1997

19.3

James R. Keller
Style or Substance: Heterotextual Traces in To Wong Fu

Before setting out on their epic cross-country journey, the three flamboyant drag queens of Beeban Kidron's film To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything! Judy Newmar visit a car dealer to choose their transportation. When it appears that they will select a yellow Cadillac convertible, the car dealer urges them: "Ladies, for your own safety, go with the Toyota." Pretending to consider the dealer's advice, each drag queen places her forefinger on her chin in a pose of deep contemplation, and as the three look back and forth between the two cars, one summarizes their dilemma: "It comes down to that age old decision--style or substance." Of course, in the next shot, they are cruising down the highway in their newly purchased convertible. The conflict that they so easily resolve is central to both the film and to the lives of the drag queens. The latter spurn traditional gender roles, embracing style and art as an alternative, but this dichotomy between art and substance is integrated into the film at a still deeper level. It is represented in the three ostensibly straight males who play gay men and is further complicated by the selection of two actors who, in the past, have been consistently cast as action heroes.

Camp, whose most familiar manifestation is gay drag, is defined by one theorist as "sensibility devoid of content" (Meyer 6), the frivolous expression of gay sensibilities. However, more recent efforts to conceptualize transvestism have recognized the political and aesthetic critique that is central to camp and, by extension, to drag. On the most general level, the practice is a burlesque of traditional gender difference, hence Noxeema Jackson's suggestion that drag queens are gay men with "way too much fashion sense for one gender." Some regard this burlesque as misogynistic since drag queens so frequently appropriate the most regressive features of feminine sensibilities. They flaunt the stereotype of the female body as the object for the erotic male gaze; they pose almost exclusively as show girls. Marjorie Garber argues that these portrayals are little more than men's interpretations of femininity, "men's idea of what a woman is" (96). A similar point might be made about a film in which three heterosexual men impersonate gay men and, particularly, gay drag queens. These portrayals are translations of gay sensibilities and translations whose goal is not queer politics but heterosexist preoccupations with gender difference, particularly with the exaggerations of hyper-masculinity.

Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes are parodying themselves in the film. The objective of the project is clearly not political; it spends little time exposing the intolerance and violence directed toward gay men, particularly those who dress in women's clothing. In his interview with The Advocate, Swayze defends To Wong Fu against the accusation that it is derivative of Priscilla Queen of the Desert by pointing out that it is much more light hearted. The Australian film is occasionally very "dark" (Busch 53). Moreover, Noxeema Jackson instructs the fledgling Chi Chi (John Leguizamo) that she must learn to "ignore adversity" if she wants to become a real drag queen, and in some ways ignoring adversity is just what the film does. Instead, it exploits the humor generated by two actors--commonly cast as tough guys--dressed in women's clothes and acting queer. The film would have been considerably less amusing and probably less successful if the roles of Vita (Patrick Swayze) and Noxeema (Wesley Snipes) had been played by gay men and if the subject matter had been more overtly political. Indeed, much of the film's humor necessitates knowledge of the principal actors' previous roles, and these are always the unacknowledged referents of the film's dialogue, imagery, and conflicts.

The ad that promoted the film recognizes the sharp contrast between the former and current roles of the actors. It begins with brief clips of fight scenes from Snipes' and Swayze's previous movies. The announcer then reminds the audience that they have never seen the two in roles like those in To Wong Fu. The advertising ploy foregrounds the playful nature of the roles at the same time that it reminds the audience of the previously confirmed masculinity of the stars. It promotes the current film at the same time that it reminds the potential viewer that these men do not often dress in women's clothes or impersonate queer men. But mostly the ad reveals that the true subject of the film's burlesque is the previously exaggerated masculinity of the two main stars. The film is not amusing because two well known stars have decided to "camp it up," but because the roles that Snipes and Swayze have played in the past have had a tendency to confirm gender stereotypes. The hyper-masculinity of their previous roles has involved the implicit negation of queer sensibilities. Sociologists have defined masculinity as the refusal of the feminine in men: gay men are, as R. W. Connell writes, "the symbolic repository of all that is expelled from hegemonic masculinity" (78). Gender categories are maintained through the careful policing of sexual difference, and both drag and homosexuality breach this illusory divide. The promotional ad for the film then serves a dual purpose. It fractures and preserves the gendered hetero/homo dichotomy. It breaches the divide by indicating that two former action heroes will dress in women's clothing and act like (a small portion of the) gay men at the same time that it sustains the traditional segregation of queer/straight masculinities by emphasizing the sharp contrast between the current and the previous roles. It preserves the venerable masculine image so vital to the success of these male actors at the same time that it threatens to undermine it with aspersions of femininity.

