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9780252041518 Academic Inspection Copy

Just One of the Boys

Female-to-Male Cross-Dressing on the American Variety Stage
  • ISBN-13: 9780252041518
  • Publisher: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
    Imprint: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
  • By Gillian M. Rodger
  • Price: AUD $239.00
  • Stock: 0 in stock
  • Availability: This book is temporarily out of stock, order will be despatched as soon as fresh stock is received.
  • Local release date: 13/02/2018
  • Format: Hardback 275 pages Weight: 0g
  • Categories: Other performing arts [ASZ]
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Manning up to take the stage by storm
 
Female-to-male crossdressing became all the rage in the variety shows of nineteenth-century America and began as the domain of mature actresses who desired to extend their careers. These women engaged in the kinds of raucous comedy acts usually reserved for men. Over time, as younger women entered the specialty, the comedy became less pointed and came to center on the celebration of male leisure and fashion.
 
Gillian M. Rodger uses the development of male impersonation from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth century to illuminate the history of the variety show. Exploding notions of high- and lowbrow entertainment, Rodger looks at how both performers and forms consistently expanded upward toward respectable—and richer—audiences. At the same time, she illuminates a lost theatrical world where women made fun of middle-class restrictions even as they bumped up against rules imposed in part by audiences. Onstage, the actresses' changing performance styles reflected gender construction in the working class and shifts in class affiliation by parts of the audiences. Rodger observes how restrictive standards of femininity increasingly bound male impersonators as new gender constructions allowed women greater access to public space while tolerating less independent behavior from them.
 
Publication of this book is supported by the Gustave Reese Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
 
 
"An important study that offers valuable insights into the lives and careers of significant performers, reasons for the popularity of male impersonators, and the types of songs male impersonators included in their repertoires."--William Everett, author of Rudolf Friml
 
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