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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.
What they did not mention was the overwhelming reason why this is. Which, for me, is what's actually interesting about this story. The reason women sometimes get roles written for men is because all roles are written for men by default unless the theme is explicitly woman-centric. That is to say, the default position for "action hero" or "working person" or "courageous lawyer" or "stranger coming to town" or "person with dark secret" is male. Women's roles, as leads, are wives, mothers, teachers--if you're writing about a child or about a certain kind of relationship, chances are it'll be a woman you're writing about. Everyone else? Is a guy unless someone decides Weaver or Foster or Jolie are a big enough star to transcend that default. (Obviously there are exceptions. But I don't think this is a controversial opinion.)
This is fascinating to me, and very frustrating. I always loved Alien because Ripley is so great, so unexpectedly a woman (when dammit, I shouldn't be trained to find it unexpected at all), and her heroism is very natural. She's not a superwoman who has had powers conferred upon her by
It puts a different spin on things, to know for sure that these parts were written for men. To know that the only way to get a female hero or double-agent or even pot-smoking boss is to write a man, then concede that a woman might be able to pull it off. And the thing is, the roles mentioned up there aren't even necessarily masculine. There's nothing in them that requires them to be thought of that way. These aren't Rambo or Patton or anything where you have to stretch your imagination or even go against society's roles. It just seems to be the only way for the predominately male-driven Hollywood machine to get into a female zone: write as if everyone's a man, and then, when Tom Cruise is busy, see if you can find a woman with enough B.O. cred to overcome this apparent inability for people to see past that default.
- Crossposts:http://my-daroga.livejournal.com/275105.html
