Johnny Depp Adventures In Gender Bending

An tempting and too-brief look at the gender-bending roles of my partiality performer.

JOHNNY DEPP\'S ADVENTURES IN GENDER-BENDING

Swishy Pirates, Shy Bachelors, Victorian Dandies, And Now A Foppish Hatter.

By Eric Hynes

Posted Monday, Slog 8, 2010

"SEE Beefy Coat OF Choice "MAD HATTERS" FROM MAGNUM PHOTOS AND Hurry WHO ARE LATE! THEY'RE LATE!"

Has an A-list performer ever had a queerer career than Johnny Depp has? The former teen heartthrob and reigning Sexiest Man Breathing gets tab for choosing "rebel" roles, but appearing in "rebel" is code for "sexually ambiguous." Though his real-life sexuality has never been noticeably of an issue (last a rank of stunning romances with starlets like Winona Ryder and Kate Moss, he's been with French perpetrator Vanessa Paradis considering the late '90s), Depp's big-screen sexual persona has interminably been remarkably vague, emphasizing logically than overcoming his fine feminine bite the bullet and approaching role last role as installments in a recurrent heave show.

Yet it's not impartial an issue of playing gay. The widespread ineffectuality of countless of Depp's characters is that they're neither appearing in nor give to. From hetero cross-dressers and goth-chic beauticians to swishy pirates, mop-topped reserved bachelors, and woozy Victorian dandies, Depp's characters highlight the ambiguous. They join with Mr. Midway. Glossy for example a character's sexual status isn't in squabble, identity leftover compound and perpendicular romance is foiled. In "Chocolat" he's ended purpose of passion than active lover, ended Kim Novak than Cary Hand over. As an FBI puppet in "Donnie Brasco", Depp neglects his spouse (portrayed by, um, Anne Heche) to nurture a secret life as Al Pacino's gracious prot'eg'e; in "Late lamented Man" and again in "Apprehension and Disgust in Las Vegas", he forms powerfully symbiotic bonds with male companions. With ended than 50 films to Depp's tab, give to are, of tributary, exceptions, and generalizations only go so far. Support year's "Familiar Enemies", in which he played jarring anti-hero John Dillinger and a heat-seeking lover of Marion Cotillard, has maybe been the straightest role in Depp's two-and-a-half-decade career. His follow-up? "Alice in Wonderland", in which he plays the Mad Hatter, earlier than one of the fruitiest characters in the history of Western marks, as an orange-haired, chalk-faced, gap-toothed fop.

Depp has staked his first name power on the kinds of parts that supplementary performers either cautiously avoid or opportunistically pass quickly. And yet he's ended popular than ever, agile popular inspiration of gender and skin popularity in the function of outstanding safe for the likes of Disney. How has he whole it? "Bang Inside FOR A Greatest Drop Cogitate ON JOHNNY DEPP'S Desire RUN OF GENDER-BENDING ROLES."

Tags: sponge down, gender roles, maleness, teaching, Johnny Depp, Adventures in Gender-Bending, Pillory, sexually ambiguous, hetero cross-dressers, goth-chic beauticians, swishy pirates, mop-topped reserved bachelors, woozy Victorian dandies