Cross-Dressing in Modern Media: Progressive or Harmful?

In several plays we have read this semester, it is clear that Shakespeare is addressing gender roles in his work.  In both As You Like It and The Merchant of Venice, female protagonists don the clothes of men in order to solve a dilemma that the male characters have failed to figure out.  As we have noted continually in class, Shakespeare complicates this further by acknowledging that these characters are played exclusively by men.  Yet, this is hardly the last time cross dressing has been addressed in storytelling.  Countless depictions of cross dressing have entered the video landscape since the medium began in the dawn of the twentieth century.  B films such as Glen or Glenda, Hollywood star driven films like Mrs. Doubtfire and Some Like it Hot, and even TV shows such as Portlandia present characters who wear clothes of the opposite sex.  But do these works attempt to tackle the problem of gender roles in society?  Or do they use this tactic exclusively for the sake of laughter?

While Shakespeare was forced to write for a royal audience and had to be mindful of making a political statement, his implementation of cross dressing characters such as Portia and Rosalind subtly craft an argument against restriction of hetero-normative gender roles.  In The Merchant of Venice, Portia dresses as Balthazar, a doctor of the law.  Without her help, Antonio would have been convicted and Bassanio, her husband, heartbroken.  In the majority of historic drama, females create problems, and males have solutions.  Odysseus in the Odyssey leaves an island filled with female sirens, just to name one example.  Here, however, Portia independently creates a plan to save Bassanio.  Yet, at the plays end, Bassanio eventually offers Balthazar his wedding ring, despite her telling him to never lose, sell or give it away.  He breaks the sanctity of his promise with his wife in order to save his best friend.  True, their marriage is restored at the end of the play-stabilizing a heteronormative state- but this can be attributed more to Shakespeare’s royal audience than the content of the play itself.​  Shakespeare presents cross-dressing not as a focal point for comedy, but as a vehicle for portraying the unfair inequality between gender roles.  Male’s, almost by default, are allowed more agency than females.  Only by wearing the wardrobe of a man can Rosalind achieve this independence.

However, modern media does not have royal audiences as an excuse.  In Some Like it Hot for example, a pair of jazz playing musicians cross dress in order to escape from mafia gangsters.  The humor is centered on the males acting in feminine ways: talking in high pitched voices, fretting over expensive luxury items, and wishing for the attention of men.  Soon, their objective becomes not only simple escape from members of the mafia, but of seducing Marilyn Monroe’s character (with her typical ditzy attitude) as well.  Lines such as “I wish I could just go out with you!  You’re so much better than most men!” reveal the misogyny present in the film.  The jazz musicians take advantage of their close proximity on women to spy, gain insight, and generally act creepy.  It’s harmful because it’s logic emphasizes that men act one way, and women act another.

While films such as Mrs. Doubtfire at least have some sort of motivation other than laughs (he wants to be around his children), it’s hard to argue that all of modern media is more progressive than that of the 1950’s in this regard.  White Chicks, while interesting when examining racial differences, offers the same blasé attitude of simple “laughs” while cross-dressing.  On the other hand, Portlandia is noteworthy in its handling of gender roles.  In some of the sketches, the leads (Fred Armisten and  Carrie Brownstein respectively) switch their gender to male and female respectively.  Yet, similar to Shakespeare’s male only cast playing females, it is never acknowledged that this is happening.  The humor is based off wordplay, satire, and other jokes.  The cross dressing is an aspect of it, but it’s not the focal point of the humor.  It is not making fun of it for a laugh.

Modern media’s cross dressing is a mixed bag.  Some of it is harmful and would probably have Shakespeare weeping soliloquy’s in his grave.  Yet, shows such as Portlandia provide interesting dynamics between genders, and at least provoke thought in the minds of Netflix bingers everywhere.