Cross-dressing in Soviet Cinema: the Case of 'hello, I'm Your Aunt!' (Zdravstvuyte, Ya Vasha Tyotya!)

Although cross-dressing is a prominent film element in many Hollywood films (e.g. Some Like it Hot (1959), Victor/Victoria (1982), Tootsie (1982), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), etc), it is almost absolutely absent from Soviet cinema. One of the very few and most well-known examples is 'Hello, I'm Your Aunt!' (Zdravstvuyte, ya vasha tyotya!)(1975) by V. Titov, a Soviet adaptation of the play by Brandon Thomas Charlie's Aunt. This book provides a close-reading of the film within the Soviet context of the 1970s and in comparison to several mainstream Hollywood comedies based on cross-dressing as the main topic. The analysis is aimed at finding out if and how the film was subversive towards the official Soviet discourse and why it was popular with the audience. The book addresses the questions of masculinity and femininity in the Soviet society of the 1970s, perfomative and carnivalesque aspects of cross-dressing and should be useful for those interested in Gender and Film studies, or whose academic interests include late Soviet society and culture.