The same paradoxical development works itself out in the characterization of the film. Swayze and Snipes are impersonating female impersonators, a fact that is persistently foregrounded in the film. To Wong Fu relies heavily upon references to the stars' previous work both for its humor and for its satire. Patrick Swayze typically plays the role of the tough and talented philosophical drifter/outsider who is sensitive and who is subject to the mistreatment of those who do not understand him. Commonly, it is his role to correct a dire situation before he moves on, and in the process of rectifying matters, he typically falls in love with a local woman, whose life is enriched by having known him. In Road House (1989), he is a professional bouncer hired to clean up a night club full of drunken, brawling young toughs. The task, however, finally requires that he clean up the whole town in order to break the influence of the local mob boss. Along the way, he falls in love with a doctor who admires him for his strength, his stoic indifference to pain, and his intelligence. In City of Joy (1992), Swayze is a disillusioned physician who has come to Calcutta searching for a spiritual restoration. After being injured, he finds himself in a free clinic in one of Calcutta's poorest regions where his skills are enlisted in the administration of health care to the destitute. Eventually, he must also help to settle a problem with the local transit system; rickshaw drivers (some of whom are his neighbors) are being exploited, cheated, and mishandled by the local mob. Next of Kin (1989) has some of the same features. Swayze plays a Kentucky mountain man who has moved to Chicago to become a police detective and whose values of family, honesty, and integrity are very much out of place in the city. When one of his brothers is killed by a local crime syndicate, he must try to resolve the case legally while also dissuading another brother, Briar (Liam Neeson), from settling the score through revenge. Swayze is levelheaded and philosophical about his predicament. He understands the desire for revenge, but he is also intelligent and practical enough to know the crime must be resolved legally, not through vigilantism. In Dirty Dancing (1987), the star is a young dance coach at a resort for the rich, where his talent is exploited, but where he is treated as a servant, not even allowed to socialize with the guests. His integrity is tested when he allows himself to be blamed for the pregnancy of a co-worker. Of course, while battling discrimination and adversity, he wins the love of a young guest. Here, he facilitates the triumph of youth and equality over age and class insolence. Finally, one of Swayze's most recent projects, Three Wishes, shares some of the same narrative features. Swayze plays a drifter who magically transforms the lives of a woman and her child.

In light of these previous films, Swayze's role as Vita Boehm in To Wong Fu does not seem so unusual. We have seen this role many times, but we have just never seen him play it in a dress. Vita is the drag queen with a heart who is dedicated to spreading good cheer wherever she goes. Her first act of charity is to rescue the aspiring "drag princess" Chi Chi from tears and depression after the latter loses the Miss New York Pageant at the beginning of the film. When Noxeema balks at allowing Chi Chi to join them on their cross country trip to the national contest in L.A., Vita reminds her that "we must all help others." Later, she explains that Chi Chi "just once wants to be special . . . to dream of being utterly utterly fabulous." Vita is dedicated to helping her achieve her dream. Swayze's good works extend beyond her traveling companions. When the three drag queens become stranded in a small Midwestern town, Vita dedicates her spare time to facilitating the happiness and personal growth of the town's residents. She rescues Carol Ann from an abusive relationship and teaches Bobby Lee, an awkward and unhappy adolescent girl, how to be beautiful and how to attract men, specifically Bobby Ray. Her final words of wisdom to the young woman are "moisturize, I can't emphasize this enough." Vita is also the conscience of the traveling group. She admonishes Chi Chi for stealing Bobby Ray from Bobby Lee, and particularly for toying with the young man's feelings, an action that initiates the most vicious cat fight of the film.

