literary critic T. E. Blom’s “Anita Loos and Sexual Economics: ‘Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes,’” summarizes Edith Wharton’s interest in the text:
In January, 1926, Edith Wharton writes Frank Crowinshield that she was “just
reading the Great American Novel ( at last!) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, & I want
to know if there are – or will be – others, & if you knew the funny woman, who
must be genius -.” Crowninshield did indeed know Anita Loos, he sent Wharton’s
postcard to her, and when Loos suggested to Wharton that she had overpraised the
book, Wharton responded: “I meant every word I wrote about Blondes.” (39)
What precisely makes this text the “great American novel?” Susan Hegeman notes that
“R. W. B. Lewis suggests [in his biography about Wharton] that Wharton’s enthusiasm
for “‘this popular gem’ rested on her perception that it represented something of an
homage to her own work” (525). Regardless of the veracity of this suggestion,Wharton
was apparently required to insist that she was not being sarcastic. This ambiguity finds
potential clarity if we look to other contemporaries. In “Anita Loos, Liminality, and the
Literary Field, circa 1925,” Mark A. Eaton notes,
across the Atlantic, James Joyce told his publisher he wasn't making any progress
on his book because he had been “reclining on a sofa and reading Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes for three whole days” (Matthews 208). When George Santayana was
asked “what was the best book of philosophy written by an American,” he
reportedly answered, ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.’ (“Anita Loos, Liminality, and
the Literary Field, circa 1925”)
Santayana’s statement finds itself in the same radical company as Wharton’s. Most
literary critics agree that the genius of the novel was her indelible insight and character
development paired with frank, biting wit--a stamp of genius. Interestingly, the emphasis
on humor, throughout the critical canon about Blondes, rarely considers Dorothy, who
offers great one-liners, amusing assessments of class and men, and banters about women
friends. Certainly, Lorelei’s antics offer much mental fodder for chortling over a Blonde.
But Dorothy provides complexity with her humorous yet acerbic words to readers.
Clearly, the complexity of these women and the novel stimulated canonical writers like
7
Joyce, Santayana, Huxley, Faulkner and Wharton to take care and time reading. What has
prevented twenty-first century literary critics from reading Dorothy? Especially when we
consider the absence of critical reflection on Dorothy, and her relationship to, and with,
Lorelei?
The character of Dorothy does not appear frequently in the contemporary reception
of Blondes—with the notable exception of William Faulkner’s private comments to Loos.
In a letter from Faulkner to Loos dated February 1926, Faulkner wrote,6
I have just read the Blonde book. . . .Please accept my envious congratulations on
Dorothy—the way you did her through the (intelligence?) of that elegant moron of
a cornflower. Only you have played a rotten trick on your admiring public. How
many of them, do you think, will ever know that Dorothy has something, that the
dancing man, le gigolo, was really somebody? My God, it’s charming—best hoax
since Witter Binner’s Spectral School in verse—most of them will be completely
unmoved—even in your rather clumsy gags won’t get them—and the others will
only find it slight and humorous. The [Sherwood] Andersons even mentioned Ring
Lardner in talking to me about it. But perhaps that was what you were after, and
you have builded better than you knew: I am still rather Victorian in my prejudices
regarding the intelligence of women, despite Elinor Wylie and Willa Cather and all
the balance of them. But I wish I had thought of Dorothy first. (Blom 39)
There are a number of interesting points to explore here. First, who is the mysterious
“dancing man, le gigolo” that Faulkner identifies as “somebody?” It is Gerald, Dorothy’s
English love interest, who appears to be an ordinary ballroom dancer, but who, a careful
reader will notice, is also an aristocrat who sends Dorothy notes on crested stationery
(41). Faulkner’s inquiry about whether or not the public will ascertain the importance of
this figure central to Dorothy’s character is as significant to Blondes as Lorelei herself. It
is here that we have stark insight into both a central ideal of the text and an illuminating
invitation to examine the passage he cites. The figure of Dorothy represents a woman
6
Blom notates: “The original of Faulkner’s letter (dated: Something Febry [sic] 1926) is in Miss Loos’
possession” (47).
8
who is capable not only of great love, but of love both to a poor nobleman and to a
woman. The possibility of such genuine relationships ought to move Loos’ “admiring
public,” but it does not, we might consider, because of Dorothy’s intelligence and
because she chose her friend instead of Gerry—a radical choice. Moreover, because
Dorothy was “done through” Lorelei’s perspective, the contrast between the two women
showcases Faulkner’s criticism of Dorothy’s choice: she is smart enough to know a great
catch when she finds it, yet stupid to walk away. This reading grounds his sexist
assessment of women writers as a whole. Willa and Cather are the exceptions that prove
his rule. This attitude might be predicated on a female author’s situation of a female
character who chooses not love, family, or money--but a female friend. This choice
compared to other literature of the time is a sharp and refreshing departure from literature
about women written from a masculine point of view. His envy illustrates his prejudice
against women’s intelligence, and certainly his inability to comprehend that woman
writers like Wylie, Cather, and especially Loos, might best him.
Significantly, Faulkner’s admitted jealousy is directed towards Loos’ creation of
Dorothy not Lorelei. Faulkner insinuates that, duped by the hoax of “that elegant moron
of a cornflower,” most readers will not notice the significance of Gerry, and barely
comprehend how Dorothy “was done through” Lorelei. Loos, infamous for her authorial
intention, notes: “For I wanted Lorelei to be a symbol of the lowest possible mentality of
our nation. . .,” with a twist of humor (Blondes xxxix). Clearly, if Lorelei is an example
of low mentality, then Dorothy might be considered as a symbol of higher mentality
because she understands social complexities like class status. This contrast is further
substantiated if we take note of Faulkner’s word choices. Faulkner’s use of cornflower
9
references the typology of a Blonde, a seemingly elegant female, who concordantly
possesses blue eyes and moronic personality traits. The flower possesses healing powers
for the eyes and conditions related to well-being, it has history in Greek mythology, its
shape and uses are feminine. A more cynical assessment might suggest that the individual
is corny, a cornball, etc. or a common flower found by the side of the road. Combined,
this seemingly insignificant word choice suggests that Lorelei, although a “moron,” has
qualities essential to turning readers’ view toward the figure of Dorothy, their mutual and
exclusive performances, and their relationship. But, this passage also draws our attention
to how Faulkner situates his envy.
Foremost, Faulkner begins his note to Loos by asking her to accept his “envious
congratulations.” His form belies his well-wishes because from the outset he contradicts
the feeling of joy or well being for another motivated through the term congratulation by
the negative connotation of envy, and he puts himself first—the exact opposite sentiment
he put forth. Similarly, in the following sentences he proceeds to take every opportunity
through turns of phrase and word choices to minimize Loos’ achievement. His rhetoric
sets the reader up for confusion because he first compliments her and the character of
Dorothy, taking care with his words with nuances of humor, as noted by his use of
“(intelligence?).” He proceeds to offer the provocation of Dorothy’s love interest, Gerald
and his significance, but he does not elaborate on this “somebody.” Instead, he
condescendingly remarks, “My God, it’s charming,” situating her readers as
“unmovable,” perhaps in contrast to his own fortunes in finding an audience for his
novels. Further, he describes her ribald humor and delirious scenes as “clumsy gags” that
might only be found by her audience to be “slight and humorous” instead, as he suggests,
10
as points where an audience might be moved. His sexist remarks continue through a
back-handed compliment that privileges male authors like Sherwood Anderson and his
comparison of her to Ring Lardner, a noted humorous writer. As a reprieve to this assault,
he acknowledges that “perhaps that is what you were after,” but then begins again, as
only a dignified novelist like himself could pronounce: “you have builded [sic] better
than you knew.” On the one hand, this comment (or insult depending on one’s
perspective) clarifies that his “Victorian” position can only situate women writers as
unintelligent about gender, sex and class. On the other hand, he does offer readers of this
text a way to consider how Dorothy’s significance might have been lost on Loos. This
point is corroborated by Loos’s “Biography of a Book,” which appears before the novel.
In it, Loos does not suffer from modesty regarding its creation and the life it took on,
especially the life that Lorelei was given. She writes, “[. . .] I feel that Lorelei’s
accomplishments reached a peak when she became one of the few contemporary authors
to be represented in the Oxford Book of Quotations” (Blondes xlii). Glaringly, in this
detailed preface Loos offers her readers about the text and characters, Dorothy is not
acknowledged or named.
Readers and critics alike pass by Dorothy without a "fare thee well," so it is perhaps
not surprising that Loos herself also did not acknowledge her. But, it is unusual that
William Faulkner cared about this figure so vehemently. Not surprisingly, the detail he
picks up on is Dorothy’s love interest, Gerald. This references follows the theme of the
letter—men are more important, like Gerald, the “Sherwood Andersons,” Ring Lardner,
and Faulkner himself, whereas women, like Loos, Dorothy, Lorelei, Wylie, Cather, and
“all the balance of them” (presumably all successful women authors who outsold or
11
outdid Faulkner) are unintelligent and unimportant, or so the implication goes. His
interest in Gerald, and for what it reveals about Dorothy, is decidedly a title to be envious
of, nobility, but also might be construed as a model behavioral impulse. (As an aside, we
might contemplate his envy over the fact that his first novel did not receive such
attention.)
