Boys Will Still Be Boys: Bisexuality and the Fate of the Shakespearean Boy Actress on Stage and Screen

• Published in: Journal of bisexuality 2007-01, Vol.7 (1-2), p.71-88
• Main Author: Dorwick, Keith
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amanda Bynes; Andy Fick; Antonio; Baz Luhrmann; bisexuality; boy actress; cross-dressing; Leonardo DiCaprio; Mercutio; one-body model; representation; Romeo + Juliet; Romeo and Juliet; Shakespeare; She's the Man; Twelfth Night
• ISSN: 1529-9716; 1529-9724
• DOI: 10.1300/J159v07n01_05

In "Boys Will Still Be Boys," Keith Dorwick does a double-reading of Shakespearean sources and adaptations by looking at what is surely one of Shakespeare's most queer plays, the 1601 Twelfth Night (TN) and one of his most "heterosexual" of plays, the 1597 Romeo and Juliet (RJ), which have very differing approaches to the problem of cross-dressing. In the first part of his essay, he explores the bisexuality of the Elizabethan male actor playing against the romantic leads as performed by boy actresses. These kinds of male romantic leads might seem to present a seemingly unproblematic heterosexuality (in contrast to the very problematic sexuality of the boy actresses), until one realizes the ways in which the presence of the boy actresses on the Elizabethan stage would necessitate a bisexual position for the men playing opposite them. In the second half, Dorwick will examine the relatively recent film adaptations of each currently available: Andy Fickman's 2006 She's the Man with Amanda Bynes and Baz Luhrmann's 1996 Romeo + Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and read the ways in which they offer the same kind of double-edged bisexuality even when the female leads are portrayed by women.