JMarte Antûinette :TfiírcC-'Wave feminism,

ande flick CuCtureIn 2001 Antonia Fraser published a biography of Marie Antoinette, an unsurprisingsubject given the author's long-time interest in recounting the lives of famed Europeanwomen, from Mary Queen of Scots to the wives of Henry VIII. What was surprising,however, was the sudden explosion of interest that followed. Suddenly MarieAntoinette was the It Girl. She was featured on hip teen TV shows {Hannah Montana),in advertising (Juicy Couture, Sephota), in couture collections by Jobn Galliano andothers, on countless websites, in a PBS documentary, and—most importantly for ourpurposes here—in three attention-getting texts that appeared in 2006: Abundance, anovel by Sena Jeter Naslund; Queen of Fashion, a historical study by Caroline Weber';and Marie Antoinette, a film by Sofia Coppola. The simultaneous occurrence of popularand scholarly interest suggests the widespread, magnetic nature of Marie Antoinette'scurrent appeal.

Not only was Marie Antoinette's pouffed Image popping up everywhere: she hadundergone a radical transformation. No longer viewed as a heartless, elitist, anti-revolutionary wicked witch, she had now morphed into a sympathetic, unfairlymaligned victim—one who had successfully made the transition from literal teen queento mature, elegant wife and mother. As the promotional materials for the 2006 PBSdocumentary Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution argued, she was "a tender-hearted, complex woman, whose tragic awakening came too late to save her from theguillotine.'

What could explain this surprising popularity? Historians argue it stems from"historical illiteracy," that "most Americans don't have even the flimsiest grasp of whoshe was,' while cultural critics muse that, as consumers, "we're an entire nation ofMarie Antoinettes" (qtd. in Königsberg). However, we think the answer can be foundin tbe contemporary popular phenomenon of chick culture. What we refer to as "chickculture ' is a group of mostly American and British popular culture media forms arisingin the mid-nineties and focused primarily on twenty- to thirty-something, middle-class—and frequently college-educated—women. The most prominent chick culturalforms are chick flicks, chick lit, and chick TV programming, although other popculture manifestations such as magazines, blogs, music—even car designs and energydrinks—can be included in the chick line-up." In studying the phenomenon of chickculture, we have become interested particularly in the intersection of postfeminismor third-wave feminism,^ consumerism, and popular media. And here is where MarieAntoinette's popular resurrection is located. Marie Antoinette is capturing the Spirit ofthe Third-Wave-Feminist Age.

This is not the first time a revised view of Marie Antoinette has correspondedsignificantly with the prevailing social and political climate. In the mid-nineteenthcentury, for example, the Empress Eugénie was admired and imitated for affectingthe earlier French queen's lavish style (Weber, "Queen of the Zeitgeist"). At the turn

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of the twentieth century, Marie Antoinette, a trendsetter then as now, pops up innovels by Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf. A character in Wharton's House of Mirth(1905) names her daughter Mary Antoinette, influenced by a then-popular play basedon the Queen's life. Her rubies receive reverential mentions in Wharton's Custom ofthe Country (1913) and Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925). The 1930s saw a similar re-evaluation featuring a favorable 1933 biography by Stefan Zweig and a sympatheric1938 film portrayal starring Norma Shearer. Indeed, as Weber asserts, the attitudetoward the infamous queen might provide a clue to the Zeitgeist during any period inEurope and America since her own time ("Queen ofthe Zeitgeist").

Today's revisionist portraits of Marie Antoinette highlight typical third-wavefeminist preoccuparions. In her biography. Fraser provides evidence defending themuch maligned wife of Louis XYI against the charges of disdain for the masses andlascivious behavior. At the same time Fraser freely admits and details the luxurioushfestyle Marie Antoinette indulged in at the opulent court of Versailles. In Queen ofFashion, Weber extends Fraser's project to argue that the Queen's fashion statements'were, in every sense, accessories to the campaign she waged against the oppressivecultural strictures and harsh political animosities that beset her throughout her twenty-three-year tenure in France" (23). In the fictional texts, both explicitly based on Fraser'sbook, Naslund and Coppola presented the story to a wider—and, presumably in thecase of the film, considerably younger—audience. Together, the revisionist accountspresent a third-wave feminist aesthetic focused on youth, fashion, sexuality, celebrity,and consumerism.

Teen QueenThe third-wave revision of Marie Antoinette hinges primarily on imagining herposition as a fourteen-year-old Austrian archduchess separated from her family andforced to live among strangers at a foreign French court. Fraser subtides her biography"The Journey," presenting her life as a series of transitions—temporal, spatial, physical,and psychological—as she advances through stages of development readily identifiableto a female audience: independence, sexual initiation, marriage, and motherhood.Although audiences realize Marie Antoinette's journey, unlike their own, ended atthe guillotine, the revisionist accounts emphasize points of similarity, not difference,creating empathy with, rather than distance from, the teen queen.

The fictional accounts—Naslund's novel and Coppola's film—employ typicalstrategies of chick culture to stress audience identification with the young MarieAntoinette. Abundance, which might be called a chick-lit historical novel, presents herlife using the first-person point of view characteristic ofthe genre.'* Claiming to havefound her protagonist's voice in the historical queen's letters to her mother ("RS." 13),Naslund imagines an unaffected and naïve girl with typical adolescent preoccupations.The novel's opening line invites identification: "Like everyone, I am born naked" (3).The scene she subsequently describes, the remise, or handover ofthe princess from theAustrian to French courts, is hardly everyone's experience. Nonetheless, the narrativeenvisions a young girl indulging in what one reviewer described as "Barbara-Cartland-issue reveries' (Schillinger) about her future husband: "I try to picture the French boy,whom I have never seen, extending large hands to me, beckoning. What is he doing this

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very moment, deep in the heart of France? At fifteen, a year older than myself, he mustbe tall and strong" (Naslund 3). Tlie voice conveys, in both diction and subject matter,ordinary adolescent thoughts. She is a dutiful daughter, remembering her mother'sadmonition: "Do so much good to the French people that they can say that I have sent theman angel. So said my mother. Empress of Austria, and I will love them, and they willlove me" (5). Her chirpy resolvefades, however, as her littledog Mops is taken from her:"Mops, Mopsl I cry again, whilemy imploring hands beseechthe empty air" (6). Presentinga girlish protagonist, bereft ofher mother, her sisters, and herdog, but determined to "presenta cheerful countenance to theFrench" (6), Naslund invites reader sympathy for an innocent teen queen far removedfrom the adult image of historical accounts.

