What is drag?
Drag can be a complex thing to define. Although when most people think of drag, they think of "chicks with dicks," "men in dresses," "female impersonators," and other descriptions, those don't really get to the root of what drag is, what it does for those who do it, or how drag is a community.
Drag is and can be:
- Exaggerated femininity, gender bending, gender affirming*
- Performance, identity, art, career, community, and costume
- Performance, competition, activism
"Doing drag" is expressing one's inner feminine personality that takes the form of exaggerated femininity. It is a performative activity that seeks to disrupt the gender binary and society's construction of (heteronormative) gender and sexuality categories that are pushed onto external markers, behaviors, bodies, desires, practices (Taylor and Rupp, 2004). Gender is everywhere, and drag is a way to dismantle the perception people have of bodies, objects, and spaces. Moncrief and Lienard (2017) describe the behavior of drag queens to be conspicuous, confrontational, territorial, playfully rude and obnoxious. Although these are general characteristics of most drag queens, those who are just coming into their alter-personas are likely much less "in your face" type queens. “Doing drag” is no different than “doing gender” (a term coined by West and Zimmerman), as both are merely performances, only one is a gender switch and requires an alter ego.
Scholarship on the topic of drag queens defines the use of feminine characteristics to be "hyperbolic" and "hyper-feminine," employing society's vision of womanhood but with an over-the-top spin (Moncrief and Linard, 2017; Taylor and Rupp, 2004).
Who does drag?
According to Taylor and Rupp (2004), there are several categories of gender costuming, which include transvestites (outdated term) and cross-dressers, straight men erotically wearing drag, male-to-female (MTF) transgender and transsexual folks, and drag queens or kings, who are further distinguished by type. For the purposes of this project, drag will be limited in definition to kings and queens, with a focus on queens. Drag queens are typically gay men who emulate femininity.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines drag as "Originally: a male entertainer who performs dressed as a woman; a female impersonator. Now usually: a performer (most typically a man) who adopts a flamboyant, exaggerated, or parodic feminine persona, with glamorous or outrageous costumes and make-up."
when did drag begin?
The first question to acknowledge when seeking an answer to this information is "what classifies as drag?" or “what has drag looked like over time?”. Although this topic is elaborated upon in another post, to give a brief answer to this is that drag has been around since ancient Greece and Rome (Case, 1985), changing through time and with attention to contexts such as theater, performance, and activism.
why "do" or perform drag?
Drag has several purposes, each personal to the one donning the "costumes" or “masquerade” as Taylor and Rupp (2004) call it. For many drag queens, drag allows them to declare their gender and sexuality, find a community, fit into a community, or make room for experimentation with expression. Horowitz (2013) explains that for some drag queens, the performance of femininity helps them realize a trans identity. Drag can also be a statement of activism through performing gender transgressions, which Taylor and Rupp, (2004) describe as emphasizing the “artificiality of gender” by being “gender revolutionaries”.
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