ABSTRACT
Ask audiences today what fictional character they most associate with bisexuality, and along with Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams) of Chasing Amy (1997, dir: Kevin Smith) or Catherine Trammell (Sharon Stone) of Basic Instinct (1992, dir: Paul Verhoeven), they are likely to say goth-punk hacker Lisbeth Salander – also known as ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, female lead of Stieg Larsson’s Millennial trilogy (2008) and played by actors Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara, respectively, in Swedish and US adaptations (2009, dir: Niels Arden Oplev; 2011, dir: David Fincher). In Larsson’s books and their filmed versions, Salander’s bisexuality is a defining character trait, established through her sexual engagements with women and male protagonist Mikael Blomkvist. Following the books’ success and in anticipation of the films’ release, cultural commentators touted Salander’s bisexuality, which hardly deterred the mainstream Euro-American audience that kept Larsson’s books on the best-seller list, made the Swedish-language trilogy a Netflix streaming favourite and turned out at the multiplex for the English-language film’s release. 1
