She's the Man

The other day, I waded into an online argument I knew would not result in any changed minds or new understanding. It was about whether a certain character ‘should’ or ‘could’ be played by a woman instead of a man, with the arguments mostly boiling down to, “it would change the entire storyline,” sometimes with a side of, “...because you’d have to recast all the other characters as the opposite gender.”

 

As someone who’s made a routine of playing a gender onstage other than the one I pass for in real life, this was, of course, of interest to me. I am actually more often analyzing this from the other side--is it, in fact, politically correct for a cis-woman to portray a man, or is that verging into trans-appropriation? I don’t, any more, thinking about it from the probably more conventional side of “can a woman realistically play a male character or is it inherently an exercise in dancing dogs?”

 

In some ways this is a complicated question with a lot of nuance and angles to examine. (What makes gender? How it is divorced from sex, if at all? Are there characters and character traits which are unconvincing in a person of the opposite gender? Is it different because I’m a woman playing a man, instead of the other way around, and why?) In another sense, it feels like simplicity itself--this is acting, you’re suspending disbelief anyway, we all know I’m not a Jedi or a starship captain so what difference does it make what parts I have under my clothes?

 

There are a lot of reasons I like playing men. Some are selfish, and possibly touch on internalized misogyny: my favorite characters (and lots of leads) are men, so if I didn’t play a man I wouldn’t get to be the captain, the hero, the detective. Some are personal: I have never quite felt comfortable calling myself female, though I’ve been one long enough that I don’t feel comfortable saying I’m anything else, and one of my bulletproof narrative kinks has always been girls-dressed-as-boys because I relate to it. My third reason is slightly political, though I have never really seen it as all that revolutionary: I want people to look at me on stage and say, “well why can’t Captain Kirk be played by a woman?”

 

In doing so, I’m not really saying that the next film should have Kristen Bell dressed as a boy and answering to “Jim.” Though I’d be ok with that, too. When I’ve played men, both in my own theater company and elsewhere, we’ve left pronouns alone and dressed me as a man, however. And I think it’s because I want the question to be one the audience asks itself. Does it matter? Does the love interest have to change gender? Is the story “different” because I’m a woman?

 

It’s also not that I think there isn’t a difference between my performance and, say, William Shatner or Jeremy Brett. But I think my being shorter, or having a higher voice, or being blonde, are just as significant. Some of those things do have to do with typical feminine physical traits, sure. But what exactly are people citing when they say that “James Bond could never be a woman”? Are they saying that no woman could possibly possess the abilities he does? Or the charisma, sexual appetite, or confidence? Or do they actually mean that they do not or cannot accept a woman in that role due to their own feelings about male and female roles in society?

 

I definitely don’t automatically think that anyone who thinks James Bond can’t be a woman is consciously applying misogyny. In this recent argument, I heard a lot of “I believe women and men are equal, I just don’t think a woman would be convincing as X.” And maybe they believe that. But when I play a man, what I hope the audience is doing is addressing their own preconceptions about what a “woman” and a “man” are, and if they come to the conclusion that I am unconvincing, at least maybe they have a more coherent argument as to why.

 

There is a lot more I could say about this, and I hope to continue this discussion with anyone who cares to. But I will leave it here, for now, as a first attempt at exploring a topic near and dear to my heart. I will continue to audition for and to cast men, women, and non-binary folk in my shoes just as I will cast all ethnicities and physical abilities--in any role to which they are suited, regardless of these factors. Because I think this conversation is important to have, and because I think we need to analyze why we put some character and personality traits in gendered baskets that don’t seem terribly applicable to real life.