Challenging society and entertainment go well together: the theatre stage has always been a place where things were dared and said that were unfathomable in daily life…
Dressing up and switching gender roles has always existed
Though only few of the ancient Greek theatre plays have survived, there is clear evidence even among those few that the ancient Greeks enjoyed men in women´s attire and already contemplated and made fun of the relationship between the sexes.
As all roles in the ancient Greek theatre were played by men and women had to sit in the back in the theatre, the entertainment was even more juicy when men dressed up as women and caricatured themselves and the women. Famous to this day is Aristophanes’ comedy “Lysistrata” where the wives of Sparta and Athens unite and deny their husband sex until they end their current war.
The ancient Greeks probably had a relaxed attitude towards crossdressing, for even their gods occasionally pretended to be of the other gender and in the previous article I mentioned the Aphrodite cult where the genders often swapped roles. Independently of whether it was intended or not, I´m sure it was also often entertaining…
Dressing up as a member of the other sex was always part of public entertainment. Especially at certain festivals where wearing a costume was a central element, like the European carnival, the presently almost global Halloween and in the Jewish festival of Purim.
Men as women as men…
As is well known, just like in ancient Greece, also in more recent history women in Europe couldn´t act on stage or publicly wear men´s clothing and so male actors took on the role of women. Independently of whether a part was played by a man (and later by women too) Shakespeare included in several plays of his a switch of genderroles – i.e. in Twelfth Night where young Viola (played by an actor) also acts as her twin brother Sebastian (a classic double role for they never have a common scene…) and calls herself Cesario. As Cesario he becomes part of a love triangle where the count loves a lady, but the lady loves “Cesario” while Cesario – who is actually Viola loves the count. Fortunately in the end the long lost twin brother reappears and puts everything back in order….
High voices are not unmasculine
In Baroque opera it was no convention in the beginning to have the voices of the singers and their gender match. The leading roles were played by castratos and women whose “angellike” singing was considered particularly attractive. That a very high voice might perhaps oppose the claimed masculinity of a successful war general was of no concern. Everybody sang the part that was most suitable to his voice. Castrato and soprano even swapped roles in the last act of the Berlin premiere Cleopatra e Cesare in order to musically complete the opera in 1799.
When the castratos went out of fashion, the heterosexual order was also established on stage. However high voice parts for men were still written in operas and operettas and they were then usually acted by women. That often included a risqué glance at women´s legs – for they were usually hidden by long skirts.
Charly’s Aunt and the art of travesty
It is obvious that swapping genders is particularly exciting and entertaining in a society where gender roles are otherwise rather rigid. Therefore the enormous success of the stage play “Charly´s Aunt” by Brandon Thomas in 1892 is not surprising. The farce tells the story of two students who want to go out with two young ladies, but need a chaperone. As Charly´s aunt doesn´t arrive in time, they talk a common friend into pretending to be the aunt…
Not any longer quite as well known is the British woman Vesta Tilley (1864-1952) who included quite a number of sketches in her stage programs where she caricatured the men of her time. She was a star for over thirty years in the English language countries. And she was not the only one who had enormous success as a woman impersonating men. Dragkings where just as frequent and popular as dragqueens – especially in places where this art is particularly appreciated, as i.e. in San Franscisco – already known for it´s strong “queer scene”.
The art of dragqueens
Presently popular beyond the sphere of her fans is the Australian dragqueen “Dame Edna Everage”, the alterego of the Australian comedian and successful author Barry Humphries. He appeared on stage with this character for the first time in 1955 and in the 80ies and 90ies the success was crowned with her own television show in England which finally was broadcast internationally. Later on the character appeared regularly in a British tv-series and in the years of 2000 she did a two person show. This year finally, Dame Edna did her final tour – Barry Humphries turned eighty last year!
Perhaps better known in Germany was the travesty duo Mary & Gordy, alias of Georg Preuße and Reiner Kohler who were highly popular in the 80ies. But in 1987 Kohler had to end his stage career due to back problems and in 1995 he died of cancer. Preuße continued his “Mary” career solo into the years 2000.
