Transgenderism in Cabaret and Culture:
From Bangkok to Las Vegas
ABSTRACT
Representations o f transgenderism in popular culture reflect our
deeply held beliefs on the nature o f sexuality and gender. This paper
compares representations o f transgenderism in the U.S. and
Thailand, societies with very different views on sexuality and gender.
Cabaret shows featuring cross-dressed performers in Bangkok and
Las Vegas are compared. Differences in the topics treated, styles and
attitudes o f the performers, and audience/performer interactions are
examined. Our observation is that the cabaret performances reveal
the different underlying cultural understandings o f sexuality, gender,
and the phenomenon o f transgenderism in the two societies.
Transgenderism has been widely represented in American popular
culture. In the early years of film and television, entertainers such as Bob Hope
and Melton Berle, among others, often dressed in women’s clothing as a comic
device. In the 1940s and 1950s Gorgeous George Wagner, the first superstar
villain of televised professional wrestling, played an over-the-top version of the
effeminate male. He dubbed himself “The Human Orchid,” dressed in a
perfiimed silk robe, with long curly blond hair, prissy mannerisms, and was
attended by a male valet.
Many popular films and plays have featured the transgendered either as
the main theme or as a side plot. Some Like It Hot is a classic of American
cinema. The Rocky Horror Picture Show has become a cult classic. Other
critically praised films featuring transgender themes include The Bird Cage,
Victor/Victoria, Boys Don VCry, The Crying Game, and Hedwig and the Angry
Inch, Two films with transgender storylines. Normal and Soldier's Girl, were
nominated for best picture at the 2004 Golden Globe Awards in the category of
best dramatic films made for televisioa Normal is about a middle-aged family
man who decides to have sex reassignment surgery. Soldier's Girl is about a
young soldier who falls in love with a transgendered cabaret performer. In 1994,
The Adventures o f Priscilla, Queen o f the Desert^ won an Oscar for Best
Costume Design.
There is also a long history of transgenderism in live entertainment. For
almost a century (1920s to 1999), Finocchios offered female impersonation
shows in San Francisco (Stryker, 2003). Before it closed in 1999, Finocchios
was one of the biggest tourist attractions in that city. “Boylesque” debuted in
Las Vegas in 1976 and played until 2002. Performed at various venues, it was