DOCSLIB.ORG

Porn, Pantomime and Protest: the Politics of Bawdiness As Feminine Style

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Porn, Pantomime and Protest: the Politics of Bawdiness As Feminine Style This is a repository copy of Porn, pantomime and protest: the politics of bawdiness as feminine style. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/133342/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Willson, J orcid.org/0000-0002-1988-1683 (2018) Porn, pantomime and protest: the politics of bawdiness as feminine style. Porn Studies, 5 (4). pp. 426-439. ISSN 2326-8743 https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2018.1480411 © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Porn Studies. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ 1 Jacki Willson Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds [email protected] Dr. Jacki Willson is a University Academic Fellow (UAF) at The University of Leeds. She is the author of The Happy Stripper: Pleasures and Politics of the New Burlesque (2008) and Being Gorgeous: Feminism, Sexuality and the Pleasures of the Visual (2015) both published by I.B.Tauris. 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the journal editors and the anonymous peer-reviewers for their rigorous insights and helpful responses to earlier drafts of this essay. 3 Porn, Pantomime and Protest: the politics of bawdiness as feminine style. This article explores the significance of the recent ‘Face-Sitting’ protest that took place outside of Westminster in 2014. A carefully staged response to changes to pornography legislation that criminalized particular sexual practices pertinent to women’s pleasure, this porn-panto protest put the spectacle of the ‘kinky’ woman and her desires centre stage. The activists’ unique use of fetish dress, class and humour is explored in relation to the protest by brothel keeper and campaigner Cynthia Payne in the 1970s/80s. Payne deployed bawdy humour and a particular high camp use of ‘kinky’ dress and English etiquette to undermine contemporary sexual norms. The 2014 protest also clearly reclaimed two traditional roles within English pantomime: the Dame and the Principal Boy. These examples will be used to examine the political function of humour in relation to cross-dressing and the ‘woman-on-top’. Ultimately, this study argues that ‘bawdiness’ is a politics that offers us potential promise but not without critical limitations established through media representations. Keywords: bawdiness; resistance; legislation; unruliness; face-sitting protest; Cynthia Payne; sexual pleasure; camp. Introduction On December 12 2014, a theatrically camp and bawdy ‘Face-Sitting’ protest took place outside Westminster in London. Sex workers, activists and performers gathered together to protest against recent legislation. This legislation made it a criminal offence to represent sexual activity in video-on-demand (VoD) online pornography, where there was a risk of suffocation or consensual erotic violence that leaves marks. The Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014 (an amendment of the 2003 4 Communications Act) requires that UK based video-on-demand online porn follows the same British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) guidelines that were set out for sex shop DVD porn. This legislation in effect ruled out pornography that focused on female orientated ‘kinky’ pleasure such as ‘face-sitting’ and female ejaculation. Face-sitting in fact sits amongst the major activities listed as ‘life-endangering’ by the BBFC. It also outlawed the depiction of alternative sexual preferences such as S&M bondage/fetish where consensual erotic pain/violence - whipping, spanking, fisting, caning or being restricted - leaves welts on the skin. The law also prohibited what were seen as sexually humiliating acts such as urolagnia (golden showers or watersports). The activists involved in this protest came dressed up in character for their respective sex roles, whether as a Femdom S&M dominatrix – cut glass accent and school ‘marm’ dress - or dressed in a manner which lampooned the ‘life-endangering’ suffocating elements of the activity - wearing a snorkel. This was activism where protest was relayed through bawdy performance and provocative dress up and role play. Throughout the performance the activists ‘sat’ on male protesters whilst ‘caning’ and ‘spanking’ the participants. One participant, in the process of being sat on contributed by chanting, ‘What do we want. Face-Sitting. When do we want it? Now’. They also held up placards with the slogans, ‘I reserve my right to the English vice’ and ‘Shame on You: We Come Too’, written above and below a pink painting of a vulva and vaginal opening. Unsurprisingly the event sparked much publicity and the media employed a similar strategy of humour. One report claimed, for instance, that some media photographers on arrival were disappointed that the activists performed whilst fully clothed. Other reports played with the mixture of ‘panto’ and ‘porn’ – for instance an article entitled ‘sex and snorkels’. This bawdy interplay between the performance 5 and the media underscores an important democratic questioning and airing of perversion and the preposterous. The way in which bawdiness was received and played out in the public domain highlights a dialogue which makes a theatre of sexualized humour and dress. I would like to argue that this public dialogue – between the ‘face-sitting’ protest and the media circus - enacts a politics of bawdiness. The performative use of theatrical play is used to question social and legal value systems as regards female pleasure and its counter offensive of shame. The legislation on kinkiness and ‘appropriate’ pornography is indeed shown to be gendered. It is this tension and tussle as regards ‘pleasure’, ‘obscenity’ and ‘perversity’, in relation to ideal sexual and gendered behaviour, that will occupy my discussion. The use of bawdiness by the protestors humorously made transparent the way that class, gender and Englishness produces and performs ‘pleasure’ via shame. This mode of social protest is not, however, new. In order to understand the way this established approach functions it is important, therefore, to discuss its links with earlier political practices. The bawdy 1970s/80s public persona of English brothel keeper Cynthia Payne is the precursor that will inform my discussion. Payne’s high- profile case merits recovery because of the media circus that responded to her high camp sexual politics, behaviour and persona. The article will explore the manner in which Payne’s work challenged legislation as regards ‘kinkiness’. It will also explore the way that she has been preserved in popular culture, in films such as Wish You Were Here (1987) and books, such as Cynthia Payne’s own manual, Entertaining at Home (1987). She is remembered for her bold shame-free heterosexual femininity that challenged sexual and gender norms. 6 Both the 2014 and earlier protests made a spectacle out of an unruly femininity in their use of high camp fetish BDSM costume (Bondage, Discipline, Domination, Submission, Sadomasochism). This was used to undermine gender, sex and class norms. Role play was used to ham up and switch gender, sex and class roles, to ‘“camp up” ideology in order to undo it’ (Tyler 2003,102) or more succinctly, to overdo it (40). By ‘occupying’ (Halberstam 2013, xiv) heterosexual femininity in such a theatrical, political and bawdy manner, the ideological underpinning of sexual citizenship becomes transparent. Irigaray’s notion of ‘feminine style’ is therefore a useful linchpin for this argument. For Irigaray (1985, 76), ‘feminine style’ is to ‘assume the feminine role deliberately […] in particular […] ideas about herself, that are elaborated in/by a masculine logic […] so as to make “visible,” by an effect of playful repetition, what was supposed to stay invisible’. The protestors performed heterosexual femininity as ‘disruptive excess’ (1985, 78) to bring to the fore the censorious way class, sex and nationhood configures femininity. My argument is that bawdiness performs female heterosexuality as a claim for female ‘kinkiness’. Bawdy humour is used to critique laws which straitjacket heterosexual female sexual freedoms. However, the media reaction to both the 2014 protest and the protests by Payne in the 1970/80s also reveal the limits to these modes of protest. By reiterating bawdy politics as entertaining panto-porn, the media circus could dissipate its threat. Bawdiness, Shame and Unruly Femininities Cynthia Payne’s case merits recovery because of its challenges to the absurdity of sexual norms, both in terms of her clashes with the law, and her dress and behaviour. Gender – specifically heteronormative femininity - is policed by rituals of shame. 7 Exploring Payne’s corporeal resistance and resilience to shame gives us a strong precedent and theoretical context for the current activist demonstrations. I will begin my analysis with a scene from the film Wish You Were Here (1987). The film is about the early life of Cynthia Payne – played here by Emily Lloyd - who was convicted in 1980 of keeping a ‘disorderly house’ after police raided her home in South London in 1978. Emily Lloyd’s performance of Payne is brazen and upfront. One scene shows Lloyd as the young Payne, flouting rules of female decorum and feminine appropriateness. She is seen pulling up her dress, doing a ‘moonie’ and sticking her two fingers up, whilst singing an ‘Up Your Bum’ rap.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Performance of Gender with Particular Reference to the Plays of Shakespeare
    Middlesex University Research Repository An open access repository of Middlesex University research http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk Dixon, Luke (1998) The performance of gender with particular reference to the plays of Shakespeare. PhD thesis, Middlesex University. [Thesis] This version is available at: https://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/6384/ Copyright: Middlesex University Research Repository makes the University’s research available electronically. Copyright and moral rights to this work are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners unless otherwise stated. The work is supplied on the understanding that any use for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. A copy may be downloaded for personal, non-commercial, research or study without prior permission and without charge. Works, including theses and research projects, may not be reproduced in any format or medium, or extensive quotations taken from them, or their content changed in any way, without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). They may not be sold or exploited commercially in any format or medium without the prior written permission of the copyright holder(s). Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including the author’s name, the title of the work, publication details where relevant (place, publisher, date), pag- ination, and for theses or dissertations the awarding institution, the degree type awarded, and the date of the award. If you believe that any material held in the repository infringes copyright law, please contact the Repository Team at Middlesex University via the following email address: [email protected] The item will be removed from the repository while any claim is being investigated.
