The Jamesian Metanarrative in Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls , aka Henry James’ Drive-away Dykes

Abstract: Ethan Coen’s and Tricia Cooke’s Drive-away Dolls (2024) includes three references to Henry James and one to Gertrude Stein. Rather than just making fun of high culture, the references invoke the legacy of queer modernity in this lesbian road-trip. The essay interprets all four references to James and Stein as the “metanarrative” of the film, explaining how the film continues a queer tradition. Yet another example of James’s importance in popular culture, Drive-away Dolls is also a tacit critique of the cinematic adaptations of Henry James’s fiction during the 1990s.