Gender-Bending

Judith Butler does not ignore the fact that we categorize people in numerous different ways whether it is by gender, sexual preference, etc. She does make the argument that the categories we shove ourselves and others into become a performance, whether conscious or not. There are certain qualities that have been deemed indicative of manliness, femininity, etc.  We have a place and a box for pretty much everything in life. It is in our nature to examine, classify, and label; we like to know where things belong. When we don’t know where to put something, because it doesn’t seem to fit in any one particular box, it can have a jarring effect, especially in a world that demands us to be so politically correct. For me, the concept of androgyny came to mind while reading the Butler article. It is something that fascinates and befuddles most of the population, because of our intense desire to be able to classify someone as male or female.

This example may be a stretch on the prompt, but on the topic of androgyny, the performance act that came to mind was our production of Romeo and Juliet this summer. I was cast as Benvolio, a role originally meant for a man. As we know, gender-bending is not unusual in theatre, especially when doing Shakespeare. However, I found playing a gender-bent role to be a very interesting experience. I chose to play the role as a woman; she was a tom-boy, much like Anybodys in West Side Story, and my Benvolio was completely in love with Mercutio. Since we set our production in Renaissance Italy, all the women wore long, renaissance-like dresses, except for me. I was dressed more like the men. Androgynous for the time period we had set, but by any other standards, definitely dressed as a girl, with leggings, boots, a boat neck dress top, and a fitted vest, though I wore a rapier and dagger. To me, my performance was clearly a woman. I didn’t attempt to make any indications that I was a boy, because that was not my intent for the character. I didn’t even do a whole lot to play up being a tom-boy; I let the situation of my character do that for me. However, it was interesting how many people asked me, after seeing the show, whether I was supposed to be a man or a woman. This made me wonder if the preconception of Benvolio being a boy, and the fact that it is a “manly” name, is harder to overcome than actually just seeing what you see: a woman playing a woman who just happened to be originally written as a boy. If Benvolio was originally written as Benvolia, and was meant to be a girl, would there have been any question? Most likely not, because the idea of her being a tom-boy would have been pre-established. It made me realize that people have a difficult time re-categorizing things they have already put a label on, even if what they are seeing right in front of them contradicts their original categorization. It makes me wonder what people in the audience who had no prior concept of Benvolio thought of my gender in the show.

What if we were to take this concept even further (and let’s face it, it’s probably already been done) and gender-bent all the roles in Romeo and Juliet? Gender-bent in the sense that the women were playing all the men’s roles and the men were playing all the women’s roles, but they were all still playing their own personal gender identities. That is to say, like my Benvolio, we would all be performing our particular role as the gender we identify as in everyday life, even though that role would have been originally written for a different gender. Therefore, the only thing we are really changing is the perception of gender through established gender roles. The women would be sword fighting and heads of the household, and the men would be taking care of Juliet and planning the party. The costumes would indicate the actual gender of the actor. Juliet would still be “Juliet” but also referred to as “he”, and Romeo likewise referred to as “she”. I wonder then, what the audience would take away from the production. Would there still be a confusion of who was supposed to be a woman and who was supposed to be a man? It brings up Butler’s idea that gender is not simply something you are born as; it is also something you perform. In the context of this gender-bent production of R&J, If we just purely be our gender in the sense of what we were born as, but then take on performative qualities and duties of another gender as they relate to the show, we are, in a sense, playing both genders, and allowing the audience to see both of those genders in us at the same time.