Cross-gender acting

Many societies prohibited women from performing on stage, so boys and men took the female roles.

During the early development of ancient Greek theatre in the sixth century BC, both Athenian women and men performed. By the fifth century, changing Athenian cultural codes excluded women from public life, and thus the theatre. After this point, men played both male and female roles.[1] Men also played females in English Renaissance theatre and continue to do in Japanese kabuki theatre (see onnagata). In Chinese opera specialized male actors who play female roles (dàn) are referred to as nándàn (男旦); the practice arose during the Qing dynasty due to imperial prohibitions against women performing on stage, considered detrimental to public morality.[2]

Kabuki actor in Japan

Japanese kabuki theatre began in the 17th century with all-female troupes performing both male and female roles. In 1629 the disrepute of kabuki performances (or of their audiences) led to the banning of women from the stage, but kabuki's great popularity inspired the formation of all-male troupes to carry on the theatrical genre. In kabuki, the portrayal of female characters by men is known as onnagata. The practice is detailed in a story of the same name by the Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima. All roles in Noh dramas are traditionally played by male actors; actors playing female roles wear feminine costumes and female-featured masks. The Takarazuka Revue is a contemporary all-female Japanese acting company, known for their elaborate productions of stage musicals. Takarazuka was created in the early 20th century by Ichizō Kobayashi Takarazuka actresses specialize in either male roles (otokoyaku) or female roles (musumeyaku), with male-role actresses receiving top billing.[3] In contrast to kabuki's exclusion of female performers, Takarazuka introduced a theatrical performance platform where women could take the stage. However, despite this opportunity for women to embody roles that represented their sex, as well as a man's, the structure of Takarazuka still reflected the patriarchal control of Japan. The musumeyaku represented fictional recreations of women. As for the otokoyaku, their roles aimed to emulate a model man that women would desire. Jennifer Robertson[4] asserts, “Personal or contrary motivations and desires aside, both musumeyaku and otokoyaku are the products of a masculinist imagination in their official stage roles”.

Many of the characters in Chinese Opera were performed by men; they cross-dressed to play the roles of women. A famous cross-dressing opera singer is Mei Lanfang. From the early 20th century, Yue opera is developed from all male to all female genre. Although male performers were introduced into this opera in the 1950s and 1960s, today, Yue opera is still associated as the only all female opera and the second most popular opera in China.

In Renaissance England, women were forbidden from performing on stage,[5] so female roles in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights were originally played by cross-dressing men or boys. (See also Stage Beauty.) Therefore, the original productions of the above-mentioned Shakespeare plays actually involved double-cross-dressing: male actors playing female characters disguising themselves as males.[6] Academic research into the contemporary attitudes towards the practise have yielded a variety of interpretations. Historian Laura Levine argues that "an all-male acting troupe was the natural and unremarkable product of a culture whose conception of gender was "teleologically male".[7]

Cross-dressing in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain was frequent among actors, and the theater was at the time the most popular form of entertainment.[8] There was a fascination with female cross-dressers particularly (women dressed as men), who were "extremely popular" in the "Golden Age Comedia".[9] Male actors might play the "women dressed as men" parts. Spain eventually found this cross-dressing to be threatening to social order, and passed laws targeting female transvestites throughout the 1600s.[8] Despite the negative reactions and disapproval, it continued to remain very popular in the comedia.[8]

In contrast to women playing men and vice versa in Spain's comedia, Japan's Takarazuka Revue Company only had female performers for both their male and female roles.[10] Amongst the Takarasiennes, the musumeyaku and otokoyaku role distributions were determined after they graduated from the Takarazuka Music School (Takarazuka Ongaku Gakkō).[11] The musumeyaku and otokoyaku positions of the performers were determined through an evaluation of the performers’ appearance and behavioral performance ability of a female or male. In this assessment, facial and body signifiers (e.g. jaw structure, eyebrows, height, shoulder span) were taken into consideration to determine what females would be fit for the positions. Additionally, behavioral test runs examined the voice, mannerism, and overall persona of the performers.[12]

Katarina Karnéus as Serse in a 2009 production of Serse at the Royal Swedish Opera.

Sarah Bernhardt as Prince Hamlet in June 1899.

A travesti is a theatrical term referring to the portrayal of a character in an opera, play, or ballet by a performer of the opposite sex. More specifically, a theatrical or operatic role in which an actress appears in male clothing is called a "breeches role" ("pants role" or "trouser role"), and roles once performed by a male soprano castrato may instead be performed by a female mezzo-soprano or contralto.