Like Naslund, Coppola found access to the historical queen through her letters toher mother: she could imagine "the real person behind the sarcastic teenage voice inher letters," she claims in her introduction to the published screenplay, and describesher as a "lost girl, leaving childhood behind" who eventually achieved "the final dignityofa woman." She was a "real girl," Coppola asserts, who "tried to find her own way."Sbe thought Marie Antoinettes loneliness and isolation were "touching." One Frenchreviewer commented, Coppola's film is "plein de vie, de rires et de découverte. Toutsimplement vu à travers les yeux d'enfant de son héroïne'' 'full of life, of laughter andof discovery. Quite simply viewed through the childlike eyes of its heroine' (Greuet;translation ours).

The wordless opening ofthe film deliberately engages an audience of "real girls," withits use of contemporary music and an identifiable celebrity teen queen.^ While Gang of

Four sings lyrics repeating "theproblems of the leisure: what todo for pleasure. 1 do love a newpurchase" on the soundtrack,the camera reveals the youngqueen, played by Kirsten Dunst,lounging on a pale blue chaisein a revealing white lace gown asa maid delicately slips her footinto a pink pump. Surrounded

by pink conkciions, she silcntJy leans forward to taste icing from a cake poised nearbywhile looking directly into the camera, then sinks back as though chuckling at herinsouciance. By breaking the cinematic fourth wall, she encourages viewers to conceiveof themselves as her confidantes, members ofthe sacred circle at court. Simultaneouslyand cleverly, this title sequence confronts the persistent, but unfounded, assumptionthat the Queen, indifferent to het subjects' starvation, advised imperiously and

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flippantly, "Let them eat cake." This is not, in fact, the Marie Antoinette we will cometo know in the film. Rather, Coppola is presenting the false image her film will seek todispel.

The film's title "Marie Antoinette," flashed boldly in pink and black, introduces a breakbetween this invented moment ftom the adult queens life and the start of Coppolasfilm narrative. The opening shot presents a young girl asleep in her comfortablebed, her long, straight blond hair tousled and her Face peaceflil and innocent. Theaccompanying score provides a cheerful pop beat. She awakens and giggles gleefullyat the antics ofthe small dog in bed with her. Throughout this initial scene, CoppolaofFets no clue that the film is set in any period other than out own. The effect is thesame as the opening of Naslund s narrative: the notorious image ofthe heartless adultqueen is deliberately undercut by the cinematic portrait ofthe vulnerable young girl.And the message to contemporary young women is unmistakable: forget what youread in the history books. This is the real story: Marie Antoinette was an ordinary girlcaught up in extraordinary circumstances. I

The films self-conscious identification with contemporary viewers Is most obvious inthe use of a late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century musical score. Pop music isincorporated not only as a non-diegetic element, but as a diegetic one. In a scene at amasked ball, for instance, partygoers dance in a humorous conflation of an eighteenth-century minuet and a Hollywood-musical-production number to '80s pop band BowWow Wow's "Aphrodisiac," underscoring Made Antoinettes new romantic interest,the hunky Count Axel Fersen. As her coach delivers her home to Versailles, Bow WowWow's cover of the chick-flick staple "Fools Rush In" echoes her dreamy mood. MarieAntoinette, the film slyly implies, is just like us—or at least those of us in the teen-to twenty-something demographic. Significantly, the film's PG-13 rating ensured thatyounger members of Coppola's potential third-wave audience wete not excluded.

Fashion Icon or Victim?In all ofthe revisionist accounts, a major focus is the issue of Marie Antoinettes concernwith fashion. That issue is, in fact, the central key to the French queen's contemporaryappeal. Each work identifies fashion not merely as an adjunct to the Queen's character,but as a primary motif in her life. The confluence of fashion and identity, a constanttheme of third-wave feminist thought, is directly addressed in the books as well as inCoppola's film.

In each account, Antoinette's passage from child of Austria to Dauphine of Franceis registered through a ceremonial change of dress. At the border with France, for theofficial "handover" from the Austrian to the French court, the former Maria Antonia

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must leave all of Austria behind, including not only her cherished lapdog but herclothes. Each work suggests the symbolic importance of the remise as a re-fashioningof self, presenting in great detail the elaborate ceremony literally stripping the teenageAntoine of all physical remnants of her Austrian heritage. Naslund emphasizes theteenage queen's nakedness as a metaphor for her psychic vulnerability and, as expectedfor a novel, delves beneath surface display to imagine Marie Antoinette's thoughts andfeelings. "Having shed all my clothing," she reveals, "I stand in a room on an islandin the middle of the Rhine River—naked. My bare feet occupy for this moment aspot considered to be neutral between beloved Austria and France. The sky blue of mydiscarded skirt wreathes my ankles" (3). As she begins "the donning of French clothes,"she assumes a new identity: "my French self" (5).

