FACULTY OF ARTS

The History and Representation of Drag in Popular Culture; How We Got to RuPaul

Bachelor's thesis

MICHAELA SEVEROVÁ

Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.

Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature

Brno 2021

THE HISTORY AND REPRESENTATION OF DRAG IN POPULAR CULTURE; HOW WE GOT TO RUPAUL

Bibliographic record

Author: Michaela Severová Faculty of Arts Masaryk University Title of Thesis: The History and Representation of Drag in Popular Culture; How We Got to RuPaul Degree Program: English Language and Literature

Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A. Year: 2021 Number of Pages: 72 Keywords: drag queens, RuPaul´s Drag Race, drag, LGBTQ+, representation, queer culture, sexuality

2 THE HISTORY AND REPRESENTATION OF DRAG IN POPULAR CULTURE; HOW WE GOT TO RUPAUL

Abstract

This bachelor thesis deals with drag and its representation in popular culture, focus- ing on RuPaul´s Drag Race. It analyses the representation of drag by explaining some basic terms and the study of the history of drag. It then analyses the evolution of the representation of drag queens in movies and shows. The main focus of this thesis is the American TV show RuPaul´s Drag Race and how it changed the portrayal of drag and the LGBTQ+ community in popular culture. The thesis questions if the show is as progressive and diverse as it proclaims to be and if it shows the authentic image of drag culture.

3

THE HISTORY AND REPRESENTATION OF DRAG IN POPULAR CULTURE; HOW WE GOT TO RUPAUL

Declaration

I hereby declare that this thesis with title The History and Representation of Drag in Popular Culture; How We Got to RuPaul I submit for assessment is entirely my own work and has not been taken from the work of others save to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my thesis.

Brno May 14, 2021 ...... Michaela Severová

5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor – Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A. – for his useful advice and guidance.

7 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 11

2 Terms 14 2.1 Drag, Drag Queen and Female Impersonation ...... 14 2.2 Cross-dresser, Transvestite, Transexual and Transgender ...... 18

3 The History of Drag 21 3.1 The Beginnings of Drag in the United Kingdom ...... 21 3.2 Drag in the United States and the Ball culture ...... 26

4 The Representation of Drag 34 4.1 Female Impersonation for an Easy Laugh ...... 34 4.2 The Accurate Depiction of Drag ...... 38 4.3. The Era of RuPaul...... 42 4.4. Current Drag Representation ...... 45

5 RuPaul´s Drag Race 50 5.1. The Fame of the Chosen Queens ...... 50 5.2. The Representation of Different Types of Drag Queens ...... 54

6 Conclusion 61

Bibliography 65

8 BIBLIOGRAPHY

9

INTRODUCTION

1 Introduction

The LGBTQ+ community has faced oppression for hundreds of years, and while the situation is getting better, their life is unnecessarily complicated. There are many laws in place that are openly against this community; they are not allowed to get married or have kids in many countries, they can be rejected for a job based on their sexuality, and it is still something one can get killed for in too many countries.

Even without taking these laws into account, this community has it difficult in every part of their lives; many queer kids are being bullied at school, forced out of their homes, adult people are harassed in their workplace or on the streets just for holding a hand with their partner, people are getting beaten up for it. What is helping to make the situation better is the authentic representation in pop – culture.

While even a few years back, it was hard to find anything other than maybe one gay best friend of the main character or the masculine lesbian, more diverse stories of all LGBTQ+ people can now be found on television. With more openly queer people in pop culture, more information and knowledge are revealed about their history. There are also more academic works related to LGBTQ+ history and repre- sentation, and in general, it is a more freely talked about topic, and with that, over the past few years, there is more information about drag and drag queens. The drag community got more worldwide attention with the self-proclaimed super-model of the world and his tv show RuPaul's Drag Race. RuPaul and the Logo network created a space for drag queens from America and other states like Canada or United

Kingdom to show their talents. This thesis will concern itself with the history and the

11 INTRODUCTION representation of drag queens on television and how it changed with RuPaul's Drag

Race. The main goal of this thesis is to show that drag has always had its place in cul- ture and history, but in recent years its representation in popular culture changed and brought more attention to this art form.

This thesis has some limitations. Queer culture, history, and representation is a vast topic, and there are many academic sources about this topic, with many differ- ent approaches. Drag is a rich part of the history of the world, starting from female impersonation in the theatre to many forms of drag that exist today. While this thesis will talk about drag and female impersonation history, it will only concern itself with

English-speaking countries, mainly Britain and America. It will also only talk about drag queens (men impersonating women), not drag kings (women impersonating men) because that is a rich enough topic for separate research. Sometimes it is hard to differentiate between the drag queen and the people who are those drag queens, so while all of the other queens named in this thesis have the pronouns she/her be- cause they are only mentioned as drag queens, RuPaul has the pronouns they/their in this thesis, because they are mentioned not only as a queen but also as the man be- hind it all.

It has four chapters, and the first chapter is a shorter one, outlining some basic terms used further in the thesis and drag communities, starting with drag itself. It is followed by a chapter about the history of drag and female representation, covering the start of drag in theatre and essential events for the western world of drag. The in- formation about this topic is taken mainly from the book A history of Female

12 INTRODUCTION

Impersonation in the Performing Arts (Baker 1994) and other academic sources con- cerned with drag in America. The third chapter talks about the representation of drag in television, and it is divided into four subchapters. The first one is about movies that use drag as the main comedic punchline, the second one is about a more accurate rep- resentation of drag, the third one is focused on RuPaul, and the fourth one is about the representation of drag now. The final chapter focuses on RuPaul´s Drag Race and the diversity of the queens represented in the show.

The representation of drag drastically changed in the twenty-first century, mainly in the second decade, together with the representation of the LGBTQ+ com- munity. More queer people can now see themselves on TV, which is a great success for the community. However, drag changes quickly, and the representation needs to evolve just as quickly, not always be accurate and diverse, just as the art of drag is.

