Introduction & Transgender Pre-Cinema

Outline:

• Exploring the concepts of transgenderism in film
• The difficulties of differentiating drag queens, transvestites, transsexuals and other TG groups in film and theatre
• Early Greek and Roman theatre
  • Women were not allowed to act,
    • Exception: Roman mimes for the lower classes
  • in some cases they weren't even allowed to watch
  • When they were, seating was separate from men
  • Men performed the women's roles, typically adopting a white mask

• Role of paganism in early theater
  • Fertility cults
  • Festivals

• The rise of Christianity saw the fall of ancient theatre
  • Many plays had pagan themes, and the theatres themselves were an important part of pagan festivals
  • The mimes in particular were offensive to the church, both in lascivity and sacrilege
  • By 533 AD, the ancient theatre was no more.
  • Church issued edicts against mimi, histriones, ioculatores

• Birth of the mystery plays
  • In the middle 900s, the church began to encourage mystery plays, all with heavy religious themes, to be performed at Christmas and Easter
  • Initially the actors were clergy
  • Eventually, the plays began to move out of the church, ceased using Latin, and began to stray from religious themes
  • Laymen became the actors, rather than the clergy
  • Women were rarely allowed to act, such as in the French farces
  • Instead it became the custom to use boys, or feminine men to perform the female roles, without masks

• Sponsorship of the theatre moves from the church to nobility
  • With the advent of the printing press in 1465, classical Greek and Roman plays get wider circulation among the nobility
  • The Church's influence begins to wane
  • In the Council of Trent, Queen Elizabeth outlawed religous plays, spurring a rapid development in secular plays
  • The nobility sponsored playwrights, commisioning new works
  • The government began to license theatrical troupes; women were officially barred from joining said troupes
  • Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night, then, includes a double gender twist: actor playing a woman posing as a man
  • Puritan revolution of 1642 results in the closure of all theaters

• Opera in the 17th century
  • Italian: Castrati
  • Japanese: Kabuki

• The Restoration and the Edict of Charles II
  • When the monarchy was restored in 1660, Charles II took the throne, and brought back theatre to England
  • The new theatrical licenses specifically allowed the inclusion of women in acting troupes to play women
  • At first the idea of women actors was thought of as a phase, but by the end of the century, the age of men playing women in serious roles had come to an end
  • Given the scarcity of actresses at first, men continued to play the parts of older women, and by 1700, these roles had degenerated into burlesque, farce, and parody.

• The Rise of Vaudeville
  • As vaudeville arose in the 19th century, male actors began to adopt drag roles as part of their repertoir.
  • Women would also portray men in so-called "breeches" roles. Actresses such as Sarah Bernhardt gained fame for this
  • There tended to be two types of cross-dressing roles for men:
    • Men would play female roles with great farcical exaggeration, usually portraying old, shrewish, or unattractive women
    • For comic effect, a man would disguise himself as a woman
  • These vaudevillian roles would extend into the early days of cinema, as will be related in the next chapter.

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