This theme of transformation is even more pronounced in Coppola's film, whichvisually registers the same scene, reinforcing Marie Antoinette's transformationthrough costume. The young future queen arrives at the ceremony in an elegant gown,but one entirely free of color,suggestive of a blank canvas. Wewatch as the attendant Frenchladies remove her clothingrevealing a back view of a ver\'young girl clad only in a filmyundergarment and thigh-highstockings. She is then redesignedaccording to Versailles fashion,emerging in a luxurious,corseted, full-skirted blue gown, with her hair upswept anu Louuuiitd under a jauntytricorn. Later, in an opulent scene filmed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, Coppolapresents her in a splendid wedding gown transformed, finally, into the Dauphine ofFrance.^

While fashion will eventually become the young queens mode of influence andpower, the rituals surrounding dress are initially indicative of her status as victim. Weber,in particular, emphasizes Marie Antoinettes early victimization. In Weber's book, theopening scene of the remise emphasizes the young girl's submission co an arbitrarilyimposed set of foreign standards visible as dress. In the chapter titled "Stripped," Weberhighlights, not her girlish nakedness, as in Ahundance and Coppola's film, but thecollusion of the Austrian and French courts in cementing their alliance through—and on—her body. She notes that the French erasure of her Austrian connections andheritage began before she departed for France. A French dentist corrected her smile, aFrench hairstylist "tamed the Archduchess's locks into a low, powdered upsweep studdedwith decorative gems" (16), and French clothing draped her body. Nonetheless, at thehandover, she was "stripped naked in front of the entire Austrian delegation" (27).Weber presents her as a "prisoner of the men's appraising glances and the women'sofficious ministrations" (26)/

In Weber's account, even Marie Antoinette's moment of supposed victory duringher wedding ceremony is actually another scene of victimization. And it is, once again,Antoinette's clothing that betrays her. Weber notes that the wedding gown "cut from

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luminous, white-hued cloth-of-sliver" and enhanced by "masses of white diamonds"could have been a "masterpiece" (42), but was not. Instead, in an eigbteentb-centuryversion of wardrobe malfunction, the dressmakers had made the bodice too small,meaning that the stays and laces of her corset were visible at the back. Weber speculatesthat this "may have made the girls wedding toilette more upsetting even than thestripping at the border" (42) and imagines "how unnerving it must have been forMarie Antoinette to see them reflected, a million times over, in the halls countlessmirrors" (43).

Weber and Coppola, along with Fraser and Naslund, note that the court etiquetteof dressing rituals requires Antoinette's submission, even as Dauphine, to the mostinfluential women at court to undress in the evening (the coucher) and dress in themorning (the lever), ln tbe film, Coppola demonstrates that while presumably there toattend her, they in fact render her powerless. Awakened after an uneventful weddingnight, Marie Antoinette is stripped naked (for a second time in the film) in ber coldbedchamber. She is then redressed in an elaborate ritual confirming tbe ranks of thosewho—fully clothed—"serve" her. Shivering as new arrivals necessitate reshufflingthe order of attendance, the young Dauphine shyly and smilingly confesses, "This isridiculous," but is rebuked: "This, Madame, is Versailles." In Webers version, she ismore impertinent: "Oh this is odious! What an inconvenience!" (65). But the lesson isthe same: "In this rarefied world, the surface was the substance" (Weber 41). Wbile thisaccurately sums up eighteenth-century Versailles, it may also quite easily be applied toa twenty-first-century world where visual culture continues to rule.

Marie Antoinette did soon overcome her submissive position, however—at leastwith respect to fashion. Ultimately her savvy—and frequently ostentatious—use offashion becomes a major focus for each of the revisionist works, as for her life. Throughfashion she created her image as Queen of France. Naslund's novel traces the Queensinvestments—both psychological and financial—in fashion and acknowledges the roleof her "Ministry of Fashion," coiffeur Monsieur Léonard and marchande de mode RoseBertin, essential alliances in her personal and political life. And Naslund grants herprotagonist a contemporary insight: her life as queen was a performance, a "visualfeast" (426) for the people: "the eye is mightier than the ear. The memory of what isviewed oudasts the memory of what is heard" (427).

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Weber too recognizes and fully develops Marie Antoinette's use of fashion to createher identity as queen, an insight that becomes central to her argument. Indeed, Weber'sthesis, that fashion was "a key weapon in her struggle for personal prestige, authority,and sometimes mere survival" (3), can be described as third wave, not as an intenrionalpolitical gesture but in the sense that it participates in third-wave recuperations offeminine display as meaningful, rather than simply frivolous.

Coppola, herself squarely placed in the third-wave feminist generation, has argued:"You're considered superficial and silly if you're interested in fashion. [... ] But I thinkyou can be substantial and still be interested in frivolity. The girl in Lost in Translation isjust about to figure out a way of finding herself, but she hasn t yet. In [Marie Antoinette]she makes the next step. I feel that Marie Antoinette is a very creative person" (qtd. inKennedy Fraser).

Coppola's film most fully captures the uncanny connection between the eighteenthcentury and our own in recognizing and exploiring dress as a medium of self-definition. The film's lavish costuming clearly highlights the significance of fashion inMarie Antoinette's world. The gorgeous sets, the sumptuous food design, the Versaillespalace itself where the filming took place, all contribute to its rich sensuous appeal.But the costumes—for which designer Milena Cañonero won an Academy Award—take center stage throughout. While Cañonero made use of historical sources, she alsomade a number of significant and telling changes. As she explains in the film's "makingo f documentary, her costume design followed not history but Coppola's vision forthe film. Rather than the "expected classical look," she opted for "stylization." Someofthe costumes and colors, she reveals, were symbolic, some psychological ("Makingof"). As many commentaries noted, the style Cañonero developed su^ests a wittyblend of "1980s punk-pop sensibility and 18th-century fashion" (FrockFlicks). Mostnotably Cañonero frequently used pink—the signature color of postfeminism. We seeDunst parading in pink gowns repeatedly in the film; pink ribbons, shoes, fans, hats,flowers, even pink desserts complete the look. The emphasis on pink reached beyondthe film itself: promotional stills and materials, including the DVD packaging andthe film-tie-in cover of Fraser's book, portray Marie Antoinette in one or another ofher luscious pink outfits; the DVD inside the package is graced by a pair of pink highheels. One ofthe wry signature statements of postfeminism applies perfectly to thiscinematic Marie Antoinette: "Pink: It's an attitude." In the film, Antoinette herselfmakes the connection explicit. Perusing a series of rich dress fabrics, the young queensighs, "I like the pink; it's like candy."" Coppola and Cañonero knew what they weredoing. Making the color pink Marie Antoinette's signature color had lirtle to do withhistorical accuracy and much to do with third-wave feminist identification.

