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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"Remember when you were a kid, and you saw the legendary TV musical version of [[Peter Pan]], and Peter was striding around the stage declaring, 'I WON'T grow up!'? Remember what you thought, in your innocent, naïve, trusting childlike way? You thought: 'THAT'S not a little boy. That's obviously middle-aged actress Mary Martin making a fool of herself.'"''|''[[Dave Barry]] Turns 40''}}
This is a role that, for whatever reason, is played by an actor of the opposite gender. Common reasons for this include:
# Theater troupes may be all male or [[Kabuki Theater|all female]], usually because the [[Moral Guardians]] have decreed it to be so; such troupes will use this trope by necessity.
# In any kind of production with a lot of difficult singing, the roles of young boys are frequently played by women. Good boy sopranos can be tough to find, especially if you also need them to be able to act; they also have a very specific vocal timbre which may not be compatible with the production's overall aesthetic (e.g., in [[Opera]]).
# Early opera also has a number of roles written for
# Community and school theater companies frequently have more women than men. Many plays (especially older ones) have more male than female roles. Cross-casting is one possible solution, though admittedly [[Gender Flip|not the]] [[Acting for Two|only one]]. Similarly, sketch comedy groups are frequently all male, so female roles are often handed to men; it helps that many cultures<ref>Especially the British</ref> find men dressed as women inherently funny.
# If the role is to be a sufficiently young child, the actor's gender matters much less. In particular, infants are frequently used in film and television without regard to gender. (The parents are responsible for having to explain to their son why he was on national television wearing a pink dress and bows in his hair as a baby).
# Certain university drama groups only use male actors, a tradition that began as a necessity in the days when women could not be students. This tradition is rapidly declining.
# The director is making a political statement, ''e.g.'' about gender.
# [[Transsexualism|Transsexual]] and other gender variant characters are commonly played by actors who have the right body shape rather than the right gender, as there often isn't a more suitable actor available.
# The role calls for a young-looking/undersized person, but due to [[Dawson Casting]] the body size might not be right. The inverse is sometimes true.
In Western theatre and opera, a male character which is intended to be played by a female performer is commonly referred to as a "breeches role" or "trouser role".
Compare [[Cross
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== Anime
* Several of the productions from ''[[Kaleido Star]]'' feature females in male roles. Ana especially tends to play male characters.
* In ''[[Ranma
* The [[Live Action Adaptation]] of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' [[
* An in-universe example in ''[[
* In ''[[Wandering Son]]'', the school holds a play where all the girls play the male parts and the guys play the female parts.
* In the anime adaptation of ''[[D.N.Angel]]'' the school play is done with entirely male actors and an all-female production team. The excuse the ladies give for this decision is to respect Shakespeare and his all-male acting troupe; the ''real'' reason is that they [[Yaoi Fangirl|want to see]] the male lead and his [[Ambiguously Gay]] [[The Rival|rival]], cast as the female and male leads respectively, share romantic scenes together.
== Film ==
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* In ''The Year of Living Dangerously'', actress Linda Hunt plays a male photographer named Billy Kwan. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|She won an Oscar for it]].
* ''I'm Not There'' is about six different versions of [[Bob Dylan]]. One of them is played by [[Cate Blanchett]].
* Stephen Chow's ''[[
* All versions of ''[[Hairspray]]'' feature a man as Edna Turnblad (the most recent one is [[John Travolta]]).
* In ''[[Back to The Future]] Part II'', Michael J. Fox plays [[Acting for Two|most of the members of Marty's future family]], including his daughter.
* In [[Eddie Murphy]]'s ''[[The Nutty Professor]]'', Murphy plays most of his family, including the main character's mother and grandmother.
* In ''[[The Gamers]]: Dorkness Rising'', Gary's actor plays [[Deep
* {{spoiler|Eli}} in [[Let the Right One In]] is played by Lina Leandersson. {{spoiler|Eli is actually a castrated boy.}} The audition for the role was open both to girls and boys.
* A strange [[In
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings (
* In ''[[Jack And Jill]]'', Adam Sandler plays both the main character and the character's sister.
* In ''[[Norbit]]'', Eddie Murphy, again, plays the title character, his guardian Mr. Wong, and Rasputia... at least as adults, anyway.
* Jack (the monkey) from ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' is a male monkey. The 'actor' is a female capuchin monkey.