While that seems to be an issue for some drag shows and movies, it progresses in the right way.

13 TERMS

2 Terms

Before diving into the history of drag and the analysis of its representation, it is important to go over some terms that appear in movies and shows that include drag. RuPaul´s Drag Race uses LGBTQ+ slang, words from African American Vernacu- lar English, and drag terminology. They also reference many LGBTQ+ and drag mov- ies. To completely understand what is going on in the show and on the stage, it is es- sential to know the terms and have basic knowledge about the world of drag. These terms are not only used in Drag Race and other LGBTQ+ movies and shows, but they are significant when talking about LGBTQ+ themes and issues.

2.1 Drag, Drag Queen and Female Impersonation

The word "drag" has an exciting history essential for how the term is used now. Drag and "female impersonation" are to this day very interchangeable because their meaning is very similar. In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of drag is "entertainment in which performers caricature or challenge gender stereo- types (as by dressing in clothing that is stereotypical of another gender, by using ex- aggeratedly gendered mannerisms, or by combining elements of stereotypically male and female dress) and often wear elaborate or outrageous costumes," ("Drag"). This definition is aged now, and it uses some words that are not seen as positive when used to talk about drag queens and their performances. For example, using the term caricature when talking about queens sounds offensive if the performance or the drag queen's clothes are not meant to be a caricature. Costume is also not a flattering term,

14 TERMS and when used by the judges, it means that the look is not good. On the stage of Ru-

Paul's Drag Race, queens cannot afford to wear a costume. There is also a definition for female impersonator in the Merriam-Webster dictionary "a male entertainer who plays the role of a woman," ("Female impersonator"), and it is just the shorter version of the definition of drag.

Female impersonation is an older term connected to the performing arts. Drag evolved from female impersonation, and the definitions of those terms are very simi- lar. Much information about the history of drag and female impersonation can be found in the book A history of Female Impersonation in the Performing Arts, for exam- ple, the definition of a female impersonator.

Female Impersonator: inevitably, an all-embracing term describing any

male who entertains by dressing as a woman. However, as we shall see, there

have been literally hundreds of actors and comedians who have made an im-

pact by playing as women (Alec Guinness in the play Wise Child [1967], Dustin

Hoffman in the film Tootsie [1982], Les Dawson in pantomime are examples)

but who could hardly be categorised as female impersonators. This is an im-

portant distinction, especially when discussing the dame tradition in British

theatre (Baker 17).

The author makes an essential distinction between female impersonation and com- edy actors playing women on TV, which is crucial for analyzing the representation.

The definition of drag used in this work is also connected to performance.

15 TERMS

Drag: originally back-stage slang. Eric Partridge in his Dictionary of

Slang and Unconventional English says it describes 'the petticoat or skirt used

by actors when playing female parts' and suggests that the word derives from

'the drag of the dress (on the ground), as distinct from the non-dragginess of

trousers'. He dates this reference back to 1887, but also quotes an earlier defi-

nition from 1850: 'Go (or, more general, flash) the drag is to wear women's

clothes for immoral purposes'. The Penguin Wordmaster Dictionary (1987)

simply defines the term as 'women's clothing when worn by men' (Baker 17).

Female impersonation and drag have been initially just terms used in the theatre slang, closely connected to the theatre. These roots in performing and theatre can still be seen in drag performances, especially in Drag Race. Many main challenges are re- lated to acting and theatre, such as the talk-show challenges specifically about over- acting. One of the most popular challenges continuously brought back to the show is a live musical number or so-called Rusicals. Many of the competing queens have their background in theatre, and only through that, they discovered drag. The term is also connected to homosexuality, as is also explained in the book A history of Female Im- personation in the Performing Arts.

The word is, however, like a lot of theatre slang, associated with the gay

world and gay slang. The American Thesaurus of Slang defines drag as 'the fe-

male costume of a male homosexual', and Bruce Rodgers' The Queen's Vernacu-

lar7 offers more than twenty ways in which the term is used in gayspeak

(some ephemeral and many peculiar to the United States). The use of the word

16 TERMS

to refer exclusively to men suggests that a woman dressed as a man cannot

correctly be described as being in drag, but lacking any other term it is used in

that context. It has also extended its reference in another respect and is now

often used satirically to describe any elaborate or showy form of dress worn

as a costume or even as a professional requirement (Baker 17).

The connection of female impersonation to homosexuality is not a new one. Theatre has always been connected to the queer community. RuPaul's Drag Race and What

People Get Wrong About the History of Drag is an interview between Wilder Davies and a drag historian, videographer, and teacher Joe E. Jeffreys. In it, Jeffreys explains drag itself has become connected with homosexuality in the 1930s when all these ideas about how people act and whom they are developed into sexology. This field united drag and female impersonation to homosexuality for a while, but now it is clear that even though drag and camp are some of the most recognized signs of ho- mosexuality, they can still be separated. The connection is still strong because drag is something queer people did and do (Davies).

This connection is also evident in the term "Drag Queen". In the Merriam-Web- ster dictionary, the basic meaning of the word is "a person and especially a man who performs as an entertainer in usually female drag," ("Drag queen"). This term, as drag itself, has a rich history that is connected to the queer culture. The article The Great

Drag Queen Hype talks a bit about this connection.

The anthropologist Esther Newton, who conducted fieldwork among

New York's female impersonators in the 1960s, when the term 'drag queen'

17 TERMS

became known, contrasted female impersonators as 'stage impersonators'

with the drag queens as 'street impersonators, who are never off-stage'

(1972:8), defining the latter as follows: 'The homosexual term for transvestite

is "drag queen". "Queen" is a generic noun for any homosexual man. "Drag"

can be used as an adjective or a noun. As a noun, it means the clothing of one

sex when worn by the other sex [...]' (Newton 1972:3)," (Balzer 113).

