What I view as Garber's main point about Adler is that quite aside from cross-dressing in and of itself her career as an American contralto in Europe is "professionally lucrative and socially liminal." Moreover, a singer who has "retired from the stage" was essentially a kept woman; the fact that Irene dares to use that affair against the King is another sign of her refusal to conform to social expectations, I think.
For me the important point about Adler is that she does occupy a liminal position, and she uses it to play both ends against Holmes to her full advantage. My own impulse to read her as bisexual comes out of her position on the boundaries that we know definitively that she does cross; what's one more, essentially? (For the same reason I also consider it completely valid to read her as either black or mixed-race.)
Re: #2, Garber suggests that Irene's hailing from New Jersey is in reference to the actress Lillie Langtry, who was from Jersey in England, also a king's mistress, and a famous performer of Rosalind (who also cross-dresses).
And re: #4, I have to think that Doyle viewed Irene along the lines of an alluring threat (certainly Watson viewed her as a threat, period); the opening lines of SCAN call her "the late Irene Adler, of questionable memory" which might reference her being married but which I think means that she's dead, because I tend to be pessimistic about ACD as a progressive figure.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-05-16 04:34 am (UTC)What I view as Garber's main point about Adler is that quite aside from cross-dressing in and of itself her career as an American contralto in Europe is "professionally lucrative and socially liminal." Moreover, a singer who has "retired from the stage" was essentially a kept woman; the fact that Irene dares to use that affair against the King is another sign of her refusal to conform to social expectations, I think.
For me the important point about Adler is that she does occupy a liminal position, and she uses it to play both ends against Holmes to her full advantage. My own impulse to read her as bisexual comes out of her position on the boundaries that we know definitively that she does cross; what's one more, essentially? (For the same reason I also consider it completely valid to read her as either black or mixed-race.)
Re: #2, Garber suggests that Irene's hailing from New Jersey is in reference to the actress Lillie Langtry, who was from Jersey in England, also a king's mistress, and a famous performer of Rosalind (who also cross-dresses).
And re: #4, I have to think that Doyle viewed Irene along the lines of an alluring threat (certainly Watson viewed her as a threat, period); the opening lines of SCAN call her "the late Irene Adler, of questionable memory" which might reference her being married but which I think means that she's dead, because I tend to be pessimistic about ACD as a progressive figure.