"Tootsie" by Deborah H. Holdstein
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Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media Issue 28 April 1983 Source: ejumpcut.org Jump Cut was founded as a print publication by John Hess, Chuck Kleinhans, and Julia Lesage in Bloomington, Indiana, and published its first issue in1974. It was conceived as an alternative publication of media criticism—emphasizing left, feminist, and LGBTQ perspectives. It evolved into an online publication in 2001, bringing all its back issues with it. This electronic version was created with the approval of the Jump Cut editors and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License. Table of Contents Jump Cut, No. 28, April 1983 Tootsie by Deborah H. Holdstein Diner by Deborah H. Holdstein Poltergeist by Douglas Kellner Reds on Reds by John Hess, Chuck Kleinhans The Verdict by Phyllis Deutsch Victor/Victoria by Mark Bernstein E.T. by Phyllis Deutsch An Officer And A Gentleman by Jon Lewis Chariots Of Fire by Ed Carter Birgitt Haas Must Be Killed by Hal Peat White Zombie by Tony Williams Southern Fictions by Mary Bufwack The Mammy in Hollywood Film by Sybil DelGaudio Saturday Afternoons by Marty Gliserman Peru: Pancho Adrienzen interview by Buzz Alexander Mozambique: Pedro Pimente interview by Clyde Taylor Special Section: Alternative Cinema in the 80s Introduction by Chuck Kleinhans Independent Features at the Crossroads by Lynn Garafola D.E.C. Films Collective interview by Margaret Cooper We Are The Guinea Pigs by Doug Eisenstark Life And Times Of Rosie The Riveter by Sue Davenport Susana by Claudia Gorbman Films of Sharon Couzin by Gina Marchetti, Carol Slingo New U.S. Black Cinema by Clyde Taylor Epic Cinema and Counter Cinema by Alan Lovell Godard and Gorin's Left Politics by Julia Lesage Counter Cinema JC Bibliography by Julia Lesage Sexual Politics by Cathy Schwichtenberg Tap Dancing by John Fell The Celluloid Closet reviewed by Martha Fleming Hollywood Social Problem Film reviewed by Jeremy Butler Covering Islam reviewed by Michael Selig Government Censors Short by Janine Verblinski Puerto Rico's Super-8 Festival by Maria Christina Rodriguez Latinos in Public Broadcasting by Jesus Salvador Treviño Racism, History, and Mass Media by Mark I. Pinsky Jean Seberg and Information Control by Margia Kramer Terry Santana by the Editors To navigate: Other than the table of contents the links inside a PDF are active. Use the bookmarks to the left on a PDF file. If they don’t appear click the small ribbon icon on the left edge. Search by using ctrl-F (PC) or command-F (Mac). Clicking “Edit” on the top ribbon will bring up a menu that also has a find function (PC or Mac). If you’re on the Archive website then use the “Search inside” field at the top right. Other options are available for different types of files. JUMP CUT A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY MEDIA Tootsie Mixed messages by Deborah H. Holdstein from Jump Cut, no. 28, April 1983, pp. 1, 32 copyright Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 1983, 2005 First, the good news. TOOTSIE is a wildly successful film at the box office. And it appears that the film represents the consummate group effort: three directors, approximately twenty script rewrites (with such notables as Elaine May and the Barry Levinson/Valerie Curtin team), and Writers' Guild arbitration over who should get screen credit. TOOTSIE's dialogue seems unrelentingly witty, snappy, and downright hilarious, with filmgoers and critics alike thrilled at Hollywood's "new feminism," its raised consciousness, its preoccupation with important social issues. And that makes the news less good. Filmgoers love TOOTSIE. Mainstream critics love TOOTSIE. Inexplicably, however, these same critics gloss over or reject the film's implicit sexism and the mixed "feminist" message that undercuts itself in deference to the system that produced the picture. It depicts women as weak, powerless, banal emotional blobs. They are saved only by a man's inspiring assertiveness in the guise of a soap-opera actress-heroine in designer blouses. Dustin Hoffman plays two roles in TOOTSIE — Michael Dorsey, unemployed, temperamental actor, and the woman he "becomes" in order to land a job, Dorothy Michaels. He succeeds, getting the role of Emily Kimberly, hospital administrator on a successful soap. He begins to ignore girlfriend Sandy (Teri Garr) as the "Michael" that's really "behind Dorothy" begins to fall in love with his co-star, Julie (Jessica Lange). The inevitable complications ensue. Critical response unintentionally illustrates both the film's misleading "virtues" and its implicating, patriarchal structure. Even the diction in the reviews themselves reveals that condescension toward women has been vanquished only temporarily, because "Tootsie" is really a man whose words are taken seriously: “Michael dresses up as a hopeful actress named Dorothy Michaels, who is a shy Southern belle until she opens her mouth. Out of that mouth comes the most assertive and appealing kind of feminism imaginable [emphasis added] … Simply stated, the TOOTSIE thesis is you are what you wear. Simply by putting on a dress, Michael Dorsey becomes more polite, less contentious, and more likely to defer to his superiors … women are so often trapped into subservience because, well, a dress is not a suit."