Thanks to RuPaul's Drag Race, the term is now the most used word to describe peo- ple who could also be called just performers or female impersonators. While female impersonator is not used much today, the queens on RuPaul's Drag Race are not ashamed to call themselves just a performer. Performing is an essential part of what drag queens do on the show and in the clubs and being called a good performer by the judges is a form of praise.

2.2 Cross-dresser, Transvestite, Transexual and Transgender

These words are also important when talking about the representation of drag queens. Even though some of these terms differ in meaning, they are still used inter- changeably even today. The terms “cross-dresser” and “transvestite” mean the same thing; transvestite is just an older term that is not that much used now. Some people use these words when they mean drag queen and female impersonator. These words mean very different things, and it is important to know the difference and when to use which term. The book A history of Female Impersonation in the Performing Arts is

18 TERMS an older work, and the author uses the word transvestite when he explains the terms he uses in the following chapters.

Transvestite: the man who finds relief and personal satisfaction by

dressing as a woman, being treated as a woman (or, rather, as he feels a

woman should be treated), who hopes to pass as a woman in public but who

has no wish to undergo surgical transformation. He is happy in his maleness

and is generally heterosexual (Baker 16).

The difference between a drag queen and a transvestite is that drag queens are per- forming. They do it for an audience that always knows that those are people imper- sonating women. Drag is an art form that some people use to make money or to be creative. Transvestites like to be treated as women and pass for women, they are not performing, and the people around them do not know that they are only impersonat- ing women. This is important to remember when talking about drag in any context.

The most significant difference is between these terms: drag queen, female im- personator, transvestite, cross-dresser, and these terms: “transgender” and “transex- ual”. It was common in the past, and it still is now with people who do not know much about these topics that they use these terms interchangeably. The terms transgender and transexual are mentioned a lot when it comes to conversations about the

LGBTQ+ community, especially in recent years. It is talked about mainly in connec- tion to the representation of trans people, which pop culture lacks. RuPaul´s Drag

Race has been criticized for not casting a more diverse cast of drag queens that would be more representative of the actual drag scene. Even though it might seem so

19 TERMS because of some definitions of all these terms, drag is not only done by gay men but by a variety of people. The article Enhancing Transgender Health Care studies gender variations and what impact they have on health care. The author gives a complex def- inition of transgender and transexual.

Later, transsexualism (listed as gender identity disorder in the fourth

edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorders4 ) was used to describe a population of individu-

als whose feelings concerning their gender involved more than a desire to

dress in a particular set of clothes and a stronger identification with gender

values contrary to societal expectations5. Transgender was originally used to

differentiate those who seek medical intervention in changing their gender

from those who do not; however, this term later changed to encompass a

range of possible identities and behaviors, including transvestitism and trans-

sexualism (the way in which transgender evolved in usage has not been exam-

ined fully) (Lombardi 869).

These terms have been used interchangeably for a long time, and their definitions de- pend on the author who uses them. The difference between them should be recog- nized when talking about drag and its representation. It is important not to get these terms mixed up to get the correct meaning of quotes and facts.

20 THE HISTORY OF DRAG

3 The History of Drag

It is essential to know the roots of drag and understand its significance in Ameri- can culture to analyze its representation. In many movies and shows that revolve around drag queens and the LGBTQ+ culture, the history of this art form and the peo- ple performing it plays a significant role. RuPaul's Drag Race makes all possible refer- ences to important events in history revolving around this culture.

3.1 The Beginnings of Drag in the United Kingdom

Drag in the western world began in theatre, which is clear from the definitions of some of the terms related to drag. In theatre history, there were places and times when women were not allowed on the stage and men had to play female roles. The book A history of Female Impersonation in the Performing Arts captures the story of female impersonation in the United Kingdom. At the beginning of the theatre scene in

Britain, women were not allowed on stage because formal drama has its roots in the church, and women had no place there. When the church needed the stories from

Bible to reach all people, even the illiterate ones, they made the stories into plays, and they put men into female roles. In the informal drama, like the strolling players, wo- men could also not participate on stage because they would be shamed for it (Baker

24-27).

After formal theatre and its plays broke away from the church, everybody still assumed that the no-women rule applied to every stage, and even though they might be some amateur actresses, there is no objective evidence of that. In the years after,

21 THE HISTORY OF DRAG the costumes and the actors only got better, and in some cases, people could not tell that it was not a real woman on the stage. In the sixteenth century, plays became very popular entertainment. Acting troupes used public spaces like inns as a performance space, and some schools used drama as a tool for teaching public speaking skills and rhetoric. In 1576 the first theatre in England was built, and it was a huge success that made the standard for acting and writing much higher (Baker 27-31).

Theatre was the only place where standard social rules could be broken and where creativity could take any shape or form. Nothing was off-limits if it could fit into a story. It is no surprise that drag choose this place to flourish.

As we shall see, actors were given special permission to wear

clothes that, off-stage, only certain well - defined members of society

were allowed. And boys or young men dressing as, and impersonating,

women flouted the biblical injunction expressed in Deuteronomy: 'The

woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a

man put on a woman's garment; for all that do so are an abomination

unto the Lord thy God.' Actors were given permission to violate these

codes, and when the social codes are broken then the puritan imagina-

tion can run riot - usually into visions of sexual mayhem (Baker 34).

The female impersonation bloomed, even though it had some difficult obstacles thrown in its way all through the Elizabethan, Tudor, Jacobean, and Shakespearean stages.

22 THE HISTORY OF DRAG

This era, where female impersonation was standard practice in theatre, came to an end in the middle of the seventeenth century (1660), with Charles II becoming a king. He issued a statement that allowed for women to act in all theatres throughout the country. With that, female impersonation and drag had to move from the main stage.