Vita's most important humanitarian project is to rescue Carol Ann from an abusive and domineering husband, and the relationship that develops between the hostess and the drag queen parallels the romance narratives in Swayze's other films. Vita recognizes Carol Ann's unhappiness when she finds her crying over her spaghetti sauce. Although Carol Ann does not, at first, trust Vita enough to confide in her, the two become increasingly more affectionate and intimate. Each eventually rescues the other from an abusive male. Vita throws Virgil out of the house when she finds him beating his wife, and Carol Ann inspires the townspeople to drive away Officer Dollard who comes to arrest the drag queens. Their tearful farewell at the end of the film is reminiscent of the romantic embraces of more traditional cinema. They have come to love each other and now regret their inevitable split. Although Vita invites Carol Ann to come with them to L.A., the latter cannot bring herself to leave her home town. As in the traditional romance narrative, the audience knows that the relationship is doomed, but it is nevertheless one of the most vital in the participants' lives. Vita is moved because she recognizes that Carol Ann loves her in spite of her masquerade, and Carol Ann will take away from the relationship a new confidence and independence.

The romance structure employed in the development of Swayze's character is operative in recuperating some of the damage such a role could do to his image as a leading man. Neither Vita nor Noxeema has a male love interest in the film although both characters are presumably gay. Instead, the most passionate bond that either develops is with a woman. This is a safe portrayal both for the financial success of the film and for the reputation of the actors. The mainstream American audience can usually cope with the representation of homosexuality on screen as long as it remains only nominal, but the representation of affection between same sex partners, particularly males, still generates a considerable amount of discomfort in the theater. In Columbus, Mississippi, for instance, the audience still groans or shouts "fag" at the screen during such intimate cinematic moments. Of course, Chi Chi pursues a romantic relationship with Bobby Ray, but even here the affection never progresses beyond flirtation. Moreover, Chi Chi is urged by the more experienced female impersonators to abandon her interest in Bobby Ray, and when she does so, she is told that she has achieved the next step in her progression toward full drag queen status: "[A]bide by the rules of love." In a manner of speaking, the film itself is abiding by the norms of love in its avoidance of any graphically homo-romantic/homoerotic material. It capitulates to the heterocentric mainstream view that being queer is tolerable so long as one does not flaunt it. The refusal of homoeroticism in the film salvages the masculine images of Swayze and Snipes at the same time that it permits them to wear dresses. The roles become a playful burlesque of their action hero roles and also a reminder to the audience that the actors are not serious. Instead of subverting heterosexual norms, the drag queens facilitate heterosexual relations. At the end of the film, most of the townspeople have new love interests. The transvestites make everyone more stylish and desirable.

Wesley Snipes plays a drag queen with an attitude, Noxeema Jackson, and it is the dialogue attributed to Jackson that generates most of the comedy in the film. Noxeema has none of the charity of her companion Vita. She displays a propensity toward mockery and sarcasm, and Chi Chi is the common subject of her ridicule. Whereas Vita is simple, honest, and charitable, Noxeema is stylish and cynical. She warns Vita not to get involved with Chi Chi: "You and your causes. You don't wanna be gettin mixed up in all that Latin mess. She might turn out to be a Sandinista." When Vita suggests that the three queens take a bus to L.A., Noxeema objects: "I do not do the bus. You obviously have me mistaken for Ms. Rosa Parks." Later, when offering advice to Bobby Lee in her efforts to become more desirable, Noxeema quips: "If you want to let them know there's steak for dinner, you got to let them hear it sizzle."

