Compound and ambiguous meanings in Danish cross-dressing comedies

Abstract

Focusing on two Danish cross-dressing comedies, Min Kone er Husar! (‘My wife is a hussar!’) (1935) and Solstik (‘Sunstroke’) (1953), the article investigates various strategies for playing with and challenging sexual identity and gender to create compound and ambiguous meanings. In view of the comedy genre’s self-conscious openness to performance and intertextuality, the meaning of the main character’s cross-dressing on a plot level may be modified or contradicted by the actor’s star persona. That supporting characters may be transgressive in their own right points to the pervasiveness of sexuality and gender play in cross-dressing comedies. Fictional settings underscore this perception; they are not mere backdrops, but seem to actively invite identity play and rule bending.