The inherited traditions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre were

abandoned: dramatic writing, acting style, methods of presentation and even

the architecture of the theatres themselves were virtually re-invented. Here

we can see, in embryo as it were, the form of theatre that today's audiences

would recognise. For the first time women appeared on stage and, in the early

years at least, were defined as sexually attractive objects to be showcased for

the pleasure of men, a continuing theme in ali branches of showbusiness. lnev-

itably, one of the first casualties of the old style was the male actress whose

artistry had, by the end of the century, been transformed into burlesque, and

become the drag queen of low comedy (Baker 82).

The introduction of actresses changed the theatre world forever. Nevertheless, the fe- male impersonator still had a place in theatre, next to the actress, for a few more dec- ades. While men playing female roles even in serious plays was expected, some come- dies in some theatres used it as comedic relief. They could make fun of women and use women as a tool for comedy (Baker 27-31). After the Restoration, female imper- sonators had to settle in comedy, and that is where the character of a dame emerged.

The dame was an older character played by male actors to play up the comedy of the

23 THE HISTORY OF DRAG story. A similar role for female impersonation was a nun. It was used for comedic re- lief and to make fun of the church (Baker 82-112). The use of men in a dress for co- medic relief can be seen even in the twentieth century when female impersonation and drag moved to television. A lot of the representation of drag and female imper- sonation in pop culture in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century consisted of this.

These traditions continued and grew, and the expansion of drag resulted in people being more comfortable doing and wearing what they wanted. In the country, there were many carnivals and fairs where these people could be safe. Amongst the higher social class, some noblemen often dressed in women´s clothes and even pre- sented themselves as women their whole lives. It was also becoming more common for these people to meet at an establishment, Molly Houses, for example, where they could be whomever they wanted to be, maybe even perform on a stage in drag (Baker

82 – 102). An example of a man who had drag as a part of his everyday life was Prin- cess Seraphina.

A description of molly Princess Seraphina or John Cooper makes this

apparent. [S]he: “commonly used to wear a white gown and a scarlet cloak

with her hair frizzled and curled all around her forehead; and then she would

so flutter her fan and make such fine curtsies that you would not have known

her from a woman: she takes great delight in balls and masquerades”

(Trumbach qtd in McNeil 417).

24 THE HISTORY OF DRAG

All of this shows why representation is important. It gives people the chance to see people like them and be more comfortable in their skins. While England of the eight- eenth, nineteenth and even twentieth century was not exactly an easy place for

LGBTQ+ people to live in, these examples of drag queens, transvestites, and these the- atre traditions gave people hope.

Drag and female impersonators also found their place in opera, where they were safe for a long while, and they also occupied music halls. These traditions were connected to aristocracy and money, while drag for less fortunate people moved to fairs and carnivals (Baker 82-112). At the end of the nineteenth century, another form of entertainment that had drag in it emerged, and it was the concert party. It was a small group of variety artists touring the country and giving shows, and some- times it only consisted of men, and female impersonation was a standard part of them. They were often called "pierrot groups", and their success only grew after the

First World War, when many men could not find any other job than in these troupes putting up shows all over the country. These kinds of shows lead to the creation of glamour drag as it is known today. These concert parties lasted until the nineteen-fif- ties, and they were a mixture of every drag act that happened until that moment.

They had the dames, they were satiric and campy, and they gave birth to glamour drag. Before their end, they were practically full-on drag shows (Baker 186-200).

In the nineteen-sixties, homosexuality became much more debated in public, and the gay scene of England was becoming more open. A new range of gay clubs was starting to open, and with that, new drag queens were rising, and they could become

25 THE HISTORY OF DRAG a household name and stop hiding behind pantomime dames. Until this time, drag queens were successful only if they created a comedic character, but now, the drag queen's character could be anything the creator wanted it to. Drag queens were not there for comedic relief only, and it was becoming more and more popular (Baker

201 – 207). The performances were also becoming more creative and diverse “the acts ranged from the appallingly amateur to the almost professional - but there were few who could depend upon their performances as a means of support,” (Baker 207).

While this form of entertainment was becoming more famous and some queens could appear on the tv screen, the attention was still reserved mostly for female impersona- tion as comedic relief and as a joke. Drag, female impersonation, and the breaking of gender and hetero boundaries found their place amongst pop and rock stars in music.

Drag was also becoming more political, and it addressed important issues. It was starting to look like a drag that is known today (Baker 225 – 258).

3.2 Drag in the United States and the Ball culture

The history of drag in America is like the British one because they both have the same drag and female impersonation traditions. For example, Vaudeville had a lot of female impersonation and drag as a part of their performances, and it took inspira- tion from British Music Hall.

Although gender-bending performances in the USA arose nationally

from minstrel shows in the early nineteenth century featuring male imperson-

ators in blackface, the art form really became popularized in the last decades

26 THE HISTORY OF DRAG

of the 1800s when vaudeville emerged as North America’s mainstream source

of entertainment (Bean et al. 1996: 250). Vaudeville had been fundamentally

inspired by British music hall which was already popular in England in the

mid-1800s (Slide 2006: 7) (Zulueta 371).

Vaudeville stayed for a long while, and it affected the female impersonation in com- edy and the representation of drag in the twentieth century.

Another form of entertainment with female impersonation that took inspira- tion in England were the traveling troupes. The article From “Paris is Burning” to

#dragrace: social media and the celebrification of drag culture gives an example of this. The Cockettes were an anti-capitalist troupe in the 1960´s. They were the highly political type of drag performances and they were closely related to the hippie scene in San Francisco (Feldman and Hakim 389). This act was inspired in England by other traveling troupes, but it was much more political and radical, as was everything else related to drag in America. “The Cockettes performances playfully subverted gender expression and offered freewheeling, bawdy yet utopian visions of how social, eco- nomic and gender relations might be organised differently,” (Feldman and Hakim

390). While the traveling troupes were also happening in England, they were much more political in the nineteen-sixties and nineteen-seventies in America and included controversial themes.

