Research Catalog
Girls will be boys : cross-dressed women, lesbians, and American cinema, 1908-1934
- Title
- Girls will be boys : cross-dressed women, lesbians, and American cinema, 1908-1934 / Laura Horak.
- Author
- Horak, Laura
- Publication
- New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, [2016]
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | MFL 16-1823 | Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre |
Details
- Description
- xii, 311 pages : illustrations; 23 cm
- Summary
- "Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, and Katharine Hepburn all made lasting impressions with the cinematic cross-dressing they performed onscreen. What few modern viewers realize, however, is that these seemingly daring performances of the 1930s actually came at the tail end of a long wave of gender-bending films that included more than 400 movies featuring women dressed as men. Laura Horak spent a decade scouring film archives worldwide, looking at American films made between 1908 and 1934, and what she discovered could revolutionize our understanding of gender roles in the early twentieth century. Questioning the assumption that cross-dressing women were automatically viewed as transgressive, she finds that these figures were popularly regarded as wholesome and regularly appeared onscreen in the 1910s, thus lending greater respectability to the fledgling film industry. Horak also explores how and why this perception of cross-dressed women began to change in the 1920s and early 1930s, examining how cinema played a pivotal part in the representation of lesbian identity. Girls Will Be Boys excavates a rich history of gender-bending film roles, enabling readers to appreciate the wide array of masculinities that these actresses performed--from sentimental boyhood to rugged virility to gentlemanly refinement. Taking us on a guided tour through a treasure-trove of vintage images, Girls Will Be Boys helps us view the histories of gender, sexuality, and film through fresh eyes"--Publisher description.
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- History.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-291) and index.
- Contents
- Introduction -- Part 1. Cross-dressed women as American ideals (1908-1921). Moving picture uplift and the female boy ; Cowboy girls, girl spies, and the homoerotic frontier -- Intermezzo. Codes of deviance (1892-1914). Cultural hierarchy and the detection of sexual deviance in a Florida enchantment -- Part 2. The emergence of lesbian legibility (1921-1934). Enter the lesbian: cosmopolitanism, trousers, and lesbians in the 1920s ; The lesbian vogue and backlash against cross-dressed women in the 1930s -- Conclusion -- Appendix: U.S. films featuring cross-dressed women, 1895-1934.
- Call Number
- MFL 16-1832
- ISBN
- 0813574838
- 9780813574837
- 081357482X
- 9780813574820
- 9780813574844 (canceled/invalid)
- 9780813574851 (canceled/invalid)
- LCCN
- 2015012447
- OCLC
- 906798392
- Author
- Horak, Laura, author.
- Title
- Girls will be boys : cross-dressed women, lesbians, and American cinema, 1908-1934 / Laura Horak.
- Publisher
- New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, [2016]
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-291) and index.
- Chronological Term
- 1900 - 1999
- Research Call Number
- MFL 16-1832