SOME LIKE IT HOT (WILDER, 1959) FLMS2002 – Representation of Gender, Sexuality an ‘Race’ in CROSS-DRESSING IN FILM Film CROSS-DRESSING AS COMEDY ‘Given its potential to entertain and the seemingly universal nature of the visual humor and irony inherent in a performer whose appearance blatantly transgresses gender norms, it should not be surprising that drag has been a frequent device in stage, film and television narratives’ (Drushel 2013: p. 26)
Examples on UK television: The Two Ronnies, Benny Hill, Monty Python Examples on US television: The Milton Berle Show, Bosom Buddies CROSS-DRESSING IN EARLY CINEMA
• In film, ‘drag’ often provokes laughter • or represents some kind of psychological abnormality • Early cinema drag performers were comedians: • Charlie Chaplin • Laurel and Hardy • The Marx Brothers • Jerry Lewis • Cary Grant - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7Tu7ybU54g • Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959) – the best known film centered on female impersonation
FEMALE-T0-MALE CROSS-DRESSING
• Far less common in film • Not received favourably by filmgoers • More political than male-to-female cross-dressing • Examples: • Yentl (Streisand, 1983) – a female disguises herself as a male to gain access to education in the early 20th century setting • Just One of the Guys (Gottlieb, 1985) – high school girl dresses as a boy to confront discrimination based on gender ‘CROSS-DRESSING’ VS. ‘ANDROGYNY’
• Cross-dressing – subject is desexualised and comedy means that ‘performance’ does not enact serious commentary on gender roles • Androgyny – not usually associated with parody and comedy – different relationships to power • Comedy cross-dressing is often a failed performance – ‘real’ or ‘true’ gender identity shows through the clothing • Normalising vs. Abnormalising processes: • Normalising = the ‘wrong’ gendered clothing is recognised and accepted • Abnormalising = the ‘wrong’ clothing is disturbing; worrying
SOME DEFINITIONS:
Cross-Dressing – ‘the generic terms for the set of social and psychological conditions that necessitate the wearing of clothes of the opposite sex’ (Bruzzi 1997: p. 149)
Transvestism – ‘erotic excitement induced by garments of the opposite sex’ (Stoller 1985: p. 176)
Note: According to Stoller, there are no female transvestites. Do we agree?
Drag – Cross-dressing as theatrical performance GENDER-BENDING
• 1970s to 1990s – gender-bending a cultural phenomenon
• In music – David Bowie, Boy George, Annie Lennox, Madonna, Kurt Cobain, Melissa Etheridge
• In film, Victor/Victoria (1982), Tootsie (1982), Mrs Doubtfire (1993), The Birdcage (1996)
• Shift in 1980s to gay characters being portrayed positively in film SOME MORE DEFINITIONS:
• ‘Passing’ – Convincingly presenting one’s preferred gender image.
• ‘Mimicry’ – Copying other people. In terms of gender, mimicry is based on repetition and is not (necessarily) a conscious process.
• ‘Masquerade’ – Generally associated with the idea of ‘womanliness’, masquerade involves behaving in a way that is expected or enforced.
• ‘Transgression’ – Crossing the boundaries of gender performance. Indicates defiance; a challenge to traditional gender roles. REED (1997) ‘the transgressive body, the transgendered, transsexual, transvestite, and other ambiguously produced bodies present themselves as productive sites from which to reevaluate rigid binary conceptions’
Cross-dressing is important in terms of feminism because it disrupts established categories…
Anyone of any sex can be masculine or feminine just by changing their clothing Most films about cross-dressing and gender- bending start by challenging and end by re- inscribing traditional gender roles MRS DOUBTFIRE (COLUMBUS, 1993)
• Robin Williams as Daniel Hillard
• Poses as elderly woman to be nearer to his children
• Parental characters challenge heteronormative roles: •http://bobnational.net/record/290894
• Character transformed by experiences as a woman
• But parody undermines the seriousness of the social commentary
VICTOR/VICTORIA (EDWARDS, 1982)
• Character disguised as the opposite sex to gain access to employment • Situational cross-dressing leads to extended gender performance • Victor/Victoria is a woman who pretends to be a man pretending to be a woman • i.e. a straight woman portraying a gay female impersonator • Heterosexual male character is sexually infatuated with her as him as her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r07TVlA38bo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbbwyAZwo_I
Portrays both cultural acceptance of gender-bending and anxiety about the blurring of gender boundaries
TOOTSIE (POLLACK, 1982)
• Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey – a difficult actor who cannot get a job • Transforms himself into ‘Dorothy Michaels’ and becomes a soap opera star • Confused sexualities proliferate: • Michael is attracted to an actress on the show • Who is not attracted to HIM but IS attracted to HIM AS DOROTHY • Meanwhile, her father is also attracted to Michael as Dorothy • And so is a fellow actor • Like many other cross-dressing men in film, learns a lesson about the ‘other’ gender by becoming a woman: •https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smTXkhM6v-Y • "I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man."
