Is cross dressing wrong... in a play or skit?

[theyoungmonk]

I think people are making a mountain out of a molehill, unless their is some attempt to use this in a political way it is just lads having fun. It is not liking anyone is saying that they are really women, its all acting and performance. I myself have “dragged it up” on stage for theatrical performance having studied Drama and no one thinks I am actually a woman.

I doubt that as it is a school thing that it is part of “drag culture” which maybe might be a problem if it was associated with that as it has become dominated by homosexuals. Then again drag acts were always a staple of working class culture in Britain, entertaining men who were more likely to punch a homosexual than anything else. As mentioned before in all male environments men have always played the parts of women, examples being Oxford colleges and all boy schools. If they didn’t then you would have to cut a lot of great pieces of art.

I feel it would be a shame if we feel so insecure of our own identities and sexuality that we cannot allow a group of lads to play the part of a woman on stage or to use it as a comic device.

 

[EasterJoy]

I think people are making a mountain out of a molehill, unless their is some attempt to use this in a political way it is just lads having fun. It is not liking anyone is saying that they are really women, its all acting and performance. I myself have “dragged it up” on stage for theatrical performance having studied Drama and no one thinks I am actually a woman.

I doubt that as it is a school thing that it is part of “drag culture” which maybe might be a problem if it was associated with that as it has become dominated by homosexuals. Then again drag acts were always a staple of working class culture in Britain, entertaining men who were more likely to punch a homosexual than anything else. As mentioned before in all male environments men have always played the parts of women, examples being Oxford colleges and all boy schools. If they didn’t then you would have to cut a lot of great pieces of art.

I feel it would be a shame if we feel so insecure of our own identities and sexuality that we cannot allow a group of lads to play the part of a woman on stage or to use it as a comic device.

Whatever this is, great art isn’t it. It is fun, it can build confidence, but speaking of making a mountain out of a molehill, this isn’t a big deal one way or the other. It would be a mistake to make it into that. As for the boys’ schools feeding into Oxford and the other universities of Britain, let’s just say that many writers have attested to how messed up they were. (The most common reports is not that there was a prison situation, but that there were “favors” traded and boy-to-boy “romances” purely because there weren’t any girls.)

I don’t have a problem with the concept of boys getting on dresses to do a skit so much as I do with enshrining this as some kind of a school tradition. There is no shortage of girls to play girls parts compelling it. This isn’t some sort of historical reenactment. It isn’t a well-known piece in which the comedy of the thing turns on mistaken identity and getting in over one’s head with a preposterous lie. It isn’t boys in one class trying to think up a way of doing a comedy that no one else has done yet. It is a growing tradition of boys in dresses for the sake of getting boys up in dresses. There isn’t much defending it.

I think I’d not have had much problem with the first time it was allowed, but would encourage more originality to limit it. If it becomes a “tradition,” it is time to move on.

 

[benotagoat]

 

[RACJ]

It’s cross dressing wrong? If yes, why? And if yes, is it ok to do only for a play. I tend to think it is not right. My child’s school has the middle school boys do a skit where they dress up like girls in very pretty dresses. I don’t like it, but it has practically become a tradition. My son actually said he is looking forward to getting to do that next year, and it bothers me. What do you think?

Yes, b/c it is propaganda in today’s world. They are trying to convince children that any perversion is simply another “lifestyle choice”.

 

[Christina79]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts on this. Sorry I haven’t participated much on the thread. I’ve been pretty busy with things the past few days.

I think EasterJoy here has said precisely how I feel about this. Last year was the first year we were at this school, so I had no idea it had been a “tradition” of the school for several years. I think I will speak with the principle about it. Thank you!

Whatever this is, great art isn’t it. It is fun, it can build confidence, but speaking of making a mountain out of a molehill, this isn’t a big deal one way or the other. It would be a mistake to make it into that. As for the boys’ schools feeding into Oxford and the other universities of Britain, let’s just say that many writers have attested to how messed up they were. (The most common reports is not that there was a prison situation, but that there were “favors” traded and boy-to-boy “romances” purely because there weren’t any girls.)

I don’t have a problem with the concept of boys getting on dresses to do a skit so much as I do with enshrining this as some kind of a school tradition. There is no shortage of girls to play girls parts compelling it. This isn’t some sort of historical reenactment. It isn’t a well-known piece in which the comedy of the thing turns on mistaken identity and getting in over one’s head with a preposterous lie. It isn’t boys in one class trying to think up a way of doing a comedy that no one else has done yet. It is a growing tradition of boys in dresses for the sake of getting boys up in dresses. There isn’t much defending it.

I think I’d not have had much problem with the first time it was allowed, but would encourage more originality to limit it. If it becomes a “tradition,” it is time to move on.

 

[benotagoat]

Normally I would’nt be even bothered to remark on something like this which seems normally not very important ,but the ‘climate’ in which it takes place is important .

Having expressed doubts in this post ,I saw on the tele here, the ‘mardi gras’ events which take place in several towns in France ,and it really is a fun day where the most ridiculously funny costumes come out on the streets, and it is all just a great laugh at the end of winter.

This is different .

 

[whatsmyname]

I’m stunned to read that so many people are bothered by a fun and lighthearted joke. It never would have occurred to me that it would disturb anyone or that anyone would even question it. I guess I need to get out more.

I attended a very strict and legalistic Christian school in my youth, the type where the teacher kept a ruler to measure and make sure your skirt fell the appropriate 2 inches below your knees and boy’s hair wasn’t so long and effeminate as to touch their back collar. We still had time for fun dress-up days, usually on Fridays that were half-days for some reason or another. We had “Opposite Day” where girls wore their father’s suits and ties and boys wore their mother’s dresses, the lacier and more old fashioned or frumpier the better. We had “Fifties Day” where we wore old poodle skirts and the boys slicked their hair back. We had “Backwards Day” where everybody wore their clothes backwards. It was fun. It was also one of the privileges of junior high since the elementary students didn’t get to do any of that.