    [Show full text]
  • THE UNIVERSITY of HULL (Neo-)Victorian
    THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL (Neo-)Victorian Impersonations: 19th Century Transvestism in Contemporary Literature and Culture being a Thesis submitted for the Degree of PhD in the University of Hull by Allison Jayne Neal, BA (Hons), MA September 2012 Contents Contents 1 Acknowledgements 3 List of Illustrations 4 List of Abbreviations 6 Introduction 7 Transvestites in History 19th-21st Century Sexological/Gender Theory Judith Butler, Performativity, and Drag Neo-Victorian Impersonations Thesis Structure Chapter 1: James Barry in Biography and Biofiction 52 ‘I shall have to invent a love affair’: Olga Racster and Jessica Grove’s Dr. James Barry: Her Secret Life ‘Betwixt and Between’: Rachel Holmes’s Scanty Particulars: The Life of Dr James Barry ‘Swaying in the limbo between the safe worlds of either sweet ribbons or breeches’: Patricia Duncker’s James Miranda Barry Conclusion: Biohazards Chapter 2: Class and Race Acts: Dichotomies and Complexities 112 ‘Massa’ and the ‘Drudge’: Hannah Cullwick’s Acts of Class Venus in the Afterlife: Sara Baartman’s Acts of Race Conclusion: (Re)Commodified Similarities Chapter 3: Performing the Performance of Gender 176 ‘Let’s perambulate upon the stage’: Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem ‘All performers dress to suit their stages’: Tipping the Velvet ‘It’s only human nature after all’: Tipping the Velvet and Adaptation 1 Conclusion: ‘All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players’ Chapter 4: Cross-Dressing and the Crisis of Sexuality 239 ‘Your costume does not lend itself to verbal declarations’:
    [Show full text]
  • An Exploration of Gender, Sexuality and Queerness in Cis- Female Drag Queen Performance
    School of Media, Culture & Creative Arts Faux Queens: an exploration of gender, sexuality and queerness in cis- female drag queen performance. Jamie Lee Coull This thesis is presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Curtin University November 2015 DECLARATION To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledgment has been made. This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. Human Ethics The research presented and reported in this thesis was conducted in accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007) – updated March 2014. The proposed research study received human research ethics approval from the Curtin University Human Research Ethics Committee (EC00262), Approval Number #MCCA-12-12. Signature: Date: 20/11/2015 i ABSTRACT This PhD thesis investigates the cultural implications of cis-women performing female drag, with particular focus on cis-female drag queens (aka faux queens) who are straight-identified. The research has been completed as creative production and exegesis, and both products address the central research question. In the introductory chapter I contextualise the theatrical history of male-to-female drag beginning with the Ancient Greek stage, and foreground faux queens as the subject of investigation. I also outline the methodology employed, including practice-led research, autoethnography, and in-depth interview, and provide a summary of each chapter and the creative production Agorafaux-pas! - A drag cabaret. The introduction presents the cultural implications of faux queens that are also explored in the chapters and creative production.
