The goal of my research was to look at cisgender actors within comedy films playing roles where they had to crossdress as a gender different than how they identify. Usually, this meant the character was cisgender and was crossdressing as a form of deception.
While the characters in these films do not self-identify as transgender, the success of these films has had a large impact on the cultural images of transgender people.
Their portrayals in these films have created constraints on the lives of transgender people, “assigning motives and meanings to their lived experiences.”
The fact that the most popular genre of transgender* films is comedy “reinforces the idea that transgender identities are not to be taken seriously and distancing transgender people further from an already unsympathetic public” (Miller, 128-129).
Cross Dressing in Comedy 