Drag in Cinema: Time Trippin’
Marlene McFly
Today we pop around the timeline and catch up with some flicks we missed. That’s apropos since the first film we discuss is Back to the Future, Part II. Doc Brown is revealed to moonlight as a drag queen? No. The film came out in 1989 and the somewhat convoluted storyline had Michael J. Fox back as Marty McFly. Doc Brown shows up (not in drag!) and convinces Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer to travel to the future with him to help their future children. It seems that their descendants will make bad choices and get into trouble unless they intervene. Unfortunately Marty’s nemesis, Biff the bully, sees the time machine leave for the future. His grandson in the future, Griff, wants to recruit Marty’s son, Marty Jr., to participate in a robbery which if not interfered with will put Marty Jr. in prison. Marty impersonates his own son and Griff and his gang are arrested. But what about the drag?! In the original timeline Marty Jr. does end up in prison and his sister, Marlene McFly, comes up with a plan to break him out. This fails and they are both imprisoned. Marlene McFly is played by Michael J. Fox. He also plays his son and his old 2015 self, but that’s not what we’re interested in. Fox’s Marlene is pretty convincingly female but her outfit isn’t flattering. Her voice is dubbed by a female voiceover artist named Grey DeLisle. There is much more to the film’s plot and like all time travel stories things get confusing. Here are some clips of Marlene in action.
Then we jump forward to 1999 and visit a film titled Trick. Coco Peru is featured as a shady drag queen named — Coco. Her role in the film is small but important to the plot. A couple, Gabriel and Mark, have only recently hooked up and Mark is hoping they will do more than just “trick” for an evening’s fun. Coco seeks out Gabriel in the restroom, having seen that he and Mark are together, and she dishes dirt about how Mark “tricked” with her and left right away leaving a fake phone number. Here is video of the pivotal scene.
Next our time machine takes us to 2006 for the female to male sports/romantic comedy She’s The Man. The film is based on the Shakespeare play Twelfth Night, updated to modern times but according to one review, missing the wit that made Twelfth Night good.
Bynes as fake Sebastian.
A boy named Sebastian is supposed to attend a posh boys school but decides to go to London with his band to make it in the music biz. His sister Viola (Amanda Bynes) agrees to take have her hair cut, put on fake sideburns and take his place at the school. She has been playing soccer at her school and the women’s team was dropped. She thinks that if she can play on the soccer team at the boy’s school she can beat the boys team from her school and show it was wrong to cancel the ladies team. There is plenty of deception and confusion but everything thing works out well in the end. Amanda Bynes has said she was depressed for months after she saw the film. She was not happy about how she looked as a boy.
Moving forward in time again we land in 2010. Ryan Gosling starred in All Good Things. The plot is based on the story of accused murderer Robert Durst. Gosling portrays Mark, the wealthy son of a New York real estate tycoon (Frank Langella) who develops a volatile relationship with his wife (Kirsten Dunst) and becomes suspected of a series of murders, as well as his wife’s unsolved disappearance. Fleeing New York Gosling’s character lands in Galveston, Texas, living in drag pretending to be a mute woman. From a drag standpoint we have to criticize the hair and makeup people because Gosling could have looked much better as a woman. Perhaps the director didn’t want to have him look too good? Maybe a mute woman who looked too sexy would have been too visible and attract attention? We just don’t know. However, Robert Durst looked more believable in drag in real life. Here is a clip from the film.
That’s our time traveling look at drag in film for today. Drag in Cinema returns next month!
Category: Drag Queen, Transgender Fun & Entertainment
About the Author (Author Profile)
Angela Gardner is a founding member of The Renaissance Transgender Assoc., Inc., former editor of its newsletter and magazine, Transgender Community News. She was the Diva of Dish for TGF in the late 1990s and Editor of LadyLike magazine until its untimely demise. She has appeared in film and television shows portraying TG characters, as well as representing Renaissance on numerous talk shows.Subscribe
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