In my spring semester of 2015, I took a senior seminar class that encouraged me to look beyond the face value of several topics relevant to today. At the end of the semester, students had to come up with a topic and discuss it with the class. My friend and I worked together to explore the representation of gender roles in media, specifically cross-dressing in movies. Although I no longer have access to our original research due to my old laptop’s untimely demise, I will never forget the disturbing trend we discovered.
Cross-dressing in films is not a new thing. Films have included cross-dressing since the 00s, as in the 1900s. Even before that, plays featured cross-dressing. Shakespeare’s "Twelfth Night" was written in 1601-1602. This play is the basis for the 2006 movie "She's the Man." Amanda Bynes cross-dressed in order to play for a boys’ soccer team. Other movies that feature a woman dressing as a man are "Albert Nobbs," "Mulan," and "Les Miserables." While there are many others, these movies focus on women dressing as men in order to achieve something that was once only possible for a man. Albert Nobbs lives as a man in order to keep working in Ireland during the 1800s. Mulan dresses as a man in order to join the army in place of her father (yes, Mulan is based on a legend that’s over one thousand years old, but the movie came out in 1998). Éponine dresses as a man to participate in a rebellion.
Famous movies that feature cross-dressing men are "White Chicks," , "The Birdcage," and "Mrs. Doubtfire." While it can be said that the men in these films dress as women in order to achieve something (Shawn and Marlon to protect heiresses, Albert to help his boyfriend’s son, and Daniel to see his children), this is played out for comedic effect. Some movies that are not comedies that include men dressing as women are "Psycho" and "The Silence of the Lambs." In "Psycho", Norman Bates (SPOILER ALERT) dresses as his mother as he cannot cope with her death (END SPOILER ALERT). "The Silence of the Lambs" includes a serial killer who wants to make a skin suit out of the women he’s killed.
Now let’s look at what message these movies may not necessarily be trying to send, but inadvertently are anyways. The women who cross-dress in movies do so because they would not have been able to achieve their goals if they had not lied about their identity, creating drama for viewers. The men who dress as women in the above movies are trying to achieve something, but their situations are played for comedic effect. We as viewers are supposed to laugh that these men are willing to dress as women to get what they want. We’re supposed to admire women who dress as men. I brought up "Psycho" and "The Silence of the Lambs" to call attention to how the men who dress as women are seen as mentally unstable, as if a man wanting to be a woman is an improper way of thinking, as if to say what man would want to be a woman? This may very well be a contributing reason to transgender opposition. Compare these two films to the female cross-dressing films. What woman wouldn’t want to be a man in order to save an entire country? Women have to pretend to be something they’re not to receive equal treatment. While that’s nothing new, it’s something that needs to change.
It might just be about time for us to realize that there’s nothing wrong with being a woman, or wanting to be one.