Now, I work in an industry that has a huge number of gay men and a few lesbians. We’ve had transgendered individuals employed in the past, but none currently. Mostly, I feel sorry for some of the cross dressing men when they show me photos of how they dress up and work so hard to make themselves look like women. They seem so empty and depressed, and spend so much time trying to become some sort of unattainable and unrealistic ideal of female “beauty”, of love and acceptance that is not true love or acceptance. They make me hurt for them.

But this isn’t that. This is a fun, lighthearted game of dress up where everyone can tease and laugh at whoever looks most ridiculously like Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot and nobody would ever mistake you for a woman.

 

[Cat]

I’m stunned to read that so many people are bothered by a fun and lighthearted joke. It never would have occurred to me that it would disturb anyone or that anyone would even question it. I guess I need to get out more.

I attended a very strict and legalistic Christian school in my youth, the type where the teacher kept a ruler to measure and make sure your skirt fell the appropriate 2 inches below your knees and boy’s hair wasn’t so long and effeminate as to touch their back collar. We still had time for fun dress-up days, usually on Fridays that were half-days for some reason or another. We had “Opposite Day” where girls wore their father’s suits and ties and boys wore their mother’s dresses, the lacier and more old fashioned or frumpier the better. We had “Fifties Day” where we wore old poodle skirts and the boys slicked their hair back. We had “Backwards Day” where everybody wore their clothes backwards. It was fun. It was also one of the privileges of junior high since the elementary students didn’t get to do any of that.

Now, I work in an industry that has a huge number of gay men and a few lesbians. We’ve had transgendered individuals employed in the past, but none currently. Mostly, I feel sorry for some of the cross dressing men when they show me photos of how they dress up and work so hard to make themselves look like women. They seem so empty and depressed, and spend so much time trying to become some sort of unattainable and unrealistic ideal of female “beauty”, of love and acceptance that is not true love or acceptance. They make me hurt for them.

But this isn’t that. This is a fun, lighthearted game of dress up where everyone can tease and laugh at whoever looks most ridiculously like Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot and nobody would ever mistake you for a woman.

Amen to this post.

Light-en-up, everyone. Stop picking fights over unimportant things.

If there is some reason why you and/or your family have to avoid this kind of activity, fine. There are families that have some kind of past association with occult activities who scrupulously avoid ALL activities that even have a hint of occult association, even Caspar the Friendly Ghost! If you’re one of those families when it comes to cross-dressing for a fun school activity, then quietly withdraw from the activity, and perhaps an explanation can be made to the teacher and principal in strictest confidence so that the student is not ostracized by his peers.

But for the vast majority of families, this is pure fun. When we make it a big deal, it just empowers the dark side.

 

[Shin]

Re: The original question.

Of course it’s a sin, it hardly needs to be asked.

 

[roseproject]

Speaking from a theater perspective, it’s actually a very old tradition for women or men to play opposite-sex parts. For a very long time, women didn’t act on stage at all–at least, in reputable theaters, if you get my drift. Shakespeare, for example, would have been acted by all-male casts at the time, with not an eye batted about it, either. Ancient Greek plays were the same way: the classics of Sophocles and his peers, and the tales of ancient Greece and Rome would have been acted by exclusively male casts, and there were plenty of female roles in those plays.

For some time in opera and in Baroque vocal works, many female parts were sung by castrati–men who were castrated (yes, I’m serious–look it up!) as boys in order to maintain ranges in the soprano/alto vocal registers so that they could sing those roles, because again, “nice” women didn’t sing on stage. The Church got a bit huffy about that practice after a while, as you might imagine, and the castrati eventually died out, which meant that women appearing on stage became an accepted practice. This led, however, to the existence of the term “trouser roles”: male character roles with a female (generally alto) vocal range, and therefore performed almost exclusively now by women. (There is a very rare male vocal type known as the countertenor, whose singing voice is naturally in the soprano/alto range, but I digress.)

Likewise, in boarding schools/other single-sex schools which have any kind of arts program, some kids have to play the part of someone of the opposite sex. When I was a girl, some friends of mine and my sister and I would act out fairy-tale plays for our families. Since we were all girls, a girl always had to play the prince. Usually me, because I was the oldest and therefore the tallest, and I can assure you that I had no ideas then or now about being transgender or a lesbian from the experience.

In short, acting a part of the opposite sex is generally accepted as okay, and no implications about the people involved. As to your specific question, though, it really depends on what the point of the skit is. It is “oh how stupid, boys wearing girls’ clothes?” Is it to mock women or girls, or, for that matter, men and boys? Is it a passage from a classical Greek play in modern costumes? Does doing this mean that those boys are going to be teased unmercifully for the next six years? Could you give a bit more context?

This makes me think of all those times when Peter Pan is played by a girl (why is this anyways? haha). Another good example I can think of is Kabuki theater where all the parts are traditionally played by men.

…Castrated?? O_O

 

[Cat]

This makes me think of all those times when Peter Pan is played by a girl (why is this anyways? haha). Another good example I can think of is Kabuki theater where all the parts are traditionally played by men.

…Castrated?? O_O

In long runs, Peter Pan is always played by a woman because the voice won’t change–it always sound boyish. A real boy’s voice will change, and that means hiring a new boy every few years.

In local productions, Peter Pan is sometimes played by a boy. My favorite actor, Robert Patrick, played Peter Pan when he was a young boy, and he refused to wear the green tights!