Tootsie - Storyline Question

[SFFrontRow]

Posted: 6/10/19 at 2:44pm

I cannot help but ask this. I loved the movie Tootsie and had high hopes for this show. The book is perfect, the performances excellent, but the show kinda fell flat for me (if I saw it again, I might have a different take).

But, my question is this... would the show have been improved and more current if the role reversal was opposite of the movie. Instead of Michael Dorsey becoming Dorothy Michaels, we get Dorothy Michaels becoming Michael Dorsey. It would open the story to comment on how easier it is for a man, being able to do what the woman could not (as a woman, she is dismissed for trying to collaborate and referred to as "tootsie", while as a man, her opinion is taken with more gravitas).

I think the story and situations would be richer with the viewpoint from a "her view" angle, rather than from a "him view" angle.

And would a change like this reverse the negative transphobia reaction, or is it just reversing roles with the same controversy? (and I am gay, so I should be more in tune to this - but I am an old gay so maybe not - LOL)

Updated On: 6/10/19 at 02:44 PM

[Rogerdellibovi]

Posted: 6/10/19 at 2:49pm

This is a really interesting idea! I think the plot overall would have been more realistic this way because they would see ~Michael’s~ demands to change the script as confidence and intelligence or something. I think every woman in the audience upon seeing Michael get more respect as Dorothy was like..... seems fake but okay.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 6/10/19 at 2:52pm

I don't think there are too many people who don't know that men are generally taken more seriously - in classrooms, in board rooms.  

[bwayrose7]

Posted: 6/10/19 at 2:56pm

I do think it might have been very interesting - and fit more with the current day - to have that role reversal. It definitely would have made the point more, although then the problem would have been: what's the character arc? Here, Michael is clearly an antihero who needs to "learn a lesson" and earn our sympathy, whereas Dorothy being the real protagonist would have our sympathy from the start. It would be very easy to just slide into a simple, two-dimensional lecture play if written poorly.

Regarding the connotations towards trans people, I feel like it might be slightly different because of the different traditions in cross-dressing roles. Women "pretending" to be men is a staple of classical comedies (like Shakespearean comedies), whereas men "pretending" to be women is a classic anti-gay/anti-trans boogeyman (i.e. "you don't want a guy in a dress in the bathroom" or violence against trans women who are discovered to have male genitalia). I can't quite articulate the difference, but I feel like cumulative culture does have a difference, if that makes sense at all.

[DrMike3]

Posted: 6/11/19 at 11:21pm

As a dedicated fan of 'Twelfth Night,' I love this idea. I also think the show might have averted some of the social media outrage that has ensued.  In fact, I saw a truly lovely and entertaining staging of Twelfth Night by The Acting Company last spring that checked off many boxes of concern in theatrical social media: it had a female director (Maria Aitken) and it took a deep and most entertaining look at gender identities and perceptions.

While Twelfth Night was written by a man and is four centuries old, there must be some reason its continual reappearance does not push the same buttons as Tootsie has.

[Zion24]

Posted: 6/11/19 at 11:35pm

SFFrontRow said: "I cannot help but ask this. I loved the movie Tootsie and had high hopes for this show. The book is perfect, the performances excellent, but the show kinda fell flat for me (if I saw it again, I might have a different take).

But, my question is this... would the show have been improved and more current if the role reversal was opposite of the movie. Instead of Michael Dorsey becoming Dorothy Michaels, we get Dorothy Michaels becoming Michael Dorsey. It would open the story to comment on how easier it is for a man, being able to do what the woman could not (as a woman, she is dismissed for trying to collaborate and referred to as "tootsie", while as a man, her opinion is taken with more gravitas).

I think the story and situations would be richer with the viewpoint from a "her view" angle, rather than from a "him view" angle.

And would a change like this reverse the negative transphobiareaction, or is it just reversing roles with the same controversy? (and I am gay, so I should be more in tune to this - but I am an old gay so maybe not - LOL)"

 

i had a very similar reaction. the very notion that Michael can only make it as a woman (he suddenly gets the job, gets the fame- he even gets the previously straight girl and the hunky guy) is sorta preposterous. i had a good time but theres no question a reverse scenario would be more believable. 

 

though overall i maintain Tootsie was a GREAT play that never happened. i dont think the musicalization helped at all except for the Sandy patter songs.