Transgender groups, leave the Tootsie musical alone!
Stop saying that the actor Michael Dorsey should embrace his transgendered self. He's not transgendered! You might just as well say the actor Jamie Farr should embrace his transgendered self.
A review:
When David Yazbek and Robert Horn’s new musical Tootsie opened on Broadway a few weeks ago to mostly rave reviews (all written by cisgender critics), New York magazine’s Sara Holdren was one of the only critics to call out the dated gender politics of the show, based on the 1982 film. I was shocked, however, that none of the critics noticed the larger problem: the show’s entire premise is transphobic. Although there are no trans characters in the musical, trans people are the butt of every joke, a silent specter of mockery, as the whole musical revolves around a never-ending “man in a dress” gag, a trope that’s rooted in transmisogyny (hatred of trans women).
How can a show without any trans characters be transphobic? As trans theatremaker Brin Solomon writes, “Just as a celebration of German culture can still be anti-Semitic even if it never mentions Jews, and a boss who calls his secretary ‘sweetie’ can still be sexist even if he never explicitly tells women to die, the core conceit of Tootsie’s plot strengthens tropes that harm trans women in pervasive, implicit ways.” While the new musical has some merits, which I discuss in my review here (and which certainly account for its 11 Tony nominations), that is not what I want to focus on here; it is time for us to stop praising Tootsie and start recognizing its problems. Although Tootsie is unwilling to have meaningful discussions about drag and gender, that doesn’t mean we can’t.
Drag is not inherently transphobic, but the drag in Tootsie absolutely is. The point of drag is to queer gender and prove how socially constructed it is, to show that gender is a performance. Tootsie (mis)appropriates drag in ways that enforce ideas about binary gender by making jokes out of the dichotomy between Michael, the straight cisgender protagonist, and his drag persona, Dorothy. This frequently takes the the form of crude and transphobic bodily humor about genitals or gags about bras, wigs, and heels and how ridiculous it is that Michael would wear them. The musical treats the entire concept of drag and of gender as nothing but a joke.
Tootsie is by no means the first musical to play with the possibilities of drag. Kinky Boots, La Cage aux Folles, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Rent, and this season’s under-appreciated Head Over Heels all use drag, in both serious and comedic ways, to explore queer identity, marginalization, and the power of performance. Unlike the lead in Tootsie, the characters who do drag in those shows don’t constantly make jokes about their genitals, lie about their gender, or use drag to “get ahead,” steal a job from a woman, and manipulate those around them.
Instead all of those musicals have drag performers fighting to perform, to be listened to, and to be taken seriously on their own terms. Lola, Zaza, the queens of Priscilla, Cleophila, and Angel are marginalized because of their queer identities and their choice to do drag, all of which reflects reality. In Tootsie, on the other hand, when Michael choses to do drag to get a role, he gets hired, is universally beloved, and is given total artistic control over the show. The notion that Michael would get cast more easily and have more creative power as a woman than as a man isn’t just implausible; it’s also damaging, a further erasure of actual cis and trans women’s experience. What’s more, since Michael is not openly a drag queen but is fully pretending to be a woman and “getting away with it,” the show subtly reinforces the transphobic claim that trans people are liars, pretenders, or fakers.
etc.
Transgender groups, leave the Tootsie musical alone!
Stop saying that the actor Michael Dorsey should embrace his transgendered self. He's not transgendered! You might just as well say the actor Jamie Farr should embrace his transgendered self.
A review:
When David Yazbek and Robert Horn’s new musical Tootsie opened on Broadway a few weeks ago to mostly rave reviews (all written by cisgender critics), New York magazine’s Sara Holdren was one of the only critics to call out the dated gender politics of the show, based on the 1982 film. I was shocked, however, that none of the critics noticed the larger problem: the show’s entire premise is transphobic. Although there are no trans characters in the musical, trans people are the butt of every joke, a silent specter of mockery, as the whole musical revolves around a never-ending “man in a dress” gag, a trope that’s rooted in transmisogyny (hatred of trans women).
How can a show without any trans characters be transphobic? As trans theatremaker Brin Solomon writes, “Just as a celebration of German culture can still be anti-Semitic even if it never mentions Jews, and a boss who calls his secretary ‘sweetie’ can still be sexist even if he never explicitly tells women to die, the core conceit of Tootsie’s plot strengthens tropes that harm trans women in pervasive, implicit ways.” While the new musical has some merits, which I discuss in my review here (and which certainly account for its 11 Tony nominations), that is not what I want to focus on here; it is time for us to stop praising Tootsie and start recognizing its problems. Although Tootsie is unwilling to have meaningful discussions about drag and gender, that doesn’t mean we can’t.
Drag is not inherently transphobic, but the drag in Tootsie absolutely is. The point of drag is to queer gender and prove how socially constructed it is, to show that gender is a performance. Tootsie (mis)appropriates drag in ways that enforce ideas about binary gender by making jokes out of the dichotomy between Michael, the straight cisgender protagonist, and his drag persona, Dorothy. This frequently takes the the form of crude and transphobic bodily humor about genitals or gags about bras, wigs, and heels and how ridiculous it is that Michael would wear them. The musical treats the entire concept of drag and of gender as nothing but a joke.
Tootsie is by no means the first musical to play with the possibilities of drag. Kinky Boots, La Cage aux Folles, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Rent, and this season’s under-appreciated Head Over Heels all use drag, in both serious and comedic ways, to explore queer identity, marginalization, and the power of performance. Unlike the lead in Tootsie, the characters who do drag in those shows don’t constantly make jokes about their genitals, lie about their gender, or use drag to “get ahead,” steal a job from a woman, and manipulate those around them.
Instead all of those musicals have drag performers fighting to perform, to be listened to, and to be taken seriously on their own terms. Lola, Zaza, the queens of Priscilla, Cleophila, and Angel are marginalized because of their queer identities and their choice to do drag, all of which reflects reality. In Tootsie, on the other hand, when Michael choses to do drag to get a role, he gets hired, is universally beloved, and is given total artistic control over the show. The notion that Michael would get cast more easily and have more creative power as a woman than as a man isn’t just implausible; it’s also damaging, a further erasure of actual cis and trans women’s experience. What’s more, since Michael is not openly a drag queen but is fully pretending to be a woman and “getting away with it,” the show subtly reinforces the transphobic claim that trans people are liars, pretenders, or fakers.
etc.