Patricia White discusses Chilean artist Cecelia Barriga's 1991 video, Encuento dos reinas ("Meeting of two queens"). Using found footage from films starring Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo, Barriga's video decodes the actress' performances, offering an alternate narrative that frees the homoerotic gaze latent in their iconic images, as well as the desire manifested by the distance assumed by their famed rivalry. White frames the piece within the historical context of the life of 1930s lesbian socialite and fan, Mercedes de Acosta.