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A History of Drag in 14 1/2 Paragraphs
by Jonno
(Originally appeared in Unzipped, September 2001)
Last weekend my boyfriend and I were walking past the local homo watering hole and there, wiggling her faux ta-tas on top of the bar, was our friend Fifi Toulouse: blonde wig flying, white pumps kicking, neon puce two-piece swimsuit stretching. "Hey hot stuff! Drop the chick and suck my d**k!" she was screaming at the top of her lungs to some straight couple from Michigan or Wisconsin or someplace known for its dairy products. They just giggled, snapped a few pictures, and went back to sipping their Hurricanes.
Remember when drag used to be, well, shocking? When¹s the last time drag really raised an eyebrow? Compared to the average freak you'll see on the Jerry Springer show these days, Dennis Rodman in heels and a fright wig is positively tame in comparison. So how exactly did this happen? Contrary to what current popular culture may lead you to believe, crossdressing isn't something that started with the MTV generation -- it's been a part of the Western cultural landscape for thousands of years.
One of the earliest recorded historical examples of crossdresing is found in ancient Egypt with the pharoah Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt in the 15th century BC, almost 200 years before the reign of Tutankhamun. Hatshepsut's reign is recorded as a peaceful and prosperus one, characterized by massive public building projects, during which Egypt expanded its borders and grew wealthy on tribute and trade expeditions to foreign lands. Yet, after Hatshepsut's death, many of the statues depicting the ruler were destroyed by the next king to ascend the throne and Hatshepsut's name was erased from hundreds of inscriptions that had been intended to commemorate her name for eternity.
Yes, "her". Hatshepsut was a woman, and ascended the throne as a more or less temporary regent following the unexpected death of her father. However, Egyptian tradition made no provisions for female rulers: women could be queens, but not pharoahs. Hatshepsut's solution to this problem was an ingenious one. She proclaimed herself pharoah nonetheless and ordered herself to be depicted in royal statuary wearing the traditional kilt and beard worn by male rulers. Whether the attempted eradication of Hatshepsut's name from Egyptian history following her death was a direct result of her subverting traditional Egyptian gender distinctions is uncertain; it is known, however, that she had several male lovers over the course of her reign, and so her transvestism had more to do with issues of power and royal perogative than gender confusion or sexual identity as we might be tempted to characterize it today.
Drag culture as we know it today, however, has its roots in the theatre and performing arts: for centuries, crossdressing was considered a part of theatrical tradition, rather than a practice which reflected upon the sexual identity of the individual who engaged in it. In the theaters of ancient Greece and Rome, men and boys routinely donned the garments of the opposite sex to play female roles. This particular crossdressing tradition continued in Elizabethan England, where it was illegal for women to appear on stage. Several of Shakespeare's plays draw on themes of crossdressing and gender confusion to comedic and sometimes romantic effect. For Elizabethan audiences, there was nothing inherently "wrong" or bizarre about seeing a male actor wearing women's clothes on stage -- particularly since Queen Elizabeth herself was known to wear men's military costumes when addressing English troops on the battlefield.
Things began to change in the 18th century with the advent of the infamous "molly houses" in London. These private social clubs for men functioned as types of brothels, where gentlemen could disport themselves with young men dressed in the clothing of either sex. Tabloids of the day gave lurid description of "fair-skinn'd boys in petticoats being dandied upon a gentleman's knee." While the molly houses were private establishments, they were sufficiently notorious in the London demimonde where they florished so that cross dressing became specifically identified in the public's mind with a willingness to perform "passive" sexual practices. Nonetheless, 18th and early 19th century history is dotted with instances of notable crossdressers: for example, the flamboyant Lord Cornbury, colonial Governor of New York and New Jersey, who was notorious for dressing in women's clothes in deference Queen Anne, whom he desired, he said, "to represent as faithfully as I can."
Still, the identification of drag with theatrical culture persisted so strongly that Ernest Boulton (aka "Stella, Star of the Strand" wink was acquitted in a London court on charges of indecency in 1870 because his penchant for appearing in public wearing women's clothes could be explained by the fact that he was frequently engaged as an actor -- despite the fact that Boulton was equally known for being a transvestite courtesean whose lovers included several prominent businessmen and politicians of the day. Over twenty years before the trials of Oscar Wilde (himself photographed in drag in the role of one of his dramatic (anti)heroines, Salome), the Boulton/Stella scandal titillated London audiences and for the first time gave the public a tentative connection between crossdressing and "the love that dare not speak its name".
It was during this period that the term "transvestism" was coined by the German sociologist Magnus Hirschfeld to describe the phenomenon of people wearing clothes of the opposite sex. Around the turn of the last century, drag became a staple of music halls and vaudeville entertainment in England and the United States; even as late as World War II, the US Armed Forces found drag inoffensive enough to sanction the creation of a crossdressing show for the boys overseas, with the show¹s actors taken from the ranks of enlisted men. Harvard's famous Hasty Pudding society featured a drag revue as part of its annual entertainment show for many years - a tradition which continues to this day. In the meantime, crossdressing balls flourished in the dance halls of Harlem and the ballrooms of New Orleans: attended by drag queens, their admirers, and the plain-out curious out for a "wild" night on the town, the balls were lavish spectacles in which the private practice and public manifestation of drag culture commingled to an unprecedented extent. Drag was considered something vaguely naughty, often comedic, but it was still nothing regarded with the intense fear and hostility with which it would be regarded later on.