Humphries´ as well as Preuße’s and Kohlers character was portrayed by overdrawing the feminine, a lot of frivolity and fantastic constumes – which is typical for the travesty genre.
Gender-crossing in entertainment
Perhaps the Billy Wilder movie “Some like it hot” (USA 1959) is the funniest “cross-dressing” film. But perhaps less due to the two musicians who – in order to avoid the revenge by mobsters – dress up as women and play in a women´s band, but because of the fantastic cast with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe and is a treasure of brilliant dialogue. When I saw the movie for the first time in the eighties I was exhausted of laughing by the end. But when I saw it again a few years ago, I was still enthusiastic about the acting, dialogue and story structure – but the cross-dressing element seemed strangely dated. And also I perceived the film as oddly anti-women and anti-men…contemptuous of people in general. Which considering Wilder’s biography may not be so surprising afterall.
I might watch again sometime soon and check my perception, for perhaps the film shows the evolving of the “Zeitgeist” – the spirit of times more clearly than one would think.
One of the most successful stage plays of the 70ies was “La Cage aux Folles”, which was also turned into a movie by the French in 1978. The plot is as simple, as amusing: a show producer and his travesty star are a happy gay couple with glamour factor – which in itself offers a lot of humor. However the harmony of the two is put to a test when the son of the producer from his heterosexual past appears with his fiancé and her extremely conservative parents. In order not to jeopardize the engagement, the travesty star decides to “play mother” also in real life… Also popular in the 70ies became the now classic movie “Rocky Horror Picture Show” (USA 1975). Initially a stage musical, it finally was put on celluloid. In the play all kinds of boundaries are crossed in most entertaining ways – also including those of gender conventions.
Even switching gender can become a fashion
1982 was the year when two films on the subject made it to the movie theatres and as the “Zeitgeist” so often will have it, in odd complementarity:
The British film success Victor/Victoria tells the story of a poor British soprano (Julie Andrews) who finally succeeds pretending to be the exotic count “Viktor Grazinski, who impersonates women… (Actually a remake of a German movie from 1933). It seems almost like the counterbalancing movie to the American filmhit “Tootsie” where Dustin Hoffman plays a brilliant actor who is considered to be so difficult to work with, that people refuse working with him. Finally he goes to a casting as a woman…and becomes a TV-star…
In the mid-90ies the depiction of the colorful but also often ambivalent life of dragqueens was still so popular, that the Americans produced a Florida version of “La cage aux folles” with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane in the leading parts. And also the Australian independent film “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” became an international success. Actually more of a tragic comedy the film illustrated the fate of three dragqueens on and off stage.
With “The Crying Game” (IRL 1992) the subject is finally featured in a psycho thriller. The political situation of Northern Ireland is the backdrop against which the variety of sexuality is reflected.
Homosexuality is often involved
Because the number of people dying of aids constantly increased in the 80ies, homosexuality and gender-crossing received a new and more serious attention. The famous, multiple award winning stage play “Angels in America” tells the story of a gay couple where one partner has HIV. On several plot- and consciousness levels (many characters are angels and ghosts) the events are reflected. A carpet of the situation of politics, homosexuality and American history is woven.
The play is written in such a way that several actors have to play several roles – and more than once change gender in the course of it.
The Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar also loves characters that are located somewhere between the genders. In his awardwinning film “All about my mother” (E 1999) transgender men are playing a key role. Though the movie is typical for Almodovar’s dramaturgy where extreme tragic moments and extremely funny moments are very close together and often merge, it also shows in an unobtrusive way how transgender people are often torn. It is rarely an easy fate when a person discovers that his body doesn´t match his gender identity.
Though the success of “La cage aux folles” is undiminished and travesty shows of dragqueens as well as dragkings continue to be highly popular, especially in big Western cities, the more serious reflection of gender variety has also entered entertainment – some of them quiet and serious, including documentaries.
