Pathway: The Idea of Gender as a Performance by James Kruglinski

Both Virginia Woolf and Sally Potter are interested in exploring the duality of gender through the story of Orlando. Is a person's sex something that is fixed? Are men and women really that different? Perhaps gender is not something that has already been predetermined. Rather, Woolf and Potter propose that it's an ideology “that has been reinforced by tradition, inheritance and convention”. Both the novel and the film use Orlando’s sex change as an opportunity to explore and discover the answer to this issue.

Video file, Digital, Selected Scene Commentary by Sally Potter

A4 pages, Paper, Typed notes on Virginia Woolf's ideas about the future for women

Medium shot of three servants continuing to voice details of lawsuits against Orlando

First Official: One, you are legally dead and therefore cannot hold any property whatsoever.
Orlando: Ah. Fine.
First Official: Two, you are now a female.
Second Official: Which amounts to much the same thing.

This scene is a subtle yet strong criticism towards gender inequalities. A woman in that time had as many rights as a corpse.

Orlando addressing Swift, Pope and Mr Addison about their opinions of women.

In this scene, Orlando begins to see the differences between the roles of women and men in society. She realizes despite being the same person, she is perceived and treated differently based on her gender. She also begins to see the gender inequalities in society.

Video file, Digital, Venice Film Festival Press Conference

1 x A4 black photograph album; 34 vellum pages; 24 x colour prints, Mixed, Presentation book containing Sally Potter's notes on the film and colour photographs of Tilda Swinton at Hatfield House

8x10" black and white photograph of Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth I

1 x A4 black photograph album; 34 vellum pages; 24 x colour prints, Mixed, Presentation book containing Sally Potter's notes on the film and colour photographs of Tilda Swinton at Hatfield House

Video file, Digital, Screen Test - Quentin Crisp reading Elizabeth I

1 x colour slide in transparent plastic hanging sheet, Digital, Film Stills - Scene 14 - (Tilda Swinton) and Sasha (Charlotte Valandrey) in the film

Despite her performance and costume, Tilda Swinton is still a woman. Although Orlando is regarded as a man, the casting of Tilda Swinton could lead to Orlando and Sasha's affair being interpreted as a same-sex relationship. The costumes in these scenes are key to preventing such implications.

5"x8" colour prints, Photographic paper, Photograph of black-and-silver costume for 1600: Love

close up of Orlando's face, she looks and speaks to camera.

In a more direct way than the novel, Sally Potter puts forth her idea that gender is something that isn't fixed but rather an ideology imposed by society. Orlando still has memories of her past life as a man. For the character, nothing more than her sex has changed. She is still the same person.

1 x colour slide in transparent plastic hanging sheet, Digital, Film Stills - Scene 7 - Queen Elizabeth I (Quentin Crisp) and (Tilda Swinton) in the film

The medium of film gives Potter the opportunity to use inspired, creative casting to illustrate the idea of gender as a performance. By casting Tilda Swinton, a woman, as Orlando and Quentin Crisp, a man as Queen Elizabeth, Potter can use this interplay between the two actors to explore the idea of a “gendered identity” through the use of costume, performance, and sexual ambiguity to the point that it becomes “almost meaningless”. In the end, only our preconceived notions of gender and knowledge that Tilda Swinton is a woman and Quentin Crisp is a man prevent us from completely losing any distinction between the two sexes. As a visual medium, this provides a clear advantage to Potter to explore these themes in ways that Woolf could not.