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural Confrontations at Lithuania's National Drama Theatre &L
    Lease_v10.doc 1 <MT>Theatre as Action, Dramaturgy as Streben <MST>Cultural Confrontations at Lithuania’s National Drama Theatre <AU>Bryce Lease <TEXT1>In March 2014, Jonas Vaitkus, the artistic director of the Lietuvos Rusų Dramo s Teatras (Lithuanian Russian Drama Theatre) in Vilnius, declined an invitation to include his recent stage adaptation of Eugene Onegin staring the Ukrainian actor Grigorijus Gladijus at the annual Baltijskij dom (Baltic Home) theatre festival in St. Petersburg, which brings together Russian-language drama from former Soviet states.1 Vaitkus’s decision, which received unanimous support from the theatre’s ensemble, was outlined in an open letter that castigated the organizer of the festival, Sergei Šubo, for signing the Russian Ministry of Culture’s list of artists who support Vladimir Putin’s aggressive political action in Ukraine in the spring of 2014. While Vaitkus makes it clear that Šubo has the right to attach his own name to such a list, he reprimands the organizer’s choice to sign on behalf of Baltijskij dom, which assigns complicity to every artist who participates in the festival. Vaitkus carefully points out his allegiance to the Lithuanian government’s position on the revolutionary developments in Ukraine, which they consider a sovereign state, Lease_v10.doc 2 and their refusal to recognize the legality of the referendum on Crimea and Russia’s subsequent annexation of the region.2 Vaitkus concludes the letter: “We express our respect, our sympathy and our hope that in your country [Russia] a time will
    [Show full text]
  • Puss in Boots a Play with Music in the English Pantomime Tradition
    Puss in Boots A Play With Music In the English Pantomime Tradition Book and Lyrics by Greg Palmer Music by Cliff Lenz Performance Rights It is an infringement of the federal copyright law to copy this script in any way or to perform this play without royalty payment. All rights are controlled by Eldridge Publishing Co. Inc. Contact the publisher for additional scripts and further licensing information. The author’s name must appear on all programs and advertising with the notice: “Produced by special arrangements with Eldridge Publishing Co.” ELDRIDGE PUBLISHING COMPANY www.hiStage.com ©Copyright 1985, 2008 by Greg Palmer & Cliff Lenz Download your complete script from Eldridge Publishing https://histage.com/puss-in-boots Puss in Boots - 2 - STORY OF THE PLAY A musical version of Charles Perrault's story, done in the style of the English Pantomime, and featuring the various pantomime traditions including a "Pantomime Dame" (played by a male), "Principal Boy" (played by a girl), "Principal Girl," fairies who talk in rhyme, and significant audience interaction. This script, with six delightful songs, was commissioned by Seattle Children's Theatre and later televised. A wonderfully antic version of the popular story with enough action for any member of the family. Recipient of the "Ohio State Award Best Children's Program." Perfect for audiences of all ages. About 90 minutes. “The show has everything. Its script is funny/arch/clever; it’s music is a delight. The show keeps its audience happily involved for every one of its 90 minutes. Palmer’s adaptation is almost nonstop hilarious.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 1. Changing Sex and Bending Gender: an Introduction
    1 CHANGING SEX AND BENDING GENDER: AN INTRODUCTION Alison Shaw An Indian folk-tale tells the story of two Rajas who agree that if one of them has a son and the other a daughter, their children will marry. When they both have daughters, one Raja disguises his daughter as a boy and raises her as his son. This does not solve the problem of her biological sex, however, and at her marriage the deceit is discovered and the boy’s father declares revenge. Desperate, the girl attempts suicide by throwing herself into the river Juma, but instead emerges from it transformed into a male. Her grateful father builds temples on the river bank in gratitude (Penzer 1927: 229–230). In this story, gender is manipulated through disguise and a sex change is effected by supernatural means, for it would have been impossible to achieve, at that time and place, through human efforts alone. In many other myths and legends, a transformation of biological sex is itself the source of the changed person’s supernatural powers. For example, the Greek myth of Kaineus tells the story of a young, vulnerable woman who is miraculously transformed into an aggressive and superhuman warrior king. In one version, the transformation of Kainis-the-girl to Kaineus-the-man seems to be a form of revenge, for it occurs after Kainis has been raped by Poseidon, while in another version her sex change happens in time for her to outwit the sea god and avoid the rape (Forbes-Irving 1990: 155–62). Stories of ‘changing sex and bending gender’ in folk tales and ancient mythol- ogy can thus be regarded as representations of the power of human imagination, as fantastic transformations that could not possibly happen in real life (Forbes- Irving 1990, Warner 2002).
