It's through

It's through the androgynous Master of Ceremonies character that Cabaret is at its most unapologetically subversive. Rake-thin, smothered in chalky makeup and adorned in raucous drag, the unnamed character is a pantomime of glorious depravity. He is an absorbing sex magnet, a contorting temptation who struts across the stage like a cross between a flamingo and a marching soldier. Fosse throws the audience into the seediness of the club with gleeful abandon, his camera taking delight in following the Master of Ceremonies as he struts his stuff. The MC is a paradoxical creature: an "other" who would never belong in Nazi Germany, yet who embraces the fascist aesthetic, goosestepping as part of one routine and donning a military helmet and fake gun along with the rest of the performers.