BY LAUREN RAMANATHAN

In print | Published October 2, 2008

A man dressing in women’s clothing… C’mon! What’s not to love? And indeed movies featuring various bumbling male types who cross-dress for personal gain have drawn crowds since before Robin Williams dawned a granny wig and apron. But what is it about the act of male cross-dressing that intrigues the masses? Just the very notion of a man performing female gender seems so transgressive, so taboo and yet films such as Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959) and Tootsie (Pollack, 1982) are often viewed as innocuous, feel good fare. It is precisely because these films veil important and often controversial issues of gender and sexuality that they are such integral cultural artifacts.

Some Like It Hot is the story of two good-for-nothing 1920s jazzbos who find themselves on the run from the Chicago mob. And what better way to avoid getting lead in your navel than joining a female band and heading to Florida? Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis play the two blokes in question and, while the story provides obvious comedy, things get … well … complicated once our protagonists get on that train to Florida, in full drag and all. For it represents not only a mode of transportation, but a mode of transformation. This new setting marks the audiences’ first glimpse at a truly feminine homosocial space. Women outnumber men in the diegesis. And all the women in the scene are jazz musicians, nonetheless!

But the train ride also marks the entrance of Sugar Kane (played with aplomb by Marilyn Monroe), the ditsy bombshell whose voluptuous figure and sultry purr threaten to blow Joe/Josephine (Curtis) and Jerry/Daphne (Lemmon) right out of the water. From that point on, there seems to be a suggestion that the best way for a man to get with a woman is to become a woman. Take Joe/Josephine’s first amorous encounter with Sugar, when she pulls him/her aside into a bathroom where they have a conversation about Sugar’s complicated past with men. She admits to being a masochist, a sucker for saxophone players with abusive tendencies. Sugar’s vulnerability and the ease with which she sets up an intimate rapport with Joe/Josephine all hinge on his/her presumed femaleness. And Joe/Josephine’s attraction to Sugar is relayed by a medium shot of his/her face gazing in awe and wonder at his/her love object. It is important to note that Joe/Josephine’s gaze is not one of lascivious possession, but rather one of recognition. Ironically enough, Sugar’s description of the men in her life reflects Joe to a tee. This brings about a change in Joe/Josephine’s conception of his/her male self. Whereas before he viewed women with a casual indifference to their emotional states of being, Joe/Josephine becomes consumed in the quest for one woman’s affection. And as the narrative progresses he/she becomes less concerned with getting what he/she wants and more concerned with making sure that Sugar finds happiness, or as she puts it, “the sweet end of the lollipop.” In one of the most bizarre, hilarious but ultimately controversial subplots of the film dandy millionaire Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown) openly courts Jerry/Daphne much to his/her dismay. But as Osgood persists, strangely enough Jerry/Daphne warms up to the idea of being with a man. During a date at a Floridian nightclub, Jerry/Daphne and Osgood progress from awkward miscommunication to full on tango revelry. Jerry/Daphne spends the morning after lying in bed reliving the night, vivaciously humming a sensuous tango theme over and over. He/she even accepts Osgood’s marriage proposal. When Joe/Josephine points out the problems the relationship presents Jerry/Daphne sighs, “I’m never gonna find another man who’s so good to me!” Obviously this scenario brings up notions of homosexuality. But more than that, there runs throughout the film, an assertion that man can reach his human potential by changing gender.

Tootsie is a bit more explicit in its interrogation of man’s role in feminist discourse, as Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) is a two-bit actor who dresses in drag to illicitly appear as a female character on a soap only to adlib and improvise his/her own feminist interpretations of the script. Dorothy Michaels, as Michael calls his alter ego, becomes a phenomenon.

The film is convoluted with various subplots and comedic mishaps, most notably John Van Horn’s (George Gaynes) misogynistic attempts to earn Michael/Dorothy’s affection. Nevertheless, it is again female homosociality that sheds light on the protagonist’s growth as a character. In a scene that mirrors the exchange between Joe/Josephine and Sugar in Some Like It Hot, Michael/Dorothy sits down to a sip of champagne with Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange), his/her badly type-casted, yet exceedingly attractive co-star. While they sip idly Julie illustrates her dream scenario: meeting a man who is truly honest, who doesn’t purport to have all the answers. She expresses disgust at the ‘80s “macho man” archetype. Michael/Dorothy not only realizes the depths of his/her attraction to Julie but is also exposed to an unglamorous flip side of Julie’s “hot nurse” TV persona. Julie is a single mother who floats through a series of loveless relationships, burying her sorrows in alcohol. But men are not privy to this facet of her life. They are only shown her commodified, hypersexual iconography via the entertainment industry. Again, it is because of an exchange predicated on female intimacy that male desire is developed. Not that this is entirely unproblematic. For there is an obvious air of deception here. But it does present new possibilities for male/female interaction. As Michael exclaims at the end, he and Dorothy are the same person; he just needs “to learn to do it without the dress.”

Despite their box office appeal, movies featuring men who cross-dress are … deep! Although, it seems that the popularity of such films prevents further analysis, because the main draw of such movies has been the opportunity to see men look funny in dresses. (I mean, do you honestly think that if John McCain read this analysis, Some Like It Hot would still be under his Facebook “Favorite Movies” section?) But a truly good cross-dressing movie goes beyond that initial gimmick into oft-unexplored terrain. It remains to be seen if the movie industry can really be co-opted for truly cultural purposes if the ed in edutainment isn’t more heavily emphasized.

Lauren is a sophomore. She can be reached at lramana1@swarthmore.edu.

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