(Untitled)

[c_smudge]

I need help parsing something out: so gender theorists, please add your two cents.

When is "drag" (specifically, male people performing female drag) a parody of gender (ie, a Good thing) and when is it a parody of women (a Bad thing)?

Comments

[legolastn]

I don't know where the line is, but I know participation in the LGBT community is not what makes it OK (well, depending on what your definition of OK is, I suppose - I do think it is seen as less misogynistic than when straight men do drag). There are plenty of drag queens who are misogynistic

[c_smudge]

thanks for the thoughts and the book, I'm reading it now--I think what you meant in paragraph 3 is

a man who is a female impersonator is unable to not be misogynistic

which my gut tells me is true. if you indeed meant female impersonators are unable to be misogynistic, you might be saying that to impersonate something you must necessarily love it; i don't think i agree

[legolastn]

That was awkwardly phrased. What I was trying to say is that on the one hand genderqueer is no guarantee against misogynistic performance, while on the other hand I'm not convinced that "a man who is a female impersonator" would automatically give a misogynistic performance. I could be convinced the latter was, in fact, the case. But, for example, thinking perhaps less of drag queens and more of female impersonators who impersonate specific celebrities, I do think there are performers who at least intend their performance as respectful homage. Which doesn't seem to leave much room for (again, at least intentional) misogyny.

[c_smudge]

ah, sweet clarity. i think many if not most female impersonators do intend performances as a respectful homage, and i agree there is probably little room for intentional misogyny there. <3

[vaelynphi]

I'm hardly postmodern, but let me deconstruct some--I'm sure Baudrillard will let me borrow his pumps

[c_smudge]

good questions

[vaelynphi]

Perhaps; I sometimes wonder, though, how much of the offense one can take might be warranted. Overall, though, perhaps that comes with being American... heh.

As for the performers themselves, keep in mind that the internal drama they bring might have nothing to do with the performance itself, though it certainly can be used in their acting technique.

Drag, though, should worry you. Nature gave us two sexes with fairly distinct characteristics, then eroded them for hundreds of thousands of years. Entering the period where we recognize the differences (and thus similarity) of the sexes gives us a whole new set of questions to answer that, until now, biology and social pressure handled. Now we've got to figure these things out for ourselves, and most people can't handle that.

[raccoon428]

I feel like the works of E. Patrick Johnson may interest you. I saw him in Chicago, and I think he recently came to MSU to talk about his new book regarding language use in gay black men... but he's a performance major and has a book, "Appropriate Blackness: performance and the politics of authenticity

[c_smudge]

familiar with the work of e patrick johnson but he doesn't talk much about drag or blackface that i've been able to locate.

one thing that keeps popping up for me is impact vs intent. you say for you drag is about "performance" not about "women", but you are taking the trappings of femininity and using them as tools, so it is on some level always going to have a female aspect. this is in theory a major problem with drag: men temporarily take on representations outside of masculinity (mostly those of femininity) for entertainment and sometimes benefit in some way, then at the end of the day they take it off and go back to being male. women are oppressed by these same trappings of femininty and cannot take them off at the end of the day