The most prominent thing that happened in the LGBTQ+ and drag culture was the ball scene and voguing. This shaped drag into what it is now, and this is also the era that is heavily represented in pop culture and RuPaul's Drag Race. Even though

27 THE HISTORY OF DRAG they gained the most popularity in the nineteen-eighties and nineteen-nineties, they started much earlier. The history of the balls is described in the article ‘Listen, and you will hear all the houses that walked there before’: A history of drag balls, houses, and the culture of voguing. “The culture of drag balls and voguing can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century. Harlem’s Hamilton Lodge staged its first queer masquerade ball in 1869,” (Lawrence 3). Even though they were created by and for gay people, the balls did a good job bringing this culture and the art of drag closer to straight people.

Held once a year, the balls came to feature a procession known as the

‘parade of the fairies’, which involved drag queen contestants sashaying

through the auditorium in preparation for a costume competition. For the rest

of the evening, dancers took to the floor in couples and formed partnerships

that were superficially straight, with men (including lesbians dressed as men

and gay men who favoured butch style) accompanying women (or men dres-

sed as women, as well as straight femmes) while any number of straights wat-

ched on from the sidelines (Lawrence 3).

The drag balls scene was openly queer, and it faced many issues because of that. Po- lice and law targeted them in every way possible, trying to force LGBTQ+ people back into the shadows. However, the organizers always found a way around these pro- blems and this tradition only grew after the Second World War. It was also at this mo- ment when drag started to develop according to racial lines.

28 THE HISTORY OF DRAG

At their beginning, performers consisted mainly of white men putting

on drag fashion shows. Black queens rarely participated, and when they did,

they were expected to lighten their faces (Cunningham 1995). Fed up with the

restrictive and racist ball culture, the queer black ball community established

their own underground ball culture in the 1960s. (“Underground Ball Cul-

ture”).

The Ball scene flourished when it became intertwined with the black culture. It was also the time when the country was in the middle of a social and cultural reset. There was a strong need for queer, especially queer black people, to stick together and form a closely tied community, and therefore drag queens created the houses.

Black drag queens faced at least twice more oppression and still do, and be- cause their own families often rejected young queer black people, they had to stick together and protect themselves. Drag houses were an opportunity to choose a family that will uplift and support them just the way they are. "Referencing the glamorous fashion houses whose glamour and style they admired, other black drag queens star- ted to form drag houses, or families that, headed by a mother and sometimes a father, would socialise, look after one another, and prepare for balls (including ones they would host and ones they would attend)," (Lawrence 4). Drag houses often served as orphanages for abandoned kids and gave them a purpose and a sense of belonging.

The kids did not have to perform in the balls if they did not want; there was enough work between the balls and on the streets that the kids could help their community in these ways. (Lawrence 4 - 5). The influence of this vital sense of community, and the

29 THE HISTORY OF DRAG formation of drag balls and houses, can be seen to this day, even in shows and movies about drag. For example, it is a common topic in RuPaul's Drag Race. The show itself can serve as a drag family for the queens, which is demonstrated by how they call

RuPaul a "mama Ru".

Houses and balls continued to grow because every house wanted to throw a ball on its own. With it, the categories of the balls also increased, and it allowed the queens to express themselves in different ways. The walls of what drag queen should be started to expand and break, but some features of drag stayed the same, for exam- ple, the competitiveness (Lawrence 5-6). This feature is evident in Drag Race, not only is the show a competition, but this feature is also evident in interactions be- tween the queens. The show is known for its drama, and this can also be considered part of the culture, but outside the show, most queens are friends. So even if competi- tiveness is an essential feature of drag, the sense of community and standing together to face the oppression from outside is also evident. Many of the ties created in the show are very strong, and the queens regularly come back or star in movies and other shows together.

Another essential feature of this era was voguing, which is a fundamental phe- nomenon of drag culture, and its influence is evident to this day. It evolved from a rit- ual called throwing “shade,” where the queens are subtly insulting each other, some- times for laughs, sometimes to prove something. That is how voguing started in a club where some black queens, for example, Paris Dupree, were throwing shade. One of them pulled Vogue magazine from her bag, and while dancing, she opened it to a

30 THE HISTORY OF DRAG picture of a posing model. She stopped right on the beat and copied the pose, and it was returned in kind from the other queens. And from that, it evolved into a dance style (Lawrence 5).

Voguing evolved into a contorted, jerky, slicing style of dance when

drag queens incorporated kung fu aesthetics into their routines, having be-

come familiar with the swift, angular movements of Bruce Lee and his co-stars

while working trade inside Times Square’s porn cinemas, or heading there af-

ter a night’s work to get some rest. Also inspired by the precise, angled strokes

of Egyptian hieroglyphics, voguers hailed from the same ethnic, working-class

environments as the kids who pioneered breaking in the mid-1970s (Law-

rence 5).

It was also at this time, thanks to this era, that drag started to show up in mainstream media, but the fame was not lasting and was not for drag itself, just for some queens that fit particular requirements.

All the twentieth-century events in America had a significant influence on drag culture and the queens, especially black queens. There was segregation, Jim Crow laws, and the general oppression of black and gay people, and before that, the two wars, but one of the essential things that influenced the drag and LGBTQ+ community and the whole America was the Stonewall rebellion. “If the beginning of the black balls coincided with the intensification of the civil rights movement, the formation of the houses paralleled the increasing confidence of the gay liberation movement, which enjoyed its symbolic breakthrough when drag queens occupied the frontline

31 THE HISTORY OF DRAG during the Stonewall rebellion of June 1969,” (Lawrence 4). Many queens enjoyed hanging out at the Stonewall Inn gay bar because it allowed them to dance and per- form in the back of the club. The police also did not cause many problems there if they got paid. However, they would raid the place if the payments were late. In June

1969, the community, with Sylvia Rivera and her friends in the lead, already set on edge by the death and funeral of Judy Garland, pushed back. This violent bust started days of rioting and protests, and it became the symbol of the birth of Gay Liberation.

