I don't understand how or why attraction is gender-based. I must admit it is--I admit that what I find attractive is oscillating around androgyny and femininity, but more often the latter--simply because I find people I perceive as masculine to tend to be less attractive. But it makes little sense as to why, especially since these gendered identifiers are fluid across cultures, time periods, and individuals. That said, I know my gender is female. It is intrinsic. It is not fluid. I control not my gender when I present myself differently, but others' perception of it. And perhaps their attraction to me. The question, though, is who or what they are attracted to if they see me in a more…

"Being a man -- is really very exhausting!" ~ Ossi

Who knew gender-benders were nearly 100 years old? This silent film from writer-director Ernst Lubitsch is the great-granddaddy of "Some Like it Hot" (1959), "Victor/Victoria" (1982), "Tootsie" (1982) and all the other wonderful movies made in the past century in which a switch in gender identity is the primary focus.

Ossi (Ossi Oswalda) is a young German woman who enjoys such unladylike activities as smoking, drinking and playing cards. Her prim-and-proper Governess (Margarete Kupfer) tries to discipline the tomboy without much success, but when the wild child's uncle Counsellor Brockmüller (Ferry Sikla) is called away on urgent business, he brings in a new and very strict guardian, Dr. Kersten (Curt…

Ernst Lubitsch was making escapist homoerotic gender bender sex comedies a hundred years ago, in devastated post-war Germany of all places. And it took me this long to finally delve into these gems?

A short burst of frivolous fun and unruly anarchy, I Don’t Want to Be a Man follows the adventures of a bored and restless tomboy played by Ossi Oswalda, who decides to give cross-dressing a go and sneak out for a wild night of smoking, drinking and dancing in town whilst also forming a peculiar friendship with her male guardian, who coincidentally bumps into her and doesn't recognise her disguise.

The Lubitsch touch is in full effect, even in this early work of only partially realised genius…

The gender fluidity in I Don't Want to Be a Man feels more progressive and interesting than it does in Some Like It Hot, which came over 40 years later, because transvestitism is used as a device to explore gender relations and traits in Lubitsch's film, while it is chiefly the source of humor in Wilder's. That is less of a knock on Some Like It Hot and more of a knock on the writing about it that heralds the film as a victory for queerness in cinema. I Don't Want to Be a Man, on the other hand, features characters and relationships that would be bold in a film made 100 years later: a presumably heterosexual woman who feels…

Une comédie de genre, avec une femme qui s'habille en homme pour échapper aux conventions sociales, faire le party, et en profite pour séduire un autre homme, en 1918! Je pense qu'il se passait quelque chose en Allemagne à cette époque (spoiler : ça n'a pas duré)

Ernst Lubitsch a réalisé d'excellentes comédies de moeurs dans les années 30 et 40, mais vraiment là où j'ai le plus de plaisir c'est dans ses premières comédies survoltées et cartoon de la fin des années 10, elles n'ont juste pas d'équivalent. Ce film-ci n'est pas aussi survolté que Die Puppe et Die Austernprinzessin, j'ai tout de même passé un bon moment et Ossi Oswalda, l'actrice principale de Lubitsch à l'époque, est toujours…

Un film étonnant, même si pas tellement drôle au final et pas totalement abouti non plus. Mais faut le faire quand même, en 1918, un film qui brasse les conventions de genre avec autant de front, où une femme, tannée de ne pas pouvoir fumer, jouer aux cartes, se saouler parce qu'elle est fâchée de ne pas pouvoir fumer et jouer aux cartes et qui doit se coucher de bonne heure pendant que les hommes font la fête, décide de se faire passer pour un gars et d'aller se saouler la gueule solide! En prime, elle finit ben saoule avec son tuteur/coach des bonnes manières (qui la croit homme) à l'embrasser et à se coller dessus! Ossi Oswalda s'amuse à…

En esta pelicula la protagonista no se siente a gusto con ser mujer, mejor dicho, con cumplir el estereotipo de la femineidad: siempre correcta y con una actitud pasiva.
Con la ilusion de enmanciparse decide ser un varón, se compra un traje y se corta el pelo, y con su nuevo disfraz está lista para comerse el mundo ('the world is mine at any price").
Luego de un tiempo, descubre que ser varón no es tan facil ya que tambien tiene que encajar en un molde, no encuentra libertad en ninguno de los dos caminos porque el mundo siempre le exige que sea de tal forma u otra, sin importar su disfraz.
Esta pelicula no solo aporta una mirada crítica…