Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908-1934

by Laura Horak

2016  Choice  Outstanding Academic Title
Finalist for 2016 Richard Wall Memorial Award from the Theatre Library Association
Long-listed for the 2017 Best Photography Book Award from the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation​

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.   

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Film, Queer, LGBT, Lesbian, Gender and Sexuality

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 2016

Reviews

[Beth Cato · Rating 4 out of 5]

While written for an academic audience, Girls Will Be Boys provides a fascinating analysis of the role of cross-dressed women and lesbians in early film. This is highly readable, even for the lay person. To my surprise, cross-dressed women were outright common in the early silent era, often utilized as part of a Strong Pioneer Woman archetype (and actually fed into white eugenics propaganda), and no bearing on the woman's perceived sexuality. It was only in the 1920s when lesbians became a "known" thing due to controversial movies and books, and that's when coding came in: i.e., a woman in pants must be a lesbian. More blatant depictions of lesbianism in the early 1930s sent censors into a tizzy, and so anti-perversion wording was added into the famed "Code" that dictated Hollywood productions for decades to come.

The book is sometimes redundant but I never found it outright slow. Some of the small details were especially intriguing. I was well aware of the term "pansy" for a wimpy boy in modern times or a gay man historically, but I had no idea that lesbians were dubbed "violets" after some coding used in the movie The Captive. I also didn't know that in the 1920s, "bisexual" literally meant a person possessing two sexes, and not someone attracted to men and women.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in LGBTQ history and/or early Hollywood.

[Dasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great analysis that nuances how we can understand cross-dressing women in cinema. It was fascinating to see how early examples were frequent and easily accepted by audiences as it harkened back to norms in British theatre where girls playing boys represented sentimentality. The section on westerns was also interesting!

[Iulia Necșulescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting and important subject worthwhile for anyone interested in film history and queer studies. Laura Horak makes a great job of keeping the text both engaging and well documented. She is always contextualizing the films, plays and novels, showing the reader how those works were received at that time but also throughout the years by other critics and historians. She also uses an intersectional approach, analyzing the works not only from a feminist perspective, but also including gender, race and class into it, which I found to be very nice.

You can find this book on Scribd and read it with a free trial, since it's very short (40% of it are the filmography and references).

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book on cross-dressed women and lesbian characters in American films. And those aren't the same things--she demonstrates how in early films it was not unusual to have women and girls playing the part of boys, and that female characters who donned male garb were regarded as healthy tomboys or outdoor girls or women sensibly trying to avoid trouble. Hollywood audiences were assumed to lag behind New York audiences in their sophistication (i.e. knowledge of the existence and signifiers of lesbianism), so the stage version of A Florida Enchantment received negative reviews for its content while the somewhat later film version was regarded as a harmless lark. As the 20s wore on, audiences became more knowledgeable, particularly since books and plays with lesbian themes were receiving nationwide press coverage (The Well of Loneliness, The Captive), but alongside that were mannish fashions that were simply seen as fashion choices. By the 30s, there was a bit of a vogue for gay and lesbian characters in films what was stomped by the Production Code. Discussion of The Clinging Vine, The Crystal Cup, Sylvia Scarlett, Maedchen in Uniform (U.S. reception), Garbo, Dietrich. Lots of fascinating tidbits--didn't know that violets were considered a lesbian signal. And, having long ago read Basil Rathbone's autobiography, had completely forgotten the hilarious story of him and Arthur Wontner and Humphrey Bogart's wife getting busted and hauled off to night court for appearing in a lesbian-themed play (The Captive). And ended up riding in the paddy wagon with Mae Wet and the cast of Sex. But my favorite part was June Mathis saying she writes stuff so children and midwesterners won't understand. There is a useful filmography, though it does miss the really weird lesbian puppet in I am Suzanne.

[Mary Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great history of a very interesting subject. Horak approaches questions of ambiguous identity with a lot of finesse and doesn't over-simplify complicated and nuanced topics for the sake of an argument. Anyone interested in LGBT history, the early 20th century, or film studies will probably gain something from this book.

[R.J. Gilmour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horak's study of cross dressing and representation of lesbianism in early Hollywood films is an important book for anyone interested in gender, film or queer theory. Her scholarship is ice and nuanced in how she looks at films, popular culture and how perceptions about same arc desire changed in time and space.

[Sioraf as Na Cillini · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stupid pile of postmodernist crap of a book.

[Soren · Rating 1 out of 5]

Endlessly repetitive, painfully verbose, and incredibly dense. This might serve as a textbook, but for what class I can't really imagine.

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good information but very boring presentation.

[Mills College Library]

791.43653 H8112 2016

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This thorough examination of a complicated topic shines with accessible writing, nuanced arguments, and impeccable scholarship. Very relevant to film, gender, and LGBT studies.