Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey as Dorothy Michaels
Bruno Dariva discusses the dualities of Dustin Hoffman’s performance in Tootsie and how the film mirrors reality.
There are certain moments in Hollywood history when life goes to the movies. That is true of Tootsie on different levels. On the one hand, Sydney Pollack’s film emerges out of decades of effervescent aspiration for social progress, ironically being released at the beginning of a period that stopped (or tried to stop) that liberal drive via Ronald Reagan’s conservative policies. On the other hand, the film doubles reality by casting Dustin Hoffman, whose reputation for being difficult on set has been extensively reported, in the role of Michael Dorsey, a talented actor who is unemployed because of his difficult personality. Michael’s transformation into Dorothy Michaels, a strong, independent woman who begins to challenge the sexism and old-fashioned habits of male coworkers, echoes the 1960s and 1970s’ desire for social change. Through well-crafted lines and incisive jokes, Tootsie brings seriousness into the heart of comedy, simultaneously speaking to a past that needed social transformation and resonating with a present that hasn’t quite learned from it.
If Tootsie deals with social issues through different levels of fictionalization — first, the soap opera in which Dorothy acts; second, Dorothy’s performance as a woman; third, Michael’s career as an actor — it also retroactively reflects on these matters through Hoffman’s persona. Ironically and unfortunately, recent numerous sexual misconduct allegations against Hoffman (including reported incidents involving teenage victims) tie the film once again to real life. Not only is Hoffman the difficult actor who finds his double in Michael Dorsey, he is allegedly also a perpetrator of the very behaviors that Dorothy and her character in the soap opera try to condemn. The stories published by the Hollywood Reporter (and others) in 2017 make Hoffman, essentially, a reflection of Dr. Brewster and John Van Horn: the former, a doctor who harasses nurses and employees at the soap-opera hospital; the latter, a man who forces himself upon Dorothy without her consent.
Jessica Lange, Hoffman, Dabney Coleman, and George Gaynes
This layer of reality inevitably highlights the film’s immediate focus on performance — not only the performance of a real actor who plays a supposedly more mannerly version of himself, but also the performance of a fictional actor who finds through Dorothy a way to empathize with the feminine. Dorothy enlightens both those around her (particularly Julie, interpreted by Jessica Lange, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film) and Michael himself, who gradually realizes the importance of Dorothy to his perspective as a man — “the woman that was part of [his] manhood.” In addition to moments in which Tootsie playfully uses the different performances as a source of comedy, such as in a scene where Julie tells Dorothy, “You are always yourself,” the film also uses performance to draw a line between comedy and serious matters, particularly in the scene when Dorothy is harassed by John. Here, it’s both Michael and Dorothy who say, as one, “Don’t — don’t do that. Rape is not a laughing matter.”
The progressive combination of Michael/Dorothy, particularly made evident in the above-mentioned scene, ceases to be present at the end of the film. Perhaps in consonance with Hollywood narrative structures in the 1980s, Tootsie’s approach to a happy ending necessarily involves a return to gendered difference through the implied future of a heterosexual couple (Michael and Julie).* This return, however, does not invalidate the important questions about sexism and gender equality that the film poses, especially in scenes where Dorothy confronts other men; “Treat me as a person,” she eventually says to Dr. Brewster. Ultimately, this return marks the end of the performance — for Michael, for Julie, and for us. Filled with some contentment for seeing the probable realization of Michael’s love, we nonetheless share with Julie a moment of grief. Like her, we miss Dorothy.
*Frank P. Tomasulo further discusses the psychoanalytic implications of this return in his article “Masculine/Feminine: The ‘New Masculinity’ in Tootsie (1982).”
Tootsie will be screened at IU Cinema on November 2 as part of the City Lights Film Series.
Bruno Dariva loves filming and photographing the world. He is a filmmaker and PhD student at Indiana University Bloomington with scholarly interests in film temporality, form, and philosophy. Besides doing research and watching films, he spends his time reading tech reviews and playing tennis.