Noxeema's clever and satiric humor as well as her modish dress are consistent with Snipes' previous film roles. He commonly plays a stylish, insightful, shrewd, and sarcastic tough guy. This role is epitomized by his part in White Men Can't Jump, where he is a talented con artist whose witty repartee with his co-star Woody Harrelson comprises the humor of the film. Snipes' action role in Passenger 57 continues the stereotype. Here, he is constructed as the confident, skilled, black action hero asserting the manhood and virility of young African-American males. In Rising Sun, he pairs his L.A. street wisdom with Sean Connery's knowledge of Japanese customs in order to solve a high-tech murder case. The film's dialogue includes the frequent verbal sparring of the two stars who, at first, do not trust each other. Even when Snipes plays a villain, he is modish and amusing. His character in Demolition Man combines roguishness with taunting humor, and his bold and colorful costumes in the film are daring even for this trendy futuristic action thriller. To Wong Fu consciously burlesques the high energy of Snipes' previous roles. His characters are animated by a resourcefulness and stamina that borders on the super human. However, instead of chasing airplanes like John Cutter in Passenger 57, Noxeema Jackson lounges around on the hotel porch and attends meetings of the lady's club. The lethargy associated with this role is plainly a parody of his usual athleticism. Noxeema chases a hobbling elderly woman down the street to return one of her possessions and, despite the woman's infirmity, fails to catch her. When she does finally recline on the old lady's porch, she admits that the chase "really took a lot out of . . .[her]"; she adds defensively, "not that I'm not in shape."

The audience knows that Noxeema's feebleness and frailty are part of Snipes' feminine pose. Earlier in the film, when the drag queens stopped at a hotel for the night, they were mistaken for members of a female basketball league. In a clear allusion to WhiteMen Can't Jump and Snipes' usual vitality, Noxeema demonstrates remarkable skill in her basketball match the following day. Her movements, when she is handling the ball and scoring, are overtly masculine, but are followed by celebratory prancing and cheerleading acrobatics in a white tennis dress. The contrast between these two behaviors emphasizes the artificiality of Snipes' pose as a woman.

Both Snipes and Swayze draw further attention to their masculinity when they are forced to defend themselves or others. The queens initially pose as passivists. Noxeema does not want to stop for the night at a hotel because she fears that "people are going to be cruel" and that "it could get violent." However, when they are subject to abuse, molestation, or humiliation, they defend themselves with confidence and skill just like the action heroes they commonly portray. The initial complication in the queens' cross country journey comes when they are stopped by a provincial policeman, Officer Dollard, who attempts to molest Vita, thinking her a real woman. Vita at first resists with modest words and refusals, but when Dollard's hand gets too close to the prize, Vita growls in a husky voice, "Get your hand off my dick, Buddy," and shoves the officer down. Having only knocked him out, the ladies nevertheless think him dead and flee the scene. This moment of refusal constitutes a further denial of homoeroticism in the film. The only time Snipes or Swayze is confronted with physical contact with another man, the event prompts the breaking of the gender illusion. For a moment, the man surfaces, and in a fashion reminiscent of the traditional masculine response, the offended party puts the perpetrator down with violence. This moment serves to remind the audience of the fictionality of the homosexual pose. Such bashfulness and modesty are not usually characteristic of drag queens, a group that commonly poses as trashy and vulgar. Of course, one might argue that the modesty can be explained as Vita's desperate effort to conceal her true gender from an individual who is likely to hold her deception against her. But, if this were the case, why would Vita speak in a man's voice when she repels the officer's advances, since this action, as much as anything, reveals her true sex?

In another violent moment, Vita finally strikes back against spousal abuse, thoroughly beating Virgil and throwing him out of his own house. The humor of the scene hinges upon Virgil's surprise at being beaten by what he believes to be a woman. Noxeema and Chi Chi reassure Carol Ann of Vita's safety, explaining that Vita "works out." This scene is perhaps one of the most direct reminders of Swayze's usual filmic roles. He is commonly cast as the defender of the helpless and innocent, and he ends up beating some arrogant bully whose authority has previously gone unchallenged. Snipes' character becomes involved in a similar situation in the film. Despite her initial aversion to violence and Vita's efforts to dissuade her, Noxeema decides to teach some of the local men how to respect a lady. She seizes their leader by the testicles and forces him to apologize to the ladies he had been taunting and then makes him practice the greetings appropriate to gentlemanly behavior. The incident is typical of violent scenes in other of Snipes' films. He directly confronts the offending parties, daring them to strike first, and then in a very stylish and overt fashion, he manhandles them, revealing his own strength and confidence and their presumption and helplessness. These violent scenes in To Wong Fu pierce the thinly veiled facade that constitutes the gender illusion of the film, a line that is always already crossed. Ironically, Noxeema teaches the young man how to respect a lady at the same time that she is least ladylike.

