“‘The Mystery Woman of Hollywood’: Greta Garbo, Feminism, and Stardom” analyzes feminism as manifested in Greta Garbo's life and career. It focuses on her European background; the media discourse on her; feminism in her films and in the United States in the 1920s; and Garbo's rebellion against Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg, the heads of her studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). It also deals with her dress reform stance, her masculine femininity, the nature of her fans (especially the “Garbomaniacs”), and her friendships with the screenwriters Salka Viertel and Mercedes de Acosta. It concludes with an analysis of the 1933 film Queen Christina, characterizing it as the culmination of Garbo's feminism.

Keywords:
feminism, Greta Garbo, Hollywood, stardom
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2016
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