TASK THIRTEEN: Detailed essay plan

How is cross-dressing portrayed in film? With particular reference to "Breakfast on Pluto”.

Introduction:

• hypothesis,
• male and female characteristics: http://mediaknowall.com/gender.html,
• crossing dressing definitions: http://www.jahsonic.com/drag.html,
• types of cross-dressing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dress#Varieties_of_cross-dressing

Overview of Breakfast on Pluto: MIGRAIN, SHEP,

• Key Words: Alternative, Art house, Circular-narrative, Coming-of-age film, Counterculture, Norms, Patriarchy, Pluralism, Queer Cinema, Simulacrum, Status Quo (M,In,G,R,A,Id,N,S,H,E,P)
  

Director Neil Jordan & Auteur Theory,

• The Crying Game: features transgender character Dil. (In, G, R, Id)
  

Judith Butler, Queer Theory.

• Third wave feminism, which began in the early 1990s. Modern movement which was preceded by first and second wave feminism, and as such would only apply to modern film. Cross-dressing has been portrayed in different ways in cinema for many years. (R, H)
  

Historical texts:

• Glen or Glenda (1953), has early elements of realism concerning the topic of cross-dressing, due to the transvestite director Ed Wood, who was subject of the semi-biographical film Ed Wood (1994).
• Psycho (1960) and example of film demonising cross-dressing as it goes against social norms, 1960s progressive society not evident in film.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)- glamorises cross-dressing, reflects the ambiguity of the Glam Rock era as seen in Breakfast on Pluto. Also could be considered as “transvestic fetishism”. This links to Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze which could be considered in terms of Breakfast on Pluto. (M, G, R, Id, N, S, H)
  

Madonna/Whore Complex

• As Mulvey’s male gaze theory can be applied to male-to-female cross dressing, as can other female theories, such as the Madonna/whore complex which is evident in Breakfast on Pluto.
• As this shows, the portrayal of cross-dressing is not exclusively contained in the representation of the cross-dressing character, but all in their interactions and effects on other characters. A scene in Breakfast on Pluto which shows others reactions is… My Showbiz Career (scene analysis) (M, In, G, R, A, Id, N)
  

Kitten, protagonist. Cross-dressing on TV

• Breakfast on Pluto is a comedy, but doesn’t generate laughs from the cross-dressing itself, rather from the wit and romanticism of protagonist Kitten.
• Kitten as a character is a dreamer which somewhat detracts from the issue of cross-dressing itself. He completely contrasts to his modern British counterparts in film, such as… Shaun of the Dead.
• Cross-dressing in the past has more commonly been used as humour… Some Like it Hot, Tootsie. Furthermore, television programmes such as ‘Little Britain’ and ‘The League of Gentlemen’ continue to rely on cross-dressing as a way to generate laughs, as their counterparts have been doing for decades, ‘The Two Ronnies’, ‘Dick Emery’. (In, G, R, N, S, H)

Conclusion:

• With an increasingly permissive modern day society… issues such as cross-dressing have progressively become a topic regarded, not just as a subject of comedy, Some Like it Hot, Tootsie, or the actions of a deranged character, Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, but as a serious topic, Transamerica.
• Although still used in comedy such as Little Britain, the portrayal of cross-dressing is now more varied from men dressing as women in comedy to a more realistic portrayal of the emotional journey of a person who wants to dress as the opposite sex… (G, R, A, Id, S, H)