This event also took place on the hundredth anniversary of the masquerade ball of the Hamilton Lodge. (Lawrence 2).

This event changed how queer people all over America were perceived and how they saw themselves. It resulted in many changes in society and LGBTQ+ culture.

The Stonewall riots, which occurred in the context of the civil rights

movements in late 1960s New York, resulted in two major changes. First, it

made a wider public aware of the situation in which homosexuals and drag

queens were being forced to live. Secondly, it changed self-perceptions within

the subculture: from feeling guilty and apologetic to feelings of self-acceptance

and pride (Balzer 114).

It also influenced how the drag scene continued to operate, and it helped to push it to mainstream business again. Drag queens were able to establish themselves in every subculture that arose in the next few decades, and that diversified the art form even more (Balzer 114-115). “Beside this diversity of (gender) performativities and per- formances, another diversity could already be observed at the beginning of the newly

32 THE HISTORY OF DRAG evolving drag queen subculture in New York, namely the diversification of gender identities among the drag queens,” (Balzer 115). Drag and female impersonations have a colorful history, from theatre through drag balls and their stages to main- stream media. It shaped drag into what it is today, which is represented in many drag shows and movies.

33 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG

4 The Representation of Drag

Its history and development have influenced the representation of drag, and because of the move of drag from formal drama to low comedies, the first recognized portrayal of drag queens in pop culture is in comedy movies that use men in dresses as a main punchline of the movie to make fun of drag and women. Until recently, there was a lack of an accurate representation of drag by actual drag queens that would capture the reality of the drag community. There was a lack of shows that showed drag queens as human beings, as brothers, sisters, kids, and drag as a part of the mainstream media, other than in comedies. That changed with RuPaul and mainly

Drag Race, and even though there are still few things lacking, it seems like it is going in the right direction.

4.1 Female Impersonation for an Easy Laugh

After introducing the actress in the formal theatre, female impersonators were forced to move to comedies, music halls, carnivals, and fairs. There was a change in the mood in the acts of female impersonators, and that transferred to the early mov- ies. These movies did not use drag queens or people that were part of the LGBTQ+ community; they used regular straight actors dressing in women's clothes, acting over the top. Movies with drag are generally supposed to be funny, but in these come- dies, the apparent joke was men dressing as women and women in general. Drag was in the movie purely for making people make fun of men in dresses and women. In the

34 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG book The History of Female Impersonation, the author gives some examples of the movies.

Drag has most often been used to provoke hilarity and from the earliest

days of silent film to big budget movies like Tootsie [1982] and Mrs. Doubtfire

[1993] comedians such as Wallace Beery, Fatty Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin (A

Woman [1915]), Ben Turpin, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (themselves imper-

sonated by Sussnah York and Beryl Reid in The Killing of Sister George [1968]),

Buster Keaton, Eddie Cantor, Harold Lloyd, Jimmy Durante, The Marx Broth-

ers, Joe E Brown (who later in his career played a millionaire who falls in love

with a man impersonating a woman in Billy Wilder's classic Some Like It Hot

[1959]), W C Fields, Will Hay, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Peter Sellers (notably as

Gloriaria, Grand Duchess of Fenwick in The Mouse That Roared [1959]), Danny

Kaye, Norman Wisdom and Woody Allen donned dresses (Baker 225).

In some of these movies, the men dress as women for some purpose, as in Mrs.

Doubtfire, where the main characters dressed up as a woman to be with his children, so it is not wholly used as a comedic device, but it is also there to make the movies funnier. Even though what these actors do is drag, it is very different from other forms of drag because it is used for laughs and makes fun of the art form.

Until Tootsie (1982) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Some Like It Hot was

probably the most successful commercial movie to be sustained throughout by

the use of drag. But unlike First a Girl or Victor/Victoria drag was not a meta-

phor for homosexuality - it is a film very much about heterosexual men in

35 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG

disguise to preserve their lives who find themselves in heterosexual heaven:

surrounded by beautiful women who they can observe but not touch (Baker

231).

Some actors and performers used it to establish themselves in the industry, and they had female impersonation on their repertoire, like Milton Berle, for example, for some other actors, it was just another role, like for Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.

Milton Berle was a famous comedian of the first half of the twentieth century, and his acting choices are a topic of many discussions because of the controversy of some of them. The article Ethnic Masculinity and Early Television's Vaudeo Star talks about the connection between his ethnicity and popularity. What is essential to know is that Berle had a historical connection to Vaudeville, and he gained titles as "Mr.Tel- evision" and America's Uncle "Miltie" (Murray 97). He was famous for his costume acts and his female impersonation "for example, Cleopatra, Carmen Miranda, and the opera star Dorothy Kristen (who was so insulted by his portrayal of her that she took him to court)," (Murray 110). His female impersonations were the kind that made fun of drag by acting over the top; the punchline of these comedies was that he was a man trying to look like a woman. There is a clear contrast between people like Berle,

Dustin Hoffman, or Robin Williams, who play women in movies and dress in women's clothes for the sake of the movie's comedy, and actual drag queens in comedies. This is clear from an interaction between Berle and RuPaul.

In 1993, RuPaul and Milton Berle co-presented an award at the MTV

Video Music Awards, and RuPaul de parted from his rather bland scripted

36 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG

lines to remark to Berle, "That's interesting. You used to wear dresses, and

now you wear diapers" (184). RuPaul's comment garnered so much attention

that now, more than fifteen years later, it is still cited on several popular web-

sites as a most "memorable" or "outrageous" moment (Schewe 675).

