Who could have guessed that our politicians would become so
interested in bathrooms? First in North Carolina and now in Texas, politicians
are vying to force transgender men and women to use the restrooms matching the
gender status on their birth certificates. Why this hubbub? The politicos are
convinced that some men might choose to put on dresses in order to assault
women in the privacy of bathroom stalls.
Frankly, I can’t see would-be rapists getting quite so
creative. But the whole issue has reminded me that in more innocent times a man
dressed up as a woman was a matter of high (or maybe low) comedy. Drag is, in
fact, an ancient theatrical tradition, dating back to the days when all actors
were male. (That’s the way it was in Shakespeare’s time, Gwyneth Paltrow’s role
in Shakespeare in Love notwithstanding.)
After women were allowed onto the stage in eighteenth century England, there
remained a British fondness for the “dame show,” featuring a large middle-aged
male comically dressed as a buxom maternal type. The “dame” still shows up,
particularly in the holiday season, in English-style pantomime. And then of
course there’s naughty Dame Edna, as flamboyantly portrayed by an Australian
actor, Barry Humphries.
Americans have often found this kind of cross-dressing funny
too, especially when the dress is worn by a suave leading-man type like Cary
Grant. (See Cary decked out in Katharine Hepburn’s marabou-trimmed négligée
in one of his most hilarious films, Bringing
Up Baby). And in this context how can we forget Billy Wilder’s comic
masterpiece, Some Like It Hot? That,
of course, is the story of two very male musicians (Jack Lemmon and Tony
Curtis) who try to flee from some dangerous Chicago mobsters by disguising
themselves as members of an all-girl orchestra heading for a Florida gig. To
keep up the charade, they find themselves in temptingly close quarters with a
bevy of musical cuties, including band singer Marilyn Monroe. The extended joke
becomes increasingly hilarious as Lemmon’s character, “Daphne,” finds himself
wooed by a highly persistent millionaire, Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown). “Daphne”
tries in vain to fend off Fielding’s advances, which include a proposal of
marriage. As every cinephile is well aware, Fielding won’t take No for an
answer. When Lemmon’s character, having tried every other ploy, removes his wig
and announces he’s a man, Fielding simply shrugs and offers the immortal line,
“Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Some Like It Hot was
obviously in someone’s mind when TV execs launched Bosom Buddies in 1980. This sitcom, which lasted until 1982,
featured newcomers Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari as two young ad men who – having
lost their New York apartment – disguise themselves as women in order to move
into the low-rent Susan B. Anthony Hotel. Hanks’ innocent charm led directly to
his leading role in Splash, and the
rest is movie history.
But in 1980 future Texas legislators were more likely
watching a dark little Brian De Palma film, Dressed
to Kill, in which cross-dressing is an evil (and eventually deadly) secret.
Cross-dressing and transgender issues (which of course are not exactly the same
thing) show up far more sympathetically in 1992’s The Crying Game, which made a shocking secret out of one character’s
biological identity. And Hilary Swank won an Oscar for the true-life story of
Brandon Teena in 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry. In
that film, Swank’s character struggles with the fact that she considers herself
male, despite biological evidence to the contrary. She ultimately pays a high
price. But I don’t recall her being punished for daring to use a men’s bathroom.
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