In the late 19th century, one of the most famous actresses was Vesta Tilley, who worked in a music hall from age five well into her fifties. In the late 1890s, she was the highest paid woman in Britain. What made her so famous was her tendency to dress as a man and act out "masculine" scenes and roles.[13] Centuries before, Julie d'Aubigny, aka "La Maupin" (1670–1707), had also been famous for her breeches roles.

In 1904, Nina Boucicault originated the theatrical tradition of cross-sex casting for Peter Pan, continued thereafter by Maude Adams, Marilyn Miller, Eva Le Gallienne, Sandy Duncan, and Cathy Rigby, among others.[14] In 1954 Mary Martin portrayed the title character in the musical Peter Pan. "The boy who would never grow up" is a classic trouser role, as is Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro (by Beaumarchais).

In pantomime plays that are traditionally adaptations of fairy tales and performed around Christmastide, the role of lead male was once commonly played by a principal boy—a young, attractive, female. This practise has fallen out of favour recently, with popular male television and pop stars taking these roles. Conversely, the role of a pantomime dame, a middle aged woman played by a man in drag for comic relief, is still one of the mainstays of panto.

Similarly, Georgy Millyar played a role of Baba Yaga, an ugly old woman with supernatural abilities in a dozen of films, including Vasilisa the Beautiful (1940) and Jack Frost (1964). He used to say that an actress does not ever allow anyone to make her that ugly, while he does.[15]

In animations and video games, it is not unusual for female actors to voice young male characters. Notable examples are Nancy Cartwright voicing Bart Simpson in The Simpsons and Junko Takeuchi voicing Naruto Uzumaki in the anime series Naruto. Voice actress Tara Strong has voiced multiple young male characters such as Timmy Turner and Ben Tennyson. Instances of male actors voicing female characters have also occurred, including Bob Peterson as Roz in Monsters, Inc. and Brad Bird as Edna Mode in the Incredibles franchise.

In musical theatre, some characters have become synonymous with cross-sex acting. The musical Hairspray frequently sees a male actor portraying the female role of Edna Turnblad, whilst the role of Miss Trunchbull in Matilda the Musical is traditionally a male performer. However, whilst Edna was played by a cross cast John Travolta in the film adaptation, Miss Trunchbull in the film of Matilda was instead played by actress Emma Thompson.

When the casting director of a production decides to employ cross-sex acting, selecting the actors in this way is sometimes also called "cross-sex casting" or simply "cross-casting".

Within Japan's Takarazuka Revue Company, their most notable feature, besides their show-stopping extravagant productions, is the role of their otokoyaku character. This is the popular male character played by trained female performers that specialize in exuding the dreamy, heroic, and graceful man of women's dreams.[3] To further explain the role of the otokoyaku ‘male’ character, Lorie Brau[27] contends that, "The otokoyaku does not represent a 'nama no otoko', that is to say, a 'man in the raw', but an idealized, 'beautiful' man-a man without dirt, sweat, roughness, and a need to dominate. The otokoyaku's female following see her as a version of this kind of androgynous, safe beauty rarely found in real men". Therefore, while the otokoyaku presents a male guise that is the “risoteki na dansei” (ideal man) women are attracted to, the otokoyaku also creates an admirable attraction from female fans because they embrace a type of androgynous freedom and non-constrained continuum of gender. As female performers, fans see women breaking the confines of societal female expectations, as well as embracing the femme side of the male-masculine image.[27][28] However, despite this progressive multi-dimensional role of the otokoyaku, the reality of how far these interpretations could be expressed by the actual female performers was quite the opposite.

With the creation of the Takarazuka Revue Company, Ichizō Kobayashi intended to use the troupe to reinforce the patriarchal status quo of Japan by training his female performers how to be obedient women and “good wives and wise mothers”.[27] Despite the non-conventional female position as the otokoyaku, this too played into patriarchal ideologies. Jennifer Robertson[29] mentions, “Kobayashi theorized that by performing as men, females learned to understand and appreciate males and the masculine psyche”.

• Cross-dressing in film and television
• Cross-dressing in literature
• Köçek, a Turkish term for a young male entertainer dressed as a young woman
• List of transgender-related topics
• List of transgender characters in film and television