Leguizamo's portrayal of the Latin drag queen Chi Chi is the most authentic gender bending of the film. He is quite believable as the frustrated, disorderly, and vulgar fledgling queen, and, interestingly, he does not have a well known canon of former films to secure his masculinity. Moreover, Chi Chi is the only one of the three who expresses any sincere interest in same sex desire, pursuing the local boy Bobby Ray. Yet Chi Chi's neurotic personality is not inconsistent with some of the ostensibly heterosexual yet very disturbed characters Leguizamo has played in the past, such as the psychotic artist in Whispers in the Dark. He is also often cast as a disorderly Latin street tough, a role perfectly consistent with Chi Chi's inability to control her passions. To Wong Fu is Chi Chi's initiation into the ranks of the fabulous (her rites-of-passage narrative); after all, she wins the national contest at the end of the film suggesting the completion of her education and her legitimation as a true drag queen. Perhaps this moment is also self-consciously attempting to launch Leguizamo as a star in his own right. His performance is indisputably the most lively and convincing of the film. The cross dressing that facilitates a burlesque of the previous roles played the established stars of the film has the opposite effect for Leguizamo. Perhaps by virtue of his association with the other two principal actors, he is presumed straight and the drag burlesques a hyper-masculine image yet to be fully developed. The parody assures the public that he does not take such behavior seriously and thereby confirms his masculinity, perhaps even facilitating his acceptance as a male lead. His subsequent role as a highly skilled special forces operative in Executive Decision may reinforce this reading of his character.

In Kidron's To Wong Fu, the audience is constantly invited to look beneath the fictional surface of the portrayal to the traditionally masculine male perpetrating a gender fraud. This effort to salvage the macho images of Swayze and Snipes with continual allusions to their fully confirmed manhood constitutes a capitulation to Hollywood's traditional fear of portraying queer men on film, and by extension, to the nervousness of actors concerned that such roles could ruin their careers. Although recently there seems to be a greater willingness of actors to play such roles, there is nevertheless a residual concern that urges caution, this despite the awarding of Best Actor Oscars for two gay portrayals in the past ten years (William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman and Tom Hanks in Philadelphia). In his acceptance speech at the Academy Awards, Hanks acknowledged the risk of playing gay roles by suggesting that Denzel Washington had more to lose by making the film than he did, a statement implying that he was given the award for his courage in approaching the role and that there may be danger to one's public image simply from being associated with a film that has a gay political agenda. Paradoxically, in this context, the role that once could undermine one's masculinity in the eyes of the public has become a still greater confirmation of the boldness and courage traditionally gendered as male. Straight men who portray gay men are reconfirmed in their masculinity in the very act of undermining it. Only a man very confident in his sexuality could approach such controversial parts.

The American audience experiences less anxiety in seeing a heterosexual man portray a gay man than in seeing a gay man play a gay man. This is perhaps because the straight man's portrayal of male homosexuality can be perceived as a fabrication or even as a mockery of actual gay males. The popularity of the film Birdcage is doubtlessly facilitated by the general knowledge that Robin Williams is not queer and is, therefore, safe. The burlesque that I have discussed in this essay is also employed at the end of Birdcage where Gene Hackman steals the show by dressing in drag. Few actors are, publicly, more fully confirmed in their masculinity than is Hackman. Thus the humor of the portrayal lies in the contrast between the roles he usually plays and this particular moment of gender bending within the Mike Nichols film. In To Wong Fu, the fictionality of the cross dressing pose is central. Although he expresses no anxiety over his role in To Wong Fu, Swayze admits, in his interview with The Advocate, that the American public is not yet ready for an openly gay leading man (Busch 52), and the film takes great care to maintain the masculine integrity of those actors whose gender authenticity is ostensibly undermined by the film.

Department of English
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus, Mississippi 39701

Connell, R.W. Masculinities. Los Angeles: U of California P, 1995.

Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.

Meyer, Moe. Introduction. "Reclaiming the Discourse of Camp." The Politics and Poetics of Camp. Ed. Moe Meyers. London: Routledge, 1994. 1-22.

To Wong Fu, Thanks For Everything ! Julie Newmar. Dir. Beeban Kidron. With Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, and John Leguizamo. Universal, 1995.