Even when they are not dressed in pink, Antoinette and her small circle of friendsmost often appear in girlish pastels—p^e aqua, muted coral, soft: yellow. According toCañonero, the connection between the luscious colors and delectable sweets was literal:at Coppola's suggestion she based her palette on a box of delicately colored Frenchmacaroons ("Sofia Coppola's"). The young Marie Antoinette and her circle contrastclearly, on the one hand, with her husband's spinster aunts always attired in beige orgray and, on the other, with the old king's mistress, the Comtesse du Barry, who revelsin rich, seductive jewel tones. In the scene ofthe masked ball, Antoinette is dressed

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uncharacteristically in a striking black gown, a black net "mask" covering her eyes—aformal-wear choice more in tune with our times than hers.

Color, however, was not the only significant issue guiding Coppola and Canonero'sfashion decisions. The constant costume changes also become one of the film'shallmarks. The plethora of costumes Dunst wears is almost overwhelming. She appearsin over sixty gowns, none for more than a few minutes, many for only seconds.'̂ Attimes, the film's set becomes little more than an eighteenth-century fashion-showrunway: And here we have a lovely pistachio ensemble embellished with creamy lace;next, a full-skirted aqua gown—note the matching feathers in the pillbox hat.

The shoes appearing in the film also have a strong chick-culture connection: they weredesigned by Manolo Blahnik, the king of girly footwear fashion, most famously thanksto the devotion ofthe characters on the Sex and the G'i)'TV series. Still, Coppola, fullyaware of her purpose, does not expect the audience to be fooled by her playful mixof styles. When she includes an anachronistic pair of Converse high-tops in the film'scentral "shopping" montage, Coppola consciously admits and laughs at her own use ofcontemporary fashion imagery.

Naslund, Weber, and Coppola all present fashion as central to the Dauphine'stransformation. But they also capture the postfeminist paradox: standards of beauty areboth rigorous and capricious. They offer a portrait of Marie Antoinette first submittingto Versailles fashion—understood simultaneously as dress and standards of conduct—and then rebelling against entrenched court style to fashion herself as Queen of Fashionand of France.

Sartorial and Sexual ExcessIn spite of her dtess-for-success approach, Marie Antoinette never fiilly overcame thesuspicion that greeted her arrival in Versailles. Her penchant for luxury and fashion,simultaneously and ironically, increased both her popularity and the dangerous envyand mistrust embodied in the vicious rumors that followed her everywhere. Most ofthese rumors focused on sex. At Versailles, Weber argues, "matters of costume weremonitored as closely and taken as seriously as royal sex (whether recreational ordynastic)" (73). The Dauphine's body was no longer her own, given over to the ladiesat court for rituals of dressing but also to the nation for the production of an heir.Perhaps inescapably, then, fashion and sexuality were intertwined. This confluence ishighlighted in the revisionist versions targeting a contemporary audience, one trainedby popular media to accept such a pairing as natural.

Each ofthe revisionist portraits emphasizes the pressure imposed on the young girl toconsummate her marriage to Louis XVI. Naslund incorporates letters from her motherto highlight the political imperative of their alliance, alongside the girls reveries todescribe her sexual awakening and personal desire for connection to her husband. Tlienovel also dramatizes her encounter with the fishwives of Paris on hand, as was custom,to witness royal births. Following the Comtesse d'Artois's delivery ofa child, they tauntMarie Antoinette, for the King's brother, rather than the King, has produced a son:

They are angry that their Queen has not produced an heir. They speak roughly and loudlyto me: "Where is your babe?" "Why have you not given us an heir?" "You spend yournights dancing." "You have neglected your business as a wife." "We are mothers! Whynot you?" (234) i

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With effort, she remains "serene," until she is drawn into the arms of her friendMadame Campan and comforted by another friend, Henriette. With theirencouragement, she calms herself and envisions one day nursing her own child, "as Iam told Rousseau advocates" (237). The novel pointedly presents Marie Antoinette asfrustrated in fulfilling her maternal duty and desires.

Coppola's fiim depicts the same scene, but in this cinematic version the Queenturns to her friends and to fashion as oudets for frustrated sexual desire. Coppolastages Marie Antoinette's passage through the hall crowded with fishwives who hiss,"Give us an heir." Far from serene, the screen queen struggles to retain her composure,eventually collapsing in a heap behind a closed door, weeping alone. The film then cutsto a montage reminiscent of the shopping scenes in scores of chick flicks: the teenagedAntoinette appears with her ladies trying on countless pairs of shoes (as the camerapans by the humorously anachronistic pair of Converse sneakers), examining fabricsand modeling jewelry, while drinking champagne and indulging in lavish pink-and-white-frosted sweets, to the strains of Bow Wow Wow's "1 Want Candy." The scenecloses with an army of the Dauphine's coiffeurs affixing the finishing touches to hertowering headdress.

The film, however, far from condemning her lavish consumption, defends it,considering it evidence of her playful, endearing, queen-next-door charm. Thecontemporary song, with its repetitive, upbeat mantra of juvenile desire—"I wantcandy. I want candy"—reinforces the childish innocence ofthe young women's actions.If Louis (Jason Schwartzman) finds an oudet for his masculine energies in swordplayand stag hunting, Marie Antoinette finds the feminine counterparts in coiffures,clothing, and cakes. The film, like the revisionist books, acknowledges that "decadentlovely things," "her Fabrics and trinkets" (Coppola) provided the backdrop For MarieAntoinette's journey but not the key to her character. Naslund's title. Abundance, sheexplains, invokes both the luxuriousness of Versailles before the Revolution and MarieAntoinette's "generosity and graciousness of spirit" ("ES." 6).

