of performers, fashion, law, and tickyboxes
From an Eddie Izzard interview with Radio Boston on his new tour "Force Majeure"
On being identified as a transvestite, or wearing drag:
Eddie Izzard: “I don’t call it drag. I call it clothes. I wear dresses occasionally, I wear heels, I wear makeup. It’s like, women don’t wear drag when they put pants on, yeah? Drag really means costume. I’ve seen it used as an equivalent of costume. When gay men tend to do drag, that is more costume-like. Whereas what I’m trying to land is… I’m running for mayor and I will be wearing makeup and whatever I want to wear or not, just as women do. They have total rights like that, as women do in the United Nations charter, which isn’t actually in there but I say that it is. And so I will be wearing whatever and it’s not drag, it’s just clothes. I’m just wearing dresses, things, heels, makeup, whatever.”
The more of my life I have spent associating with theatre folks, burlesque performers, burners, queers, and fashion-blind engineers, the more I come to embrace very Izzard-like sensibilities about clothing and gender, off-stage as much as on. I am very happy to be living in a time and place where non-discrimination laws are being explicitly expanded and clarified to include gender non-conforming folks, above and beyond transsexuals trying to 'pass' within the existing tickybox system. And on that note, I've been meaning for years to work on a portrait series of my less gender-conforming friends, because everyone deserves to be shiny and have that shiny captured as a reminder in less comfortable times. I think my skill level is starting to approach what I need for it. We'll see.
On being identified as a transvestite, or wearing drag:
Eddie Izzard: “I don’t call it drag. I call it clothes. I wear dresses occasionally, I wear heels, I wear makeup. It’s like, women don’t wear drag when they put pants on, yeah? Drag really means costume. I’ve seen it used as an equivalent of costume. When gay men tend to do drag, that is more costume-like. Whereas what I’m trying to land is… I’m running for mayor and I will be wearing makeup and whatever I want to wear or not, just as women do. They have total rights like that, as women do in the United Nations charter, which isn’t actually in there but I say that it is. And so I will be wearing whatever and it’s not drag, it’s just clothes. I’m just wearing dresses, things, heels, makeup, whatever.”
The more of my life I have spent associating with theatre folks, burlesque performers, burners, queers, and fashion-blind engineers, the more I come to embrace very Izzard-like sensibilities about clothing and gender, off-stage as much as on. I am very happy to be living in a time and place where non-discrimination laws are being explicitly expanded and clarified to include gender non-conforming folks, above and beyond transsexuals trying to 'pass' within the existing tickybox system. And on that note, I've been meaning for years to work on a portrait series of my less gender-conforming friends, because everyone deserves to be shiny and have that shiny captured as a reminder in less comfortable times. I think my skill level is starting to approach what I need for it. We'll see.