Despite these intriguing musings by Loos’ renowned contemporaries, poor Dorothy
is left behind in contemporary literary criticism post-1976. Hegeman’s “Taking Blondes
Seriously” reproves the dismissal by critics and readers alike of Blondes, but does not
offer any specific critical analysis of Dorothy as a character. 7 Rather, she offers a
comparative analysis that sheds more light Blondes’ absence in criticism by arguing that
the novel “less criticizes changes in the 20’s regarding the relationship between women,
work and sex than revises it in a celebratory, comedic form” (526). In a summary
comment, Hegeman cautions against reading the novel as satire or tragedy because often
such an interpretation rests “on the values and mores of the milieu it represents” (526).
This instruction, however, does not take into account a reading that positions Dorothy in
the foreground, which, albeit must consider a modern milieu, but not necessarily rely on
it for new interpretation of her character or new ways to read the text. Instead, as I will
argue, it is constructive to rely on the figure of Dorothy and subsequent characterizations
of her alongside the milieu to consider Blondes seriously.
Katharina von Ankum in “Material Girls: Consumer Culture and the ‘New Woman’
in Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Irmgard Keun’s Das künstseidene
Mädchen,” offers a comparative analysis between these texts' similar central characters.
7
See Hegeman: 529-530.
12
Like many critics, von Ankum’s focus on Lorelei as a Blonde type supersedes any
analysis of Dorothy, or her relationship to Lorelei. In her discussion about typology,
Ankum utilizes a feminist methodology in her argument. She writes that Germans
enjoyed Loos’ characters not only because of their “uninhibited consumption” but also
for the “tacit accumulation of [their] business savvy within a patriarchal system that
refused women the same career opportunities as men” (161). This former point facilitates
a new understanding of a schism in women’s access to an increasingly difficult economy.
For example, Dorothy’s savvy in acquiring a job at the Follies was begat by her boldness
in seeking out Ziegfield (Brunettes 190-191). Similarly, because of blocked access to the
economy, Dorothy’s mobility in Blondes both substantiates her business savvy and
reveals her autonomy, a character strength when viewed alongside Lorelei, who needs a
man for access. For example, Lorelei is content to be a wallflower admiring the literary
modern greats whereas Dorothy eases into the situation with humor (Brunettes 138).
However, Ankum does not situate Dorothy either as savvy or autonomous, despite the
rather neat correlation to her comparative study of Keun’s character, Doris. Similar to
Dorothy, Keun’s character offers readers a way to consider German modernism, gender,
and its effects on women. Although she compares Doris to Dorothy, she does not offer
Dorothy an alternative to popular criticism of Dorothy’s character. For Ankum, Dorothy
is simply cast as Lorelei’s “sidekick,” her “alter-ego—a warm-hearted, naïve and honest
brunette who is unable to attract a good match” (169). This description of Dorothy shortchanges the depth of her character, and halts a discussion of how she, like Doris, reveals
gender role negotiation. And, although Ankum disavows the agency Lorelei gives
Dorothy in her diary, she does offer readers a way to re-consider Dorothy—as a woman
13
who defies norms. Ankum’s dismissal of Dorothy takes up where early critics of Blondes
left off—leaving a character missing and misunderstood.
Similarly, T. E. Blom’s “Anita Loos and Sexual Economics: “Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes” favors an analysis of Blonde typology. This argument casts Loos’ texts as satire
that “plays off the fads and follies it ridicules” and as prophetic because her readers
“could not or would not see the point” and yet “mined the book” for creating the fanciful
illusion of a Blonde (39-40). Concordantly, Blom argues that Lorelei is the product of
this illusion. Despite the emphasis on satire, Dorothy receives very little credit for
coining the humor directed at fads and follies.
As stated previously, Hegeman’s “Taking Blondes Seriously” discusses Dorothy in
context of her similarity to Loos and her function as “Lorelei’s flapper sidekick” (529).
She writes that “Dorothy functions primarily as a counterpoint to Lorelei’s comic
reversals of convention: she is a critic, a truth teller, and the voice of liberated,
unhypocritical moral authority. She embodies the authorial presence even to the extent [. .
.] to have lunch with none other than Mencken” (529). In her analysis of the similarities
between Loos and Dorothy, Hegeman notes from Loos’ preface of Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes that Loos was friends with Mencken, but their friendship did not go further
because of his tastes for Blondes (529). This point gives critics and readers more reason
to consider Dorothy's character instead of allowing her to remain missing in action, or
simply as Lorelei’s sidekick. In fact, recent scholarship that suggests questions of
identity, draws this analysis closer to considering how Dorothy’s complex character
augments the representation of her simply as a sidekick.
14
Regina Barreca’s introduction to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1998) categorizes
Lorelei and Dorothy as creatures, seemingly the same, who, unable to join society, beat
society because they are “gold-digging flappers” who “commandeer power while
seeming to wield none” (viii). Principally, the powers these women wield take the form
of social mobility and humorous interludes. Barreca suggests that “they create a carnival
wherever the go. They create moral havoc; they produce a whirlwind of intense
experiences which leaves the lives of others deeply changed even as their own lives
remained untouched. They are powerful. . .They have nothing to lose” (xv). This
argument hits the mark because both characters impart “intense experiences” on those
they encounter, particularly as they navigate through upper class social groups. However,
Barreca conflates both women when she writes “they have nothing to lose” because
Dorothy loses—her tumultuous romances falter because of her commitment to Lorelei.
Although we only have Lorelei’s recollections of Dorothy’s life, it appears that whenever
Dorothy finds love worthwhile, Lorelei snatches her back to forward her career of
“marrying up and tallying up”(ix). Dorothy’s loss causes her to shrewdly snigger at life’s
twists and turns. Barreca, like Blom before her, situates Dorothy as a character who
possesses “the force of tough-cookie righteousness,” and "one imagines, more often than
not the mouthpiece of Loos’s own wisecracks” (xiv). On the one hand, her analysis of
Dorothy captures part of Dorothy’s appeal; on the other hand, she situates authorial
intention when there may be little or no direct correlation to whatever identity Loos
claimed in her private life. 8 Thus, unlike Blom or Ankum, Barreca offers extensive
8
When Hegeman analyzes the similarities between Dorothy and Loos, she argues that the connection
between the two agents is “confirmed” because of the remarkable similarities. See her analysis: 529-530.
15
character analysis of the ways that Dorothy at times foils both her own and Lorelei’s
exploits. Conversely, like Ankum, Barreca’s conflation of these women characters verge
on the creating a single character rather than distinguishing the differences between the
two and how their actions affect their respective representation in the text as well as their
friendship.
CHAPTER 2
A STUDY OF DOROTHY IN QUEER TERMS
Dorothy’s Agency: Performativity or Performance?
They know, too, that performance is not magic: there are ‘pitfalls’ to performance
that may result in tragic misreadings by colonizing the Other, exoticizing or
fetishizing the Other, trivializing the Other, and by not engaging in the Other at all.
Like any critical methodology, performance is vulnerable to being blinded by its
own terms and methods. E. Patrick Johnson, Appropriating Blackness (243)
Barreca and Ankum’s analysis distinguish Dorothy and Lorelei as representations
of modernism— chiefly as flappers who take risks sexually, economically and socially. I
will argue that Dorothy represents some of the gender tensions during the early 20th
century involving identity construction and sexuality. These tensions include the impulse
toward autonomy yet the need for filial-like associations; the desire for carefree sexual
experiences yet the need to maintain the appearance of gender and social decorum; the
desire for material gifts yet seeking a measure of financial independence from the
benefactor. Through a discussion of Judith Butler’s notions of performance and
performativity, I will investigate these gender tensions. Thus rather than solely casting
Dorothy as a character who satirizes “fads and follies” (Blom), I consider how Dorothy’s
humor distinguishes her from Lorelei, who mostly does not get the joke (526).
Additionally, I will investigate the uses of this humor as citations of gender and identity
through the lens of Derridean deconstruction. Barreca says that Blondes was “one of
those books that sold itself through word of mouth, and the word was good along every
avenue of American life” (xi). Part of the reason the word was so good was that the
16
17
audience might have related to the tensions both characters represent--the Twenties boom
economy, and frank allusions of sex, particularly women’s sexual choices. Especially
Dorothy--the way that she seemed like a girl next door because she wore the appearance
of a fine character, and yet she could socialize with the rabble. Thus through Lorelei’s
narrative, “Dorothy has created a little pocket of anarchy and gleefully intends to enjoy
it” (Barreca xiv). Her glee suggests to critics and readers alike to take Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes somewhat seriously. Instead of casting her characters as tragic, Loos concludes
“[b]ut I, with my infantile cruelty, have never been able to view even the most impressive
human behavior as anything but foolish” (xxxix). Consequently, one can situate Dorothy
as a woman tension-laden with negotiating gender and identity so long as one does so
with a slightly cynical understanding of women and the world, based on Loos’ cruel
humor.
Judith Butler’s works on gender in Bodies That Matter and Undoing Gender, as
well as E. Patrick Johnson’s work on performance in Appropriating Blackness, shed light
on how we might understand Dorothy’s character as a site where gender is put into
question through her relationship with Lorelei. We may also understand how the use of
humor might be related to gender performativity. To begin, I will discuss why a queer
perspective aids in a discussion of this text. Principally, queer theory extends the work of
feminist and gay and lesbian studies; which is to say that it sees gender, sexuality and
identity as social constructions. This lens also calls for intervention on behalf of
individuals who fall outside of normative identities and sexualities to change or end what
18
can be construed as violence or impediments to human rights against said individuals. 9
Moreover, this lens’ analysis extends to many behaviors, for example, gender-bending,
and to non-normative sexualities. Furthermore, all forms of identity are socially
constructed, and thus are mutable because they often operate on binaries.10 Consequently,
no gender, identity, or sexuality is truly “right” or “normal,” if we consider that for every
valuation there must be an allocation for what is outside of those terms11. The outside of
gender norms is precisely where notions of performativity and performance take shape to
“undo” gender.
