The sexual-roles dynamic in Laurel and Hardy films is hard to pin down. Hardy is generally dominant, Laurel submissive. But periodically the thin man of the couple takes the upper hand with his portly pal. Although they are sometimes married, their wives are invariably dominant, they submissive. More often they play gay (in the former sense of “happy, carefree”) bachelors. However, both get tongue-tied and flustered around women, Hardy becoming quite effeminate in manner as he fiddles with his tie and his baritone rises in register. Sometimes they sleep in the same bed. “Woman” derives from the Old English wifman (wif [female] + man [human being, but for the purposes of this parody. . .]).