Actor and Prostitute

The etymology of the Greek name ‘Pandora’ (a composite of ‘pan’, meaning ‘all’, and ‘doron’ meaning ‘gift’) resonates with the German film Pandora's Box (1929) by G. W. Pabst and starring Louise Brooks as Lulu. As a prostitute and dancer, Lulu circulates across class barriers as well as those of gender and ethnicity with the splendour of an abundant, radiant gift. The clichéd narrative of the film may be summarized simply as the tragic fate of a prostitute, Lulu, who unwittingly causes death and destruction among the men she encounters, and who ends up dying at the hands of Jack the Ripper. But the images in the film, their lighting, Lulu's movements as a dancer, and the clothes and costumes she wears produce a parallel film which makes this clichéd narrative line waver, producing sensations and affects that are singular and memorable across nearly a century. This chapter examines these unique elements and the conflicting images of femininity they produce.

Although Lulu is a prostitute, a variety performer (a trapeze artist), and a dancer in a review – in other words, she is engaged in a system of exchange involving her body – she seems to exceed the terms of those commodified, quantifiable transactions based on a system of monetary equivalence. She does not recognize herself as a commodity. The most explicit example occurs on the gambling ship when Marquis Casti-Piani bargains with the Egyptian slave trader as to Lulu's exact worth, her monetary value.