NYU decided to get actors to play the roles of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and recreated different sections from all three. But it's not what you'd think. They found a woman, Rachel Whorton, to play a female version of Trump and a man, Daryl Embry, to play a male version of Clinton.
The educational theatre faculty members then set out to learn the words from each candidate and later learned the mannerisms and gestures.
The results aren't what anyone expected, including Maria Guadalupe who came up with the idea and Joe Salvatore who helped her to create this. They brought in mostly students to watch the live reenactment of the debates and passed around a microphone for people to comment and question at the end and also handed out a survey before and after. This way they could see what people expected to see and what they actually got from it. The assumption was that what Trump said and did in the debates "would never be tolerated in a woman", and that "Clinton’s competence and preparedness would seem even more convincing coming from a man." Needless to say, their expectations and liberal biases were completely shattered instead of confirmed. A lot of students thought "Secretary Gordon", the male version of Hillary, was too arrogant and they couldn't understand what he was always smiling about.
They learned why Trump won the election, by watching him from a different point of view. Instead of seeing sexism, which they assumed would be obvious, they saw someone who was clear, concise and straight forward.
I believe this study was eye opening for many and people should definitely check out the original article and share it and/or this if they find this interesting.
Original article: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2017/march/trump-clinton-debates-gender-reversal.html