History Main / HarmlessLadyDisguise

* In Creator/DorothyLSayers' LordPeterWimsey story, "The Article in Question,” a lady's maid turns out to be a disguised male criminal. The noble lady employing the 'maid' is less than horrified to discover she's been dressed and undressed for the better part of a month by a young man. In fact she seems rather pleased.

->'''Inara:''' So… explain to me again why ''Zoe'' wasn't in the dress?\\
'''Mal:''' Tactics, woman. Needed her in the back. Besides, them soft cotton dresses feel kinda nice. There's a whole… airflow. \\
'''Inara:''' And you'd know that because…?\\

[[folder:Film]]

* At the end of ''Disney/{{Mulan}}'', the villain has the place guarded to stop any soldiers coming in to save the day, but a few of Mulan's male colleagues talk their way in, disguised as concubines. [[IncrediblyConspicuousDrag Ugly concubines]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/OpenSeason 2'', Elliot (who is a deer) dresses up as an old lady to get pass security to the pet camp where he thinks Weenie is being held prisoner. Somehow the man watching for trespassers completely falls for it, even mistaking another old lady (who was wearing the same attire as Elliot's disguise) for the culprit.

** Joseph gets the "tequila" outfit as an alternate costume in ''VideoGame/JoJosBizarreAdventureEyesOfHeaven'', with most of the cast having special dialog where they tell him what a poor disguise it is or say that he's {{Squick}}ing them out. Amusingly, when Josuke[[note]The ''Diamond is Unbreakable'' version, not the ''[=JoJolion=]'' character named for him[[/note]] points out that his figure (see above) is a dead giveaway, Joseph's reaction is "[[GratuitousEnglish OH NO!]] [[TheDitz I didn't even consider that!]]"

Subtrope of DisguisedInDrag. May overlap with WigDressAccent.

* One of the villains on ''DynomuttDogWonder'' assumed the disguise of an old woman so Dynomutt would help him escape in a taxicab. Blue Falcon wasn't so easily fooled.
* In ''OpenSeason 2'', Elliot (who is a deer) dresses up as an old lady to get pass security to the pet camp where he thinks Weenie is being held prisoner. Somehow the man watching for trespassers completely falls for it, even mistaking another old lady (who was wearing the same attire as Elliot's disguise) for the culprit.

* Early ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' disguised [[http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1843574.html himself]] as a granny and Bucky as a small child and then [[http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/575263.html going to Nazi-occupied France]].

* Early ''CaptainAmerica'' disguised [[http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1843574.html himself]] as a granny and Bucky as a small child and then [[http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/575263.html going to Nazi-occupied France]].

* Captain Qwark disguises himself as a woman more than once in ''RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal''. One of the occasions was in a vidcomic sidescrolling minigame.

* TheStainlessSteelRat once took several dozen army deserters through a military checkpoint dressed as women. On bicycles.

* ''[[XWingSeries Starfighters of Adumar]]'' has the infamous "Escape Done In Drag". Wedge ordered his three pilots to get him four sets of women's clothing, in which they snuck into a base while a diversion went on. On Adumar, women can take all the combat positions men take, but Wedge and his pilots were male and being hunted by pretty much the entire city, so a group of four women would be less suspect. Hobbie cemented the disguise by doing a [[ScreamingWoman convincing]] [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl scream]].

* The existence of this trope in the popular imagination winds up getting the protagonist of ''BreakfastOnPluto'' (a possibly transgender WholesomeCrossdresser) in a lot of trouble. Kitten is not a violent person at all, but when a nightclub she visits is bombed, the authorities suspect that the biologically-male Irish person in women's clothing is an IRA operative, and she's arrested and treated very badly.

* ''[[XWingSeries Starfighters of Adumar]]'' has the infamous "Escape Done In Drag". Wedge ordered his three pilots to get him four sets of women's clothing, in which they snuck into a base while a diversion went on. On Adumar, women can take all the combat positions men take, but Wedge and his pilots were male and being hunted by pretty much the entire city, so a group of four women would be less suspect.

* ClassicalMythology: Achilles' mother did this to him in an attempt to keep him from the war. Naturally, the plan fell apart when Odysseus presented all the girls he was hiding among with gifts and Achilles was the only one to immediately go for the sword.

