The Denaturalization Of Gender Politics

Cross-dressing has been a common practice in human history for a long time. Since the rapid development of feminism in the 1960's, especially the flourish of queer studies in the early 1990's, it has been placed into the sight of academic community. As complex as it is, cross-dressing has a close relation with homosexual studies, gender studies and many other related fields. Researches have been conducted on the films dealing with these topics. These researches point that the emergence of cross-dressing films is of great help to make those people's voice heard and popularize the acceptance of these marginalized people in society. Since the 1990's, there have been more and more films made in Hollywood containing a cross-dressing plot. These films can approximately be divided into two categories: the one dealing with serious issues: the denaturalization of normative gender codes and the social acceptance of the marginalized social groups;the other meeting the mass cultural consumption need, especially comedy and romance, so as to entertain the public.Using the gender theories of Judith Butler and other related gender theories as well as film theories to analyze two Hollywood cross-dressing films, Crying Game (1992) and Boys Don't Cry (1999), this paper attempts to: (1) explain the inter-relationship between cross-dressing, sex, gender, clarify the arbitrariness between sex and gender, and (2) illustrate how cross-dressing is used to explain, reveal, and destabilize the heterosexual politics and thus to put the naturalized sexual politics into question, calling for the legitimacy and acceptance of the marginalized social group. It finally concludes that the emergence and popularity of the serious cross-dressing film is a result of the dynamic negotiation between the heterosexual politics and the non-heterosexual politics. It makes people rethink the normative gender rules and changes people's perception to the deep-rooted sexual politics, and ultimately, stimulates a gradual progress of society under the domination of the heterosexual politics.