Into the Closet

<p><em>Into the Closet</em> examines the representation of cross-dressing in a wide variety of children’s fiction, ranging from picture books and junior fiction to teen films and novels for young adults. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the different types of cross-dressing found in children’s narratives, raising a number of significant issues relating to the ideological construction of masculinity and femininity in books for younger readers.</p><p>Many literary and cultural critics have studied the cultural significance of adult cross-dressing, yet although cross-dressing representations are plentiful in children’s literature and film, very little critical attention has been paid to this subject to date. <em>Into the Closet</em> fills this critical gap. Cross-dressing demonstrates how gender is symbolically constructed through various items of clothing and apparel. It also has the ability to deconstruct notions of problematizing the relationship between sex and gender. <em>Into the Closet</em> is an important book for academics, teachers, and parents because it demonstrates how cross-dressing, rather than being taboo, is frequently used in children’s literature and film as a strategy to educate (or enculturate) children about gender.</p> <p>Series Editor’s Foreword</p><p>Acknowledgments</p><p>Introduction </p><p>Chapter 1</p><p>Children’s Literature and the Cultural Discourse of Cross-dressing </p><p>Chapter 2 </p><p>Cross-dressing in Children’s Literature and Film: Three Models of Gender Disguise</p><p>Chapter 3 </p><p>Iconic Female Cross-dressing: The Problem of Gender in Children’s Retellings of the Story of Joan of Arc </p><p>Chapter 4 </p><p>Re-framing Masculinity: The De-stabilizing Effect of the Female Cross-dresser </p><p>Chapter 5 </p><p>Funny Boys: Masculinity, Misogyny and the Carnivalesque in Children’s Male Cross-dressing Literature </p><p>Chapter 6 </p><p>(Mis)Performing Gender Through a Lens: Cross-dressing in Children’s Cinema </p><p>Chapter 7 </p><p>Emerging Identities: Cross-dressing and Sexuality in Adolescent Fiction </p><p>Conclusion </p><p>Notes</p><p>Bibliography </p><p>Index</p>