Just One of the Boys
Gillian M. Rodger
(Author)
Description
Gillian M. Rodger uses the development of male impersonation from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth century to illuminate the history of the variety show. Exploding notions of high- and lowbrow entertainment, Rodger looks at how both performers and forms consistently expanded upward toward respectable--and richer--audiences. At the same time, she illuminates a lost theatrical world where women made fun of middle-class restrictions even as they bumped up against rules imposed in part by audiences. Onstage, the actresses' changing performance styles reflected gender construction in the working class and shifts in class affiliation by parts of the audiences. Rodger observes how restrictive standards of femininity increasingly bound male impersonators as new gender constructions allowed women greater access to public space while tolerating less independent behavior from them.
Product Details
| Publisher | University of Illinois Press |
| Publish Date | January 04, 2018 |
| Pages | 275 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Hardback |
| EAN/UPC | 9780252041518 |
| Dimensions | 9.1 X 6.1 X 1.0 inches | 1.6 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
"Through her analysis of performance styles and management strategies in the heyday of variety, Rodger demonstrates the significant role played by women impersonating men, despite the form's declining importance with the transition to vaudeville in the twentieth century." --American Historical Review
Marcia Herndon Book Award, Gender and Sexualities Section, Society for Ethnomusicology, 2018
"Magisterial." --Jezebel
"Gillian M. Rodger's new book is a welcome addition to scholarship on nineteenth-century performance culture and the history of gender and sexuality more broadly. Just One of the Boys is a lively, important study, one that will delight readers in performance history, gender history, and U.S. cultural history." --The Journal of American History
"Gillian Rodger's Just One of the Boys is a welcome and fascinating addition to the history of cross-dressed performance and 19th-century Anglo-American theater more generally." --The Gay & Lesbian Review
"Serious students of variety entertainment will find much to delight them in Rodger's impeccably researched and explicated work. . . Recommended."--Choice
"The contributions of Just One of the Boys: Female-to-Male Cross-Dressing on the American Variety Stage to the history of gender illusion are tremendous." --Journal of the American Musicological Society
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