In, around, late 1966 a little known character actor put on women's clothing and played an old washer woman on a popular national TV show, portraying a woman in 1745 when ladies were not, perhaps, as widely admired as they are today. This change may seem commonplace today, but in 1966 it was not. The actor's name was Patrick Troughton and he had just taken over the role after a very successful 3 year run by another actor. He was trying to 'shake the tree' as it were.
Still, appearances like this were few and far between. In fact, it was not until 1973 in a series called 'The Green Death' that another character appeared, in the same series, as female. In this case it was a self-affirmed "all-action man" dressed as a cleaning lady answering to the name of Doris. One of the male thug characters spoke to her and she made a muffled response. She continued of this charade carried on until she caught the eye of a person she wanted to talk to. Then the mystery washed away and the illusion vanished. Pretty soon it was back to "all-action" and the idea that the leading man was dressed up as female vanished. By then, Monty Python had often crossed gender boundaries. In fact Graham Chapman often appeared in 'drag' as a feminine character with some male characteristics, such as playing a policeman. Jon Pertwee who played that 'cleaning lady' clearly had no issue playing a feminine role when the role required him to. It was a different time back then.
Or was it?
After 1973 the co-stars got more notice as being sexual inviting females and the idea disappeared. Perhaps it was because Tom Baker did not ever think of dressing as a woman. His successor played a boyish innocent who might have tried on a female persona when the role changed after 7 years of a curly-haired charismatic alien with an incredibly long 22 foot scarf knitted by an old woman who wasn't told to stop knitting. So Tom was wrapped by a woman's touch. But he never crossed that boundary.
In 1981 his successor had played the boyish prankster Tristan Farnon in the series All Creatures Great and Small. He had a preference for smoking Woodbine cigarettes, womanizing and pulling pints at local pubs. He was rather an abject failure as a veterinary student, but he was entertaining. You could see his playing up a female to shock and joke with his brother's colleague, James Herriot (an amazing author I might add) onto some wild goose chase. Sadly as 1981 emerged, the new character-actor never delved into the part and it remained disticntly male.
In fact until 1999 with the attempted rebirth of the series Dr Who was the boundary to be crossed again. With stars like Rowan Atkinson (Blackadder, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Mr Bean) and Hugh Grant, opposite Jonathan Pryce (best known from the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies as the villain) the boundary got ripped down and renewed. At the end the Doctor changes into the lovely and amazing Joanna Lumley. As she eyes her now female body she exclaims as she finds she is female: "Oh! I've Always Wanted to Get My Hands On One of These!!" She rubs her body admiringly.
Joanna apprears in the cult favorite (and I love this series) Absolutely Fabulous. She plays Patsy, a sexually active man-attractor who thinks she is 25 years younger than she is and guzzles martinis like a dehydrated person pulls down cool, fresh water. It's great. In fact the 'daughter', the amazing and VERY pretty Julia Sawalha, is planning to marry Rowan Atkinson's Doctor at the start of Curse of the Fatal Death.
What am I getting at here?
My point is the way Joanna does (for comic effect of course) exudes how her new female body is something she always wanted to 'get her hands on.' For me I often dreamed of being awakened as a woman, like a transformation of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis. I can recall waking, bitterly disappointed not being a woman from a vivid dream where I was a woman. Later on, I experienced dreams where women would only talk over their shoulders to me and not turn to face me. It was like I was fighting two distinct existence engines, one that knew I should be a woman and the other which shunned the idea. The brain gives often contradictory information.
Of late, I started reading a tale from a friend who shared a somewhat similar experience to me in the terms of shadows you wish were lit, but they remain forever in the gloom. As she shared her experience I felt very similar even though, of course, my life was steering a different course. I was seeing a 'greatest common denominator' as I looked back at my own life.
Years ago, which seems like ages now, I imagined a "reboot" of Dr Who with a woman as the Doctor. I even thought of line changes and then the main character having new outfits. In fact. the 'reworked' 1966 episode The Seeds of Death (I think I had unimaginatively called it The Deadly Seeds) had the Doctor's (female) character flying to the Moon in a rocket. In a prom-style gown. The shadow of my woman was growing longer...
I never understood, at that time, why I was focusing on the idea of the main character as female. I had often had daydreams of being "the Doctor" and saving the Universe from some menace. But when I started to think of the Doctor being a woman did I stop this 'fantasy'? No. In fact it seemed to grow more affirming as I grew.
Imagine an awkward child who has always wanted to get my hands on one of these and slowly waking to realize you wanted to get your hands on yourself. In an esoteric way, but still...
Fast forward many years after I actually *had* danced as female to many admirers on my friend Kristy's cam, I felt that it was coming full circle. The inner girl finally hitched up her skirt and dropped her inhibitions. I had always wanted to get my hands on my inner woman, and here she was dancing and having fun with her new friends.
It's like I "regenerated" and was, though confused, feeling like things were slowly falling into place.
I never want to get my hands OFF of one of these! :-)
It's too special.
