Screen Scene: 'Crossdressing' series at ICA
The Boston Globe, May 13, 1993, v. 19, no. 29
Boston Globe columnist Betsy Sherman previews three programs in the film and video series Undressing Crossdressing, which screened alongside the ICA's Currents 93: Dress Codes. Created by a women's group called Fishnet, the series as a whole looks at the issues of female identity and the body as playground and canvas as a platform for this identity. The films in programs like Sapphic Drag: 100 Years of Penis Envy react against traditional masculine and feminine constructions of identity: Leigh Grode's Outcasts explores the brutality suffered by lesbians in Nazi concentration camps while Storme, the Lady of the Jewel Box by Michelle Parkerson traces the history of women taking on male attire via former dame of the New York Jewel Box Revue, a drag show of the 1940s-1960s. Programs like The Social Body: Technology and Stigmata and Rebels, Irreverance and Girl Power tackle personal issues of female-to-male transexuals and larger, political and cultural issues like the Riot Grrrl punk scene, featuring filmmakers like Sadie Benning and G.B. Jones.
ITEM 1993.130 – available for viewing in the Research Centre
Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited
Outcasts – Leigh Grode
Storme, the Lady of the Jewel Box – Michelle Parkerson
Earthly Possessions – Pelle Lowe
I Would Not Like to Be a Man – Ernst Lubitsch
Flaming Ears – Angela Hans Scheirl
Linda/Les and Annie – Albert Jacoma
Linda/Les and Annie – Johnny Armstrong
Linda/Les and Annie – Annie Sprinkle
Stigmata – Leslie Asako Gladsjo
Yo Yo Gang – G.B. Jones
Girl Power – Sadie Benning