As each work reveals, Marie Antoinette's contemporaries were less forgiving. Publiccondemnations ofthe Queen's extravagances in the press and pamphlets Fused sartorialexcess with sexual deviance. Her elaborate coifliires and jewels recalled images oF theprevious king's mistresses, Madame Pompadour and Madame du Barry, especially hersignature hairstyle, ú\cpoufJ° Her more "modish splurges [..,] appeared better suitedto a king's mistress than to a king's wife" (Weber 119).

As Forclothing,her dressmaker Bertin's preference forusing"provocative nomenclature"for her trimmings and fabrics, such as "stifled sighs' and "masked desire" (127), mayhave augmented the associations, as did the young queen's frequent appearances at theParis Opéra, which Weber argues, equated her with "the 'kept women,' actresses andprostitutes also in attendance" (129). She was blamed For leading young women to raidtheir dowries to follow her fashionable example, eighteenth-century tashionistas who,it was reported, "were just as happy [buying] pouß as [getting] a husband" (qtd. 124).Marie Antoinette was, a journalist wrote, "a danger to the morals of the people": "Inthe passionate desire to copy her example, women's dress has become so enormouslyexpensive, that husbands, generally, are unable to pay for what is required, so lovershave become the fashion" (125).

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But most popular condemnation focused on the Queen's own sexual behavior. Oneofthe earliest pamphlets against her, "Le Lever de l'aurore," targeted an occasion whenthe Queen and a small group of courtiers stayed up all night to see the sunrise. Thepamphlet presented this innocent moment of nature worship as a "crazed sexual free-for-all" (Weber 127). The Queen's closest confidantes, the Princesse de Lamballe andthe Duchesse de Polignac, it was further speculated, were actually her own mistresses.The Queen s supposed lesbianism, "the German vice" ( 142), explained her childlessness.To Weber, Marie Antoinette appears as a modern-day celebrity unfairly excoriated inthe eighteenth-century equivalent of the tabloids or Access Hollywood. She activelypromoted her own image, but "the young queen failed either to consider or to graspthe scandal that her personal splendor represented to her people" (115).

Coppola's film also invokes popular distortions of the Queen's behavior, subtly, asin the films faithful representation of the innocent sunrise party, and direcdy, mostnotably in a scene showcasingMarie Antoinette's apocryphalretort to revolutionary unrest. Aclose-up shot reveals the headand shoulders of the Queen,lying back in a bathtub wearingonly a d i a m o n d necklaceand earrings and reciting theline—"Let them eat cake"—flirtatiously to the camera." Thescene is pointedly at odds in style to the rest ofthe film: Dunst wears anachronisticallydark lipstick and the shot, drained of other color, uses stark lighting and a spare setdesign. A cut returns us to the film world to show a long shot of a fiilly dressed MarieAntoinette surrounded by her ladies. She protests, "Thats such nonsense. I wouldnever say that." And indeed the Marie Antoinette we have come to know in the filmwould not. The line is presented as tabloid-like fodder, the imaginary creation of anti-royalist rumormongers circulating compromising stories in the popular press.

The visual allusion to a diamond necklace in the scene is by no means incidental,llie infamous Diamond Necklace Affair was another case in which Marie Antoinettewas, historians agree, more sinned against than sinning. It was this single incidentthat, however unfairly, solidified popular resentment against her. Ihe diamondnecklace—along with any reference to cake—represents the condemnation ofpopular opinion.'" Coppola's presentation of this scene—evoking simultaneously twoofthe greatest unjust charges against the young queen—strikes us as a particularlyingenious use of film iconography. Still, Coppola reveals an underlying irony:Marie Antoinette and her friends appear in the "real-life" scene completely cutoff from the troubled outside world, indulging in a lifestyle of luxurious leisure.

Coppola creates further audience identification with the unfairly malignedQueen by frequently presenting Dunst walking or standing alone, either in longcamera shots or isolated within close-ups. Repeatedly we see her walking down along hallway or avenue as we hear not real conversation, but (literally) ungrounded,whispered rumors Boating around her, often those of the courtiers themselves. Are

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they real or simply her imagination? Coppola has chosen to set aside historicalaccuracy—the opportunity for a French queen to remove herself from the constantpress of required companions, court flatterers, and curious observers was largelynon-existent, after all—to invoke our compassion. The strategy is effective: whatgirl or woman who has ever attended high school can fail to feel her pain? WhileMarie Antoinette does eventually enlist her BFFs—tbe Princesse de Lamballe andthe Duchesse de Polignac—in her cause, she remains an outsider in her own court.

The sole situation of Marie Antoinette's life in which the rumors against her mighthave been justified was her relationship with the dashing Count Fersen, a Swedishmilitary officer and frequent court visitor. Ironically, while rumors connected theQueen sexually to almost everyone else she came in touch with, from her brothers-in-law to her female friends and her own children, few rumors linking her with CountFersen actually surfaced (Antonia Fraser 203; Weber 142). Most interesting for ourpurposes may be the discrepancy in the approaches taken by the four revisionistworks considered here: each one chooses to treat the relationship in a different way.Fraser and Weber, as historians, openly acknowledge the impossibility of discoveringthe nature and degree of intimacy between tbe Queen and ber chevalier. Much ofFersens personal correspondence was destroyed, and none of the Queen's letters tohim survive. Although historians past and present have devoted considerable energyto the question, they concur that no firm evidence exists (Weber 328, note 25).

