Representations of gender and sexuality in films

Type :

Term papers

Pages :

7 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

01/12/2009

Category :

Arts & media

Sub category :

Film studies

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Summary :

Introduction.
The theory of cross dressing.
The effects of cross dressing in movies.
1. Common elements in movies.
2. Cross dressing in Ma Vie en Rose.
3. Male cross dressers and female cross dressers.
The realities of transvestites and transsexuals.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.

Abstract

'The street's getting worse everyday here. The whores were bad enough but the drags are wiping us out. I can't stand the drags. (...). They confuse transvestism with a circus. Worse, with mime'. In All About My Mother (Almodovar; 1999), the character Agrado stresses the importance of distinction between cross-dressing, transvestism, and drag. Indeed, Bruzzi (1997 :147) defines cross-dressing as 'the questioning and blurring of gender identities that occurs when characters do not wear the clothes deemed socially appropriate to their sex' while Stoller argues that 'transvestism should only refer to fetishist cross-dressing' and 'drag' is exclusively applied to cross-dressing as theatrical performance' (1985 :176 in Bruzzi ; 1997 : 149). In the mainstream cross-dressing comedy, the male dresses as a woman to generate comic effect based on the ridicule, whereas in the French film Ma Vie en Rose (Berliner; 1997), the implications of a little boy thinking he is a girl are explored, while All About my Mother provides us with a more accurate representation of the world of transvestites and transsexuals.