More Key Words

Male Gaze: The term used by Laura Mulvey in her essay 'Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema' (1975) to describe what she saw as the male point of view adopted by the camera for the benefit of an assumed male audience.

This theory could be adapted to male-to-female cross-dressers who may also be considered to be under the 'male gaze'. Throughout 'Breakfast on Pluto' Kitten is taken in by several older men who consider him attractive.

Method Acting: A style of acting involving actors merging themselves psychologically into the characters they are representing and becoming those characters.

This could be considered in Cillian Murphy's case. In an interview he replied to be asked how he went about researching the character: "I spent a lot of time observing women. Neil said, "Go and treat yourself like a lady," which I did. It involved buying a lot of products and getting facials and massages and just thinking about stuff that most men generally don't think about."

Norms: Culturally determined, value-based rules of the type of behaviour expected in different social situations.

Cross-dressing challenges these norms by going against what is defined as appropriate clothing for either gender.

Patriarchy: Male domination of the political, cultural and socioeconomic system.

This is important in considering that within male-to-female cross-dressing the males are never totally convincing as females suggesting that male sexuality cannot be repressed- therefore reinforcing the idea of a patriarchal society.

Pluralism: The view that where a society is comprised of a wide range of social and ethnic groups with different values, politcal and ideological beliefs, representations by the media will naturally reflect this diversity.

'Breakfast on Pluto' contains characters from many minority groups including cross-dresser Kitten, ethnic minority Charlie and their disabled friend with Downs Syndrome.

Prejudice: The pre-judging of an issue or social group, usually in a negative or stereotypical way.

Cross-dressing faces prejudice throughout society and the media.

Queer Cinema: A term used to describe films representing the lifestyle and experiences of gays a lesbians.

Many cross-dressers are gay, in the film 'Breakfast on Pluto' Kitten has several gay relationships- although this is not an issue which is properly addressed within the film.

Representation: The process whereby the media construct versions of people, places and events in images, words or sounds for transmission through media texts to an audience.

The key concept representation is important in finding out how cross-dressing in portrayed in modern television and cinema.

Simulacrum: Any stage in the relationship between the real world and its representation where the distinction between reality and its image, between signs and what they refer to, have been progressivley broken down.

In 'Breakfast on Pluto' director Neil Jordan ofter employs techniques in order to represent scenes as a sort of 'dream-like' version of reality which allows the audience to connect with Kitten's own version of the world.

Status Quo: Leaving things as they are.

This is important in terms of cross-dressing as it naturally challenges the status quo. Cross-dressing goes against society's norms which therefore is no leaving things as they are.