We saw obvious cross dressing in Twelfth Night. QE1 lived outside of societal gender norms being unmarried and childless. From a little bit of research it was easy to find reference to gender swapping, cross dressing and gender fluidity in renaissance England. Although it was highly frowned upon, people were explorative of their gender counterparts. Gender is a complex thing that was not as well understood or diverse as it is today. With many different forms of gender identity today, I am curious about the influence of Early Modern Literature in our own culture today. Would the use of male characters playing the role of female characters be offensive today? I don't think people would fret much at the cross dressing, but I wonder if the ideals that women hold themselves at today would influence the need to have men cross dress. Would it even work in a society that does not see cross dressing as being so awful anymore? The reasons that men played female characters, from what I understand, was because the theatre was attempting to protect the innocence of females in sexualized roles and such. Men could depict a woman as a sexual deviant, but women shouldn't play that role. Today, however, that is so obviously not an issue.
This is mostly a train of thought about how the many different gender roles in today's society would look at literature like Twelfth Night. I wonder if people who identify themselves as gender fluid would feel like this is progressive or if it is a mockery of their gender identity.
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