Cloud Nine Gender Roles

It is easy to say that when cloud nine originally opened in 1979, most people had a fairly black and white view on gender, you were either a male or a female and that was it. From the very start of the play Churchill speculates that gender may not be about biology but that it may actually be a performance that we give all day every day because that is what we are taught from a very young age. The fact that there are characters cross dressing from the very first few moments of the play suggest that Churchill is going to spend most of the play bending the concept of gender. Churchill tries to show the audience that society has created the expectation of gender being completely one or the other, set at a stiff standard where nothing in between

Clive’s wife betty is played by a man, the African helper Joshua is played by a white actor, the young son Edward is played by a fully grown female actor while Victoria, a two-year-old child is played by a doll. It is understood that Clive represent the major theme in act one which is oppression. Betty is unable to act the way she wants to because of her feelings of obligation to Clive. Edward tries to supress his homosexuality and femininity because he fears the reaction Clive will give to it. It is easily recognised that the writer uses the sexuality of the characters to show the parallel she has found between sexual oppression and colonialism. To show this the play is set in two completely different times. The first act is set in Africa around the 1870’s during the British colonisation, therefore taking place during the Victorian era. The second act takes place in the far more liberal time of 1979 in the then modern day

It can be seen as humorous that a man is playing Betty, the wife of a very obviously homophobic Clive. It could also be seen as humorous by some that Clive tries to force his son Edward to be less feminine and to act more like a man, despite the fact that he is played by a woman. There is also the fact that since betty is played by a man, she could be far tall, larger or muscular than Clive which could be seen as comedic as he attempts to make himself more powerful than his wife both physically and mentally. The characters portrayed seem not confident of their sexualities. They are all controlled by Clive in this patriarchal society and it shows how oppression differed with the different gender. In act two every character seems liberated given the fact that they are no longer under the ruling of Clive. The fact that the characters are not cross dressing in act two show how they are gaining self-appreciation and learning about who they really