Copyright by Je Hye Kim 2007 the Dissertation Committee for Je Hye Kim Certifies That This Is the Approved Version of the Following Dissertation
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Copyright by Je Hye Kim 2007 The Dissertation Committee for Je Hye Kim Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Performing Female Masculinities at the Intersections of Gender, Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality Committee: Jill Dolan, Supervisor Joni/Omi Jones Mary Kearney Deborah Paredez Stacy Wolf Performing Female Masculinities at the Intersections of Gender, Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality by Je Hye Kim, B.S.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December, 2007 Dedication This work is lovingly dedicated to my dearest mentor, Jill Dolan, who opened a new path for me and affectionately guided my journey along it. This work is also dedicated to all female-born genderqueers of color in honor of their courage and struggles. Acknowledgements Jill Dolan is deserving of my heartfelt thanks for her amazing mentorship and instruction during my study in the Performance as Public Practice program at UT Austin. I deeply appreciate her incredible support and generosity. Her brilliant comments and thought-provoking questions have inspired, guided, and nurtured my critical thinking for this dissertation project. It has been a huge honor and tremendous pleasure for me to work with her. I am very grateful to my fabulous committee: Joni/Omi Jones, Mary Kearney, Deborah Paredez, and Stacy Wolf. My work has benefited from their wonderful teaching and useful suggestions as well as their encouragement. I would also like to express my appreciation to the faculty of the Performance as Public Practice program for providing me with scholarships and work positions for the past five years. My mother’s constant and devoted prayers for my success, as well as her financial support, has enabled me to finish my project. Although my father cannot celebrate my achievement with me because he passed away during the writing of this document, I do know that my father’s spirit has protected and blessed me during my writing. I truly thank my parents for their eternal love for me. My spiritual advisor and extended family-member Hyunkyung has brought beauty and peace in my life and fed my soul with her wisdom and compassion whenever things were tough for me. I am indebted to Zachary Dorsey’s committed help throughout my revising and editing process. He has read every word of this dissertation and given me smart advice and pointed comments. Furthermore, I owe much for his friendship and tireless emotional support that kept me sane and comforted my heart. Because I had him as a v caring friend and an engaged interlocutor, I was able to complete this project. I cannot thank him enough for his generosity, teaching on writing, and invaluable contribution to my project. Without many genderqueer performers’ help and cooperation, my research would have been impossible. I wish to acknowledge my deepest gratitude to kt shorb, D’Lo, Sand Chang, Karen Rothstein (Xavier Onasis), Cody Las Vegas, Mel Corn (Jake Danger), Kit Kat (Katie Heim), and Sile Singleton. They kindly responded to my interviews and shared their works and thoughts with me. Our engaged dialogues enriched my project in countless ways. Ana-Maurine Lara closely read a part of my dissertation and provided me astute and meticulous comments and insightful suggestions, for which I am thankful. I also thank Heidi Madsen (Toe B) and Allison Stelly (Cherry Poppins) for offering me visual material, and to Neeve for sharing her work with me. Finally, I would like to thank the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation for their financial aid and interest in my project. I am honored to be a recipient of the 2007 Woodrow Wilson Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in Women’s Studies. vi Performing Female Masculinities at the Intersections of Gender, Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality Publication No._____________ Je Hye Kim, Ph. D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2007 Supervisor: Jill Dolan This dissertation explores how female-born or female-bodied gender variants perform and represent their masculinities in American performance art and drag king shows. A drag king refers to a woman or female-born person who performs their gender as fluid, usually wearing masculine costumes and make-up. I focus on how race, ethnicity, and class are involved in performing female masculinities on stage, and how the intersections of other social vectors produce myriad differences in terms of stakes, styles, and forms of masculinity. I examine how female-born queer performers foreground the constructed nature of masculinity, and how they redefine established categories of gender and sexuality through performance. I argue that queer vii performances of female masculinities deconstruct the heteronormative gender binary and embody alternative configurations of sex, gender, class, race, and sexuality. In my first chapter, I address Peggy Shaw’s Menopausal Gentleman (1997) and To My Chagrin (2003). I examine how she portrays aging white butch masculinity, sexuality, and emotion, through the reinterpretation of menopause and musings on her own whiteness. My second chapter provides a critical reading of kt shorb’s [sic] of chicks, dicks, and chinks (2005) and D’Lo’s Ramble-Ations (2006). Investigating the effeminization of Asian masculinity and multicultural racial performativity, I illuminate how Asian-American female masculinities are differently constituted in the interplay between class, ethnicity, diaspora, and cultural identities. In my third chapter, I analyze the 6th (Chicago, 2004) and 8th (Austin, 2006) International Drag King Extravaganza showcase performances. I describe how they reveal the theatrical nature of masculinity, and how they mark race, class, and ethnicity. In addition, I discuss how they valorize gender fluidity and multiplicity, staging queer desire and pleasure. Throughout this dissertation, by offering complex illustrations of masculine genders of the female body or the gender-ambiguous body, I contend that female-born gender variants disrupt the equation of masculinity to maleness through their theatrical performances of masculinities. I conclude that performing female masculinities can foster the critical artfulness of gender by engaging in social criticism of gender, class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. viii Table of Contents Introduction..............................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Performing Aging White Butchness ....................................................25 Chapter 2: Queering Asian Female Masculinities .................................................85 Chapter 3: Performing Queer Genders in Drag King Shows...............................196 Conclusion: Toward the Critical Artfulness of Gender .......................................259 Bibliography ........................................................................................................274 Vita………….......................................................................................................287 ix Introduction Alternative masculinities, ultimately, will fail to change existing gender hierarchies to the extent to which they fail to be feminist, antiracist, and queer. ―Judith Halberstam (1998: 173) In April of 2007, I attended the first session of a swing dance class at UT Austin, right after Seung-Hee Cho’s massive shooting at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. I was the only Asian in the room (and the only person who did not conform to gender norms), and most members of the class were white men and women. To begin the class, the white female instructor asked the class to stand in separate rows: male leaders in the left and female followers in the right. While people were finding their “proper” gender line, I broke the silence by asking the instructor, “Can I stand in the men’s line?” and immediately, all class members looked at me, an aberrant troublemaker. Slightly embarrassed by my question, the instructor replied, “You want to be a leader? Are you sure? . OK. You can do that.” When the instructor asked the class to make pairs, things became even more awkward. All the women in the class perceived me as invisible, intentionally ignoring my presence without making eye contact with me. A gender freak – or a potentially dangerous Asian – I was ultimately left alone without a partner (female follower). When I got home that night, I contemplated why the women in the class avoided having me as their partner. At the time, due to the shock from the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the previously long-held image of Asian men as compliant and meek was instantly 1 upset, and the fear and threat of the Asian body was heightened. Accordingly, the Asian body was suddenly rendered hyper-visible. My gender-ambiguous Asian body might have been haunted by the fear of Cho’s psychopathic danger and cruelty in the swing dance class. In fact, after Cho’s incident, I suffered from an extreme fear for a while that people might read me as an Asian man, and that a mentally unstable and racist student on campus might target me to even up the score. As I worked alone until late at night in the office of my department building, my fear increased. Since many in America believe that in general, Asian men are small and effeminate, it was possible that I might inadvertently pass as an “Asian” man through my non-conforming gender display. After the tragedy at Virginia