How Not To Make Your Female Character "Pass" As A Man In Film

[joreth]

Filmmakers: If your female character is trying to "pass" as a man, and especially if she is from a historical era, don't give her the modern Hollywood "no, I totally woke up with perfect lashes and cheekbones" makeup.

1. She wouldn't have worn that makeup anyway, but I've given up on expecting period pieces to faithfully recreate period makeup; and


2. Nobody in their right mind would believe this person with big doe eyes and pouty lips and hair obviously upswept into a cap is a man. Since there are dire consequences for women "passing" as men in previous eras, she especially would not have been wearing feminine makeup. If anything, she *might* have tried to roughen her face to look more masculine with makeup, but likely she wouldn't have had to wear makeup at all.

Women do not need to constantly have "no makeup" makeup on to be in front of the camera. It doesn't really look "natural" anyway, and if a woman tried to get away with it in the real world while pretending to be a man, she'd never succeed.  Actual men can't "pass" as "real men" if they're "too feminine", what makes you think that merely putting a woman in man's clothing but with women's makeup would?

All it does is make your film look completely unrealistic when people have no idea that she's a woman. It makes the other characters look oblivious and unobservant and clueless when nobody recognizes her as a woman while dressed as a man with eyeliner and lipstick on.  Nobody is buying that this short, very slender person (yet suspiciously bulky in certain places) with long hair tucked into a cap and lined & shadowed eyes is male. Women do not need to look "pretty" 100% of the time, even in movies.