(1) Critical commentary such as this underscores the essentially patriarchal structure of TOOTSIE (not to mention the attitudes of the critics reviewing it). Michael Dorsey is not really more polite when he becomes Dorothy. If anything, it's the "manliness" of this woman that many people admire while paradoxically condemning her for her rather homely appearance. When Michael/Dorothy goes to audition for the soap opera, s/he teaches the blatantly sexist director, Ron, a "feminist lesson." Ron wants a "broad caricature of a woman," he tells Dorothy, as power is masculine and makes a woman ugly." First, Ron's caricature as "male chauvinist pig supreme" is so broadly drawn as to be useless in teaching us anything about how people shouldn't act. No one could ever see himself in Ron, a cartoon figure who defeats any pretensions the film might have had to him as a "feminist bad example." Second, when Michael/Dorothy calls Ron a "macho shithead" and yells "Shame on you!" for Ron’s stereotyped images of power, the patriarchy surfaces. Dorothy is "unattractive." Dorothy is really a man. Obviously, then, the so-called "feminist message" dissolves into visual images that tell us the opposite: Dorothy is powerful in telling off Ron — Dorothy is homely. And the other women in the film are beautiful, powerless, and weak- willed. Thus, TOOTSIE perpetuates these unfortunate sexist stereotypes, as well as the antiquated assumptions about any connection between a woman's physical appearance and her intelligence. Finally, it must be remembered that the only person to successfully "call" Ron on his sexism is really a man. And, I fear, it's the only way many people in a representative audience would take such a "feminist" message seriously. One critic acknowledges that "the movie also manages to make some lighthearted but well-aimed observations about sexism,"(2) while Carrie Rickey of the Village Voice names it to her list of the top ten films of 1982.(3) Pauline Kael celebrates the fact that "Michael is thinking out Dorothy while he's playing her — he's thinking out what a woman would do."(4) Is there no insult to the notion that it takes a man in woman's clothing to articulate the needs of the women around him? That it takes a man — perhaps radiating the strong assertiveness only he can "do so naturally" — to politicize and inspire the almost stereotypically weak women around him to stand on their own two feet? And, most alarmingly, that it takes a man-as-woman, speaking sincerely about "feminist" issues, to convince the sexists in the audience, as well? The insult permeates the film’s structure and content, especially when one considers the initial information which types Hoffman's character. Michael Dorsey is thirty-nine, only intermittently employed as an actor but the finest of professionals. Dedicated to his acting students but picky and hellish for establishment theater folk to work with, Dorsey's characterization as a man devoted to people and his craft unfolds during the opening credit-montage. As the center of a circle of students, he's looked upon as a respected mentor, a victim of the theater establishment, a wise veteran of acting "wars." And because he's difficult to work with, his agent calls him a "cult failure." No one will hire Michael Dorsey. Therein lies the crucial economic reason justifying his audition in woman's clothing for the role of hospital administrator Emily Kimberly on the daytime drama, "Southwestern Hospital." After all, only dire straits will justify a clothing sex change: Julie Andrews was starving to death in VICTOR/VICTORIA; Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis witnessed the St. Valentine's Day Massacre before they resorted to an all-girl band in SOME LIKE IT HOT, gangsters in pursuit. But lest we further dare to question Dorsey's heterosexuality, the scene of his surprise birthday gathering has him trying to pick up every woman at the party. The lines? "Oh, yeah, you were in Dames at Sea — you've got a great voice. You know, I felt like there was an aura between us in the theater." This allegedly feminist film, then, must go to great lengths to assure its audience that the protagonist is "legitimate" — straight. Dorsey seems as much of a voyeur sexist as the men he'll rail about as Dorothy. Further, Michael justifies his role as a woman by creating a parallel between the plight of unemployed artists and women — "I've got a lot I can say to women." The film would have us believe that it really doesn't take much to be a woman at all, that women lack enough individuality or identity as a group that a man can "do" her very well, without anyone noticing or questioning.