Lola, Race, and Ethnicity

Abstract

Is Lola white? More important, does her claim to pleasure originate in a predominantly white culture and therefore limit its validity? At first blush, it may appear so. If Dietrich is the Ur-Lola, the first generations of her successors (Jean Harlow, Martine Carol, Anouk Aimée, May Britt, and Barbara Sukowa) certainly are also European and white. But are they white in a way that constructs them and their claim as a racial privilege? Or do the claim and the name have an appeal and a power that fractures the ideological dominance of Europe and white North America? Are there ethnically diverse and nonwhite Lolas? Does their claim to pleasure differ from that of white Lolas? Given that we have seen a proliferation of global Lolas in the last twenty years, my suspicion is that Lola travels and travels well. There is, in the meantime, an international sisterhood of Lolas, and every reason to believe that more ethnic and nonwhite Lolas will appear on the scene.