‘Tootsie’ and the gender bent comedy
APRIL 23RD, 2016 — POST 110
Tootsie is one of those cultural touchstones that is hard to get away from. Like Citizen Kane or Vertigo, Tootsie is considered required viewing, and some argue it might be the best film comedy (or just film) ever. With it coming to Australian Netflix recently, I was finally able to shed the guilt I carried from never having seen it. More than anything, I was struck by how traditional it was. Tootsie follows an actor who can’t get work until he goes in drag and auditions for the part of a woman. This tradition in comedy of disguised gender has its other beacons in the Marilyn Munroe vehicle Some Like It Hot from 1959 and more saliently in 1993’s Mrs. Doubtfire. However, I was left with a question: what is the future of the gender bent comedy if there is one at all?
The central tenant of this tradition is divergent identity, a middle-aged Southern woman in the case of Tootsie, that is defined as a deviation from default. Dustin Hoffman’s character Michael Dorsey is that default: a white guy who’s straight (in both a comedic and sexual sense). His alter ego Dorothy Michaels wears giant plastic glasses, high-necked blouses, and an inch of make-up, a marked deviation not only from Dorsey’s default but also from the female default embodied by the young actresses on the soap that Dorothy gets a part on. The comedy exists in the gap between them. As an audience, Dorothy is funny because she’s entirely not Dorsey and entirely not like the other actresses. We’re at ease enough to laugh because we’re privy to the gap; others in the film encountering Dorothy do so first of all with shock without the knowledge of her true identity.
Immediately, the problem with this tradition should seem obvious. The definition of the default as inextricable from whiteness and, in almost all cases (with notable exception of She’s The Man), maleness is as archaic as it is erroneous. Moreover, with Dorothy becoming somewhat of a hero to the female audiences of the soap as well as her female colleagues for her no-bullshit attitude and self-assuredness, the film affirms the colonial narrative that white maleness is the only source of saviour for an oppressed population. It takes a man to show women what they can truly be.
The problem of the default so necessary for the success of a gender bent comedy seems to have dissuaded filmmakers from approaching this tradition in recent years. With the conversation around gender identity becoming increasingly nuanced, any notion of a default from which a gap can be created with a deviant gender identity would be harder and harder to stomach. But what becomes of this narrative tradition? Is it cast aside like so many traditions progress demands be cast aside? I’m not so sure.
The more primal mechanical layer to Tootsie or Mrs. Doubtfire is simply one of identity. Gender is just either film’s specific expression of a tension between who someone was and who the story demand they become. The audience (and perhaps one or two characters in the movie other than the protagonist) is the only witness to the continuity of identity: most people approach Daniel Hillard and Mrs. Doubtfire as discrete identities. When gender is seen as extraneous to this tradition, you get some truly phenomenal results. Jerry Lewis’ 1963 The Nutty Professor. Perhaps more known for its Eddie Murphy remake, The Nutty Professor plays a lot of the same notes as the gender bent comedy without the error of defining a default. A more recent example like Liar Liar does the same thing, but for one simple inversion: we see Jim Carrey’s character as two discrete identities because we’re privy to the magical truth where all other characters take him to be the same guy.
Whilst Tootsie is a preeminent example of a comedy that succeeds through the play of gender identity, identity proper is its true concern. With feature-length comedies waning in quality each summer, we might be overdue for an identity comedy.
