The Mata Hari Legend

Mata Hari’s death was the beginning of her legend as the archetypal female spy. The French did much topropagate this myth, in order to justify her execution. The first biography of Mata Hari in English, by aBritish intelligence officer named Coulson, was made up largely of sensational stories and allegations and bore little relationship to the facts. For nearly 50 years, such stories were universally accepted and repeated, even in otherwise reliable histories of intelligence and espionage.

In recent decades, however, the truth of Mata Hari’s life and espionage career has been gradually uncovered. In the 1960’s, the Dutch author Sam Waagenaar published a biography based on Mata Hari’s own surviving papers, interviews with those who had known her since her schooldays, and other primary sources. Waagenaar was the first to cast doubt on the image of Mata Hari as a superspy. In 1985, author Russell Warren Howe finally got the French government to open its files on Mata Hari. The flimsiness of the French case was thus revealed. In recent years, Julie Wheelwright and Toni Bentley have placed Mata Hari and her career in proper historical context. For such writers--many of whom are feminists--Mata Hari is a wronged woman and even something of a heroine, a victim of wartime hysteria and sexual repression. Leon Schirmann has organized a campaign to clear her name, and an international society for that purpose now exists. Mata Hari, once a scandal to her home town of Leeuwarden, has become a leading tourist attraction there and a statue of her now stands in the town square. A recent exhibition on her life at the Friesmuseum in Leeuwarden was opened by Xaviera Hollander, the Dutch-born prostitute of “Happy Hooker” fame. The Amsterdam Sex Museum now features an animatronic semi-nude figure of Mata Hari.

The innaccuracy of the historical record allowed the popular media free rein to distort Mata Hari’s life even further. Novels, plays, musicals, and operas have been written about her. Numerous films and television series have been made of her life: “Mata Hari” starring Magda Sonja, “Mata Hari” starring Greta Garbo,“Mata Hari” starring Sylvia Kristel (influenced by Elsbeth Schragmüller, “Fräulein Doktor” starring Suzy Kendall, and “Stamboul Quest” starring Myrna Loy), “Mata Hari, agent H21”, “Mata Hari”, “Mata Hari”, “Mata Hari”.

Mata Hari has also figured in innumerable other fictional works and films as a secondary character. In theJames Bond pastiche “Casino Royale”, Joanna Pettet played Mata Bond, supposedly the daughter of Mata Hari and Agent 007.

In the “Young Indiana Jones Chronicles”, Mata Hari gives the young Indy his first sexual experience.

The comic book writer and graphic novelist Alan Moore is fascinated by Mata Hari, who makes several appearances in his work. Mata Hari is a main character in the steampunk graphic novel series “Alter Nation”.

In the “Andromeda” episode “Star-Crossed” Harper uses the comparison of Mata Hari to a ship’s avatar who is used as an unwilling spy and saboteur.

In the “M.I. High” episode “The League of Mata Hari” the name Mata Hari is used for an espionage/intelligencesocial club. The name is telling as the arrests are used to imprison the loyal agents and provide credibility to the enemy’s double agents.

She has been featured in several video games.

A bogus “Diary of Mata Hari” has become something of a pornographic classic. Nearly all fictional depictions of Mata Hari portray her simply as the typical femme fatale. To this day, to call a woman “a Mata Hari” evokes a traditional stereotype.

Most recently, the British filmmaker Martha Fiennes has announced plans for a film of Mata’s life starring the American stripper Dita Von Teese.