The revolutionary politics of Greta Garbo’s ‘Queen Christina’
Few screen legends have been as indelible as Greta Garbo, whose career was relatively short-lived, but her presence was unwavering. She emerged in the silent age, appearing in commercial films before eventually appearing in features, and by the time sound cinema rolled around, she was more than capable of captivating audiences in front of the camera.
Soon, she was the apple of Hollywood’s eye. Garbo earned three Academy Award nominations and appeared in timeless classics like Camille and Ninotchka, but when she reached her mid-30s, she stepped away from the industry, but what made her so memorable was her tendency to appear in roles that pushed the boundaries of the time, even if, when we look back, nothing she did would be very shocking if enacted today.
Yet, Garbo was acting during an era when something as normal as teasing the idea of sex before marriage (considered by today’s standards) could have your movie banned for being immoral and indecent, while nudity, passionate kissing, and anything remotely sexually ‘transgressive’, like homosexuality, was a no-go. So, for the actor to take on the role in Queen Christina in 1933, was really quite something. Sure, it was released before the Hays Code was rigidly enforced in Hollywood, but until then, these taboos were still very much present and frequently admonished.
Queen Christina is a defining feature of Garbo’s career, and really, her dedication to such a revolutionary approach to sexuality and gender in a big-screen project should be celebrated more.
Just like the gender swapping of classics like Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Rouben Mamoulian’s film sees Garbo dressed up as a man, and during a stay at an inn, she is mistaken for a nobleman and asked if she can share a room with another man, the Spanish Ambassador Antonio Pimentel de Prado. Despite the fact that he thinks Garbo’s character is a man, the pair engage in rather flirtatious conversation before she ultimately reveals her true identity, and they fall in love.
This is something you just didn’t see in Hollywood in the early 1930s, and even decades later, something like this was certain to cause a similar shocked reaction in audiences. For that reason alone, Queen Christina was far ahead of its time.
Not only this, though, Garbo also kisses her female co-star, Elizabeth Young’s Countess Ebba Sparre, on the lips. Dressed as a man (albeit not a very convincing one), Garbo smooches Ebba, and it wouldn’t be the only time she’d kiss a woman on screen. Lesbianism was not as taboo as homosexual activity between men during this time, but it wasn’t exactly a common and open practice. The ideal woman was meant to be a good heterosexual wife and mother, so for Garbo to do something so apparently transgressive on screen was a big deal that only added to her legacy.
The success of Queen Christina, however, proved that there was a market out there for films which bent the traditional narrative regarding the ‘correct’ vision of gender and sexuality. And who better to lead this conversation than Garbo, one of the industry’s most celebrated stars?
Off-screen, she sometimes wore masculine outfits and even enjoyed some rumoured relationships with women, so it’s no surprise that when it came to picking out film roles, she wasn’t against a role that challenged the status quo – she considered Queen Christina one of her finest performances, and it’s easily one of her most interesting, too.
