Very interesting essay. I'm incredibly late to be crashing this party, but I would be intrigued to see your interpretation of the evidence in canon that Mal is fond of and possibly experienced with crossdressing. He likes the airflow, he wears the dress instead of Zoe because of "tactics" and, when questioned about it, he tells Inara, "You can't open up the book of my life in the middle. Like a woman, I'm a mystery."
This all seemed fascinating to me from the masculinity standpoint, particularly because Mal is generally coded *so very* alpha male. That he is so comfortable and free with wearing a dress (or a flowery hat when he's drunk) and *owning up to it* seemed really interesting to me. I don't think he feels it impacts his masculinity in any way, and although he says he isn't "sly", I wonder if that might imply the verse they live in isn't quite as hung up about that sort of thing? Or is it just Mal?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-04-16 11:06 am (UTC)This all seemed fascinating to me from the masculinity standpoint, particularly because Mal is generally coded *so very* alpha male. That he is so comfortable and free with wearing a dress (or a flowery hat when he's drunk) and *owning up to it* seemed really interesting to me. I don't think he feels it impacts his masculinity in any way, and although he says he isn't "sly", I wonder if that might imply the verse they live in isn't quite as hung up about that sort of thing? Or is it just Mal?