For Judith Butler, performativity and performance are specific. Butler argues that
gender is the everyday experience that an individual feels and thinks as she moves
through the world. It is socialized, sustained, compulsory, and unconscious. In Bodies
That Matter, she approaches gender performativity through the question of the materiality
of the body (Introduction). Through language, we perform ideas of masculinity and
femininity through the interior of our materiality, our physical body. Butler suggests that
prior to language we exist in a concrete field—the body, and once we learn language, the
individual cannot act outside of gender performativity; rather the subject is constituted by
her body and language. In contrast, performance, she argues, is voluntarist, specific,
theatrical, spectacular, parasitic, and sometimes visual.
9
I will define violence as any regulatory act that infringes or impedes an individual’s human rights. See
Butler’s chapter “Gender Regulations” in Undoing Gender. Butler offers numerous examples in the text
about what is constitute of violence.
10
See Gayle Rubin’s “Thinking Sex.”
11
See Butler’s Bodies That Matter, introduction; see also, Undoing p. 3.
19
She writes that gender performance differs from performativity:
If gender is a kind of doing, an incessant activity performed, in part, without one’s
knowing and without one’s willing, it is not for that reason automatic or
mechanical. On the contrary, it is a practice of improvisation within a scene of
constraint. Moreover, one does not ‘do’ one’s gender alone. One is always doing
with or for another, even if the other is only imaginary. What I call my ‘own’
gender appears at times as something that I author or, indeed, own. But the terms
that make up one’s gender, are, from the start, outside of oneself in a sociality that
has no single author (and that radically contests the notion of authorship itself).
(Undoing 1)
The “improvisation of gender within a scene of constraint” is key in arguing for a queer
perspective in this literary analysis of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes because both Dorothy
and Lorelei are constrained by a conflicting notion of feminine gender and behavior—
whether to be autonomous or subservient. This classic dichotomy, on the one hand,
allows them to run amok with men’s money in a pseudo-autonomous state to Europe,
throw lavish parties and purchase expensive items; on the other hand, their attachment to
a man like Mr. Eisman and his button fortune conflicts with their improvisation of gender
during their adventures. Consequently, their constraint enables them to act because they
choose neither autonomy nor servitude, rather they travel a third choice—on a continuum
of femininity whose poles possess mutable agency. Thus the setting of Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes is cosmopolitan, distinctly modern, while the conventions that often govern the
characters are Victorian norms. As I noted earlier, the gender tension of filial association
becomes complicated when both women are without family, improvise in a patriarchal
world by participating in relationships with men, and yet ultimately prefer one another’s
company. As I will demonstrate later, both characters improvise for one another.
Furthermore, the outside of gender constitutes a way to view how Dorothy negotiates the
imposition of gender on her psyche. Thus Dorothy doing gender takes on aspects of
20
performance. To offer more discussion of performance, I turn to E. Patrick Johnson’s
work on utilizing performance in Appropriating Blackness.
Johnson argues for similar notions of performance and performativity. He asserts
that performance is a way to trouble gender, race, class, and performativity--the process
by which we invest bodies with social meaning (9). He writes that “[w]hat frames
performance as performance, then, has much to do with context as it does with the
aesthetics of the event itself. In each context the “rules,” conventions, and expectations of
the text, setting, performer, and audience vary, and in each context they contribute to our
understanding of performance events” (11). In this light, the audience of the performance
plays a crucial role in the success of the performance because of contexts outside of the
originary event. Moreover, performance, in Johnson’s view, works with Butler’s notion
that no author owns gender; rather, different subjects project onto it to complete its
socially acceptable trajectory for whoever uses it to their end. Both Lorelei and Dorothy
have similar expectations of the setting (major cities in the U.S. and abroad), performers
(themselves, friends, male interests, etc.) and the women’s respective narratives (the
ways that they improvise gender and identity). However, the difference between Lorelei
and Dorothy illustrates how Lorelei’s diary chronicles her performativity. In contrast, the
diary becomes Dorothy’s stage, through which her agency juxtaposes their identity
differences. For example, Lorelei makes behavioral choices depending on which man
gives her outrageous material goods; in contrast, Dorothy sees whoever she chooses,
disregarding cultural discretion. Agency thus becomes one way to approach Dorothy’s
performance in her relationship with Lorelei, which is embedded in performativity and
the use of humor, a product of Dorothy’s performances.
21
In Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill, agency is defined as “an individual or social
group's will to be self-defining and self-determining.” Often this term is a catch-all word
for self-determination because it showcases how an individual, through some resistance
or regulation, works through or overcomes obstacles set in her path. I will add that in the
context of performance it is more than simply a "will;" it is also an "ability." One can
have a will to be self-determining, but the actual ability to avail oneself of that will is
quite another thing. The women’s relationship sets up a neat juxtaposition of performance
and performativity through agency. I will argue that in their primary relationship, Lorelei
acts through performativity with an agency defined by materialism. In contrast,
Dorothy’s performance of behaviors is defined by her agency—an agency that is
performance-based insofar that she alters her behaviors according to context, and,
sometimes to the (dis)advantage of her heart and psyche. Through her will to define her
gender and sexuality she transgresses socially imposed identities of the time period. Thus
the direction of this agency is toward the self, her relationship with Lorelei and her
encounters with other characters, especially men. However, I will note that questions of
intentionality arise in regard to Dorothy’s agency. Butler writes that performance does
not allow for pure agency: “[t]he particular sociality that belongs to bodily life, to sexual
life, and to becoming gendered (which is always, to a certain extent, becoming gendered
for others) establishes a field of ethical enmeshment with others and a sense of
disorientation for the first-person, that is, the perspective of the ego” (Undoing 25). First,
the idea of sociality tied up in bodily life is not foregrounded in Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes, bodies do not matter in this text. 12 Second, the book seemingly perpetuates
12
Throughout this text, bodies are dismembered from their sociality for many reasons. For example,
although both women have regular sexual encounters with many men, the sex act or the effect on the
22
compulsory heterosexuality. Although a heterosexual imperative exists, it does not
account for the meaningful intimacy among the central characters nor does it account for
scenes like Lorelei’s birthday party. This certainly is the case for Dorothy because of her
flirtation with men and heart-wrenching attachments to penniless ones are trumped by her
commitment to Lorelei. Finally, Dorothy, I will argue, becomes entangled with Lorelei’s
performativity and, indeed, risks losing her ego or self or ability of agency to maintain
her friendship with Lorelei.
Looking Through The Lens of Performativity
In the first instance, performativity must be understood not as a singular act or
deliberate ‘act,’ but, rather, as the reiterative and citational practice by which
discourse produces the effects of what it names. Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter
(2)
Lorelei’s representation of Dorothy as a conflicted woman displays tensions of
performativity between her and Dorothy. An example of the primacy of their relationship
can be seen when Dorothy, attending to compulsory gender nuances like the category of
“girl friends,” sticks up for Lorelei. In this way, Dorothy “becom[es] gendered for others”
—in this case, for Lorelei, to cater to her friend’s needs (Butler Undoing 25). These
choices signal a clear preference for Lorelei, which contrasts the performances she
creates for men or money. Dorothy’s conflicted position as a flapper and as a sensible
individual in the world speaks to the characteristics and themes of modern gender.
Through the dichotomy of Dorothy’s performances, we can assess tensions from
industrialization like the desire to consume objects that represent class mobility and
character remains elusive. This absence is a likely a result of social mores regarding print and the body—
describing sexual acts in a popular culture text during the 1920’s mostly did not occur. Also, this is an
important site of humor: the sophisticated reader in essence fills in the blanks.
23
pursue objects of wealth on the one hand, and the Victorian norms of personal modesty
and decorum on the other.
Let us consider, for example, the scene of confrontation between Lorelei, the
mistress; Dorothy, the girlfriend extraordinaire/ performer; Lady Beekman, the guardian
of Victorian mores and spurned wife; and Sir Beekman, the offstage fool (for, between
the affair, the declining fortunes of his family and his symbolic situation as a man of title,
he is the biggest loser). Initially, Dorothy participates in performativity by rallying her
one-woman troop with a comparison of Lady Beekman to a rather ugly man, Bill Hart,
and the comparison extends even to his horse (Blondes 57). Situated as a jackass, the
Lady is stripped of her humanity and certainly her complicity with performative
Victorian culture—which includes the institution of marriage. Marriage is eschewed by
both women in favor of having fun. Despite the duplicity of Lorelei’s behavior, Dorothy
defends her consumption while also raising the issue of morality with sex and money.
Tacitly, she also defends Lorelei’s duping of Sir Francis, whom Lorelei extorts for
orchids and a diamond tiara. This tiara is the upshot of Sir Beekman’s betrayal.
Ultimately, Dorothy steps away from her gesture of performativity for Lorelei’s defense
in favor of self-definition and distinction. The scene fades with Dorothy appearing to
defend Lorelei’s reputation: “Lady you could no more ruin my girl friends reputation
than you could sink the Jewish fleet” (Blondes 58). However, the comment to Lady
Beekman reveals that Dorothy is calling Lorelei a slut; it also shows Dorothy stripping
power away from Lady Beekman by crushing her compliance with Victorian culture, and,
finally, completing the task by eradicating each ounce of integrity either Beekman
possessed through systematic erasure of their culture and beliefs (Blondes 58). Although
24
Lorelei speaks for both women, it is clear that Dorothy’s performance seizes the concept
of refinement by cultivating her agency in order to polish or improve her situation
(Blondes 59).
