COMEDY

64 GENDER AND SEXUALITYunderstand quickly that the authenticity of ‘femaleness’ resides only inthe quality of its performance. For example, when joining the band forthe first time, they struggle with their disguises until they find an exampleto emulate in Marilyn Monroe:JER. (rubbing his ankle) How can they walk on these things? How dothey keep their balance?JOE. Must be the way their weight is distributed. Come on.As they proceed along the platform, a gust of wind sends theirskirts billowing. Jerry stops again and pulls his skirt down.JER. And it’s so drafty. They must be catching colds all the time.JOE. (urging him on) Quit stalling. We’ll miss the train.JER. I feel so naked. Like everybody’s looking at me.JOE. With those legs? Are you crazy?JER. (stopping in his tracks) It’s no use. We’ll never get away with it,Joe.JOE. The name is Josephine. And it was your idea in the first place.…amember of the girls’ band comes hurrying past them, carrying avaliseand ukulele case. Her name is SUGAR…JER. Who are we kidding? Look at that—look how she moves—it’slike jello on springs—they must have some sort of a built-inmotor. I tell you it’s a whole different sex.(Wilder, 1959)Simply wearing women’s clothes seems to accentuate the men’s sense ofessential sexual differences, as well as underline their view of women assex objects. But once given insight into the tricks of the performance,‘jello on springs’ accompanied by a close-up of Monroe’s backside inmotion, they copy it and are successfully assimilated into the band withabsolutely no suspicions raised. The transvestism of the two leadingmen is, of course, foisted upon them, and we are continually remindedthat their cross-dressing is a means to an end, not evidence of a latentfetish. To remind us, Joe and Jerry’s clothing is continually depicted ascostume, complicated and unusual and always requiring adjustment andtherefore risible in its unnaturalness when contrasted with theirfundamental maleness. However, while a masculine authenticity isalluded to beneath the clothes, women themselves remain conspicuouslyfacile. Monroe’s Sugar is portrayed as a stereotype of a certain kind ofwoman. Singing ‘I Wanna Be Loved By You’, Monroe wears a tightdress that accentuates her bosom by appearing to be translucent. Amidstthe ‘conscious heightening as well as dissolving of sexual stereotypes’