Michael Dorsey said to Julie Nichols “I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man”
This is my favourite line in the movie and it also highlights the crux of the movie.
Michael Dorsey is an unemployed man who cross-dresses in order to be employed as an actress to earn his keep. His female identity named Dorothy Michaels is a female who posses stereotypical male-like characteristics such as standing up for women’s rights, courage to voice her opinions and being decisive in what she thinks is right etc.
Tootsie is a movie filmed and broadcasted in the 1980s where American women’s statues were more subordinate to that of men’s as compared to today. Hence the suppression that American women felt in the 80s enables them to not just relate to Dorothy’s character in the show, but also look up to her and wish to model after her.
When Michael transformed to Dorothy, some of his linguistics cues changed too. As mentioned by Lakoff, men and women adopt different languages, whilst men talk about things related to their power and hierarchy in the society, women talk include choice and frequency of lexical particles which grammarians often describe as ‘meaningless’. Example:
Michael Dorsey: You know, I could lay a big line on you and we could do a lot of role-playing, but the simple truth is, is that I find you very interesting and I'd really like to make love to you.
Dorothy Michaels: Oh I know what y'all really want is some gross, caricature of a woman to prove some idiotic point that power makes a woman masculine, or masculine women are ugly. Well shame on you for letting a man do that, or any man that does that. That means you, dear. Miss Marshall. Shame on you, you macho shit head.
Many critics of the movie mentioned that since Dorothy Michaels is really a man, the hidden message of the film is that men are actually better than women and only a man can be tough and honest enough to express women's rights. This reinforces gender stereotype where women are perceived to be weak and passive.
I beg to differ; instead women stereotypes can provide alternative insights which reinforce male stereotypes. Recalling the first line of this writing, Michael realised that he was more successful as a woman than a man. This seems to me that a woman can better a man. Michael learns by putting himself in the shoes of a woman, literally. Michael learns that in order to make Dorothy a convincing woman to others, he has to take on stereotypically female characteristics such as being sympathetic, feeling, and observant. And incidentally, he realised such stereotypical female characteristics also make men better men. This suggest that the male audiences of the film, or oven the male producers of the film take on the stereotypes of men as insensitive, do no listen or even minimal expression of care and concern i.e. Michael. As such, Tootsie serve as a reminder and alternative that stereotypically female characteristics ironically, can make men better men and even reinforces male characteristics such as making them more attractive and charming to women.
This is an insightful film, I like. :) :)
I agree with you that the sentence you highlighted expresses the crux of the film. About the example of the distinction between male and female language, don't forget that Michael's pick up line to Julie at the party was actually the exact wording Julie spoke to Dorothy when they were having one of their intimate "girl-talk" discussions. The line sounds typically bluntly male, and Julie said she wished men would speak directly like that, yet when Michael did just that, he got a drink thrown in his face. Explanation?????
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