Weber, taking a scholarly approach, simply leaves it at that: while it's possibleMarie Antoinette and Fersen consummated their relationship, we cannot knowfor sure. Still, she calls Fersen "the great love of her life" (136). Fraser, as a popularwriter, is willing to go a step further. In spite of her admission that the evidence isinconclusive, she chooses to believe that the two conducted a discteet, clandestinesexual affair for several years. She asks, "But did the Queen in fact sleep with thehandsome Count? On balance of probabilities, the answer must be yes. The ideaof a great pure love that is never consummated, although propagated by somesympathetic historians, does not seem to fit the facts of human nature" (203). Frasercontinues, "What he did offer was exactly what she wanted: romantic devotion,accompanied from time to time, one must believe, with physical proof of it" (203).

Tbe two fictional works, by contrast, provide definitive, but entirely differentinterpretations. Naslund's novel, narrated by the Queen herself, puts forward the "greatpure love" theory: the romantic liaison between the narrator and her cavalier is strictlyan affair of the heart and soul. They are the purest, most perfect of friends and soulmates, blissful in one another's presence and never truly separated. The last time theymeet, their eternal devotion is sealed by a single chaste embrace:

I think that we both have a premonition that we will never see each other again. But it is ourdisposition and determination to forbid the occasion to be sad. No, every moment that wearetogether hasalwaysbeenand is to befilledvi'irhjoy,justasthe bee perpetually fills the honeycomb.

With exquisite grace, he draws me a step forward and meets me in a holy kiss. (489)

Still, Naslund provides one small opening for readers who would like to believe theaffair went further. The young Queen reveals that she has returned to a hidden grotto

Marie Antoinette: Fashion, Third-Wave Feminism, and Chick Culture/1Ü9

to dream about a prior meeting there with her beloved count (439-40). Was this thepoint at which the two soul mates became more than spiritual lovers? For the mostpart, however, Naslund presents a relationship carried on through stolen looks, quietconversations, and secret letters: the eighteenth-century equivalent of an online romance.

Not surprisingly, Coppola goes furthest in inventing details ofthe royal relationship.She allows Marie Antoinette a full-blown affair replete with a meet cute at a masqueradeball, romantic trysts in the countryside, and a playfully seductive bedroom scene,reminiscent of an earlier scene between Louis XV and his sultry mistress. Her appearanceat the ball cannily exploits the possibilities of clothing as cover for her flirtation withthe seductive Count Fersen. In the bedroom scene, by contrast, she appears stretchedout on a bed, naked except for her stockings and a strategically placed outspread fan.The use of this image in promotional stills, ads, and on the cover ofthe accompanyingCD, gives a clear message: This is not your grandmother's Marie Antoinette.

Still Coppola's decision to present the affair as a clearly adulterous one mayinitially seem puzzling, given her avowed purpose to exonerate the misjudged queen.By including the affair, however, she manages to place her heroine squarely in theromande chick-flick tradition extending from The Bridges of Madison County [X'^^')) toThe Duchess (2008). Coppola thus provides the swoon-inducing romance third-waveaudiences expect; at the same time, she garners the audience's sympathy when MarieAntoinette is farced by circumstance, family loyalty, and a sense of responsibility tosacrifice her one true love.

The Final StageFinally, over seven years after their wedding, the King and Queen were able toconsummate their marriage and produce children—including a potential heir. As allof the revisionist texts relate, Marie Antoinette wholeheartedly adopted the role ofmother—another choice embraced by third-wave women. Influenced by the back-to-nature movement Rousseau had inspired, she changed her lifestyle along with herclothing style. She gave up most ofthe late-night parties, balls, operas, gambling, andpublic court life, opting instead to spend her time at the PetitTrianon, the small privatepalace attached to Versailles, and Saint Cloud, her country estate, surrounded by closefiriends and family. Like today's film stars, she claimed that motherhood and familywere her priorities and perhaps managed, to about the same extent, to convince bothherself and her fans. And where today's star mothers adopt Juicy sweats, our eighteenth-century star adopted white muslin dresses, forgoing the extravagant silks, hoop skirts,extreme corsets, and over-the-top hairstyles she had formerly displayed. In much thesame way, then, that a change of wardrobe signaled her transition from young girlto teen queen and from fashion follower to fashion icon, her transition to the roleof devoted mother was reflected in a new style. In all four works, Marie Antoinettedirectly addresses a desire to "dress myself more simply" (Naslund 344).

By this time, however, the damage was done. Marie Antoinette's lavish spendinghabits were well known, and her detractors ridiculed her efforts to play shepherdess.They denounced her simpler style as immodest and morally corrupt for, as Webernotes, the less structured chemises presumably provided easier access to breasts andgenitals ( 152). A portrait by Louise Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, the Queen's favorite coun

1X0/Marie Antoinette: Fashion, Third-Wave Feminism, and Chick Culture

painter, portraying her in a lovely white gown and beribboned straw hat was severelycriticized by an unappreciative public as too informal for a queen of France (Fraser223).

Some of the Queens efforts at simplicity do appear ridiculous—though notmalicious—from a present-day perspective. Her creation of a miniature farm stockedwith real animals for her amusement and her penchant for performing the role ofcountry lass in plays she and her friends performed were hardly likely, given thesituation beyond the walls of Versailles, to inspire respect. Still, her devotion to herfamily was real—and highly unusual. But revolutionary fervor was growing and MarieAntoinette's early popularity was never regained.

In all three revisionist books discussed here, the Queen's journey ends at theguillotine. And in each case fashion continues to make a clear statement. Webers studyand Naslund's novel present an imprisoned queen whose radically altered dress reflectspolitical and psychological transformation. Naslund claims Marie Antoinette's decisionto simplify her dress stemmed from the "spirit of change" (344) grasping the nation,allying her with—not against—the Revolution.