Similarly, the tensions of performativity specific to gender and sexuality roles in
this period locate a theme of rejection of social mores because Dorothy seems not care
that her friend disavows prudence or respect for marriage—flappers want nothing to do
with Victorian family values. Yet she invokes Victorian morality when she speaks about
ruination (i.e. Lorelei’s obvious lack of virtue and virginity) and then dismisses it in favor
of new social roles of flappers (i.e. freedom to choose sexual partners without the onus of
matrimony). This negotiation speaks to her dancing the line between performativity and
performance, and, to use Johnson’s approximation, not foreclosing the opportunities
presented by this dance (Johnson 220-221). Ironically, in Lorelei’s pursuit of money and
power, her tacit pursuit of upward social mobility is at odds with Dorothy’s playful
manipulation of Victorian mores. Finally, Dorothy’s use of an anarchic flapper identity
suggests a revolutionary impulse to question and improvise on a complacent feminine
identity—a notably queer move. This impulse causes alienation between flapper women
like Dorothy and Victorian women like Lady Beekman—a schism mired in differences.
In these ways, the character of Dorothy offers readers ways to gain perspective on the
tensions of gender performance.
Literary modernism draws its characteristics from the cultural forces of the period.
To name a few snapshots from the “social picture of the period,” Michael O’Conner
suggests that the “rise of cities; dehumanization, anonymity of people, class structure
chang[es]; advancing technology; politics: revolutions, wars [:] 1905,1907, 1917;
25
physics, quantum physics, Einstein; the uncertainty principle; [and] religion, God is dead,
everything meaningless” all contribute to literary modernism. The features that resonate
with Blondes are dehumanization, anonymity of people, class structure changes, rejection
of traditional religion and the uncertainty principle. These factors contributed to a shift of
cultural forces from Victorian sensibility to what we have come to think of as the Modern
sensibility. John Lye’s “Some Cultural Forces Driving Literary Modernism,” suggests
one shift especially relevant to my insistence on queering Blondes, namely “a sense that .
. . culture has lost its bearings, that there is no center, no cogency, that there is a collapse
of values or a bankruptcy . . . of values.” The possibility of queer theory seizes a similar
position insofar that one is less interested in a fixed identity, sexuality, etc., and more
interested in traversing these aspects to suit or represent one’s context. Similarly, he notes
“a shift in paradigms from the closed, finite, measurable, cause-and-effect universe of
19th century science to an open, relativistic, changing, strange universe.” Dorothy moves
away from the structured nature of patriarchal performativity and toward a position that
revels in possibility and change through performance.
This shift can be seen in the aforementioned scene with Lady Beekman and
Dorothy—their differences makes them deplorable to one another. Lye argues,
this loss of faith in a moral center and moral direction is based both in the general
loss of a sense of sure ontological ground, and in an equally important recognition
that the traditional values have, after all, led to [. . .] industrial squalor, the
breakdown of traditional rural society, exploitation of other cultures and races, and
a society built on power and greed.
In this example, Lady Beekman represents regulatory Victorian beliefs about gender,
morals and money. Conversely, Dorothy and Lorelei represent queerly gendered women
who, on different levels, succeed in distancing themselves from regulation. Thus through
their relationship they take advantage of the shifts modernity produces. For example,
26
when they eschew morals in favor of new definitions of individuality they rework the
valuation of women. In these norm shifts about gender roles, Dorothy’s negotiation of
flapperdom suggests that Lorelei’s representation draws on these shifting cultural
changes. Certainly, Lorelei’s malleability in deference to educated men who desire to
possess her rubs off. For example, Lorelei offers the American Mr. Bartlett’s classified
information about military airplanes to Major Falcon, an Englishman (Blondes 32-33). In
this way, if Lorelei is smart enough to trade intelligence for her own needs (illustrating a
move from the social to the individual, signaling her agency), then she is smart enough to
narrate how Dorothy also changes herself. She in turn begins to desire power, capital,
and, certainly not least, Dorothy. For example, during a series of diary entries: April 11th
to April 15th Lorelei illustrates these desires by relating that the ship they sale on is like
the Ritz and Dorothy’s lack of intelligence about taking advantage of the ‘right’ men
(Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 19). After having run into the man who could damage the
result of her murder trial, she gets drunk and again focuses her attention toward Dorothy,
who does not follow Lorelei’s dramatic departure and instead sits with a fellow—Major
Falcon who she notes “spends quite a lot of money” (22). Again, she turns incessant
attention toward Dorothy, who is “wasting quite a lot of time” with a lowly tennis
champion (28), and she grudgingly acknowledges that Dorothy spent the night with Mr.
Tennis, to her disapproval (32). The repetition of noting how Dorothy preoccupies herself
with the wrong sort of men suggests many things: a need to control Dorothy’s actions,
her clear preference to have Dorothy by her side, and a critical view of how poorly
Dorothy uses men. All the while, Dorothy remains the bedrock of the women’s
relationship, despite the nit-picking associated with loving one another. Consequently,
27
both women constitute a new type of individual born of cultural shifts in modernism, but
Dorothy in particular signals how modern gender becomes wrapped up in her
performance of gender to maintain her primary relationship with Lorelei.
Queering Dorothy: Establishing the ‘Brunette’ as the Outside of Normative Gender
In this sense, then, the subject is constituted through the force of exclusion and
abjection, one which produces a constitutive outside to the subject, an abjected
outside, which is, after all, “inside” the subject as its own founding repudiation.
Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter (3)
Utilizing skills gleaned from feminist gender analysis, I will argue that Dorothy is
an individual whose behaviors, sexuality, and roles cannot be tied down to “woman.”
Through the methods of gender analysis, we can come to a queer understanding of gender
and similar positions like class:
gender can be identified and analyzed at all levels: at the individual/personal level
(identifications, subject positions), and in the socially constructed and maintained
discourses ‘texts,’ ideologies and social institutions. Likewise, of course, in
between these levels: how subject positions are negotiated within the prevailing
gender systems, and how gender discourses produce individual gender positions.
(Jarviluoma and Moisala x)
On the individual level, Dorothy’s subject position is contradictory: on the one hand she
identifies as a flapper and on the other hand she identifies with Victorian morality. In
socially constructed institutions, she exhibits debonair flapper style. For example, Major
Falcon, Lorelei’s love interest from the boat to England, offers to introduce the women to
society at an unnamed Lady’s dance—a decidedly masculine, powerful and gendered
gesture (Blondes 35). This instance becomes complicated because Major Falcon first
ferries them to aristocratic women’s homes. Several jokes about post-WWI aristocratic
decline result in a stark reality—the women whom Major Falcon introduces them to must
sell off their family treasures to Americans like Dorothy and Lorelei to raise cash. But
Major Falcon also introduces them to the Prince of Wales. During this meeting Dorothy
28
wastes no time indoctrinating him in American slang (Blondes 43). Dorothy’s choices
signal that she understands the differences between women and men, but uses modernist
value shifts to bridge the gap. It also shows that she both perceives and transgresses the
limitations of class and thus carries on with a Prince as if he were a commoner.
Jarviluoma and Moisala draw on Deborah Tannen’s work on “conversational practices”
between men and women. They write that “gender socialization is so strong that girls and
boys grow up in what are essentially different cultures” (xiii). Despite the differences in
gendered cultures and social institutions, Dorothy, unlike Lorelei, negotiates the
prevailing systems by playing her different subject positions off one another—thus
creating a queer individual position that can joke with a powerful man like the Prince of
Wales and waltz in an unnamed Lady’s house with ease. Dorothy’s position uses
performance as “a political tool (how gender ideologies can be reconstructed and
changed)” to resist “asymmetrical relationships between and within genders” (Jarviluoma
and Moisala xiiii-xv). Thus Dorothy cleverly resists the trappings of gender and class by
consistently changing the rules of her subject position. Therefore, since the character of
Dorothy offers as interesting and alluring subject of analysis as Lorelei, why, to return to
my earlier remarks, is she missing? Is there something about her that remains buried in
the subtext of her representation? To further construct and analyze Dorothy’s type and
performance, I will draw on feminist literary critical methods to see how she exemplifies
gender tensions and how she constitutes a queer position. Because feminist literary
criticism “concentrates more on developing a wide-ranging area of concerns” (Kolodny,
“Turning” 159) it can reveal tropes like identity, family, friendship, motherhood, beauty,
voice, history, tradition, and spirituality. Dorothy’s type differentiates from that of a
29
Blonde because she utilizes different aspects of feminine gender performativity like men,
money and humor to different ends. To better understand Dorothy’s type, we need a
model from which to read it. Annette Kolodny’s work, especially the essays “A Map for
Rereading, Gender and the Interpretation of Literary Texts” and “Turning The Lens On
‘The Panther Captivity’: A Feminist Exercise in Practical Criticism,” provides a cohesive
feminist method. Drawing from this method, I will argue that a queer critical approach
will showcase Dorothy.
Such a study that focuses on a queer perspective “adds a new vital perspective to
all that has gone before, rather than taking away, it enjoys at least the possibility of
enhancing and enlarging our appreciation of what is comprised by any specific literary
text” (Kolodny, “Turning” 159). Thus through an emphasis on reading gender and class
performances, as well as noting how women like Dorothy utilize their new social roles
and skills during the decade of the 1920s, we can approach Dorothy to deepen our
appreciation of Blondes. Moreover, when we utilize a queer method that is informed by
gender studies, we can recognize Dorothy’s significance all on her own in terms of
Blondes without the Lorelei functioning as an albatross. Consequently, we can re-vision
Dorothy apart from her subject position in a cohort with Lorelei and instead analyze her
representation. “Re-vision,” writes Rich, entails “the act of looking back, of seeing with
fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction” (Kolodny, “Map” 59).
