I think it's accepted in the scholarship now that Magdalene wasn't actually a harlot -- much of what we think of Mary Magdalene came from a papal pronouncement in the 500s that conflated three separate figures in scripture. In Luke 7, an unnamed harlot anoints Christ's feet at a feast. Mary Magdalene is introduced in the next chapter, as a woman Christ rids of demons. She's also confused with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who turns up in Luke 10. A passage in John links Mary of Bethany with the harlot (referring to Mary as one who had anointed Jesus), but it's kind of a slender thread.
There's some speculation over her name, Magdalene. The standard song is that it's from a town (now gone) called Magdala on the banks of Galilee.
As the Catholic Encyclopedia explains, it might also be from a Talmudic expression meaning "curly-haired" or "curling women's hair" which was a reference to adultery. (More on that idea here.) The city name is linked to the adulterous expression, although I'm not sure how.
There's also more recent research (of the wild speculation variety) that the word "magdala" can be translated as "of the Tower" or "Tower of Strength," as a reference to the towers of Egyptian temples; in other words, that she had been an Egyptian priestess of Isis (a "holy whore") before being cured of demons by Jesus and becoming a disciple.
Again, all tangled up in harlotry, but possibly based on some textual confusion in scripture. It does run pretty deep (see this gnostic overview, about halfway down the page), though, and might be beside the point by our current era. In other words, Mary Magdalene is kind of revered and accepted because of the harlot business -- it's tied to her story now, right or wrong.
Wikipedia has a nice Mary Magdalene entry, including links to various apocryphal gospels detailing her relationship to Christ. Even within the canon, she holds a special status, being the first witness to the resurrection (and potentially the "favorite disciple" mentioned by John).
There's a nice telling of that in the apocryphal Gospel of Mary, available here, on Frontline's "From Jesus to Christ" collection:
Peter said to Mary, "Sister, we know that the Saviour loved you more than the rest of women. Tell us the words of the Saviour which you remember - which you know (but) we do not, nor have we heard them." Mary answered and said, "What is hidden from you I will proclaim to you." And she began to speak to them these words: "I," she said, "I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him, 'Lord, I saw you today in a vision.' He answered and said to me, 'Blessed are you that you did not waver at the sight of me. For where the mind is, there is the treasure.' I said to him, 'Lord, how does he who sees the vision see it through the soul or through the spirit?' The Saviour answered and said, 'He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind which [is] between the two - that is [what] sees the vision...'
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