"dustin hoffman in tootsie"

This wildly successful film comedy continued Dustin Hoffman’s cinematic journey into how a man can become a better man by taking on traditionally female roles.  In the Oscar winning 1979 Kramer vs. Kramer Hoffman played a work-obsessed ad exec who learns how to be a better parent, after his wife walks out on him and his young son.  His next film, Tootsie, showcased him as a self-obsessed, womanizing actor who learns to be a better man when he poses as a woman, after he’s cast in a female role on a television soap opera.  Again, in the tradition of commercial drag comedy, terror of a same-sex smooch is a part of the plot. Hoffman as the ragingly straight Michael Dorsey disguised as Dorothy Michaels has to flee from the advances of several ardent male suitors. The combined efforts of some of the best comic writers of the era including Larry Gelbart, Murray Shisgal and Elaine May managed to give that old plot convention a fresh, contemporary spin.  Hirschfeld’s drawing brilliantly reveals the man underneath the masquerade.

Charles Busch

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