Approaching Dorothy with a queer literary method that includes an analysis of her
character’s use of gender performance exposes what constitutes her differences. Barreca
characterizes both Dorothy and Lorelei as “savvy, skill[ed], and shameless” (xvii). These
descriptions offer a good point from which to conceptualize Dorothy’s queerness.
30
Moreover, Barreca’s point that Loos creates a “new breed of creature” hits the mark
because this creation speaks to how Dorothy performs gender and subsequent citations in
various socio-economic events. Foremost, Dorothy possesses agency. In her interactions
with social groups, she adroitly perceives her audience and acts accordingly. For
example, when she throws Lorelei’s debutante ball, her ability to mix social groups is
flawless—a skill that Victorian women before her perfected. However, Dorothy’s
inclusion of groups like the Racquet Club, the Silver Spray Club and the Knights of
Pythias indicate not only a versatile knowledge of the participants’ politics and social
positions, but how their differences evaporate with alcohol. This shows how she retains
vestiges of Victorian sensibility while dramatically embracing modern ways of thinking
about social groups and relations between genders. Her position forms a level playingfield between women and men as well as the rich and poor because she continually
renews her right to improvise, self-define and determine how she wants to act.
Consequently, she markedly contrasts Lorelei because she controls her actions, unlike
Lorelei, who is controlled by social institutions and, worse, by patriarchal men. Thus not
only can she hobnob with English royalty, she can slum it with various social clubs in
New York City who have access to liquor during the Prohibition. She can do exactly as
she wishes (Blondes 105).
Related to her agency among the members of the social register, Dorothy’s
position as a sexual agent illustrates her knowledge about the differences between women
and men in order to perform aspects of gender that suit her needs. In a hard and fast
departure from Victorian ideas about sexuality and relations with men, Dorothy exhibits
ease when she manipulates the press, the police, and Judge Schultzmeyer into allowing
31
the party to continue (Blondes 107). Although Lorelei does not elucidate exactly how
“Judge Schmultzmeyer fell madly in love with Dorothy,” the way that she represents this
affection suggests two readings: one, that Dorothy possesses communication skills and
airs that bowl over the most disciplined of men, or two, that she disregards patriarchal
power and position because it is easy to manipulate people who are corrupt (Blondes
107). Similarly, the men Dorothy chooses drastically differ from Lorelei. Whereas
Lorelei chooses educated, wealthy (but terribly boring) men, Dorothy prefers uneducated,
working men whose passion for knowledge and love supersedes a passion for money.
Furthermore, when one compares the two women’s men of choice, it is apparent that
Dorothy engages in fewer overtures—seven men to Lorelei’s nearly twenty. The
combination of restraint and exploration again signal a break with Victorian gender and
identity norms for a modern, exploratory approach—women who want love with
qualifiers, presumably with men, and they want their relationships with girlfriends
privileged. This notable difference signifies that although both women enjoy men,
Dorothy’s discretion in choosing men reflects her intelligence about the limitations of
social registers like gender and class, insofar as she gives some thought as to with whom
she is intimate. Additionally, she does not give up her total self for anyone. In contrast,
Lorelei twitters to any man worth his weight in gold in order to calculate a gift of
diamonds.
We may further define Dorothy's character. Her professional choices suggest that
although she is talented enough to walk into a job at the Follies, she is also clever enough
to ride the money train when it presents itself. The Follies were known for their
illustrious chorus girls appearing rural and innocent; Dorothy did not possess innocence
32
and took it upon herself, without using a powerful man, to land her own job (But
Gentlemen 190-191). Critics often utilize the latter points to conflate the two women’s
use of men for financial stability. However, the difference between Dorothy and Lorelei
is clear. Unlike Lorelei, whose jobs are elaborate prostrations and manipulations to gain
position, Dorothy’s jobs transpire as a result of her positioning herself at the right time.
Most importantly, Dorothy’s job as a chaperone utilizes her friendship with Lorelei to
travel and live well. Thus, she adjusts her chaperone behaviors to aid in the performance
of modern gender and class. Despite Lorelei’s casual representation of Dorothy as the
natural choice for a chaperone, Dorothy possesses authority about what, when and where
she will do something. But that does not mean she will pass up an opportunity to explore
the world alongside Lorelei.
CHAPTER 3
GENTLEWOMEN PREFER WOMEN:
A STUDY OF A PRIMARY FEMALE FRIENDSHIP
Inasmuch as it does not integrate the possibility of borderline cases, the essential
possibility of those cases called ‘marginal,’ of accidents, anomalies,
contaminations, parasitism, inasmuch as it does not account for how, in the ideal
concept of a structure said to be ‘normal,’ ‘standard,’ etc. . . . such a divergence is
possible . . . . Jacques Derrida “Afterword,” Limited INC (118)
Dorothy’s qualities suggest more than critics’ categorization of her as a sidekick
or comic relief. When evaluating her character, I will argue that through a study of
subtextual themes such as social mobility, men, humor and companionship, Dorothy and
Lorelei implicitly prefer each other in their subject position as modern individuals.
Moreover, despite her’s relationships with men, Dorothy prefers Lorelei because she not
only offers her financial stability but also lasting, meaningful companionship. And,
through the use of Jacques Derrida’s ruminations on deconstruction, I further reason that
both Dorothy’s behaviors and humor offer a queer perspective. Thus Dorothy’s social
acuity, sexual agency and career sensibility suggest that although unlike a Blonde, she
remains faithful to one. Out of this loyalty, Dorothy’s knowledge of life is made
adventurous through Lorelei’s meanderings. In Dorothy's traverse across gender tensions,
her character offers a unique opportunity to consider the primacy of women’s friendships
and the ways that institutional dependence on men binds women closer together in a
transitory time. This union would not be possible if the friends did not complement each
other. Finally, through this analysis Dorothy is revived; she is no longer lost in literary
critical studies of Lorelei’s wake.
33
34
During my analysis of the literature on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, I noted
Dorothy’s absence as a critical actor in the text. Wishing to privilege her, I examined how
one might construe her and her relationship to Lorelei as a queer perspective on identity
construction and gender tensions related to social institutions and positions like class. In
particular, I evaluated how Dorothy negotiates modern gender norms and moves outside
of them through performance and attention to performativity—in other words she is
gender-transgressive. In this discussion I will consider how those concepts contribute to
my argument that Dorothy and Lorelei possess a primary female friendship that
emphasizes a preference for one another. I also wish to consider Derrida’s notions about
deconstruction and the parasitic in Limited INC, more specifically in the essay “Signature
Event Context” to clarify my rational for utilizing aspects of queer theory during this
analysis, particularly Judith Butler’s thoughts.
I situate my analysis within literary deconstruction, insofar that we know “that
every mark (oral included) can be separated from its referent and intention or meaning
(Derrida 10). For my purposes, I want to utilize this concept to consider how the
women’s relationship takes on more nuances outside of what we might consider an
ordinary friendship. Thus I want to separate the events of their friendship from
heteronormative constructions of female friendship to establish their relationship as
transgressive. Derrida argues in “Signature Event Context” “that any utterance can be
repetitive or citational because of the very nature of language” (18-19). Derrida asserts
that “meaning is indeterminate because contexts are never stable and every sign can be
cited (12).” Building on my early reading of queer theory, performance, and
performativity, I want to destabilize heteronormative assessments of the women’s
35
friendship to consider how Dorothy and Lorelei’s friendship might be preferential given
that both women, and especially Dorothy, utilize performance toward the end of
transgression. Thus I will read their performances and their friendship outside of previous
contexts and outside of heteronormative definitions of female friendships.
The period of the 1920’s was fraught with change, and as I have demonstrated, this
text and its characters reveal the effects of change that took place as a result of period
instability. We might therefore say of Dorothy that she cites the performativity of modern
gender, whom Lorelei is a sign for and, particularly behaviors that Lorelei participates in.
For example, although we only know Dorothy through Lorelei’s diary, we might say that
she directly speaks to the reader because of the ways that Lorelei’s voice is not present
because she lacks self-awareness. Consequently, all of the citations that Dorothy
participates in or creates, are not especially evident to Lorelei. When we pair these
concepts with humor, we might consider that Dorothy’s humor, if we consider the oneliners as speech acts or, as oral representations of her queer behavior and performance of
modern gender, acts beyond whatever intention she had or Lorelei’s representation of her.
In other words, we come to know Dorothy through Lorelei’s diary, her voice, so to speak,
and, in doing so, we come to know Dorothy’s intentions during these humorous moments
speak to her commitment, above all, to Lorelei.
Foremost, Dorothy augments the audaciousness of Lorelei in their friendship. In
order to explore the dynamics between Dorothy and Lorelei, I will assess the subtext of
their preferential companionship through the theme of social mobility. One aspect of
Dorothy’s social mobility is her humorous quips about race, ethnicity and class; she uses
these quips to amuse and connect with Lorelei. For example, Dorothy jokes about Paris
36
during their travel: “So then Dorothy said that she supposed Mr. Coty came to Paris and
he smelled Paris and he realized that something had to be done” (Blondes 53). In this
joke, Dorothy draws on a popular stereotype that Paris, because of the River Seine and
Parisians, offends one’s olfactory sense. Similarly, she finds humor in linguistic mishaps:
“So Dorothy said, ‘If your papa was talking in was English, I could get a gold medal for
my greek’” (Blondes 60). And “Dorothy said, ‘You can say what you want about the
Germans being full of ‘kunst,’ but what they are really full of is delicatessen’” (Blondes
84). These examples exhibit how Dorothy functions as the rational, intelligent and
opinionated part of the pair because through humor, she cites popular stereotypes in order
for Lorelei to reciprocate her attention. Also, these performances criticize the
performativity that informs the stereotypes.