    [Show full text]
  • The Performance of Gender with Particular Reference to the Plays Of
    The Performance of Gender with particular reference to the plays of Shakespeare A thesis submitted to Middlesex University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Luke Dixon School of Drama and Theatre Arts Middlesex University April 1998 MX 7309012 3 IIIýýWII IIIIIXVýýýwýýllllýý ABSTRACT An analytical history of the representation of gender on the English stage from Shakespeare to modern times is followed by a detailed examination of the National Theatre of Great Britain's production of `As You Like It' in 1967, the first production of a play by Shakespeare for over three hundred years in which the female parts were played by male actors. Subsequent cross-cast productions of Shakespeare's plays by Glasgow Citizen's Theatre, Prospect theatre Company, Lindsay Kemp, Theatre du Soleil and Goodman Theatre Chicago are discussed and the views of directors and critics of those productions analysed. The thesis then presents the results of a series of workshops with actors into the playing of gender and examines, by means of an experiment employing Gender Schema Theory, how actors construct gender in a production of `Twelfth Night'. The final part of the thesis describes a controlled experiment into audience perception of gender using a scene from `Hamlet'. Theories are presented about the nature of the performance of gender on stage and the use of theatrical conventions, the relationship between social conventions and stage conventions, about the way in which an actor builds a character, the influence of biological sex on actors' creativity, and about audience perception. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I Contexts, methodology, terminology.
    [Show full text]
  • Splinters: Cross-Dressing Ex-Servicemen on the Interwar Stage
    Twentieth Century British History, 2018, page 1 of 28 doi:10.1093/tcbh/hwy037 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/tcbh/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/tcbh/hwy037/5151194 by University of Exeter user on 24 January 2019 Jacob Bloomfield * The University of Manchester ............................................ Splinters: Cross-Dressing Ex-Servicemen on the Interwar Stage Abstract This article will examine how a series of theatrical shows which starred casts of cross-dressing ex-servicemen achieved critical and commercial popularity in interwar Britain despite increased cultural anxieties about the links between gender variance and transgressive acts, behaviours, and categories of identity. Prior to this study, historians have researched wartime concert parties where servicemen cross-dressed for each other’s entertainment, but scant attention has been given to the popular phenomenon of ex-servicemen who performed cross- dressing revues for the general public. Staging revues on the home front exposed cross-dressing ex-servicemen to new forms of spectatorship: the theatregoing public, arts criticism in the press, and state censorship. This article will analyse these dynamics for the first time through an investigation of the First World War troupe Les Rouges et Noirs, who popularized the subgenre of veterans’ cross- dressing revues with their debut production Splinters (1918). Critics commended the company’s contribution to the war effort while also lauding the troupe for their entertainment value and ‘bewitching’ feminine mimicry. Some observers, like the Lord Chamberlain, found Les Rouges’ cross-dressing troubling, but these views were in the minority and did not seriously hinder the performers’ success. When carried out temporarily in a performative setting by artists who presented a skilful and beguiling representation of femininity, and whose status as ex- servicemen helped to dispel suspicions of immorality, cross-dressing could be a source of great pleasure, even as it constituted a source of cultural anxiety in other contexts.
    [Show full text]
  • Drama Revision Guide Year 7: Pantomime
    Drama revision guide Year 7: Pantomime The History of Pantomime Pantomime literally means “all kinds” of “mime” (panto-mime) . It is generally acknowledged that British pantomime is modelled on the early masques of the Elizabethan and Stuart days. In the 14th century the early masques were musical, mime or spoken dramas, usually performed in grand houses although by the 17th century they were really no more than an excuse for a theme party. The timing of the British pantomime at Christmas and the role reversal of the lead characters (the principal boy being played by a girl and the Dame by a man) may have also evolved from the Tudor “Feast of Fools”, presided over by the Lord of Misrule. The feast was an unruly event, involving much drinking, revelry and role reversal. The Lord of Misrule, normally a commoner with a reputation of knowing how to enjoy himself, was selected to direct the entertainment. The festival is thought to have originated from the benevolent Roman masters who allowed their servants to be the boss for a while. Social Context Pantomimes take place around the Christmas period and are nearly always based on well known children’s stories such as Peter Pan, Aladdin, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty etc. Pantomimes are performed not only in the best theatres in the land but also in village halls throughout Britain. Whether a lavish professional performance or a hammy local amateur dramatic production, all pantomimes are well attended. Pantomimes are a family show that aim to make both the children and parents laugh. There are recurring characters (stock characters) in Pantomimes.
