They say to understand someone else you should try to walk a mile in their shoes. With Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie (1982) Dustin Hoffman got to get a glimpse of what women in the acting industry go through by playing an actor who pretends to be a woman in order to get a role and of course a good paycheck. Given what we know today about the gender pay gap between men and women in Hollywood, this makes the whole premise of Toostsie even funnier in an ironic way. The concept of men pretending to be women has of course been a premise for many comedies, some crude ( White Chicks ) and some classics ( Some Like it Hot ). One of the first movies I saw in that sub-genre was Mrs. Doubtfire , which some people felt was ridding on the coattails of Tootsie . When I got to watch Tootsie a few years ago when it was playing on TV I sort of understood that point given the similarities in plot. However Pollack’s film has a lot more interesting things to say, some about working actors, and many abou...