Into the closet. Cross-dressing and the gendered body in children's literature and film (review)

United States

In this study based on her 2005 doctoral dissertation written at Macquarie University in Sydney, the author draws mainly on examples from the English-speaking world. The focus is on books and films from the period between 1990 and 2004, while a few film classics from the 1930s to 1970s provide historical context. Flanagan identifies three main categories of cross-dressing in these documents and convincingly analyzes their specific structural patterns and functions.

In the female-to-male version, female characters break out of their ascribed gender role in order to fight for their right of self-determination, to assume agency, and to be at least on par with boys. While traditional gender roles and concepts are critically questioned in this model, they are not wholly dismissed. The male-to-female version, in contrast, generally serves a mainly comical function. Male protagonists are mostly forced to wear "women's clothing" and hence look ridiculous and simply "inadequate." By portraying femininity as something deficient and undesirable, this derisive type of cross-dressing reinforces conservative gender models – boys are boys – and reinforces the male as the naturally superior gender. The third pattern, transgendered cross-dressing, can only be found in young adult fiction according to Flanagan, with the male-to-female version clearly dominating. In these cases, gender is understood as a mainly social category, which does not necessarily coincide with the (biological) gender. This undermines and deconstructs the seemingly natural concepts of masculinity and femininity and thus helps overcome traditional gender models.

Overall, a larger corpus of texts and films would have been desirable, including more contributions from European countries other than Great Britain and especially from non-Western cultures. This thoughtful study nevertheless makes an important contribution to the field of gender studies by not only describing the various models, but by analyzing their different functions with much care and attention to detail.