Okay, let's see if I can express myself coherently before 8am with minimal caffeine intake so far. :)
Usually when a character is put in drag in a TV show, it's for yuks value. We're supposed to think it's funny and usually the humor involved is a little (or a lot) derogatory or demeaning toward women (and sometimes to the alternatively gendered or sexualitied. Yeah, I know that's not a word). In "Some Like It Red" when Fraser becomes "Ms. Fraser" that pretty much doesn't happen, aside from a few halfhearted attempts at humor from a discomfited Ray Vecchio. Ms. Fraser is not a typical guy in drag. She understand women. She respects women. She demands to be treated fairly. She connects with women in a way that Benton Fraser seems generally unable to do-- not through any fault of his own but because as an attractive, single man, he's never really taken at full value by women, but rather at 'face' value. He's valued for his face.
In a way, it's an interesting role-reversal. Usually it's the attractive woman on a show who is treated by male characters the way Fraser is treated by women. I am sure that was a deliberate choice, and it's meant to be yet another way to show us our culture from another perspective.
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2007-09-06 02:03 pm (UTC)Usually when a character is put in drag in a TV show, it's for yuks value. We're supposed to think it's funny and usually the humor involved is a little (or a lot) derogatory or demeaning toward women (and sometimes to the alternatively gendered or sexualitied. Yeah, I know that's not a word). In "Some Like It Red" when Fraser becomes "Ms. Fraser" that pretty much doesn't happen, aside from a few halfhearted attempts at humor from a discomfited Ray Vecchio. Ms. Fraser is not a typical guy in drag. She understand women. She respects women. She demands to be treated fairly. She connects with women in a way that Benton Fraser seems generally unable to do-- not through any fault of his own but because as an attractive, single man, he's never really taken at full value by women, but rather at 'face' value. He's valued for his face.
In a way, it's an interesting role-reversal. Usually it's the attractive woman on a show who is treated by male characters the way Fraser is treated by women. I am sure that was a deliberate choice, and it's meant to be yet another way to show us our culture from another perspective.