Sunday, July 3, 2011

#69 Tootsie (1982)


Men will make passes at dudes with girl glasses.

Plot Summary (with spoilers): Michael Dorsey is a Struggling New York actor, living in an apartment with his friend Jeff Slater. He teaches acting on the side while going on various audition montages where he is alternatively too old, too young, too short, too tall. He's also argumentative with the directors about blocking and his characters' motivations. It's funny because..well it's not really that funny. But we're just getting started!  On his 40th birthday, he begins to question his life choices and inability to "make it" as a big star. 
At the party, we also meet Michael's agent George and his feathery friend Sandy.  Sandy's an aspiring actress and a bit of a ditz and the funniest thing in the movie.  She accidentally locks herself in the bathroom for half an hour and announces that she'll have to remember the sensation if she ever has to do a scene where she's trapped somewhere.  Teri Garr just makes me smile.  She's more Goldie Hawn than Goldie Hawn. 
After the party, Sandy tells Michael that she's auditioning to be on the soap opera Southwest General as a new character, the hospital administrator. He agrees to help her practice, and goes with her to the audition.  She's immediately dismissed for looking too feminine. Meanwhile, Michael goes to his agent and pesters him for more auditions.  George confesses that his reputation as a trouble maker proceeds him, and that no one in New York or Hollywood wants to hire him.  He says he's finished as an actor.  But Michael knows of one audition he can still go on...
Cue wacky music.  Meet Dorothy Michaels, who is Micheal Dorsey in drag; Tootsie if you're nasty. 
"She" auditions for the soap role, but the director Ron Carlisle dismisses "her" out of hand for being too soft and genteel.  (Um...).  Dorothy stands up for "herself" (fuck it, I'm going to switch pronouns liberally as I see fit; deal) and calls out Ron for wanting to give the role to someone more masculine to make the point that powerful women are ugly and manly. (But um, the joke is that "Dorothy" is pretty ugly and manly, so...what's your point here, movie?)  
The upshot is, Dorothy auditions and gets the role, after meeting the lovely actress Julie Nichols and falling for her. 
Michael meets George at the Russian Tea Room while in drag and fools him at first, then confesses the truth.  He tells George he got the job.  He goes back and chats with Jeff, and they agree not to tell Sandy because she'll be crazy jealous and chicks, man, am I right? Michael goes to Sandy's house before they're about to go out for a movie and while she takes a shower, he checks out her wardrobe for clothing ideas. He strips down to his underwear and is about to try on a dress when she gets out of the shower and catches him. His cover is that he's overcome with desire and wants to sleep with her right then and there.  This is perhaps the saddest (and pretty funny) seduction scene on film. It works, and Sandy and Michael are now dating. 
Michael's first day on set.  He learns in his first scene he's to kiss the man playing the head doctor guy, John Van Horn. The other girls call him "The Tongue", because he often prays in an indecipherable language.  John Van Horn is Punky Brewster's Uncle Henry!  Uncle Henry is senile and doddering and he reads the cue cards obviously. When he and Dorothy are supposed to kiss, Dorothy changes the script and ad-libs that she will not fall for his shenanigans and that's she's a strong independent woman and on and on.  She must be on the rag.  Ron says that the choice was right for the character, but to run it by him next time, Toots. Julie's impressed by Dorothy's moxie and whatnot. Michael has a crush on her, but is disappointed to see she's dating Ron. In the scene capper, Uncle Henry takes Dorothy by force and kisses him anyway. It's kinda funny. 
Another montage.  Dorothy is a strong independent woman who doesn't take no guff and gets really popular among the bon-bon eating housewife crowd. She keeps changing the scripts whenever she feels like it so she can keep yelling at the male characters on the show.  
Julie asks Dorothy to come over that night and run lines, and Michael treats it like at date, enlisting Jeff into helping him pick out the perfect dress. She goes over, and while there Julie confesses that for once she'd like a man to just approach her and say he's attracted to her and to stop playing games and say he wants to sleep with her. Suddenly, Michael realizes he made a date that night with Sandy and had forgotten. He gets out of there, and meets up with Sandy, three hours late.  She apologizes to him for being angry and he lectures her about apologizing for no reason and she apologizes again. 
Time for another montage.  Dorothy gets photographed for a bunch of magazine covers and becomes a feminist icon.  Michael is proud of his ability of inspire women to stand up for themselves. Wow, men are so awesome, they're even better women than women.  This movie rocks!