The American actress Glenn Close plays the title role in the film “Albert Hobbs” (IRL/GB 2011) that tells the story of a woman who pretends to be a male butler because that´s the only way she can live a self -determined life in 19th century Dublin.
By now there are also quite a number of TV series where transgender people are sometimes major, sometimes minor characters in the story, sometimes even played by transgender actors.
And of course real live transgender stories
In 2012 the German broadcasting channel RTL 2 decided to air a documentary series with the title “Transgender – my journey into the right body”. The series accompanies seven transgender people on their journey of gender change. The series includes interviews with psychologists and doctors. So far it has been running for two seasons.
The online platforms too are dealing with the subject. Amazon produced a series with the pun title Transparent where an aged, divorced father finally decides to realize his lifelong wish of living as a woman. Netflix too has a transgender character in its new series Sense8 – a character actually also played by a transgender actress.
Furthermore there are cartoon characters who occasionally crossdress, like Bugs Bunny… and in the Japanese Manga culture cross-dressing is a fixed element of character development. Perhaps most bizarre in the so called Futanari (the Japanese term for hermaphroditism/androgyny) – a pornographic genre of computer games, cartoons and animations where characters have both genders.
Transgender as an art form
The versatile British musician David Bowie and the Jamaican singer Grace Jones must be mentioned here, for both had a massive influence on the music scene and society of their time and even to this day.
David Bowie´s playful oscillation between the gender roles – which was catered to by his natural look with eyes of two different colors and striking facial features – and his occasionally decidedly feminine or at least androgynous appearance as well as feeding speculations about his possible bisexuality, made sexual inuendos and variety part of the mainstream in the 1970ies.
Grace Jones achieved popularity at first as a supermodel and then as a singer. The fact that her voice ranges over two octaves, her height of 180 cm and here decidedly androgynous appearance put a mark on pop music in the 80ies and cross-dressing fashion of the time.
And then there are those who don´t aim at the spectacular but turn it into a real art form. In Germany we have the public character Georgette Dee – a chanson singer and actress whose actual male name is not even known to the public. Georgette is a master of the ridge walk between the genders – and expresses within herself the fascination for the qualities of the other – by permanently oscillating between them.
The magic of the artificial character
For the relationship between the genders is also calibrated by the mutual mystery of the other and often eroticism. Even though Georgette´s chansons are rarely clearly about a man loving a woman or vice versa – she usually sings about love herself – to both. Georgette lives and expresses both…in a poetic, touching, often humorous, erotic and sovereign style. In a way she has become her own genre.
Also the happily glamorous Conchita Wurst, the alterego of Austrian singer Tom Neuwirth, always in evening gowns, long hair, perfect make-up – and a beard. She became known as the Austrian winner of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2014. Since then she has become particularly prominent in the LBGT movement. Her aim is to make people contemplate gender roles and “being different” through her appearance. Amusingly enough her image does remind of Jesus depictions and there actually people who comment on this connection. The photographs of Conchita remind even children of the famous redeemer… Exactly because of this tender, seemingly feminine face – with a beard.
A woman with masculine hairiness
I also want to mention the young Eastindian woman Harnaam Kaur here, who achieved internet fame a few months ago. Due to a special medical condition, a so-called polycystic ovary syndrome, her hair grows extremely. Because she was initiated into the Shik religion and therefore consciously accepted not to ever suppress her growth of hair – for to cut your hair is forbidden in this faith, she embraced this and decided to fight against society´s definition of how a woman has to look. She says: “We need to realise that each one of us is different. We are all imperfectly perfect. I wanted to show the society that we can all celebrate our individuality. I love my lady beard and I will forever cherish it,”
Symptom of changing times
Whether based on an fictional alterego or a public confession to one´s own uniqueness – I believe that the current gender discussion receives so much attention, is a sign. Just like the previously mentioned bearded Venus of the 6th century BC was an expression of the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy, we are again at a threshold to something new – away from post-patriarchy and post-feminism towards something where neither gender dominates. But where real balance and harmony are possible and where we can explore what individually attracts us and makes us attractive celebrating our uniqueness – together!
