Posted: 9/18/18 at 2:14am
ryankon said: "There is a serious problem with Tootsie that people are glossing over: it's distressingly retro in that this supposedly feminist tale is told thru a man's eyes. Why are we so dependent on men to give us our feminist awakening? At the time the film was made this was a more forgivable sin--but in 2018 it's bothersome. Very. All the good intentions in the world don't erase the fact that Tootsie relies on a man to give us our feminist awakening. That's not cool...it just reinforces the fact that it's a man's world. It's almost an ugly form of noblesse oblige."
One thing that the musical strives to make very clear is that this is the story of a man discovering how hard it is to be a woman. At the beginning, Michael is an egotistical man who believes that nobody has it harder than himself, but by walking in another person's shoes (literally), he learns the difficulties that women face on a daily basis (like the casual misogyny of being called "Tootsie," for example), and the experience strengthens him and forces him to grow emotionally. The story is a man's journey because it is about what men can learn from women. The women already know what it's like to be women, whereas Michael has to learn this lesson, so we watch the story of him learning and growing.
By all means, bring us more female-centered feminist stories, but I think you're wrong if you really think there's no place in the pantheon of feminist stories to include the stories of men joining the fight to support women. And, for what it's worth, Michael/Dorothy never becomes a "male savior" figure--the female characters in Tootsie are full of agency and power.
And while we're here, we might as well... I'll just say that I don't think it's productive to talk about gender in Totosie in purely binary terms. While the film and the show both make it clear that Michael identifies as a cisgender, heterosexual man, half the project of the text is questioning the gender roles we put on ourselves and each other. That questioning of the binary and of strict gender roles should come from all points on the spectrum, and it does come from all characters in the show and the film.
In order to create the most satisfying emotional arc, Tootsie centers on a protagonist who is at the beginning further than anyone else from the questions the story focuses on, making it a more powerful confrontation. That character who is unfamiliar with the experience of being a woman is inevitably going to be a cisgender, heterosexual man. That is not misogyny, that is creating emotional stakes, obstacles, and character development, all essential parts of good storytelling.
