Review of Martha Gever, Entertaining Lesbians: Celebrity, Sexuality, and Self-Invention

As her characteristically witty title suggests, in her new book Martha Gever "entertains" lesbians from a number of perspectives: she discusses lesbians in entertainment industries; she addresses how lesbians have entertained a variety of audiences, including lesbians; and she provides an overview of the ways popular culture has entertained the idea of lesbian celebrity since the early twentieth century. Her project, however, is to offer neither a "portrait gallery of lesbian celebrities" nor a "blanket characterization of the transformations of popular culture" that lesbian celebrity may have effected (p. 191). Instead, she is concerned with lesbian celebrities' "self-invention, which is intimately related to opportunities for self-display, as well as the continual monitoring and adjustment of self-image".