* As it is now lost media, it's unclear if the 1920 film based on ''[[Treasure Island]]'' that stared [[Shirley Mason]] as Jim Hawkins was this or a genuine [[Gender Flip]] of the character (as at least two later versions did).
== Literature ==
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** Lieutenant Blouse in ''[[
** Similarly, Lady Sibyl mentions in ''[[
* Jack Aubrey of Patrick O'Brian's [[Aubrey-Maturin]] series proudly mentions having played Ophelia
▲== Live Action TV ==
* Sophie of ''[[Leverage]]'' plays Willie Loman in ''Death of a Salesman''; she's so [[Giftedly Bad]] that Nate doesn't realize that she's playing him as a man, leading to a particularly cringeworthy [[Compliment Backfire]].
* [[Lassie (TV series)|Lassie]] was usually played by a male dog, as the males of "her" breed have a longer, more luxurious "summer coat" than the females.
* The aliens in the first ''[[Star Trek:
* Several [[
{{quote|
'''Alice:''' You played Romeo, of course.
'''Bob:''' No, Juliet. It was an all-boys school. }}
** ''[[Full House]]'' inverted that, with Rebecca having played Romeo at an all-girls school.
** ''[[Home Improvement (TV series)|Home Improvement]]'' played with this in that it wasn't the joke itself, but rather just an excuse for Jill and Wilson (who both had experience playing Juliet) to fight over who would help Randy practice the "Romeo" role.
** Also played with on the ''[[
{{quote|
'''Nancy:''' You went to an all-girls school?
'''Lemon:''' No. }}
** ''[[Home and Away]]'' took it all the way, with Annie playing Romeo and then-boyfriend Romeo as Juliet. The director was trying to make a statement of some sort.
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* And ''[[The League of Gentlemen]]'' also does this, for the same reasons as ''[[Kids in The Hall]]'', although men-playing-women was never part of the joke. (Except with Barbara, of course.)
* As does ''[[A Bit of Fry and Laurie]]'', on occasion.
* ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway
* ''[[Super Sentai]]'' and ''[[Power Rangers]]'' series often have male stunt actors portraying the female heroes while in costume, even without taking into account the times when [[She's a Man In Japan]]. Motokuni Nakagawa has even earned the nickname of "Mr. Pink" for being in the costume for [[Gekisou Sentai Carranger|Pink Racer]], [[Seijuu Sentai Gingaman|Ginga Pink]], [[Rescue Sentai Go Go Five|Go Pink]], [[Mirai Sentai Timeranger|Time Pink]], and [[Go Go Sentai Boukenger|Bouken Pink]]. Easily the longest-running of these is Yuuichi Hachisuka, who's played three male rangers as well as females from [[Dengeki Sentai Changeman|Change Phoenix]] to [[Tokumei Sentai Gobusters
* Also, many a woman in [[Little Britain]] is portrayed by the main characters. Since most of them are supposed to be rather... unique in appearance it's not much of a stretch.
* A recent Taiwanese game show modelled after ''Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader'' gets slightly derailed when one of the schoolboys goes into an extended rant about being cast as ''Cinderella'' for a school play. [[Throw It In|It made it into broadcast.]]
* Like the Draco Malfoy example above, Rachel Dratch played [[Harry Potter (
* ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' has a convoluted example when George Michael tries out for ''[[Much Ado About Nothing]]'' to get closer to Maeby; she ends up playing Beatrice, and he ends up understudy to STEVE HOLT's Benedick. Then Tobias ends up directing the play, and when Maeby quits, Tobias suggests that he will play Beatrice. By the end of the episode, Maeby and STEVE HOLT are still playing Benedick and Beatrice, only each one is playing the other gender.
* The [[Ambiguously Gay]] title character of the [[
* [[Butch Lesbian]] "Walter" from German series ''Hinter Gittern - der Frauenknast'' (Behind bars - the women's prison) has a twin brother Andreas, played by the same actress, who's apparently indistinguishable from her without his beard. Which they used in one episode to change roles, allowing her to escape and him to get closer to several female prisoners.
