While allusions to the flower and the color continue to hold significance for lesbians themselves, the association between lesbianism and violet still eludes the heterosexual majority of American society. The color violet has often served as a secret code of identification for lesbians and as a marker for lesbianism which, historically, only lesbians could identify. Since the invention of film, lesbians have been forced to identify similar markers in the movies in order to construct .a lesbian subtext with which they could identify. When they actually did appear on screen in traditional Hollywood movies, until recently lesbians were limited to a few roles, such as those of the vampire or pathologically repressed woman. More often though, they were not seen at all.