George invites Michael to an industry party, and Ron and Julie show up together. Michael approaches Julie for the first time out of drag, and he tells her he wants to stop playing games and just sleep with her.  She throws a drink in his face.  Heh. 
The next day on the set, Julie invites Dorothy to go away with her and her father to her father's farm in the country.  Dorothy agrees, despite Jeff's warnings.  At the farmhouse, Julie's dad Les hits on Dorothy awkwardly while Dorothy attempts to get closer to Julie. There's yet another fucking montage as Julie and Dorothy frolic all weekend and cook and sew and menstruate. Les tells Dorothy that he likes her and Dorothy flees. 
That night, Dorothy and Julie sleep in the same bed while Julie talks about how much she misses her mother, who died when Julie was still a kid.  Dorothy strokes Julie's hair, and Julie says it feels nice, just like when her mother did it.  This is moving into a very weird area. 
Afterwards, Michael learns that his contract has been extended for a year, but he wants out.  He tells George he wants to quit, but George says he can't. Meanwhile, Julie complains about how rudely Ron treats her and that he cheats on her and she wants to break up with him. Dorothy confronts Ron, who says that Julie knows the relationship is casual and that they're just having fun and what she doesn't know won't hurt her, which is what Michael had earlier said about Sandy. 
Julie and Dorothy have a heart to heart about breaking up with Ron and Dorothy tells Julie that she's special and she shouldn't let herself be taken for granted and Julie says Dorothy's an inspiration to womyn everywhere and then Dorothy tries to kiss her.  Julie backs off and says no offense, but she's not into chicks and to please leave!  But just then Les calls and Julie answers and learns he wants to ask out Dorothy.  Julie gives the phone to Dorothy and pleads with her to go out with Les and let him down easy.  Dorothy does so, and they go dancing, and then Les proposes because he's totally batshit insane.  Dorothy takes the ring and says she'll think about it, which makes no sense at all.  
Meanwhile, Dorothy goes back to the apartment and Uncle Henry is waiting.  He barges into the apartment and basically tries to rape Dorothy/Michael, until Jeff shows up and pretends to be Dorothy's boyfriend.  Uncle Henry apologizes and leaves. The scene is both played for laughs and tells us that rape is wrong and it's just weird.  Sandy then shows up and confronts Michael for ignoring her, and, inspired by Dorothy of course, breaks up with him.
The next day on the set, Dorothy tries to talk to Julie. She says she's inspired by her and even a little attracted, but 1982 is no time to be a lesbian and if they start dating they won't be able to get married for another 29 years.  The actors learn that the tape of the the show they filmed was ruined and they have to perform live.  Michael sees his chance.  While on live TV, he proceeds to remove his false lashes and make up and wig and exposes himself as a man. Everyone freaks. Women around the country realize their inspiration for being better women was false and they go back into the kitchen where they belong. Julie slaps him and walks out. 
Sometime later, there's a weird scene where Michael apologizes to Les for leading him on, even though he didn't, and the movie asks us to feel sorry for Les, even though he's a total weirdo who proposed to someone he didn't even know. 
Then Michael approaches Julie and says he's just a girl standing in front of a boy and asking him to love her, and they walk off into the sunset.

Review: Whatever.  It's fine. There are some mildly funny moments, and I suppose the feminist themes were more revolutionary at the time, but really it's incredibly condescending when white males in movies disguise themselves as a minority and wind up being the Best Minority Ever. (I know, women aren't "minorities", but you get what I mean). This is really just more of that.  9 to 5 is a much better feminist movie that came out around the same time. The movie also really shit all over Sandy, which is fine in theory, not all characters are created equal, but if at the end we're to treat Les seriously, why does Sandy get the shaft?  Michael should be apologizing to her, not Les, who created a whole "relationship" in his mind. Also, Uncle Henry is a pretty funny doddering old fool until he tries to rape someone, but in the final scene, he's back to being a doddering old fool again.  That just doesn't work. 
I did like some of the jokes, though, and some of the shots, and Dustin Hoffman, Teri Garr and Bill Murray are all quite funny.  I hadn't seen this since I was a kid, and hadn't even remembered that Bill Murray was in it, so that was a nice surprise.  But only mildly nice. Perhaps this movie is suffering in comparison to a recent spate of great movies I've been watching on this list.  Who knows?  Who cares?  Moving on.

Stars: Three out of five.

Next, a new one for me finally, "Unforgiven", and then "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"  I am, George.  I am.




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