THE BIRDCAGE (NICHOLS, 1996)
• Film features a homosexual couple, Armand (Robin Williams) & Albert (Nathan Lane) who own a drag club • The impending marriage of Armand’s son becomes the instigation for two (unexpected) drag performances: • Albert must impersonate a woman to be accepted by the future in-laws: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-0rKpuvnT4 • And the future father-in-law, a conservative Republican senator (Gene Hackman), is forced to dress in drag to escape the attention of the press when he leaves the drag club • ‘Other’ sexualities (real or assumed) have to be concealed due to societal pressures to conform to heterosexual norms
SOME LIKE IT HOT (WILDER, 1959)
Doubling in film (1): Jerry and Joe
• Jerry is dominated by Joe in Chicago – Joe gambles money away; causes the trouble with the mafia
• In Florida, Jerry gains control as Daphne – attracts Osgood; treated as equal in the romantic relationship
• Daphne (the woman) is more successful than Jerry (the man)
• Gender is shown to be both fluid and inconsequential SOME LIKE IT HOT
Doubling in Film (2): Sugar Kane and Daphne
• Both blondes • Both musicians • Both partnered with Joe • Both (kind of) in relationships with millionaires • ‘Marilyn Monroe’ is in itself a performance of identity – hyperfeminised; assumed name and altered appearance
SOME LIKE IT HOT
Doubling in Film (3): Joe and Osgood • Both are ‘millionaires’ • Both are womanisers reformed by love • Learn to treat feminine partners with respect (correct/proper perspective revealed through experience of or with cross-dressed persona) • Joe respects Sugar because of what he’s experienced as a woman • Osgood respects Daphne because she does not act like other women (respects herself) DISTURBANCE AND TRANSGRESSION:
• Even though heterosexuality is continually referenced… • Some critics found SLIH disturbing due to Lemmon’s performance in particular • Lemmon/Daphne appears to relish his female role: • • Suggests that heterosexuality is culturally manufactured • Gaps between what we THINK Jerry is and the slippage between masquerade and reality (he is becoming what he is performing) • Waking from a dream in which sexual boundaries can be transgressed SEMINAR EXERCISE
Group 1: http://bobnational.net/record/290885 Group 2: http://bobnational.net/record/290884 Group 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgCSXZbf4SU Group 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beAO7zrZL3A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWS2NVX6VP0
REFERENCES:
Bruzzi, S. (1997) Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies. London: Routledge. Cardullo, B. (2010) ‘Farce, Dreams, and Desire: Some Like It Hot Re-viewed’. The Cambridge Quarterly 39:2, pp. 142-51. Drushel, B. (2013) ‘Performing Race, Class and Gender: The Tangled History of Drag’. Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture 13:2, pp. 1-55. Lieberfield, D. and Sanders, J. (1998) ‘Comedy and Identity in Some Like It Hot’. Journal of Popular Film & Television 26:3, pp. 128-36. Reed, L. (1997) ‘Beyond the (Gender) Bend: Sexual, Gender, and Bodily Transgression in Film and Culture’. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 18:2, pp. 279-99. Tasker, Y. (1998) Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema. London: Routledge.