    [Show full text]
  • From the Love Ball to Rupaul: the Mainstreaming of Drag in the 1990S
    FROM THE LOVE BALL TO RUPAUL: THE MAINSTREAMING OF DRAG IN THE 1990S by JEREMIAH DAVENPORT Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Music CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY August, 2017 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the dissertation of Jeremiah Davenport candidate for the degree of PhD, Musicology. Committee Chair Daniel Goldmark Committee Member Georgia Cowart Committee Member Francesca Brittan Committee Member Robert Spadoni Date of Defense April 26, 2017 *We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein. 2 Acknowledgements Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who helped this dissertation come to fruition. I want to thank my advisor Dr. Daniel Goldmark, the Gandalf to my Frodo, who has guided me through the deepest quandaries and quagmires of my research as well as some of the darkest times of my life. I believe no one understands the way my mind works as well as Daniel and I owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for helping me find the language and tools to write about my community and the art form I love. I also want to thank Dr. Georgia Cowart for helping me find my voice and for her constant encouragement. I am grateful to Dr. Francesca Brittan for her insights that allowed me to see the musicologist in myself more clearly and her unwavering support of this project. I also would like to thank Dr. Robert Spadoni for expanding my analytical skills and for constantly allowing me to pick his brain about drag, movies, and life.
    [Show full text]
  • Pantomime Dames
    Pantomime Dames The role of the Pantomime Dame stretches back to the earliest origins of the theatre, when girls and young women were played by youths, and old women by men - often comically. The earliest ancestor of the comedic, are possibly Mrs. Noah in the miracle plays of the middle ages. Even after the restoration in the 17th century, when actresses entered the theatre, many were loathe to play older parts, and the convention continued. During the Regency the roles of witches, characters like 'Mother Skipton' and old harridans were played often by men, Grimaldi played several female roles, including the Baroness in 'Cinderella'. The Ugly Sisters at this time were played by women, later by men. Dame roles remained variable up until the 1860's and later. The 1826 and 1836 productions of 'Aladdin' at Covent Garden had women playing the role of the widow, and then in the 1856 and 1865 versions, by a man. The first male 'Widow Twankey' was James Rogers, with Dan Leno credited as the creator of 'Mother Goose'. The names given to Dames have altered over the years, but traditionally the Dame in 'Aladdin' is Widow Twankey. Christened in 1861 Twankay was a tea, popular in London at the time, from the Tuan Kay province of China. Dame Trott takes her name from a slang word for an old hag, and became the popular name for Jack's mother in 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. Dame Durden also shares this relationship from time to time. 'Dick Whittington' has had a cook as Dame since its first performance, with the title 'Sara the Cook' given in most cases.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction: Cross-Dressing and Cross-Casting 1
    Notes Introduction: Cross-Dressing and Cross-Casting 1. Dorothy Keyser, “Cross-Sexual Casting in Baroque Opera: Musical and Theatrical Conventions,” Opera Quarterly 5:4 (Winter 1987–88): 46–57 (46). 2. All quotations from Ecclesiazusae are taken from David Barrett’s trans- lation, Penguin Classics, London: Penguin, 1978. 3. Jeffrey Henderson, “Older Women in Attic Old Comedy,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 117 (1987): 105–29 (118). 4. “The Myth of Shakespeare’s Squeaking Boy Actor—Or Who Played Cleopatra?” Shakespeare Bulletin 19: 2 (Spring 2001), consulted online. 5. See their edited volume, En travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995, 3, 5. 6. See Republic, Books 3 and 10. 7. In the seventeenth century, the concept of homosexuality as such did not exist. A man might choose to participate in acts of sodomy, but he was not considered to be a homosexual. Same-sex relations between women were even less clearly understood or defined. See Joseph Harris, Hidden Agendas: Cross-Dressing in 17th-Century France, Biblio 17: 156, Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2005, 27–28. 8. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York and London: Routledge, 1990, 137. 9. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety, London: Penguin, 1993. 10. See her book The First English Actresses: Women and Drama 1660–1700, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 11. The related topic of disguise plots (i.e., cross-dressing as opposed to cross-casting) during much the same period is the subject of Georges Forestier’s monumental tome Esthétique de l’identité dans le théâtre français (1550–1680), Geneva: Droz, 1988.
    [Show full text]