Shakespeare's Lesson on Queer Attraction

     Out of all of the Epilogues in Shakespeare’s play, the most memorable is the one in As You Like It where Shakespeare specifically addresses that queer attraction is present throughout society.

                                    Rosalind.    My way is to conjure you;

                                    And I’ll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you

                                   bear to men, to like as much of this play as pleases you.

                                    And I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women—as I perceive

                                    you by you simpering none of you hates them—that between you and the

                                    women the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss as many of

                                    you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and

                                    breaths that defied not. And I as sure as many as have good beards, or good

                                    faces, or sweet breaths will for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me

                                    farewell. (Epilogue. 9-19)  

Through the Epilogue, Shakespeare informs the crowd that queer attraction isn’t something only present in plays, but as the audience consumes the display in front of them, they are also experiencing queer attraction themselves. Rosalind states that if “the love you bear to men” pleases the women watching the play, then they may enjoy the entire play, even the female leads because they are also men. And if women still find the male actor attractive while he is in drag, then there’s more of a queer attraction present since they’re enjoying the appearance of a lady more so than a man. On the other hand, the men that are watching and believing in the beauty of Rosalind are technically

believing in the beauty of the male actor in drag which in itself is queer attraction. If the boy chooses to “kiss as many of you as head beards that pleased” him while assuming the part of Rosalind, no man would “defied not” the boy’s in drag “kind offer”. If this is true, then the men watching the play are definitely experiencing queer attraction. Therefore, while Rosalind resolves the queer attraction conflict in the play by revealing herself as Ganymede, the Epilogue creates another conflict involving the audience and their possible queer attraction towards her/him.

     While Shakespeare is well known for exploring queer attraction throughout As You Like It, this exploration still continues throughout movies today. In movies like Tootsie (1982), Juwanna Mann (2002), White Chicks (2004), Jack and Jill (2011) they deal with men dressed in drag as women. Throughout each movie, the woman, who is actually a man, is forced into a conflict of sorts when a man falls in love with “her”. While drag is done in these types of movies for comedic relief, they make sure to take the precautions seen in As You Like It and resolve this queer attraction through the cross-dressing man revealing his deception and ending up with, usually, the woman he’s supposedly likes. But while in most movies this conflict is resolved, one movie that never reveals that the woman is actually a cross-dressing man is Tyler Perry’s Madea. Tyler Perry allows Madea to maintain the 

identity of a woman, and not a man dressed in drag, by never acknowledging the fact that she's a man in drag and never revealing himself at the end of any movies. But throughout all of the Madea movies there isn’t a single occurrence of a man showing interest in her because, if there was, then that would create a queer attraction conflict that can only turn out in one of two ways: 1)Tyler Perry would have to reveal Madea as a man or 2) the queer attraction would still exist by not outing Tyler Perry as Madea which, as Shakespeare has shown, is a predicament that cannot persist. So in order to keep up the perception that Madea is a full-fledged woman and not a man in drag, the queer attraction is avoided by Madea never possessing a love interest.

      Just like Shakespeare shows that queer attraction exists in Elizabethan society through As You Like It, movies today show that queer attraction is still present throughout society, whether it’s purposeful or not. Shakespeare uses the Epilogue in As You Like It to teach the audience that queer attraction isn’t just for entertainment and plays, but it’s a complexity present throughout human society.