Similarly, in her assessments of class, Dorothy darkly notes how rich individuals
belittle their own estimations when they rely on others to navigate the world for them.
Her ruminations reflect her exasperation about Lorelei’s gold-digging and her concern
that Lorelei’s aspiration to be part of heteronormativity. In response to Mr. Spoffard’s
assurances that Miss Chapman is a good woman, “Dorothy said, ‘If she really has got
such a fine brain I bet her fine old family once had an ice man who could not be trusted’”
(Blondes 80). The other target of this joke is the idea of the pure bloodlines of “fine old
families” whose lines might be marred or mutty, like any American. In the same vein, as
a voice of reason in a nouveau riche world, Dorothy, commenting on Mrs. Spoffard’s
reliance on Miss Chapman, says “What a responsibility that girl has got on her shoulders.
For instance, what if Miss Chapman told her a radio was something to build a fire in, and
she would get cold some day and stuff it full of papers and light it” (Blondes 80). The
37
absurdity of the comparison between radios and fireplaces, as well as assumptions about
human knowledge belies the criticism that Dorothy offers to both Spoffards for their
passivity and gullibility. These instances reflect how she can, through her jokes, represent
upper class women’s passivity versus the power of their socio-economic status, an
individual’s self-reliance versus community reliance, and race and ethnic conflicts. They
also reflect her wary concern for Lorelei’s preoccupation with the Spoffards and her
ambition to sashay her way into the upper class.
Dorothy’s humor gestures toward gender roles and women’s roles in an industrial
age. As Dorothy and Lorelei travel through Central Europe they mock the women’s
performativity of gender. Lorelei recounts, “Dorothy said, ‘I think we girls have gone one
step to far away from New York, because it begins to look to me as if the Central of
Europe is no country for we girls’” (Blondes 76). Consequently, this observation can be
read on different levels: girls who want to have fun or develop their identity through
performance have no business in Central Europe and girls who don’t want to work like
farm animals have no business there. Ironically, as Dorothy and Lorelei criticize and
stereotype Central European women as men sit around to control the world, they do not
recognize the parallel between their relationship to oppressive patriarchy and gender
performativity, and “those” women whom they laugh at (Blondes 76). A humorous
interlude about fun in the text takes on a more somber note when Dorothy points out the
reality of women under patriarchy and heteronormativity. Also, in this instance, we can
see how an event is not always comprehended by the subject because of the nature of
gender performativity. Still funny, this point is precisely what brings Lorelei and Dorothy
together—their pursuit of fun and good times makes them forget that it is a man’s world.
38
Similarly, Dorothy’s negotiation of English social circles addresses the trappings
of performative patriarchy while having good fun laughing at women’s attempts to make
money and the ridiculous façade of English culture. Earlier I considered this instance
when I discussed Dorothy’s subject position. This assessment takes a look at the
women’s relationship on their travels and how they negotiate unstable and changing
meanings of class and gender relations to class. While in London, Dorothy and Lorelei
meet many declining aristocratic women who need money; consequently, they sell their
heirlooms at inflated prices to stabilize their station. This representation of English
women suggests multiple readings: on the one hand, the absences of aristocracy in
American means that women are not beggars with empty social markers like titles; on the
other hand, from the women’s point of view many Americans are wealthy and ripe for
picking; yet even those unlucky enough to be poor, like single flappers, know how to get
resources, unlike their English counterparts encumbered with station.
To undermine the English Ladies’ audacious con of heirlooms, Dorothy responds
in kind: Lorelei recounts “I mean she should not say to an English lady that in America
we use shells the same way only we put a dry pea under one of them and call it a game”
(Blondes 35-6). This sensibility garners Dorothy, and tacitly, Lorelei into the good graces
of Lady Shelton’s mother. The mother remarks that her daughter’s wares are junk, and
instead the girls should buy a dog. Quick witted, Dorothy says, “How long before the
dogs fall apart?” (Blondes 36). Instead of a rebuff, the Countess shares a laugh with
Dorothy—acknowledging her use of citation. Lorelei thinks that the Countess should not
encourage Dorothy “or else she is just as unrefined as Dorothy seems to be” (Blondes
36). Lorelei lacks the social knowledge that cuts through the performative roadblocks of
39
high society, whereas Dorothy can interact in different social situations because she is not
afraid of class or the ramifications of utilizing performance. 13
In their travels, Dorothy and Lorelei participate in the privilege of sightseeing,
which includes famous historical places and noble homes. While on their journey of
historical places, Lorelei narrates: “So Sir Francis Beekman wanted us to get out and look
at the tower because he said that quite a famous Queen had her head cut off there one
morning and Dorothy said ‘What a fool she was to get up that morning’ and that is the
really only sensible thing that Dorothy has said in London. So we did not bother to get
out” (Blondes 40). This example illustrates how men punish wayward, powerful women
with violent death—in other words, it does not pay to be transgressive. Additionally, it
acts as another moment when Dorothy cites an event toward the end of amusing
Lorelei—thus moments like these illustrate their attachment and preference for sustaining
a primary relationship. A rare moment when both women agree, Dorothy and Lorelei
agree to not let men know about their power. Also, in this moment, Dorothy’s impulse
toward citationality seems prudent given the threat of violence toward women. Another
aspect of the privilege the pair use is Major Falcon’s connections, including the Prince of
Wales. Lorelei tells the reader how Dorothy meets the Prince of Wales:
So after our dance was all over he asked Dorothy for a dance but Dorothy will
never learn how to act in front of a prince. Because she handed me her fan and she
said “Hold this while I slip a new page into English histry,” right in front of the
Prince of Wales. So I was very very worried while Dorothy was dancing with
Prince of Wales because she talked . . . all the time . . . and when she got through
the Prince of Wales wrote some of the slang words she is always saying on his cuff,
so if he tells the Queen some day to be “a good Elk” . . . the Queen will really
blame me. (Blondes 44)
13
It is important to note that although in this text Dorothy amuses the wealthy and looks out for Lorelei
when she marries a Spoffard (a very wealthy family), she later, in But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, marries
a Boston Breene.
40
In this instance, Dorothy’s slang accrues her favor. Her humor and wit are bold and make
light of a rather grand affair which contrasts with Lorelei's constant worrying about how
she ought to act rather than how she does act. Also, we might construe this instance as a
performance insofar that Lorelei worries as a ‘good girl’ should while Dorothy cuts up.
Dorothy understands that her action or use of performance enables her access to
opportune being whoever she wants to be.
Typically, Dorothy’s wit and lack of morals that get her into trouble with Lorelei:
“So when Dorothy came back we had quite a little quarrel because Dorothy said that
since I met the Prince of Wales I was becoming too English” (Blondes 44). Despite the
frequent quarrels, the women’s relationship holds fast. Their different uses of language
show their respective knowledge about social mobility. Whereas Dorothy gets it right
through humor and “dirty” interest, Lorelei tries on an English accent—a cheap imitation
of intrapersonal communication. Her poor communication strategies are funnier when
Lorelei ends the diary entry, “Because if a girl seems to have an English accent I really
think it is quite jolly” (Blondes 44). Without Dorothy, Lorelei might not move so easily
through social circles and could end up, as the girls might say, like those Central
European women. I want to emphasize that although Lorelei functions without Dorothy,
she needs her friend to balance out the performative nature of modern gender and its
trappings. However, since Lorelei does have Dorothy, she travels with her, uses her and
then reproves her morals and principles, particularly with men.
A close examination of Lorelei’s quarrels with Dorothy exemplifies how the pair
relies on one another. For example, Lorelei says, “So then Dorothy and I had a little
quarrel because every time that Dorothy mentions the subject of Mr. Eisman she calls Mr.
41
Eisman by his first name, and she does not seem to realize that when a gentlemen who is
as important as Mr. Eisman spends quite a lot of money educating a girl, it really does not
show reverence to call a gentleman by his first name” (Blondes 5). True to her citational
preferences, Dorothy does not care about titles, grandiose self-importance or the fact that
he is Lorelei’s Sugar Daddy. She willing utilizes anti-Semitism in her humor to undercut
why Lorelei should not care so much about him: Eisman is also clearly Jewish. However,
even though Dorothy continues to trespass on this rule of altered etiquette, Lorelei
remains loyal to Dorothy. Dorothy and her ways delight Lorelei, and so, through her, also
the reader. Furthermore, she cleverly recognizes that Mr. Eisman is no gentlemen—he
may be wealthy, but he is boring, a capitalist, using Lorelei, and insists on gender
performativity. As aforementioned, Lorelei reproves Dorothy for teaching the Prince of
Wales slang words because she is afraid of how it might affect her. Dorothy maintains
her carefree, light-hearted attitude about social mores. When men enter into the equation
between Dorothy and Lorelei, the latter becomes jealous and scrupulous in her appraisals
of Dorothy’s behavior.