This moment is crucial because even though it might seem that RuPaul is the one in the wrong, they were harassed by Berle (Schewe 675). Berle could afford to harras

RuPaul because they are just a drag queen, while if Berle did the same things to any other woman, he would probably get sued.

However, in Lettin, RuPaul offers a look behind the scenes that re-

frames Berle as a powerful man who uses sexual harassment to keep RuPaul in

a subordinate position, and uses RuPaul "as a prop" to set up his misogynist

humor (182). RuPaul offers an explicit critique of gender hierarchy when he

distinguishes between Berle's form of drag queening, which was about

"mak[ing] fun of women" and "putting women down," and his own version of

drag, which "is all about love, saying that we are all drag queens" (181)

(Schewe 676).

While drag queens are trying to respectfully capture women as powerful, beautiful, smart, and funny, actors and comedians like Berle were trying to make fun of women and drag because they felt like they are under them in the social hierarchy. Women also played men in few movies, for example, in the movie Victor/Victoria (1982), but the feel of those movies is different from the ones with female impersonations. “Men

37 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG in a dress are funnier than women in tuxedos or slacks, a la Marlene Dietrich. Women in drag, glimpsed so less often, still seem mostly tragic and dour” (Smith 3).

4.2 The Accurate Depiction of Drag

Drag is an art form, and it is done with respect to women or the form of drag, but this vital fact has been overshadowed by actors making fun of women and drag in movies. One of the first representations of cross-dressing on the screen happened in the early 20th century because of Julian Eltinge.

Essentially the RuPaul of the early 20th century, he was a famous fe-

male impersonator from Massachusetts who started cross-dressing in his

teens (early 1800s), eventually reaching stardom at par with today's society.

And unlike many female impersonators of his time, personas presented in his

acts were of actual women rather than a comedic representation of them

(Jaksic)

His first musical comedy Mr.Wix of Wickham, performed on Broadway, gave him criti- cal acclaim and more jobs and performances within vaudeville. That allowed him to travel through America and Europe and gain the attention of Hollywood, which re- sulted in him acting in many silent comedy movies. His first feature movie was The

Countess Charming (1917), which was also the first representation of drag on-screen

(Jaksic). The difference between other comedies with actors dressed as women in movies in the 20th century was that he was a female impersonator even off-screen, and he did not make fun of women.

38 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG

Victor and Victoria is originally a German movie from the 1930s, but it is sig- nificant for drag culture and drag queens, even though it is a movie with male imper- sonation. It was remade many times, in England under the name First a Girl (1935) and much later in America as Victor/Victoria (1982) with Julia Andrews. The movie's theme is used in many runways on Drag Race, either as a theme of the week or as an inspiration for the queen's outfit. It plays with androgyny, and it could sometimes shock the audience, and that is what drag queens like to evoke in people.

In the nineteen-seventies, the LGBTQ+ community was becoming louder and prouder in themselves, which was apparent even in the movies. Drag queens now could become a household name, and some of them had even their underground movies. One of those drag queens was Divine and her movie Pink Flamingos (1972).

"Directed, written, produced, narrated, filmed, and edited by John Waters, Pink Fla- mingos — a movie with a tagline, "An exercise in poor taste" about a woman who claims to be "the filthiest person alive" — was one of his best-known films which saw drag queen, Divine (Glenn Milstead), rise to stardom" (Jaksic). Another movie that in- troduced drag to a broader audience is The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This movie is an integral part of gay culture, and it shows people what drag is. "It's inherently a drag movie but Rocky Horror doesn't really hold your hand in describing what drag is, it just shows you. It presents you with an essence and a mood and a vibe but does not really go, 'This is what drag is.' I think that is kind of a more successful approach when you're looking for media that's not coddling an audience," (Reid qtd in Jaksic).

Although people now can find the movie a little bit problematic because of its

39 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG vocabulary, it was an acceptable language when this movie came out, and the movie was a validating experience for many people (Jaksic). Movies like Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monroe or the show All In The Family had drag in them, but it was not a central theme, and the show even had a real drag queen in one of the episodes

(Jaksic). Even these small roles were necessary because it made drag more common and it gave it a chance to have more significant roles in the future.

While drag on television was gaining momentum, Starsky and Hutch

and Wonder Woman also featured drag queen Charles Pierce. At the same time

one of the first gay-themed films gets a mainstream theatrical release for the

first time in North America, which is based on a short story written by Marga-

ret Gibson, called Making It. The film in question is Outrageous! which chroni-

cles Gibson's time living as drag queen Craig Russell's roommate. Russell stars

as a fictionalized version of himself, a drag queen called Robin Turner, who is a

gay hairdresser that wants to be a drag queen (Jaksic).

After this, even famous directors started to show interest in casting drag queens in movies. People could now see drag on screen more often and not only as a comedic punchline.

In the nineteen-eighties and nineties, stories about drag were becoming more diverse and more authentic. In 1990, a documentary about the Ball era was created.

Paris is Burning is one of the most important representations of drag in history, and its influence is apparent even today. It showed the culture of drag balls and houses and the struggle that these people had to go through.

40 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG

In the Harlem balls, the aesthetics of wealth are recreated with stolen,

found, handmade and second-hand goods precisely because drag does not yet

offer a viable career, much less mainstream fame. Indeed, the protagonists of

Paris is Burning discuss their ‘mopping’ (i.e. stealing) practice as the only way

they can access the culture’s fixation with brand names and consumerism.

They also refer to the fact that they sometimes do not eat for days so that they

can save enough money for their ball looks. The balls, then, function as spaces

for self-expression, self-actualisation and communality set against a backdrop

of economic marginalisation (Feldman and Hakim 391).