== Music ==
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== Opera & Theatrical Productions ==
* All traditional kabuki theatre, due to a 1629 ban on female actors. This effectively created an entire industry of [[Attractive Bent Gender]] "actresses" (see [[The Other Wiki]] on ''[
* [[Shakespeare]] wrote all of his plays for all-male companies; thus all of his female roles are intended to follow this trope. Most modern productions ignore this entirely. This is presumably [[Recursive Crossdressing|why]] there are so many plays in which a female character has to [[Sweet Polly Oliver|pass as male to get something done or to make a particular point.]] Some modern companies, for example the Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company, perform with entirely female casts to balance the scales of karma. Edward Hall's Propeller company, however, still goes the all-male route.
* Subverted by Shakespeare's contemporary Ben Jonson's play ''Epicoene''. The title character is played by a boy, but presented as a woman for the whole play- until the characters [[Unsettling Gender Reveal|learn otherwise]]. That is, Epicoene in the world of the play really is a boy, but only the protagonist knows this until the end. Awkwardness ensues.
* Similarly, Noh theater companies are all male.
* ''[[Greater Tuna]]'' has usually two males play all the roles.
* Numerous ballet productions in 19th-century Europe had the male roles be played by crossdressing women, for two reasons: firstly, due to changing ideas about gender, ballet was viewed as being too feminine for men to participate in, leading to a shortage of male dancers, and secondly, the male audience-members of the time ''really'' dug the [[Les Yay]]. Contrariwise, Mother Ginger in ''[[The Nutcracker (
* Cherubino in Mozart's ''[[
** And a great deal of other pages and young boys: Tebaldo in ''[[Don Carlo]]'', Oscar in ''Un ballo in maschera'', Smeton in Donizetti's ''Anna Bolena'', Siebel in ''[[Faust]]'', Stefano in ''Romeo et Juliette'', Urbain in Meyerbeer's ''Les Huguenots'', etc.
* Octavian of Richard Strauss' ''[[
* ''[[The Phantom of the Opera]]'' has an [[In
* ''[[Peter Pan]]'':
** The title role is traditionally played by a woman onstage. The only male actor to have played Peter Pan on Broadway is Jack Noseworthy, who understudied the role as part of ''Jerome Robbins' Broadway''. (Peter Pan was played by a boy actor in the 2003 film.)
** Curiously enough, J. M. Barrie himself wanted the role of Captain Hook to be played by the same actor as ''Mrs.'' Darling, rather than Mr. Darling.
** The [[Peter Pan (Disney film)|Disney adaptation]] was the first to have the titular character be portrayed by a male.
* In ''[[Hairspray]]'', Edna is always played by a man, the part having been originated by the 300-pound drag queen Divine. [[The Musical]] helps enforce this by writing Edna's song parts in the [[Larynx Dissonance|baritone range]].
* In stage versions of ''[[Chicago]]'', the character of {{spoiler|Little Mary Sunshine}} is usually played by a man in drag, whose gender is revealed as a plot surprise. The movie cast a woman in the part, probably because there was no way to keep the twist from being obvious.
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* Caryl Churchill's play ''Cloud 9'' has lots of cross-gender (and cross-ethnic) casting in the first act, to emphasize the disconnect between the character's feelings and their outer show. And some in Act II for [[Rule of Funny]].
** Having Cathy (a small girl) played by a grown man in the second act also serves as a metaphor for colonialism, which is a major theme of the show: Cathy is immature and out of control, and because she is actually a full-grown man, her misbehaviour is more of a threat than her identity suggests. It's funny, but it's not quite [[Rule of Funny]].
** There's also Betty, a [[Hysterical Woman|high-strung]], [[Good Adultery, Bad Adultery|cuckolded]], [[Evil Matriarch|lady of the house]], who's deliberately played like an over-the-top man in drag a la [[Monty Python]] to show the absurdity of [[Victorian Britain|Victorian gender roles]]. In the second act she's played straight by a woman and pretty much realized she'd been forced to play a caricature most of her life.
* In some Chinese traditional opera troupes, there are no actresses, so all of the female roles are played by men. (''[[Farewell My Concubine]]'' is the story of such a cross-dressing actor.)
* Kim's son Tam in ''Miss Saigon'' has been played by both boys and girls, as the primary requirements for the role are 1) look Asian, 2) be short enough to pass for two years old, and 3) do what the director tells you to.
* The [[Sera Myu]] has many male characters played by woman (Prince Demand, Blue Saphir, Hawk's Eye, Fisheye, Jedite, Kunzite) and one that goes the other way (Petz). The fact that ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' creator Naoko Takeuchi was a fan of Takarazuka Revue (and used it for inspiration for Sailors Uranus and Neptune) and many actress came from or went to the Revue probably helped as well.
