738 Tootsie

[domino harvey]

Especially when at least one of their reviewers is a right winger who grades liberal films less favorably!

[mfunk9786]

Or gives stuff like God's Not Dead and Soul Surfer 5 stars!

[Minkin]

Toozie

[FrauBlucher]

Tripped over one of the names he dropped

Been laid up for months like the end of "Mad World".

But as Captveg said, I've been writing and directing a film and all the other stuff that goes with that, alongside a 7 day a week job. No so much time to provide amusement and counterpoint here.

Glad to know I made an impression.

You have a lot of catching up to do, and you will probably start with your uncontrollable love and praise for Tootsie.

[Moe Dickstein]

Tripped over one of the names he dropped

Been laid up for months like the end of "Mad World".

But as Captveg said, I've been writing and directing a film and all the other stuff that goes with that, alongside a 7 day a week job. No so much time to provide amusement and counterpoint here.

Glad to know I made an impression.

You have a lot of catching up to do, and you will probably start with your uncontrollable love and praise for Tootsie.

I've been reading everything and catching up the last week. I'm still way more busy than I was before the summer and had time to hang out on here a bunch so still won't be posting much. Everyone knows how I feel about Tootsie so what more could I add? I will say though that it's one of the best director's commentaries ever done and I'm very glad it's been rescued from the obscurity of a long out of print Laserdisc.

[Gregory]

Everyone knows how I feel about Tootsie so what more could I add? I will say though that it's one of the best director's commentaries ever done and I'm very glad it's been rescued from the obscurity of a long out of print Laserdisc.

I actually have very little idea what you think about Tootsie or its commentary other than that you like both, and I even ran a search for your posts containing the word "Tootsie." Lots of results, but I couldn't even begin to determine why in particular you think the film and its commentary are especially good. I've never heard the commentary, and I haven't seen the film in close to 20 years, so it's tough to explain why I don't want to revisit it, except to say that I remember it as a very routine "imposter" comedy premise with a big dose of gay panic situations and few if any memorable jokes.
I recently had a conversation about Tootsie with someone who claimed it was a very feminist film but couldn't really explain why. I suppose it was because in pretending to be a woman Hoffman's character experiences some weak degree of sexism, but that had already been done in drag comedies decades earlier.

[Moe Dickstein]

Gregory, when I have time I'll post in the appropriate thread my thoughts on the film and why the track is so good. I just listened to several tracks with my boss in our prepartion for him doing one on an earlier film of his and he agreed it was one of the top.

Pollack talks about how he approached comedy - don't try to make it funny, play the inherent realism in the moment. He'd never done a comedy so he didn't have any particular comfort with it. He talks about having a central idea when you are approaching a work. For him it was "How a man becomes a better man by having been a woman" You hold every scene and every idea up to that ruler and thats how you can try to have a strong spine to a piece that went through such a huge pile of drafts and screenwriters, on top of the creative differences between Hoffman and Pollack. He also gives off all sorts of strategies and tips on how to approach particular scenes, like the party scene - how can you film a good scene out of something as amorphous as a party? He's also very honest about what works and what doesn't. As a director I find it entertaining, informative, and nuts and bolts useful. Another really great track in this vein is McTiernan over The Thomas Crown Affair.

[CSM126]

Apparently, Tootsie is the greatest movie ever made.

[The Narrator Returns]

I'm more concerned that La vie en rose is anywhere near that list, let alone above Citizen Kane and Apocalypse Now.

[Gregory]

Seems like the results were slapped together haphazardly. Some of the lists were alphabetical and others were ranked. Tootsie appeared on 6 lists, and A Woman Under the Influence on 7, so the latter could probably just as easily have been put in the #1 slot.

I can't begin to see how, as BD Wong said, Tootsie is a "game-changing" cross-dressing performance, and I like Time Out's comments about the film hidden behind the "Read More" jump:

But the film never comes within a thousand miles of confronting its own implications: Hoffman's female impersonation is strictly on the level of Dame Edna Everage, and the script's assumption that 'she' would wow female audiences is at best ridiculous, at worst crassly insulting to women. Provided you ignore this central idiocy, Tootsie is certainly one of the most polished situation comedies in recent years. But then the field has hardly been over-crowded.

[A man stayed-put]

That list has shot to Number 1 in my 'worst 'best movies of all time list' list'. But, then again, my list was ranked by Time Out as one of the top 10 worst of those.

