Parodies de dandies : travestissement et transgression des genres au music-hall

Abstract

Why did some Victorian and Edwardian music-hall acts, namely the swell song and male impersonations, choose the dandy, of all cultural icons, to debunk it as a symbol of decadence, and what was the part played by female artists in this exposure ? This paper will focus on those protean artists known as male impersonators, as they depart in many respects from their male predecessors, the lions comiques, who used to mock London’s bohemian upper classes in a crude yet gentle way. Male impersonators (Nellie Power, Vesta Tilley, Ella Shields...) portray dandy characters in a more subtle and ambivalent manner. This performance, in which women mimic effete young lords, is a far cry from the breeches parts of Restoration plays. It is also poles apart from slapstick comedy and the dames and principal boys of the Drury Lane pantomimes, as it blurs the line between the genders. Reviving the myth of the androgyne by making it both plausible and likeable is quite a feat, at a time when music-hall was under pressure from middle-class moral reformers. Thus, in the context of the Social Purity Crusades and against a background of hostility to music-hall culture, it is hardly surprising that male impersonations should arouse deep anxiety. But if there is no denying that those music-hall acts transgress social and sexual norms, one may wonder whether they are meant to convey a feminist message of political significance.