Dorothy’s interactions with men illustrate her subject position as a modern
individual with a queer flair. Lorelei’s reaction to her position reflects the precarious
nature of their relationship as companions. On the one hand, birth control liberated
women from “the burdens of childbirth” and thus “with women’s role in sex thus
conceptually altered, the ideological basis for marriage—the foundation of the patriarchal
order—came into crisis . . . (Hegeman 535). Lorelei’s quarrels with Dorothy reflect this
crisis because Dorothy is unafraid to question feminine identity, marriage, sex, and love
because she is honest with herself whereas Lorelei is dishonest with herself about these
42
things. Earlier, I mentioned the incident between Lorelei and Dorothy regarding the
difference between Gerry, Dorothy’s “true love” and Sir Beekman. Lorelei immensely
dislikes Gerry, but cannot see how her choice of Mr. Beekman is obscene, even for a
flapper girl. In contrast, Dorothy has no problem mirroring the reality of their situation:
“So Dorothy and I had quite a little quarrel after they went because Dorothy asked me
which one of the Jesse James brothers was my father” (Blondes 46). Dorothy’s
willingness to question Lorelei’s intentions with a man irritates Lorelei, which suggests
that Lorelei’s reaction is based on a tension about which men is appropriate fodder. Also,
Dorothy’s wit acerbically points out heteronormativity and how low Lorelei is willing to
go for a man. On a lighter note, Dorothy’s boyfriend from London sweeps her off her
feet. Lorelei, disgusted and jealous of the affair narrates: “So Dorothy said Gerald was a
gentleman because he wrote her a long note and it had a crest. So I told her to try and eat
it. So then we had to get dressed” (Blondes 46). Although very funny, Lorelei dismisses
Dorothy’s affection for a love note with a crest (which symbolizes its importance and
familial history) because she believes gentlemen can only be defined by their class and
their offer of material goods. This quote makes a connection between their quarrels and
Lorelei’s complicity with the social more of a Sugar Daddy. The connection contrasts
with Dorothy's obvious discomfort with this moré, particularly when it negatively affects
her agency and their relationship. Additionally the quote highlights Lorelei's envy over
what she lacks.
Also, Dorothy and Lorelei differ on what constitutes a gentleman—Dorothy honors
honest experience and nobility; Lorelei privileges economic potential for her gain. Both
individuals disagree on how a gentleman might be cited. Dorothy’s intense attitude about
43
love, and Lorelei’s response to it illustrates the difference: “So Dorothy is quite upset
because she did not want to come as she is madly in love with Gerald” (Blondes 41). It is
not as though Lorelei didn’t know how Dorothy felt about Gerald: “[. . .] Dorothy and I
went and we took a gentlemen Dorothy met in the lobby who is very, very good looking
but he is only an English ballroom dance in a café when he has a job” (Blondes 41).
Clearly, Lorelei’s estimation refuses to see how Dorothy privileges Gerald’s nobility, his
‘gentility,’ his honor. Now that Dorothy has been found, and found out to be a Lorelei’s
primary companion (intimate confidant, play friend, co-conspirator, etc.), we might say
that the triangulation between these points offers insights about gender tensions,
particularly concerning patriarchy’s crisis and the reorganization of social orders during
the 1920’s.
Indeed, Faulkner suggests the significance of this particular intimate moment
between Dorothy, Gerald and Lorelei. In his letter to Loos, as I noted in my earlier
discussion of Faulkner, this snapshot of intimacy between the players take on a seriously
funny importance. We might cast Dorothy as the flapper who wants to escape normativity
and Lorelei as patriarchy’s friend. Yet, this situation alters her passion for her friendship
with Dorothy. And finally, Gerald, le gigolo, a man hired out of the love for a friend, but
who ended up falling in love with Dorothy. In this narrative, it makes sense that Lorelei
would dismiss Dorothy’s feelings so readily, and, reader’s too. Lorelei says with disdain,
“I mean we had quite a little quarrel because Gerald showed up at the station with a
bangle for Dorothy so I told Dorothy she was well rid of such a person. So Dorothy had
to come with me because Mr. Eisman is paying her expenses because he wants Dorothy
to be my chaperon’ (Blondes 49). “Such a person,” i.e. not a Sugar Daddy or a
44
Gentleman, is not supposed to fall in love with Dorothy because Lorelei needs her and
this need trumps Dorothy’s poor choices. After all, Lorelei is well aware of the sorts of
men Dorothy falls for—penniless men. However, her treatment of a man stretches
beyond its limits, and consequently, Lorelei shows jealously. Moreover, that he would
show up with a sentimental token of love calls into question the tokens she prefers from
men—possessiveness, factious creations of passion, and slick manipulations. Thus, in this
scene, Dorothy may not enjoy love and happiness while she remains with Lorelei. In
contrast, Lorelei prefers companionship, humor, care, and concern from Dorothy—
decidedly different from those things she prefers from me. Why does Dorothy stay with
Lorelei?
Lorelei’s quarrels with Dorothy suggest that their friendship is more than two
women having fun together. In fact, between the quarreling and the blatant jealousy, we
can say that irony exists about who chaperones who, and for what purpose. In the
previous example of Lorelei’s jealousy, Dorothy’s reluctance to go with Lorelei is
thwarted when she reminds Dorothy that Mr. Eisman controls her expenses.
Consequently, Dorothy is reminded that if a man controls a woman, she cannot act on her
feelings, and in this instance, Lorelei takes on a masculine subject position as she reins
Dorothy away from Gerald. In similar instances, Lorelei reproves Dorothy for wasting
time on good-for-nothing men. On the boat, Dorothy spends time with a man right away;
she says “But Dorothy does not care about her mind and I always have to scold her
because she does nothing but waste her time by going around with gentlemen who do not
have anything . . . but she does nothing but waste her time” (Blondes 19). In this example,
Lorelei takes on a maternal position to voice her jealousy—she “scolds.”
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Similarly, Lorelei comments that “Dorothy never has any fate in life and she does
nothing but waste her time and I really wonder if I did the right thing to bring her with
me and not Lulu” (Blondes 22). Fate indicates correct social behavior and ordained
mobility. As the opposite to Lorelei, the Gold Digger, Dorothy creates her own destiny,
and chooses Lorelei to partake in it, which includes creating her own value of time.
Ultimately, most of the quarrels about men occur on the boat from New York to England
because Dorothy is unconstrained to choose any kind of man, including a poor one. This
differs from Lorelei, at least as an unreliable narrator, who restrains herself to wealthy
men. Lorelei narrates: “Dorothy is up on the deck wasting quite a lot of time with a
gentlemen who is only a tennis champion” (Blondes 28). These examples of Dorothy
wasting time suggest that, acting through performativity, Lorelei takes on a masculine
edge in her relationship to Dorothy in order to mollify her. It also illustrates Dorothy
negotiating how close to stay to Lorelei, especially when the latter bounces from her
murdering past to her desired upper class future.
Categorizing Dorothy as feminine in response to Lorelei’s masculine tendencies is
ironic when we consider how both women cross-identify with different aspects of a
transgressive modern woman. The amalgamation of gender that exists in both women
further binds them together in a performance tour de force. On the one hand, as we have
seen, Dorothy resists the tendencies of Victorianism when she resists the constraints of
feminine performativity’s hold on sex, matrimony and love. On the other hand, she
utilizes Victorian sensibility about principles, particularly when it comes who she will
use for economic gain—a distinct performance. She will use men only when it forwards
her relationship with Lorelei. Otherwise, she contents herself with poor, but passionate
46
men. Conversely, Lorelei traps herself in the constraints of performative patriarchy—
believing that marrying up will keep her rolling in money and happiness. On the contrary,
her imaginative uses of men and their money, and her blatant disregard for women
trapped in Victorian marriages, suggest that she disowns the boring aspects of traditional
women’s peformativity. Consequently, both women create a new type of friendship at
odds with heteronormative conventions about women’s relationships.
Most poignantly, Dorothy and Lorelei’s relationship suggests more than
friendship. As companions, the pair voraciously quarrel, agree on stereotypical
assessments of race, ethnicity and class, and depend on one another. Their dependency
might be read as intimate. Certainly, Blom, Ankum, and others take liberty through the
subtext to suggest that Lorelei’s and Dorothy's many men result in sexual relationships.
However, I am not suggesting sexual intimacy, but rather a deep attachment based in love
that verges on co-dependency yet retains genuine care and concern for the other.
Similarly, although Lorelei’s representation of her relationship to Dorothy is admittedly
platonic, when we consider how Dorothy’s reaction to Henry Spoffard suggests intimacy,
the nature of their dependency comes into question. As in previous interludes, such as
with the Beekmans, Lorelei uses Dorothy to get out of her entanglement with Mr.
Spoffard because Dorothy already is unrefined (Blondes 96). In the diary, Lorelei
represents Dorothy as a complicit partner in her tale. This complicity is plausible when
we view Dorothy as a girl who wants to support her friend and have fun. However,
Dorothy tries to discourage Lorelei from marrying Mr. Spoffard. Lorelei claims that
Dorothy corroborates her decision: “So Dorothy seems to agree with me quite a lot,
because Dorothy says the only thing she could stand being to Henry, would be to be his
47
widow at the age of 18” (Blondes 99). Dorothy sees her friend’s relationship with Mr.