Sometime around the middle of the 20th century, though -- right around the time when Uncle Miltie was mincing his way through America's living rooms on television (in makeup and outfits that any real self-respecting drag queen wouldn't have been caught dead in), Mary Martin was camping it up in mishipman's attire on the Broadway stage in "South Pacific", and Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis vamped their way cross country to avoid the mob in "Some Like It Hot" -- paradigms began to shift, and the "average Joe" began to specifically associate men in dresses with a homosexual subculture, a development which not so coincidentally coincided with the emergence of a vocal and visible homosexual community.
For years, homosexuality was a whispered menace, a faceless threat. But once Stonewall forced the image of drag queens with bricks and bats (or at least some well-aimed high heels) fighting for the emerging gay rights movement, the associations between drag and queerness began to gel in the minds of the American public. In a way, it was inevitable; drag is a convenient way for the uninitiated (and unenlightened) to ³understand² homosexuality: ³Why, that man wants to go to bed with nother man, so deep down, he must really wanna be a woman!² (Or so the reasoning goes.)
After Stonewall, drag became more open not only in gay neighborhoods like New York's Greenwich Village and San Francisco's Castro district (as prohibitive sumptuary laws that used to result in bar raids and paddywagon trips for crossdressers began to be ignored by police and discarded) but in popular culture as well. Crossdressing in popular culture signified a type of vaguely threatening outrageousness: witness the heady glam rock years of David Bowie and the New York Dolls, or the derision with which Boy George was greeted by the musical press upon his debut in the early 80s. For years, drag (and its sister, camp) had been part of the secret language of queers, something which helped foster the gay community's emerging sense of its own tradition and culture. Now, it was something which was openly and manifestly tied to a formerly hidden and threatening subculture, something to be regarded with suspicion.
As gays began to acquire a degree of political influence and started to assimilate into the culture at large, however, so did drag begin to lose its status as a force directed against the status quo and started to become something less charged, almost consumer-friendly. Drag was outré enough in the late 70s and 80s where Divine was only a staple of the midnight movie circuit, but had gone mainstream enough just a few short years later where RuPaul could be hosting family-friendly Chistmas specials on network television. The commerical success of movies like "The Birdcage" and "Pricilla, Queen of the Desert" were also indications of drag's entrance into mianstream consciousness. In doing so, it became less the mark of a subculture than something which could be innocuosly packaged to titillate the mases: it's difficult for something to remain subversive once it hits prime time.
Ultimately, drag got lost in the zeitgeist shuffle of the Clinton years: blame the White House¹s numerous scandals, the advent of "reality" television, and the ubiquity of sex and violence in the media for fostering a sense of jaded cynicism for at least the American public. When your average viewer can tune in and watch, say, Klansman Bubba profess his love for his black male lover on any number of daytime talk shows without batting an eye, then the simple fact of a man in a dress becomes something considerably less transgressive. And as gays and lesbians became more assimilated into American society, drag's function as providing a sort of entreé to queer culture became unnecessary. For many, drag has become just another lifestyle choice -- a man living or dressing as a woman is about as shocking as Madonna living as a blonde.
So what's the current status of drag culture? After its brief renaissance in the media and centrality to the 90s nightlife scene (in clubs like New York City's Squeeze Box and San Francisco's Trannyshack), drag seems to have retreated into the shadows once again -- or at least become so normalized that we take it for granted. Which, considering how long it's been a part of our culture, may not be such a bad thing after all.
SIDEBAR: Cruising the Drag King Scene
Drag seems finally to have come out of the closet and admitted it has little or nothing to do with any desire to be a woman. No, drag is simply about wanting to be glamorous.
That said, is it really surprising that there¹s come to be a sizable population of drag kings living on our fair shores? I¹m not just talking about the Brandon Teenas of the world--women who live as men. I¹m talking about glitzy, rockabilly drag kings, as hot as any dude gussied up for a Saturday night on the town.
It took a while for the trend to catch on. After all, it¹s all the women¹s girlie stuff that¹s glamorous, right? Cigarette holders. Pumps. Sequins. But gradually, the greaser/pimp daddy look has become the drag king¹s equivalent of the drag queen¹s showgirl.
Even more interesting, the drag king scene is populated by lots and lots of hetero women. ³I¹d say about 50% of the women who come to our shows identify as straight,² says Georgie XXX, a New Orleans-based club promoter. ³But when I go out with my gay friends to watch the drag queens, I almost never see straight men in the audience. I think it¹s because drag queens are so embedded in the queer community, but drag kings, we¹re still figuring them out. Where do they fit? Right now, they¹re kind of a feminist symbol of empowerment, so any girl--straight, gay, or bi--can have a great time watching them.²
What¹s interesting, too, is that drag kings carry an erotic charge for lesbians that drag queens usually don¹t for gay audiences. ³There¹s a sense of naughtiness and play,² Georgie continues. ³You don¹t see that in that Mariah/Whitney/Celine drag. Our girls know how to have fun!² ³Plus,² she adds with a sly smile, ³they¹re damn sexy.²
© 2002 by the author € all rights reserved
 tenshi_darien · Fri Jun 17, 2005 @ 06:40am · 2 Comments |
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