[hearthesilence]

I was going to say Tootsie seemed like a predictable choice for New York actors because the whole opening sequence (nearly the best part of the film, despite Dave Grusin's soundtrack) is basically a short film on what it's like to be a New York actor - it covers everything. But if it was only on six measly lists, it doesn't sound like it was much of a poll.

And I have to say, as much as I used to like the movie as a kid, it's hard to watch now given how much of the comedic material is built on its own homophobia. Granted, it's a reflection of the time, but this ain't exactly The Searchers - there's no meaningful exploration of those attitudes in general.

[AfterTheFlood]

And I have to say, as much as I used to like the movie as a kid, it's hard to watch now given how much of the comedic material is built on its own homophobia. Granted, it's a reflection of the time, but this ain't exactly The Searchers - there's no meaningful exploration of those attitudes in general.

How is it homophobic? I haven't seen the movie in years, so I can't remember the homophobic aspects.

[cdnchris]

I think one scene people plays into it is the bit where Hoffman is trying to avoid be kissed by his male co-star, who has a tendency to work in moments where he can kiss all the new female cast members. I think it could be argued either way whether the scene is homophobic as the situation created would probably be uncomfortable no matter the sex of either person (male on male, male on female, female on male, female on female), but then the scene is of course built around the fact that Hoffman doesn't want to be kissed by another man, which is of course the part that can be read as homophobic. I don't know whether there's actual attempted humour in the set-up but the pay off to the gag ultimately is that despite his best efforts in avoiding the moment (SPOILER) it happens anyways.

There might be more to it or more scenes in the film that read that way but I can't remember (and I just saw it when it was released on Blu-ray)

[CSM126]

I think that scene can just as easily be read as part of Dorothy's strong will, being unwilling to let people tread all over her/him. Or maybe you could say that Michael's homophobia led him to make that part of her character. Personally, I read it more as the former and, as a queer person myself, didn't find it offensive, but of course I can only speak for myself.

[hearthesilence]

I'm surprised no one else feels the same way. It's not overt - I saw this film numerous times before high school, then didn't see it again until after college, and while nothing was forgotten, it felt like there was a homophobic subtext under a lot of the material. I recall this coming primarily whenever Michael has to explain/defend why he's dressing up as a woman (which to be clear is constantly equated with homosexuality by most of the film's characters), especially when Les is angry at him - I think the first thing he does after Michael returns the ring is ask if he's gay, and there was something about that line of thought that suggested something I didn't like. Also I was bothered by how the film portrays Julie's initial shock that Dorothy is attracted to her (mostly as it was written - Lange's performance does invest it with pathos). It's not enough to single out moments, I felt like over and over again there was comedic tension in scene after scene built out of gay panic, and by the end, cumulatively it didn't really sit well with me.

[AfterTheFlood]

.

[Lost Highway]

I would have to watch the film again just to look specifically for homophobia, but as a gay man I'm quite sensitive to these things and there is nothing that I find offensive or unbelievable about how the heterosexual characters behave under the circumstances in Tootsie and I must have watched that film at least half a dozen times. Sure, there would be some gay panic, especially from a macho character like the one played by Charles Durning who handles things rather well under the circumstances. The film has not much to do with sexuality and I don't know why the characters should settle into something that totally comfortable with being put in situations of same sex attraction. I'm glad the film doesn't give us some flaming queen to address the issue as some films would to make sure what the difference is between a straight man assuming another gender to get a job and a gay man.

[AfterTheFlood]

.

[quequeg]

Netflixed this turkey. I actually enjoyed the supplements much more than the film.

[Swift]

I have to say I don't feel there were moments of homophobia in the film. In the scene towards the end, where Michael encounters Charles Durning's character in what looks like a blue collar bar, you would expect Durning to lash out physically or verbally. Instead, he offers to buy him a beer. That honestly surprised me. I think the moments that have been construed as gay panic (avoiding the kiss on set, Lange's reaction to Dorothy leaning in for a kiss) are not entirely unexpected (or indeed unrealistic) reactions, particularly in an early 80s world.

This was a first time watch for me. I was surprised to learn afterwards that it has been ranked high on a number of all-time comedy lists. While the film did provide me with a handful of laugh out loud moments (there are some fun one liners here), overall it was quite dull. Nor was any of it at all believable. This soap actress makes the cover of national magazines, posing with Warhol, and yet nobody anywhere, paparazzi included, deduces that she's a man. I feel like that particular interlude could have been chopped from the film for the better. In fact, once Michael starts dressing as Dorothy away from the set, the film invites the viewer to think too much of the practicalities of keeping up this performance, and why on earth Michael would put himself in these potentially fraught positions, the weekend away being a prime example.