Cross-gender acting
Modern American cross-gender acting, especially in musical theatre roles where men play women, is often employed for comedic effect.
Historian Laura Levine argues that "an all-male acting troupe was the natural and unremarkable product of a culture whose conception of gender was "teleologically male".
[4] In order to maintain a hierarchy and a gendered division of labour, a prominent feature of the Renaissance era, women and men needed to be distinct.
Male-to-female cross-gender actors were either viewed as shameful, or they gained wealth and social status when playing women who married well-off men.
[5] Some instances of female-to-male cross-dressing in theatre allowed women to challenge patriarchal notions of gender and explore both masculinity and femininity within this hierarchy.
[6] Once male actors stepped into the roles of women, it was feared that they would adopt transgressive feminine traits, which led to the belief that crossdressing was an undisciplined act.
[9] In Chinese opera specialized male actors who play female roles (dàn) are referred to as nándàn (男旦); the practice arose during the Qing dynasty due to imperial prohibitions against women performing on stage, considered detrimental to public morality.
[10] This led to the development of female impersonation techniques such as cai ciao (false-foot skill), which simulated a woman's bound feet.
Spain eventually found this cross-dressing to be threatening to social order, and passed laws targeting female transvestites throughout the 1600s.
One example of this is the nourrice, or “nurse” archetype—a male-acted older, humorous, post-menopausal woman whose undesirability contrasted the primary female roles played by women.
[16] Centuries before, Julie d'Aubigny, aka "La Maupin" (1670–1707), had also been famous for her breeches roles.In 1904, Nina Boucicault originated the theatrical tradition of cross-sex casting for Peter Pan, continued thereafter by Maude Adams, Marilyn Miller, Eva Le Gallienne, Sandy Duncan, and Cathy Rigby, among others.
Conversely, the role of a pantomime dame, a middle aged woman played by a man in drag for comic relief, is still one of the mainstays of panto.
Similarly, Georgy Millyar played a role of Baba Yaga, an ugly old woman with supernatural abilities in a dozen of films, including Vasilisa the Beautiful (1940) and Jack Frost (1964).
[18] Into the 19th and 20th centuries, French anthropologist Jane Dieulafoy and her husband Marcel hosted private salons where they staged classical plays.
During a particularly turbulent period of Chinese history, Yue opera offered female actors and audiences a voice beyond the nationalist narrative often associated with the May Fourth Movement and Cultural Revolution.
In a society undergoing drastic social change, including shifting ideas of gender and family structures, Yue opera catered to two of the public's new fixations: women and romance.
[citation needed] The Takarazuka Revue is a contemporary all-female Japanese acting company, known for their elaborate productions of stage musicals.
Fans see women breaking the confines of societal expectations, as well as embracing the feminine side of the male-masculine image.
[23] With the creation of the Takarazuka Revue Company, Ichizō Kobayashi intended to use the troupe to reinforce the patriarchal status quo of Japan by training his female performers how to be obedient women and “good wives and wise mothers”.
[24] Despite the non-conventional otokoyaku, Robertson states that Kobayashi believed women would, through their performances as men, "[learn] to understand and appreciate males and the masculine psyche”.
As the tradition grew over the decades with the development of new theatre companies, the boys themselves were unhappy playing women; some feared embarrassment, while others were afraid of being recognized in their feminine roles.
[26] At the Empress Menen Girls' Boarding School, Ethiopian scholar, writer, and politician Senedu Gebru wrote and directed plays for her female students between 1942 and 1955.
[26] After the fall of the Government of the Ethiopian Empire and with the opening of the Theatre Arts Department at Addis Ababa University, the 1970s saw further efforts to involve women onstage.
Instances of male actors voicing female characters have also occurred, including Bob Peterson as Roz in Monsters, Inc. and Brad Bird as Edna Mode in the Incredibles franchise.
Increasingly, modern American theatre is cast "blindly," in which roles are determined based on talent, regardless of "gender, race, age, and body type.
