Katharine Hepburn

For (many) men, a woman cross-dressing is tantamount to a woman publicly declaring that she no longer needs to concern herself with being attractive to men. And that petrified men even more than a woman gaining the right to vote. To dress like a man was to disregard codes of femininity; to disregard those codes was to say screw-you to patriarchy. Hepburn did this on- and off-screen.

As this moment of Hollywood revivalism begins to fade and the Academy Awards Ceremony becomes another bad memory, it's nice to read a really good piece on a really amazing Hollywood person. Hepburn was that person. She was unique in the movies, for many reasons, and this article by Anne Helen Petersen does an excellent job of explaining why. Read this, then watch Philadelphia Story. It's as good as it gets.