Queen Christina
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Studio: MGM
Year: 1933
Category: Lavender Marriage Narratives
Trailer
This pre-Code MGM film starring Greta Garbo featured bold queer themes that would have been censored after the Hays Code was enforced. Released before the code stipulated that "sex perversion [homosexuality] or any inference to it is forbidden," the film depicts Queen Christina in masculine attire throughout, shows her kissing her lady-in-waiting Ebba Larsdotter (played by Elizabeth Young) on the lips twice—not chaste pecks but full, tender kisses grasping her face—and portrays her resistance to marriage.
The character Ebba is based on the real-life lady-in-waiting and possible lover of Queen Christina of Sweden. While not explicitly about lavender marriage, the film explores themes of concealed sexuality, gender fluidity, and societal pressure to conform to heterosexual norms that were central to the lavender marriage phenomenon. Garbo swaggers across the screen, drinking beer with the boys and embodying a sexually fluid monarch.
Other Films
Night and Day (1946)
Director: Michael Curtiz
This Technicolor fictionalized biography of composer Cole Porter starred Cary Grant as Porter and Alexis Smith as his wife Linda Lee Thomas. Warner Brothers paid $300,000 for the rights to Porter's best-known songs. The film was a heavily sanitized version of Porter's life that completely obscured his homosexuality and presented his marriage to Linda as a conventional romantic love story—the exact opposite of the truth.
De-Lovely (2004)
Director: Irwin Winkler
A more honest portrayal of Cole Porter's life came nearly 60 years later with De-Lovely, directed by Irwin Winkler and starring Kevin Kline as Porter and Ashley Judd as Linda Lee Thomas. This film openly addressed Porter's homosexuality and depicted his lavender marriage more accurately.
Badhaai Do (2022)
Director: Harshavardhan Kulkarni
This Indian Hindi-language film starring Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar directly depicts a lavender marriage in contemporary India. The story follows Shardul, a gay policeman, and Sumi, a lesbian physical education teacher, who marry each other to satisfy family expectations and societal pressure.
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Judy Garland, this classic MGM musical brought together two talents who would marry in 1945. Their marriage is now widely recognized as one of Hollywood's most notable lavender marriages, with Minnelli rumored to be gay and Garland fully aware of his sexuality. They divorced in 1951.