Gender Ambiguity in Film (In-person)
Winter (14+ hours) | Registration opens 11/23/2026 12:00 AM EDT
In his plays, Shakespeare sometimes featured women pretending to be men—as portrayed by male actors! This film series follows suit with six films. In Some Like It Hot, Tootsie, and Mrs. Doubtfire, men attempt to pass as women. In The Crying Game, Victor/Victoria, and All of Me, other things are in play—each with a twist. See whether these films offer insight into how we respond to the opposite gender, as the films entertain and intrigue us.
After each movie is shown, we will have time to consider:
- What elicits the attraction of one person to another?
- Whether men and women share some of those same attributes?
- Whether it is wrong for men to portray women in films that speak to women’s issues?
- What is portrayed as stereotype and what as greater truth in these films?
There will also be two opportunities to dine nearby afterward. These are optional, at your own expense, and paid directly to the venue; costs are not included in the course fee.
Films:
- Some Like It Hot (1959, 121 minutes)
- Tootsie (1982, 116 minutes)
- The Crying Game (1992, 112 minutes)
- Mrs. Doubtfire (1993, 125 minutes)
- All of Me (1994, 93 minutes)
- Victor/Victoria (1995, 146 minutes)
- There are no required books for this course.
Stephen Flanders
BS, MArch, M.I.T. School of Architecture; ME, Dartmouth Thayer School of Engineering. Flanders is a retired research supervisory engineer from the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. Among his interests are editing and creating articles in Wikipedia—a topic he has presented three times in Osher classes. More recently, he has presented film series on Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby, on the films of Akira Kurosawa and their Western remakes, on delectable food films, and on the American experience.