* In [[Cirque Du Soleil]]'s ''[[KA]]'', the twin protagonists are [[Half
* [[Harry Potter|Draco Malfoy]] [[Played for Laughs|in]] ''[[A Very Potter Musical]]''.
** {{spoiler|Dolores Umbridge}} in the sequel, as is {{spoiler|Dean}}, who is played by the person who played {{spoiler|Bellatrix}}.
** Crabbe in both
{{quote|
'''Crabbe:''' And girls! }}
* The Witch in ''[[
* It is very common for the title character in ''[[The Nutcracker (
* In the televised [[C Beebies]] 2010 panto, the old woman Twanky is played by a male and the young boy Aladdin by a female. Both fairly traditional, but it does mean that [[Parental Bonus|the grownups get to watch]] the [[Les Yay]] between Aladdin and Jasmine.
* In many productions of ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'', Tiny Tim is cast as a trouser role. The Spirit of Christmas Past was originally depicted as [[Ambiguous Gender]], but is often portrayed as or at least played by a woman.
* In ''[[Die Fledermaus]]'', the part of Prince Orlofsky is almost always played by a woman.
* In ''[[Twilight: Los Angeles]]'', all of the roles are played by Anna Deveare Smith.
* Romeo in Bellini's ''[[Romeo and Juliet|I Capuleti e i Montecchi]].''
* Isolier in ''Le Comte Ory''. Isolier is the Count's romantic rival, and is played by a mezzo.
* 90% of Rossini's heroic leads are trouser roles for contralto or mezzo-soprano: Tancredi in ''Tancredi'', Falliero in ''Bianca e Falliero'', Malcolm in ''La donna del lago'', Arsace in ''Semiramide''. Even his Othello was at one point sung by Maria Malibran.
* Some Russian composers were fond of this as well: Vanya and Ratmir in Glinka's ''A Life for the Tsar'' and ''Ruslan and Lyudmila''; the shepherd Lel in Rimsky-Korsakov's ''The Snow Maiden'', the minstrel Nezhata in ''Sadko'', the Page in ''The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh''.
* [
* Traditionally, Mrs. Luce in ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]'' is played by the actor who played Orin, who also plays many other minor roles.
* The Duchess in the Royal Ballet's 2011 ''[[
* The role of Edwin Drood in the musical version of ''[[
== Western Animation ==
* In ''[[Avatar: The
** In a reference to ''[[Peter Pan]]'', they find Aang (the lightly-build, hyperactive twelve-year-old), is played by a petite woman. While Aang (and the rest of the group) is disappointed with the entire portrayal of him, the casting choice is what confuses him the most.
** On the other hand, Toph (a little blind girl, but [[Boisterous Bruiser]] and [[Arrogant Kung Fu Guy]] nonetheless) absolutely ''loves'' the fact that her part was played by a giant, muscly man.
*** And Sokka sneaks backstage to offer tips and jokes to the actor who's portraying him.
* Women, more often than not, have to provide the voices of pre-pubescent boys as the labor laws are less stringent and their voices do not get deeper while new animation is being produced.
** [[Nancy Cartwright]] on ''[[The Simpsons]]'' as Bart Simpson, Nelson Muntz, and Ralph Wiggum.
** ''[[Rugrats]]'' has Christine Cavanaugh playing Chucky, [[Kath Soucie]] as Phil (and Lil), and, later, [[Tara Strong]] as Dil.
* [[Ed Asner]] voices Granny Goodness, one of the [[Darkseid]]'s henchwomen in ''[[Superman:
* ''[[King of the Hill]]'':
** Joseph was originally voiced by [[Brittany Murphy]]. When she left the show for a while, her main character (Luann) was written out, but they simply had Joseph go through puberty and handed his voice acting off to a male.
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* In the [[Mickey Mouse]] [[Classic Disney Shorts|short]] "Mickey's Mellerdrammer" (which is about Mickey and the game performing in a play based on ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''), Mickey himself not only plays the title role of Uncle Tom, but he also plays Topsy.
* ''[[Bob's Burgers]]'' reverses the women-as-boys trend, with both wife Linda and pubescent daughter Tina being played by men.
* In the ''[[My Little Pony
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Gender Blending Tropes]]
[[Category:Characters and Casting]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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