[2][3] Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin write that animation has always "hint[ed] at the performative nature of gender" such as when Bugs Bunny puts on a wig and a dress, he is a rabbit in drag as a human male who is in drag as a female.
[4] This was preceded by cross-dressing in motion pictures began in the early days of the silent films.
For instance, Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy occasionally dressed as women in their films.
[citation needed] Even the beefy American actor Wallace Beery appeared in a series of silent films as a Swedish woman.
The Three Stooges, especially Curly (Jerry Howard), sometimes appeared in drag in their short films.