Time for Women with Talent to Take Back Older Female Roles in Pantos

[SpringTimeIsRingTime]

Panto Dames have been a thing since 1806 when a certain Mr Simmons decided to play Mother Goose as a Witch (how original) rather than as a caring grandmother figure. Nowadays panto dames are mainly played by gay men in drag.

I think it's time for talented actresses to take back elder female roles from the tired tropes played by men since the Victorian era.

But those parts aren’t written for older women. Not in any of the pantomimes I’ve seen anyway. An element of the humour is that it’s being played by a man.

Dont be silly

The panto I went to this year had no dame! I have to say it smacked of a certain type of right-on worthiness. And I'm as gender critical as they come. But who knows, maybe they'll be quietly phased out.

I'm a hypocrite because I just wish drag queenery would die a sudden death.

FFS. No.

Should men also take back the Prince Charming role which is traditionally played by a woman?

In my honest view? Yes.
I never liked women playing prince charming - I find it weird.
It was started in Victorian times for the male gaze.
Get a young actor to do that - plenty out there.

What pantomime tradition are you referring to where roles were designed and written for talented older female actresses? Pantomime has always been low-brow comedy - it derives from harlequinade, which principally about male clowns and clownesque figures doing slapstick and chaos. The more modern tradition of dressing men as women and women as men was the successor of that clowning.

And while we're about it, let's have a real horse or a real cow, none of these two actors in a costume, one as the head and front legs, and one as the arse and rear legs. Plenty of real livestock would be glad of the work.

Have you actually asked any actors how they feel about this? Sounds like you just don’t enjoy a traditional pantomime and want it changed to suit your preferences.

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Deleted as wrong post quoted.

Great idea, it would add to the general chaos especially if the horse farted.

Time for Women with Talent to Take Back Older Female Roles in Pantos

Oh no it isn’t!!!

No.

Leave Panto Dames as drag performers (same as frequently Peter Pan, Puss in Boots etc are played by women in Drag.)

The Christmas before last, I said similar to my sister. What I really didn't like was the jokes putting older women down. Gay men always get away with what women don't, especially older gay/panto dames. We'd be cringed at, or considered sad for being sexual. This year's panto was Cinderella and the jokes stayed with the sisters, but not in a put down way.

Yes.

Panto is all about subversion and contradiction. It's part of the comedy and just part of the (very weird) nature of panto itself.

Men played by women

Women played by men

A "family entertainment" full of bawdy jokes designed to (hopefully) go over the heads of the little kids

Audiences joining in the dialogue ("It's behind you!") and actors bantering back and forth with them

A type of show that only exists for about 6 weeks of the year (why?)

Traditional jokes and tropes and local references that get wheeled out again and again, but people still want to see them

... Just so much weird and (in my view) wonderful stuff. It shouldn't work but it does. There's no point subjecting it to logical criticism, imo. It's a very individual and very British cultural phenomenon and I would hate to see it die.

All true. It was a chance for salivating men to see otherwise concealed women's legs and thighs. And it sold a hell of a lot of tickets on that basis.

Mother Goose was a fairy tale character first published by Charles Perrault in France in 1697 based on much much older oral folk tales. She represents a kind, nurturing grandmother figure which was transformed into a witch by a Mr Simmons in 1806 at a time when misogyny was the norm in society.

It worked because men (and women) could openly mock and laugh at older women once they were portrayed by men as nasty, nagging old hags...

As a comparison, Al Jolson also became incredibly successful by putting on black face to appeal to rampant racism prevalent in the US during the 1920s and 1930s. It wouldn't work today because society has moved on.

The "principal boy" roles were played by women to give Victorian men a sexual frisson while "just watching a children's panto" which is why the young women wore tights and very short tunics. It was for the male gaze, nothing else.

The ugly sisters are supposed to be women not men but again they are played by men as hideous caricatures of women.

Where are all the roles for older women playing hideous caricatures of men?
They don't exist.

It would be far more interesting to see traditional female roles from folk tales played by women in this day and age.

We should move on from dated misogynistic tropes of women played by men.
They're tired and out of sync with society.

Panto dames should be played by men, panto lead male roles (Peter pan, Whittington etc) should be played by women. The princess love interest should also be played by a woman, the Buttons character should be played by a man. It is key to the humour and style.

I am a complete agreement with you OP and also think that the principle male lead should be played by a man. Or else where's the eye candy for the mums? Feels like we miss out on every level in a traditional pantomime tbh, which presumably was the point.

I’m not sure I can see Emma Thompson or Judi Dench lining up for these roles.

I don't think panto is for you OP!

Maybe try a bit of Shakespeare? or not

A lot of pantomime dame humour (in the pantos that I've seen) is based around the dame acting in a coquettish way around the male characters, and sometimes male members of the audience. Wearing over-the-top outfits, being flirtatious, assuming the role of an attractive woman.

The incongruity and ridiculousness is in the fact that the actor is a man, dressed up outlandishly, and therefore presumed to be unattractive to the straight male characters. The panto dame is a figure of fun because of "her" delusions.

If the role was played by an older woman, then it would either lose a lot of this traditional source of humour, or risk being pretty humiliating to the actor.

A large part of the point of the panto dame is that a man (usually a big burly man) is not a woman.

What are your thoughts, OP, on Glenda Jackson having played King Lear? Michelle Terry playing Richard III?

Yabu, women playing the main man's part and nean pmaying the dame is part of the panto tradition.