* In the "Moonlight Sonata" arc in ''DetectiveConan'', after a young boy named [[spoiler:Seiji Asou]] escaped the strange death of the rest of his family because [[IllBoy he was hospitalized in Tokyo]], [[spoiler: he was adopted by an old friend of his dead family (which let him stay unnoticed), and grew up into [[HospitalHottie a handsome]] [[DudeLooksLikeALady (and girly-looking)]] [[HospitalHottie doctor]]. He then returned to his island under the false name Narumi Asai ([[AlternateCharacterReading not totally false, actually]])--as a female doctor--to investigate their murders and have his {{Revenge}}. [[MagnificentBastard He got away with almost all of it]], confronting and then killing all the culprits while leaving strange music-related messages... but when he was caught by Conan, Seiji set his family's old house on fire and [[DrivenToSuicide stayed inside as it burned down]], [[FaceDeathWithDignity calmly playing the Moonlight Sonata in his father's old piano]] despite Conan's desperate pleas for him to live.]] Note: he, like most villains in the series, was portrayed [[SympatheticMurderer with so much sympathy]] that viewers would, at worst, consider him an AntiVillain. Strangely, in Italy, due to homosexual connotations, the trope wasn't spelled out (but still implied) to get it past the {{Media Watchdog}}s.

-->-- ''{{Firefly}}''

* In the ''Moonlight Sonata'' arc in ''DetectiveConan'', after a young boy named [[spoiler:Seiji Asou]] escaped the strange death of the rest of his family because [[IllBoy he was hospitalized in Tokyo]], [[spoiler: he was adopted by an old friend of his dead family (which let him stay unnoticed), and grew up into [[HospitalHottie a handsome]] [[DudeLooksLikeALady (and girly-looking)]] [[HospitalHottie doctor]]. He then returned to his island under the false name Narumi Asai ([[AlternateCharacterReading not totally false, actually]])--as a female doctor--to investigate their murders and have his {{Revenge}}. [[MagnificentBastard He got away with almost all of it]], confronting and then killing all the culprits while leaving strange music-related messages... but when he was caught by Conan, Seiji set his family's old house on fire and [[DrivenToSuicide stayed inside as it burned down]], [[FaceDeathWithDignity calmly playing the Moonlight Sonata in his father's old piano]] despite Conan's desperate pleas for him to live.]] Note: he, like most villains in the series, was portrayed [[SympatheticMurderer with so much sympathy]] that viewers would, at worst, consider him an AntiVillain. Strangely, in Italy, due to homosexual connotations, the trope wasn't spelled out (but still implied) to get it past the {{Media Watchdog}}s.

* A mob boss "disguised" himself as a woman for years to avoid being killed by the Punisher. His nephew later joined him out of fear of the same fate.

* [[HogansHeroes Newkirk]] occasionally utilizes a 'little old German lady' disguise to fool the Germans.

* In an episode of GroundedForLife, Sean is unable to change a flat tire, so he wears a shawl and pretends to be an old woman while Claudia shows some leg to flag down another motorist to help.

[[folder:Mythology]]
* ClassicalMythology: Achilles' mother did this to him in an attempt to keep him from the war. Naturally, the plan fell apart when Odysseus presented all the girls he was hiding among with gifts and Achilles was the only one to immediately go for the sword.
[[/folder]]

* In DorothyLSayers LordPeterWimsey story, "The Article in Question,” a lady's maid turns out to be a disguised male criminal. The noble lady employing the 'maid' is less than horrified to discover she's been dressed and undressed for the better part of a month by a young man. In fact she seems rather pleased.

* In ''A Study in Scarlet'' SherlockHolmes is fooled (for a while) by a man disguised as an old woman; he himself pulls off this disguise in order to trail a villain in ''The Mazarin Stone''.

* At the end of ''Disney/{{Mulan}}'', the villain has the place guarded to stop any soldiers coming in to save the day, but a few of Mulan's male colleagues talk their way in, disguised as concubines.
** Ugly concubines.

* Joseph Joestar of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' disguises himself as a lady in order to get inside a Nazi compound. [[SubvertedTrope It doesn't work.]]