Weber argues that Marie Antoinette was not following but directing Revolutionarystyle, that, paradoxically. Revolutionary fashion came "from her own repertoire of oncecontroversial, simplified ensembles to make the opposite claim: that all women werecreated equal" (203). Weber describes the Queen's final moments as poignant eifottsto appear regal even in death: she notes that Marie Antoinette kept a "special whitechemise at the ready" and that her serving girl recalled "it was her intenrion to appear inpublic as decently dressed as her impoverished circumstances allowed" (qtd. 286). Herchoice ofthe simple white dress is, to Weber, "the most brilliant fashion statement ofher entire career" (287), proving that "even as she faced execution, Marie Antoinetteswill to control her image, to manage it through her clothing, had not left her" (287).

Coppola, by contrast, while ending her treatment of Marie Antoinette on a sadnote, does not include the end of het life. Instead, she follows the Queen only tothe point at which her life of pleasurable extravagance has come to an end, with theroyal couple's forced departure from Versailles. In the final scenes the sets are dark, thecolors of Marie Antoinette's gowns muted. No longer focusing on finery and frivolity,Coppola portrays the Queen's calm acceptance ofthe approaching disaster and aboveall, her desire to protect her family. Twice Marie Antoinette insists, in spite of theobvious danger, on remaining where she belongs: by her husband s side. One of herlast appearances in the film shows her emerging on the balcony before the vicious mobstorming the palace, bowing down wordlessly before them as a supplicant for mercy.Her eventual death at their hands, the film implies, is not a moral object lesson onthe evils of over-indulgence but an envy-induced travesty of jusrice. We all know thefinal end of her story; Coppola allows Marie Antoinette to remain in the film's createdworld, young, fresh, beautiful, and finally, courageous: the ideal thitd-wave heroine.

Consumer Culture *Not surprisingly, Coppola's film, of the revisionist works considered here, is moststtongly associated with issues of consumerism. In fact, the film itself, like its subject,was attacked for a self-indulgent focus on style. While both English- and French-

Marie Antoinette: Fashion, Third-Wave Feminism, and Chick Culture/111

language reviews were almost evenly split between admiration and condemnation,many suggest that in Coppola's retelling, "style [...] takes precedence over plotand character development" {Rotten Tomatoes). Detractors saw the film as "almostpornographically obsessed with fashion, jewelry and desserts" (Dudek). Two reviewsthat we came across, however, looked more deeply into Coppola's revisionism. L. V.JeflPrey makes the insightful comment that "Coppola continues to fascinate hy givingprofessional creative voice to all the girly-girls in the world, ever arguing that they Ve amajor subset of society," one that we "would be foolish to offhandedly dismiss." AndLisa Schwarzbaum recognized that the film "is the work of a mature filmmaker whohas identified and developed a new cinematic vocabulary to describe a new breed ofpostpostpostfeminist woman. And that contemporary creature is also of the artist'sown invention."

Coppola's "cinematic vocabulary" is ironic and self-aware. While putting forwarda serious revisionist view of Marie Antoinette, the film is constantly winking at itsaudience. Coppola's use of ironic film asides, especially in the wordless scene precedingthe opening credits and the "Let them eat cake" scene, highlights the artifice offilmmaking as well as biography. The film is reminding the audience, that, like thepopular pamphlets of the eighteenth century, it has constructed a Marie Antoinetteof its own—a sweet, girlish, pink-and-white confection now replacing the debauched,uncaring vixen oF earlier popular legend.

In a similarly self-knowing vein, the film, which simultaneously celebrates andgently mocks lavish consumerism, signals its own participation in a consumeristculture. While Antoinette and her ladies indulge in luscious delicacies. Fountains ofchampagne, and rows of brightly colored shoes, we indulge in a film portraying thosetempting goodies, bubbly drinks, and stylish high heels. A consumerist item itself,the film both acknowledges and satisfies our consumerist fantasies. New York Timescritic A. O. Scott rightly described it as "a thoroughly modern confection, blendinginsouciance and sophistication, heartfelt longing and self-conscious posing with theguileless self-assurance oFa great pop song. What to do For pleasure? Go see this movie.For starters." And why not? In its admittedly ironic message oFconsumerism as innocentFun, the film easily justifies its participation in such indulgence. We may well dismissthe diamonds and pass over the pastries, Coppola might suggest, but we can easilyinvest in a movie ticket—a treat ringing up at less than SlO and entirely calorie-Free.-And, unlike Marie Antoinette, For our harmless indulgence we will not lose our heads.

Apparently the film's director, producers, and marketers were not shy aboutcapitalizing on the consumerist possibilities inherent in such a production." Acompanion CD, Coppola's published script, and a new cover for Fraser's book FeaturingKirsten Dunst—dressed in pink—all accompanied or shortly followed release ofthefilm. The film's celebration of fashion was also exploited to sell both movie tickets andcontemporary consumer goods in the September 2006 Vogue magazine spread thatcoincided with the film's release. While the spread did include one image oF the castin their sumptuous costumes, it consisted largely of images of Dunst—including onthe cover—captured by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz on the grounds ofthenewly renovated Grand Trianon at the Château de Versailles modeling eighteenth-century-inspired corseted gowns by contemporary designers Alexander McQueen and

112/Mûrie Antoinette: Fashion, Third-Wave Feminism, and Chick Culture

others. And the girly Juicy Couture line followedshortly with a pink-poufïed model advertisingits latest fragrance.

This innocent stance provides a strongcontrast to the condemnation of the Queenboth in her own time and in subsequentgenerations. Still, Marie Antoinette is by nomeans alone in her role as a scapegoat sacrificedon the altars of lavish consumerism. And theassociation of women, in particular, with suchevils is nothing new. Thorstein Veblen madethat connection clear in his 1899 Theory oftheLeisure Class. Women with political connectionsare particularly susceptible to the charge, asthose old enough to remember the immolationof Imelda Marcos and her 300 pairs of shoescan attest. But some periods are quicker thanothers to send such figures to the slaughter—

symbolic or literal. Even as savvy a self-promoter as Lady Diana Spencer could, inAntoinette's time, have suffered the Queen's fate. Indeed in her poise and grace, herstatus as fashion icon, and her lack of interest inpolitics, her resemblance to the French Queenis almost uncanny.'"* But Diana lived in a worldmore favorably disposed toward—and forgivingof—such inclinations, and saw herself enshrinedas a postfeminist heroine. Marie Antoinette, bycontrast, has had to wait some three centuries togarner the same favorable acceptance.'''

