FIU Law Review Volume 10 Number 1 Article 11 Fall 2014 Don’t Be a Drag, Just Be a Queen—How Drag Queens Protect their Intellectual Property without Law Eden Sarid University of Toronto Follow this and additional works at: https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/lawreview Part of the Other Law Commons Online ISSN: 2643-7759 Recommended Citation Eden Sarid, Don’t Be a Drag, Just Be a Queen—How Drag Queens Protect their Intellectual Property without Law, 10 FIU L. Rev. 133 (2014). DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.25148/lawrev.10.1.11 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by eCollections. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Law Review by an authorized editor of eCollections. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Don’t Be a Drag, Just Be a Queen—How Drag Queens Protect their Intellectual Property without Law Eden Sarid* INTRODUCTION As the lights dim, Dame Shirley Bassey’s Get the Party Started starts playing. From behind the curtains, the Dame’s (almost perfect, though a bit extravagant) lookalike appears and indeed gets the party started. By the end of the evening the performer, a drag queen, changed at least five wigs and eight dresses, changed makeup several times, and performed eight different choreographed routines. An enormous amount of time and intellectual labor was invested in finding the best songs for the show, devising the best dance moves and the perfect lip-sync, matching the perfect dress and wig, and fitting the exact make-up. Inevitably, the fruit of this intellectual labor, the drag show, is at risk of being appropriated as a fellow queen may easily copy the moves and costumes of the original performer, and put on a rival show of her own.