and their wives at a dinner club in that far-distant desert locale of the film's name, exoticized by this director just as any movie set feigning a foreign setting would be in early Hollywood. Midway through a number, meandering through a sea of white linen and evening wear, Dietrich plants a kiss on the lips of woman in the audience, in front of the lucky lady's husband, and leaves with the woman's sweet-smelling rose. This scene marks one of the first overt sexual displays of lesbian desire in cinematic history, released before the MPAA ratings system was established that successfully set out to censor, restrict, and reverse the art of filmmaking forever, and before audiences and actors became so damn sheepish about sex.If they happen to see it, many people ask what made me choose the one tattoo I have. For those not in the know, a highly realistic black and gray bust portrait of Ms. Dietrich herself, almost a third the size of my arm, sits on my right bicep. The image is identical to an old publicity shot of Marlene in her days of posing for cigarette ads. While the cigarette doesn't appear in the tattoo, Marlene--with a classically stoic, striking gaze, leaning forward in a men's suit, spotted tie, and flashy cuff links--is at her best.
My typical, shorthand response to strangers' queries about the tattoo is usually some nonsensical babble about a love of old movies, stylized black and white pictures, and (if they're lucky), Marlene's proto-feminist fashion and fiery fury of the early 20th century. But there's more. I swear. And it's really not about me at all.
As a young girl, I read Boy George's biography three times on babysitting gigs. I was fascinated with the idea, the intellectual concept (before I understood it as such), and the image of drag queens, figuring they could be my best friends for life, and that one day, I'd meet the very best friend queen of my dreams, who would never drop me like the cliques of pretty, rich, or at-risk girls in my sixth grade class might. Boy George topped the list, but Hedwig, Andy Warhol's Factory crowd, and Dee in The Crying Game closely followed, each representative of otherness at its most grand. Though I didn't recognize the connection at the time, the meaning of my love for BG was the same as what I felt for Marlene, Greta, Audrey, Katherine, and Bette back in the day.
What I couldn't have known until years later, post-queer theory and art criticism and film studies in school (not to mention the accumulation of my wildest real-life moments, which might pale next to yours), was that Boy George then, and Marlene now (just two years old on my arm),
have been my favorite characters, in all senses of the word, my favorite representations of representation, presentation, and performance. And this is a personal choice, for Marlene is just one of many screen icons of her day, and ours, whose posed presence stands for more than life itself, the bigger than life quality of camp that never fails to intrigue and seduce me, the very effects every dollar paid for her was meant to induce.
To unpack this a bit, though basic for many of you: the performative, stylized, staged, campy, sharply contrasted images of screen sirens and glorious starlets of old Hollywood are fantasy made visible and then reinforced, decadent desserts to consume in one gluttonous bite, though never, ever to touch or to be. These women were objects now re-appropriated, beautiful and unmistakable and unattainable, made for photographs, stages, and cinematic languages. Theirs was an unreal presence, one fit for delicious biographies and tabloids, their personal lives extraneous.
This is not to say that Marlene sits on my arm despite what we know of her outside of movies. To the contrary, the life she lived only strengthens her allure for me--her dark, dry wit, bisexuality, cutting humor, gender-bending style, and private dismissal of conventional
domesticity. That aside, she was never known to be an exceptionally caring, compassionate, or altruistic celebrity--no Audry Hepburn was she. If in theory Marlene could be more admirable, why would I want a tattoo of her on my arm? But that's just it: why would I? May as well have Mother Theresa. It's obviously no fun.
It was Marlene's sharp edges, her moxie, her unapologetic attitude that reveals itself in every photograph, that turns me on to her greater meaning, and what turned me on to drag queens from the start. The clash of glamor and imperfection creates a stunning spectacle, an explosion of embellishment, tour-de-force of being.
Neither high nor low art, the best tattoos are designs, objets d'art, decorative adornments of lush, rich stories and skillful, delicate craft. They carry weight and history and breathe an inessential layer of life into the body. Far from necessary, they don't always add to one's beauty, and are rarely perfect. But just like the starlet film's early days, they queer the human landscape and heighten curiosity, two things art and people should strive to do for each other.
By this definition, Marlene is the perfect tattoo. Beyond her gender-bending beauty, subversive sexuality, camp-icon status, and unquestionable performance power, she represents a resilient fantasy that refuses to loosen its grip on me as it matures. Like a beloved comic-book character who forever remains a heroine on and off screen, or in and out of a book, Marlene serves as my ceaseless site and space for thinking, looking, and imagining that--if I keep doing things right, and occasionally peer at my arm--will never lose its magic.
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