Literature Review

Bolsover, Nicola. “Costume and Cross-Dressing in Stand-up Comedy.” Master of Arts by Research (MARes) thesis. University of Kent, 2015. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/52927/1/230Thesis.pdf

In this thesis, I focus on the chapter “The Cross-Dresser,” which highlights the differences between male-to-female and female-to-male cross-dressers in the comedy sphere. According to her analysis, male-to-female cross-dressing elicits more of a comedic reaction because of the shame and self-humiliation that comes from men lowering their status to a more inferior position as a woman, which is perceived as ridiculous. Whereas when women cross-dress as men, it raises their traditional social status, which creates discomfort for the audience. While she acknowledges that this type of comedy is rooted in gender binary-based beliefs, it seems she fails to acknowledge the trans/queer perspective in this binary and humor, so I hope other sources will have a more nuanced analysis.

Barkhorn, Eleanor. “’Work It!’: Hollywood’s Cross-Dressing Double Standard Strikes Again.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, January 3, 2012. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/01/work-it-hollywoods-cross-dressing-double-standard-strikes-again/250793/.

Barkhorn talks about the trope of men cross-dressing as women in comedies such as ABC show Work It! and Adam Sandler’s film Jack & Jill, and other slapstick comedies. The article includes a slideshow of many cross-dressing and cross-casting film posters. They cite Scott Meslow’s article where he acknowledges a cross-dressing double-standard in film: men dress as woman for “often crass comedies, whereas women dress as men for darker, more nuanced dramas.” While female-to-male cross-dressers tend to have more complex plots, male-to-female cross-dressing portrayals tend to derive laughs from the emasculation of those characters. Barkhorn also includes a recent example of Man Up! which elicited transgender advocacy groups protesting the show for perpetuating negative stereotypes regarding cross-dressing.

Braxton, Greg. “The Black-White Drag Divide: ‘White Famous,’ Chris Rock and Tyler Perry on Saying Yes to the Dress.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, December 10, 2017. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-ca-st-humor-men-in-dresses-20171208-story.html.

In this piece for the LA Times, Braxton notes how male comedians appearing in drag seems to have universal appeal that crosses cultural lines, noting many black and white performers who have generated laughs by cross-dressing in sketch comedy and/or films. There are conflicting beliefs of what these representations mean for the image of black masculinity and that the decision to appear in a dress is more difficult than it is for white men. There have been mixed reviews on how people in the black community feel on the matter. Chris Rock stands with characters such as Tyler Perry’s Madea, and has expressed how “men dressing as women is a comedy staple, like a pie in the face.” While others believe that emasculating black men has close links to slavery and power structures where black men would need to appear less threatening. Braxton notes how Kenan Thompson took a stand on SNL in 2013 when he refused to play any female characters until the show hired black female cast members, which makes an important point about whether men, especially black men, are playing these roles out of choice or a “necessity” because they do not have a diverse cast. In this article, the debate about whether transgender roles should be played by non-transgender performers is included as an add-on, so I want to explore more literature where this is a focal point.

Champagne, Monica M. “Making Meatballs: Canadian Film and Television Comedy.” Order No. MR18243, Carleton University (Canada), 2005. https://search.proquest.com/docview/305006034?accountid=8505.

In this thesis, I focused on chapter three: “Taking It in the Face: Liberating the Unruly Woman in Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy.” This focuses on how the Canadian sketch comedy series Kids in the Hall, which star five male actors, incorporate drag performance into their comedy. Champagne uses gender theorists, queer theorists, and comedy scholars to argue that Kids in the Hall use mimetic drag to include women in areas of comedy they might have been excluded otherwise.

Hibberd, James. “GLAAD Slams ABC Cross-Dressing Comedy.” EW.com, December 16, 2011. https://ew.com/article/2011/12/16/work-it-controversy/.

Hibberd addresses how GLAAD called out new ABC sitcom Work It, a show about men dressing as women in order to get hired for jobs. GLAAD acting president Mike Thompson. “It will reinforce the mistaken belief that transgender women are simply ‘men pretending to be women,’ and that their efforts to live their lives authentically as women are a form of lying or deception.” While GLAAD acknowledged that the show does not explicitly mock transgender people, its goal is to elicit humor from men dressing up as women, which could promote audiences mocking those with actual gender-identity issues. Additionally, GLAAD took more issue with the ad promoting Work It showing men wearing women’s clothing at a men’s bathroom urinal, because it reinforces themes of deception and lying associated with transgender/cross-dressing people.

Pasternack, Dan. “Cross-Dressing at the Crossroads: A Brief History of Drag in Comedy.” pastemagazine.com, December 7, 2017. https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/cross-dressing-at-the-crossroads-a-brief-history-o.html.

Pasternack tracks the transition of the perception of cross-dressing popular culture. He notes how in 1948, Milton “Mr. Television” Berle often utilized the “reliable burlesque trope of putting a man in a woman’s dress” on his comedy variety series, The Texaco Star Theater, and compares that history to modern-day shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race, where drag is an identity to be embraced. He notes the comedic formula: straight men + women’s clothes + speaking in high-pitched voices = laughs. Anyone who crossed the binaries of masculinity and femininity would result in hilarity, citing Monty Python, The Kids in the Hall, and Saturday Night Live as sketch/variety comedy cases where mostly straight men “made gender-bending funny.” Some comedians who elicited laughs for inverting traditional perceptions around African-American masculinity include: Flip Wilson as Geraldine, Martin Lawrence as Sheneneh, and Jamie Foxx as Wanda. Pasternack ends with an optimistic take on how more modern-day examples like Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer and Louie Anderson as Zach Galifanakis’s mom on the FX series Baskets are more nuance than older drag caricatures. He also believes that regardless of our gender or sexuality, “our ability to find a common humanity in all means our cross-dressing comedy can and will go deeper than the dress.”

Phillips, John. “Cross-Dressing in Film Comedy.” In Transgender on Screen, 51–84. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

This chapter in the larger book Transgender on Screen focuses on cross-dressing acts as a comedic tool in comedy films. Phillips focuses on cross-dressing as a means of deception, which can lead to “comic misunderstandings.” He focuses on four main films during his analysis: Some Like it Hot (1959), Tootsie (1982), Victor/Victoria (1982), and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). On the whole, the chapter focuses on transvestism as a temporary disguise in these films.

Rose, Steve. “What a Drag: the Death of the Cross-Dressing Movie.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, January 26, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jan/26/what-a-drag-crossdressing-movies.

In this piece, Rose pinpoints Adam Sandler’s film Jack and Jill as “the moment when cinematic cross-dressing officially stops being funny.” He compares films that received awards by the American Film Institute as the Best American Comedy Ever Made in 2000, with Some Like It Hot in first and Tootsie in second versus now where drag is the “last resort of the lowest-aiming multiplex mass-market entertainer.”