Chapter 5. Isabel, the Rising Star
From our vantage point years later, we can see that Our Ladies of the Dark altered the course of history. Which makes it all the more frustrating that scholars continue to argue over basic details, such as the group’s rumored original membership.
I sometimes wonder if my peers are simply loath to credit a group of celebrities with what turned out to be such a watershed moment for women.
How could such unserious people, they might argue—bards and jesters at best—have made such an impact?
Hollywood, after all, seems an unlikely place for solidarity to take root.
Those familiar with its history know the industry was built on ruthless competition, from the studio era forward.
Everyone against everyone, baked into the soil.
And yet you could argue we live in a time when technological advances have turned the whole world into a version of Hollywood; given each human being, from PhD student to stay-at-home mom, their own platform; changed everyone into a performer of their own lives, hungry for an audience.
In this economy of eyeballs, attention has emerged as the most valuable commodity.
To riff on Frank Herbert, she who controls the attention controls the universe.
It seems obvious, then, that stars would trump dusty world leaders.
Say a woman—only a minor artist—was transformed by an unprecedented influx of attention into a star. Now imagine she had the uncommon bravery to lay down her sword among her competitors and expose her neck …
What would she then inspire?
—Frances Vogel, “Our Ladies of the Dark: A History,” PhD dissertation presented to the UCLA Department of History