Marie Antoinette herself had recognized thatconsumption was essential to her efforts toestablish prestige and power. She actively soughtpublicity for her fashions. Bertin and LeonaiJwere encouraged to keep their shops and otherclients in Paris, rather than, as was traditional,required to work exclusively for the monarch atVersailles (Weber 110). And, as Weber notes, inlanguage reflecting our own popular culture, theQueen was "an active and zealous manipulator of her own Lc!cbii¡\ wlio discoveredthat her audience was "an avid market for her iconoclastic, exciting image" (110).Unfortunately for the ill-fated Marie Antoinette, however, the Age of Revolutionprovided a disastrously inappropriate setting for her performance. In our Age ofConsumption, refashioned in popular culture as a well-intentioned but misunderstoodyoung wife and mother, she has found a more appreciative third-wave audience, whoclearly would not condemn her for having a great sense of style and the means to pullit off.

Marie Antoimlte". Fashion, Third-Wave Feminism, and Chick Culture/113

Suzanne FerrissNova Southeastern University, Florida

Mallory YoungTarleton State University, Texas

Acknowledgment

Mallory Young would like to thank the University Research Committee at Tarleton State University for

an Organized Research Grant that supported her work on this article.

Notes

' Weber's is not the only scholarly work to focus entirely or partly on Marie Antoinette in the past few

years. Numerous dissertations also appeared in several disciplines including English, history, music, art,

and even archilecture. . i

^ Sec Ferriss and Young, Chick Fkks 1-2.

' VChile some sources conflate the terms posífeminísm and ihirri-uave feminim, otheis distinguish dearly

between them. Although we don't make as pronounced a distinction as some do, we do prefer the term

third-wavefetuinism., suggesting not a rejection of the earlier feminist views but rather a development and

transformation, I*or further discussion of the terms, see Holmlund and Mazza.

•* F'or a thorough Introduction to chick-lit conventions, see Ferriss and Young, Chick Lit, especially p. 4.

' Kf^Äfput the star on its Sept, 2006 cover with the headline: "Kirsten Dunst as the Teen Queen Who

Rocked Versailles."

'' The gown worn by Kirsten Dunst in the wedding scene has already achieved iconic status. It ft-as

included in a 2006 exhibit in japan curated by Hollywood costume designer Mary Rose, Star-Stnck:

h\ollynr>od Costumes and Designen, /PÍ-/-200íí. The exhibit, a condensed version of which u-asshouTi at The

\X'omen's Museum of the State Fair of Texas in 2007, also featured such iconic costumes as ClaudetteColbert's re\'eaHng 1934 costume for Cleopatra and Kate Winslett's gown from the famous "I'm the Kingf)f the World!" scene in Tittinic (Svokos).

' Fraser, by contrast, points out that eighteenth-centur\' attitudes toward prn-acy—which u-as largelynon-existent—would have made the occasion of the remise far less humiliating than it appears to ourmodern sentiments (60), Weber does not admit that difference of perspective, choosing instead toincrease the ctmtemporar)' audience's sympathies for the ^-ulnerable young royal.

" This isn't the first time the film assiKiiates Marie Antoinette's fashion sense with sweet confections:

one of the court ladies, in an earlier scene, looks at the newly arrived Dauphine dressed in frothy peachand comments, with only slightly feigned admiration, "She looks like a little piece of cake."

' On its ^^Marie Antoinette' page, the website Costumer's Guide to Movie Costumes {www.costumersguide.com) prondes tluimbnail sdlls of Dunst in 65 different gouTis, wrappers, and dressing gowns appearing

in the film, as well as numerous others that didn't make the final cut.

WA ¡Marie Antoinette: Fashion, Third-Wave Feminism, and Chick Culture

"' "Built on scaffolding made from wire, cloth, gauze, horsehair, faite hair and the wearer's own tresses,

teased high off the forehead" (Vt'eber 104),^u;^ were then powdered and ornamented with decorationsintended to express a feeling {pouf an sentiment} or commemorate an event [pot^' à ia ámnstance). In fact,

the \^Tetched excess of these designs provoked some of the first attacks against the Queen in the popularpress (VC'eber 114). Weber speculates that the/w///may be directly related to the spurious "l-et them eatcake" rumor: "it is not implausible that the lasting association between her callousness and baked edibles

in faa originated uith her habit of parading her powdered, wedding-cake hairstyles before a bread-starved nation" (114). Flour was an ingredient used in the powder.

" The necklace is presumably an allusion to the infamous twenty-ei^t-hundred-carat collar of the

Diamond Necklace Affair. See below.

'" The necklace, called "the Slave's Collar" (Weber 166), here appears as the shackles of public opinion

and a foreboding reference to the guillotine, which "sliced its own bloody version of a necklace into the

Queen's throat" (Weber 8),

'̂ Even in the absence of big-budget HoUj-wood marketing, Naslund's novel also managed to capitalÍ2e

on Marie Antoinette's image, with its reflective, embossed cover and reading group guide aoss-promodon.

''̂ Several fevorable reviews of Coppola's film noted the comparison. See, for example, Ebert,Hoberman, and Scholer. Less favorable reviews, on the other hand, such as Brian Holcomb's, suggesteda connection to Paris Hilton. Still others, both more and less complimentarj; identified the overprivilegedqueen with Coppola herself.

' ' Weber originally intended her book to locate the Queen in "a longer genealogy of prominent womenwho were recognized and evaluated more for how thej* dressed than for what they 'did,"' includingnot only Diana but the nineteenth-century empresses Joséphine and Eugénie, and Jacqueline KennedyOnassis'(290-91).

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