Spoffard as a disastrous possibility because of how fully performativity of a feminine
gender will bind Lorelei, and tacitly, Dorothy too, through a man and his money. Also,
Dorothy reminds Lorelei of her gold-digging values with this quip. Lorelei tells us:
So Dorothy says what a fool I am to waste my time on Henry, when I might
manage to meet Henry’s father and the whole thing would be over in a few months
and I would practically own the state of Pennsylvania. But I do not think I should
take Dorothy’s advice because Henry’s father is watched like a hawk [. . .] And,
after all, why should I listen to the advice of a girl like Dorothy who traveled all
over Europe and all she came home with was a bangle! (Blondes 102)
The comparison of Dorothy’s assessment of Lorelei’s behavior and Sir Beekman to Mr.
Spoffard reveals the difference as commitment. Dorothy does not want Lorelei to commit
to a man, emblematic of patriarchy and feminine performativity, when the girls have it so
good together. Markedly, from Dorothy’s perspective, it is much better to swindle the
money and get out. In spite of this deep, connected companionship, and the fragility that
binds it, Dorothy fights for and loses Lorelei.
Although Dorothy does lose Lorelei to patriarchy, she retains her savviness, her
skills and her shameless take on life. When Lorelei becomes afraid that she will be found
out as a fraud and required to divulge her true nature, she recruits Dorothy to do her dirty
business. She writes, “So I sent for Dorothy because Dorothy is not so good at intreeging
a gentlemen with money, but she ought to be full of ideas about how to get rid of one”
(Blondes 115). Through her social skills, Dorothy extricates Lorelei from her engagement
with Mr. Spoffard. Ironically, Dorothy’s frank savviness, the very cause of the quarrels
between her and Dorothy, is the very characteristic Lorelei relies on. On the surface, it
might appear that Lorelei develops a backbone, chooses Dorothy over men, and no longer
functions as the amusing scapegoat for Loos’ story. Instead, she meets another man who
48
helps her see how she can use Mr. Spoffard for her own gain—and a return to the cinema.
Lorelei goes through with the marriage (Blondes 115).
The key to this sequence of events is a man. Lorelei’s reliance on men further
accentuates the ways in which Dorothy exhibits the agency that Lorelei lacks: selfdetermination, self-reliance, self-preservation and self-mobility. Nonplussed, Dorothy
makes the most of her relationships once Lorelei decides that she will use the Spoffard
family money and go through with the marriage. Lorelei is shameless: “I mean even
Dorothy said [the wedding] was very beautiful, only Dorothy said she had to concentrate
her mind on the massacre of the Armenians to keep herself from laughing right out loud
in everybody’s face. But that only shows that not even Matrimony is sacred to a girl like
Dorothy” (Blondes 121). Dorothy’s amusement over Lorelei’s false gesture of sacredness
illustrates the honesty that Dorothy prefers to Lorelei’s constructions. The finality of the
twists and turns of Dorothy’s character and her relationship to Lorelei signal that
gentlewomen do prefer women.
Ultimately, Dorothy is the gentlewoman who prefers the Blonde. Dorothy’s
absence in recent criticism suggests she has been pushed aside in favor of Lorelei. While
this has been useful for discussions about modernism, economics, and women, Lorelei’s
characters lends itself to examining opposing characters like Dorothy. In this
examination, exploring how the character of Dorothy provides vital new readings about
gender tensions, the refashioning of gender and social roles via queer theory, and the
women’s primacy to one another. Consequently, a multi-faceted study of Dorothy, queer
individual, needs to take place in both texts. Through a study of this character, Dorothy
represents gender tensions that signal the loss of a cultural center, the universe’s
49
malleability, a loss of morals, and the onset of a technologically enhanced world that all
make companionship a fragile entity in a world sundered from the social and toward the
individual. In a pair, both women make sense out of the balance they render. Their
relationship carries on through a shift in culture, universe and morals, and, it carries on in
good fun. What else can a girl do when facing difficulty and change but have fun and
make merry? Indeed, Lorelei divulges “the greatest thing in life is to always be making
everybody else happy” (Blondes 123). In doing so, she denies herself radical
opportunities for self-discovery and she imposes on the woman who stands by her
happiness. Thus when we appraise Dorothy as a gentlewoman and cast the spotlight on
her, perhaps we might imagine how she struck a balance to Lorelei, how she served the
world its just desert through wit, and how she, even in the end, went missing from the
intimate space on Lorelei’s side.
In conclusion, gentlewomen like Dorothy and Lorelei are individuals who revamp
traditional notions of women common in the late Victorian era. Indeed, Dorothy reworks
Victorian conventions of morals through her agency. Further studies of Dorothy as an
agent in a man’s world will elucidate Dorothy’s significance as queer. Also, through such
a study, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes might
distinguish, in greater detail, why gentlemen marry a gentlewoman like Dorothy,
particularly if we perceive her a performer Rather than simply casting her to doom within
a patriarchal world, how might she key us into a utopic reality where individuals,
regardless of gender or sex, money or class, respect and value one another, even when
they do not choose the opposite sex as a life companion? Although Anita Loos makes it
very clear that she devalues “the most impressive human behavior,” how do her texts
50
suggest otherwise when we focus on Dorothy (xxxix)? These questions ultimately prompt
us to conceive that much more of Dorothy, and the many queer things she represents,
survives the glare of diamonds and blonde hair.
LIST OF REFERENCES
Arbuthunot, Lucie, and Gail Seneca. “Pre-text and Text in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”
Issues of Feminist Film Criticism. Ed. Patricia Erens. Bloomington, Indiana:
University Press, 1990.
Barreca, Regina. Introduction. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes : The Illuminating Diary of a
Professional Lady; and, But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes. New York: Penguin,
1998. vii-xxiv.
Blom, T. E. “Anita Loos and Sexual Economics: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” Canadian
Review of American Studies, 7 (1976): 39-47.
Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge, 2004.
—. Introduction. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex.”
New York: Routledge, 1993.
Carey, Gary. Anita Loos: A Biography. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1988.
Cvetkovich, Ann. An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public
Cultures. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
Derrida, Jacques. Limited INC. Evanston, IL: Northwester University Press, 1988.
Eaton, Mark A. “Anita Loos, Liminality, and the Literary Field, circa 1925.” Conference
Abstract. 23 April 2005.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Dir. Howard Hawks. With Marilyn Monroe and Jane
Russell. 20th Century-Fox, 1953.
Hegeman, Susan. “Taking Blondes Seriously.” American Literary History, 7:3
(1995 Fall): 535-54.
Jarviluoma, Helmi and Pirkko Moisala. Gender and Qualitative Methods.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003.
Johnson, Patrick E. Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of
Authenticity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
Keun, Irmgard. Das künstseidene Mädchen. Munich: Claassen Verlag, 1992.
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Kolodny, Annette. “A Map for Rereading: Gender and the Interpretation of Literary
Texts.” The New Feminist Criticism: essays on women, literature, and theory. 1st
ed. New York: Pantheon, 1985. 46-62.
—. “Turning The Lens On ‘The Panther Captivity’: A Feminist Exercise in Practical
Criticism.” Writing and Sexual Difference. Ed. Elizabeth Abel. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1982. 159-75.
Lardner, Ring. “Some Like Them Cold.” Round Up: The Stories of Ring Lardner.
New York: Literary Guild, 1929. 357-74.
Lewis, Eleanore. “Cornflowers, Bachelor’s buttons, Basket flower, or The Old-fashioned
Blue-bottle.” 2005. <http://www.floridagardener.com/misc/Cornflowers.htm >.
15 June 2005.
Lewis, R.W.B. Edith Wharton: A Biography. New York: Harper, 1975.
Logan, Lisa. Syllabus. Contemporary American Women’s Fiction. University
Of Central Florida, Orlando, FL. (Fall 2001).
Loos, Anita. A Girl Like I. New York: Viking, 1977.
—. Anita Loos Rediscovered: Film Treatments and Fiction by Anita Loos, Creator of
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—. Cast of Thousands. New York: Grosset, 1977.
—. Fate Keeps On Happening: Adventures of Lorelei Lee and Other Writings.
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—. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes : the illuminating diary of a professional lady;
and, But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes. Introduction by Regina Barreca.
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Lye, John. “Some Cultural Forces Driving Literary Modernism.” ENGL 2F55, Modern
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21 Nov. 2004.
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Nixon, Angelique. “Limited INC by Jacques Derrida ~ Summary and Discussion.”
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O’ Conner, Michael. “Literary Modernism, 1915-1945.” April 2000.
<http://www.millikin.edu/aci/crow/basics/modernism.html>. 21 Nov. 2004.
Turim, Maureen. “Gentlemen Consume Blondes.” Issues in Feminist Film Criticism.
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University of Mississippi English Department. “William Faulkner.” Mississippi’s
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Von Ankum, Katharina. “Material Girls: Consumer Culture and the 'New Woman' in
Anita Loos' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Irmgard Keun's Das künstseidene
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Margot Reynolds is the author "Mother Times Two: A Double-take On A
Gynocentric Justice Song" in the forthcoming collection, Cultural Sites of Critical
Insight, from SUNY press. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of
Central Florida with an Honors Bachelors Degree in English, with minors in Women’s
Studies and Political Science. Also, she received her Master’s degree in American
Studies at the University of Florida. Her research covers several disciplinary
concentrations, including American Studies (Early and Modern period), Native American
Studies, Gender and Queer Studies. She is currently working on several projects,
including a children’s book series, and continued academic work on Zitkala-Sä with
regard to literary elements of gynocentrism, as well as oral narration and song in the
American Modern to the Contemporary period written by Native American women. She
also works with the Feminist Majority Foundation's programs, including the Leadership
Alliances. She comes from a mixed heritage (Irish, English, Quapaw, and Cherokee)
deriving from Heavener, Oklahoma; she currently lives in Orlando, Florida.
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