ABSTRACT

In 1896 ‘the Nethersole kiss’ revolutionized the stage kiss and made legitimate-stage actress Olga Nethersole a household name. This article considers Olga Nethersole’s queer influence on the early erotic genres of the kissing film and the ‘stag’ film, arguing that she originated the mainstream Sapphic tropes of the twentieth century. Leaning on foundational texts by Shelley Stamp, Charles Musser and Linda Williams and drawing on recent work by Susan Potter and Russell Sheaffer, this article intervenes in the presumed ‘male only’ discourse of ‘stag’ during the early silent film era (1896–1907). Using original archival research including newspapers, catalogues, scrapbooks, and other ephemera such as erotic ‘French’ postcards, I reconsider a cluster of films that engage Nethersole’s onstage and offstage ‘character’, including The Kiss (Edison, 1896), Something Good – Negro Kiss (Selig, 1898), Sapho (Lubin, 1900), The New Kiss (Edison, 1900), Sapho Kiss (Lubin, 1900), In a Massage Parlor (American Mutoscope & Biograph, 1902), The Seven Ages (Edison, 1905), A Modern Sapho (American Mutoscope and Biograph, 1905), and Under the Old Apple Tree (American Mutoscope and Biograph, 1907). I demonstrate that these films constituted a racialized Sapphic authorial discourse that produced queer pleasures for early audiences by engaging Nethersole’s scandalous stardom. As a progenitor of early erotic screen genres, Nethersole must be contextualized in relation to the spectrum of erotic entertainment at the turn of the century from the ‘unobjectionable’ to the pornographic. In this context, I demonstrate how the intermediality of early cinema, so often understood through the heterosexualized metaphor of ‘birth’, is better understood as a form of queer reproduction.

摘要

1896 年的“那打素之吻”彻底改变了舞台之吻，并使合法舞台女演员奥尔加那打素成为家喻户晓的名字。本文探讨了奥尔加那打素对早期色情类型的接吻片和“雄鹿”片的酷儿影响，认为她开创了 20 世纪主流的女同性恋比喻。依靠 Shelley Stamp、Charles Musser 和 Linda Williams 的基础文本并借鉴 Susan Potter 和 Russell Sheaffer 最近的作品，本文介入了早期无声电影时代（1896-1907 年）假定的“雄鹿”的“仅限男性”话语). 利用原始档案研究，包括报纸、目录、剪贴簿和色情“法国”明信片等其他昙花一现的东西，我重新考虑了一系列涉及那打素台前和台下“角色”的电影，包括《吻》（爱迪生，1896 年）、《好东西——黑人之吻》（塞利格，1898 年）、《萨福》（鲁宾，1900 年）、《新吻》（爱迪生，1900 年）、《萨福之吻》（鲁宾，1900 年）、《按摩院》（美国 Mutoscope） & 传记，1902 年）、七个时代（爱迪生，1905 年）、现代萨福（美国 Mutoscope 和传记，1905 年）和老苹果树下（美国 Mutoscope 和传记，1907 年）。我证明这些电影构成了一种种族化的萨菲式作者话语，通过吸引那打素可耻的明星身份，为早期观众带来酷儿乐趣。作为早期色情电影类型的先驱，必须将那打素与世纪之交从“无异议”到色情的色情娱乐范围联系起来。在这种情况下，我展示了早期电影的中介性，通常通过“出生”的异性恋隐喻来理解，如何更好地理解为一种酷儿再生产形式。