Tootsie (1982, Columbia, dir. Sydney Pollack, 119 min, PG-13) became the Sunday afternoon lighthearted romp (derived from Broadway). Dustin Hoffman is struggling actor Michael Dorsey, who must do anything to get a part in a soap opera, like become a woman. (Kind of the opposite of Sami who becomes “Stan” on NBC’s “Days of our Lives.”) Then one of the actors falls for him. You get it. But the film has the usual indignities. There is the famous advertising shot of Tootsie shaving his legs in a bathtub. They then bear an embarrassing resemblance to Mae West’s. Remember, that is what a Christopher Street article said about Ronald Reagan's ("however ladylike") gams in John Loves Mary (1949) when he takes his pants off. Such a scene proves the existence of heterosexuality; homosexuals would not have stood for so much embarassment of a male president.
The film might make a fair comparison to What Women Want (2000, Paramount, dir. Nancy Meyers) where an advertising executive (Mel Gibson) gets paranormal abilities to overhear what women want and winds up testing depilatory strips on his to-be-shiny shins. But he was going bald on the legs anyway.
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