Gender Stereotypes In Elizabethan Plays

With great honor comes great responsibility. Sure, men had the honor of putting on shows with their other male cast members, but there was much to be done before a show was ready. Aside from having to wear ladies garments, men had to memorize hundreds of lines day in and day out for an upcoming show. And not only that, they were given so little time to memorize a show, sometimes they are only given a week to prepare. “Rehearsal time was minimal. Actors learned their parts in about a week; a leading man might have to memorize eight hundred lines a day.” (Epstein, p.48) An actor was responsible for preparing all of his lines and his blocking mostly on his own time. So who really had the shorter end of the stick? However, men were given a little
And it just so happened that they created the stereotypical setup of how they thought women acted by displaying their biased, opinioned portrayals in a production. “Feminist critics have considered the implications of this complex sexual impersonation, arguing that representation of females by males reinforced stereotypes of women found in many Elizabethan plays,” (Wilson and Goldfarb, p. 183) For starters, women were portrayed in plays as weak, vulnerable, and even as whores in many production. In some productions women were called dim-witted and played off as prostitutes. It did not help much either that the reason they were kept off the stage in the first place was because society viewed women on the same ranks as whores already. “Most historians believe that the absence of female performers was a continuation of a medieval English tradition and also a result of the religious attitude toward actresses: it was contended that actresses were little better than whores.” (Wilson and Goldfarb, p. 183) Women were not worthy enough to act, thus allowing men to further generate societal gender stereotypes against women on the
The overarching research question, what is the intersection of women in Elizabethan acting practices, specifically the role of censorship via the Master of Revels, between representation and casting female roles in Elizabethan theatre was covered through the explanation of who The Master of Revels were and how women were portrayed. Elizabethan acting practices, specifically the role of censorship through the Master of Revels, between representation and casting female roles set up Elizabethan theatre and how it was made as well as viewed during the Elizabethan Era. This is all very important in understanding Elizabethan Theatre because it showed just how women were being viewed and portrayed. It is important to look into how society looked at women to understand the societal stereotyping that emerged from this form of