This documentary helped some queens in it to fame, and it showed people the reality of black and queer people of America. It also increased the demand for drag perfor- mances in clubs, and it gave some of them access to Hollywood. For example, Ma- donna also took an interest in this culture and did a video called Vogue (1990). She then also took some of the drag dancers with her on tour. Unfortunately, the fame was short-lived, and only for few selected people. It was also the time of the AIDS cri- sis, and it made drag and being a part of an LGBTQ+ community even bigger taboo than before (Lawrence 8-9). Drag and queerness were still, even with the increasing representation, a controversial topic. That is the case even today when drag has a much bigger audience than everyone could ever imagine. The influence of Paris is

Burning is evident in RuPaul's Drag Race. Through the seasons, there were some mini challenges closely related to voguing. There is also a main ball challenge every sea- son, where the queens need to present three different looks. A reading mini challenge

41 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG is a part of every season; the queens are asked to read each other, which means they are purposefully making fun of each other. This challenge starts with a direct quote from the movie and the whole judging thing and drag being a competition can also be the influence of the ball culture.

Few other documentaries showed the reality of drag. The Cockettes (2002) is a documentary about a drag troupe with the same name that shows how these queens lived. The history of this troupe is connected to anti-capitalistic drag and a time where everything in America was becoming political (Feldman and Hakim 389-400).

Wigstock: The Movie is a documentary about a drag festival, Wigstock, that took place every year in New York in the nineteen-nineties, and it is focused on the perfor- mances, but it also shows the backstage of the festival. The movie also has a sound- track album with songs from the performers, including RuPaul (Jaksic). The most sig- nificant change in the representation of drag and how it is perceived came with

Charles RuPaul.

4.3. The Era of RuPaul

While there had been drag queens throughout history who made a name for themselves and gained some fame even outside the LGBTQ+ communities, no one had as much fame as RuPaul does. Because it is hard to distinguish between RuPaul

Charles and the drag queen RuPaul, this thesis will use the pronouns they and theirs.

RuPaul's impact on the representation of the drag world is enormous, primarily thanks to RuPaul's Drag Race and the queens.

42 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG

Then in the early-to-mid 1990s, we see the rare drag success story: Ru-

Paul. In1993, two singles from her Supermodel of the World album reach num-

ber 1 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Music/Club Playchart. The self-pronounced ‘Su-

permodel’ then signs a modelling contract with MAC Cosmetics and in 1994,

becomes the face of their Viva Glam campaign. After publishing the 1995 auto-

biography, Lettin’ It All Hang Out, RuPaul co-hosts a morning radio programme

in New York and from 1996 to 1998, co-hosts a late-night talk show on the na-

tional cable television network VH1 (Feldman and Hakim 392).

There are at least two reasons why RuPaul had a much better chance at becoming this success story than the queens before them. The first is that RuPaul's story, as they present it, is the perfect example of the "American dream". A person who had nothing but worked hard and made something great out of himself (Feldman and Ha- kim 392). RuPaul often talks about the challenging beginnings of their career on the show to encourage other queens. They appreciate hard work because that is what got him where they are now.

RuPaul gave people the chance to see drag on screen from different perspec- tives than was possible before. They embodied many things that many drag queens stand for, and they showed it to the world.

RuPaul's performances and autobiography further complicate under-

standings of female impersonation because, while he draws on mainstream

models of femininity, particularly the supermodels of the 1980s and 1990s, his

performance also grows out of his identity as a southern,7 working-class,

43 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG

African American "sissy" (20), his experiences in racial and sexual minority

communities, his identification with the strong women of his family, and his

early experimentation with "punk or gender fuck drag" (66) (Schewe 673).

While RuPaul had a voice in television and media, they still tried to put RuPaul into a box. They went with it, but they talked about their ideas of what drag is and how they want to present themselves in their autobiography.

Thus, although his music videos encourage superficial viewings that fail

to interrogate the super model ideal, RuPaul's autobiographical account per-

forms a more complicated identity that develops and changes through his dif-

ferent performances and experiences. Not only does RuPaul refuse to distance

himself through parody, instead celebrating femininity as an integral part of

his gay male identity, but he also reintroduces through the autobiography

many of the more radical elements of his performances that never made it to

MTV (Schewe 673).

There is no doubt that RuPaul had a significant influence on how drag is perceived now, but some people might argue against his image.

Because he shapes his image after supermodels and Barbie Dolls,

stacking his already tall 6' 4" frame atop high heels, cinching his tiny waist

with a corset, and donning huge blond wigs and lingerie, RuPaul would make

an easy target for feminist criticisms of such unattainable ideals of femininity

and the dangerous lengths to which women often go to achieve them. On the

other hand, because these over-the-top representations of femininity are per

44 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG

formed by an outspokenly gay black man, it would be equally easy to praise

RuPaul for his subversion of gender, race, and sexual norms.4 Indeed, both of

these arguments might hold true for different audiences (Schewe 672).

Nonetheless, there is no denying that RuPaul still has an enormous impact on the drag world, and especially on how the general public perceives drag. He has his own movies (like AJ and the Queen), shows, music, and he is the face of drag in mainstream pop culture. The controversy of RuPaul and their drag is a topic of many discussions, and now these discussions carried over to the show. While RuPaul gave a voice to many queens and made sure that the art of drag is famous not only in America but also in other parts of the world, there are many questions about the diversity of this representation. About the representation of different people in the show, but also the different types of queens.

4.4. Current Drag Representation

The representation of drag now is heavily focused on RuPaul and their legacy because Drag Race is a big franchise that has shown not only in America but also in other countries. The queens that participate in the show gain fame and a considerable following and get significant opportunities in television. For example, the winner of season 6, Bianca Del Rio, has a movie on Netflix (Hurricane Bianca 2016 and Hurri- cane Bianca: From Russia with Hate 2018) , where some other queens also appear.

One of the most famous queens, Alyssa Edwards, is known for her dancing abilities, and she has a show on Netflix about teaching dance to kids (Dancing Queen 2018).

45 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG

Drag Me Down the Aisle is another reality show that has four of RuPaul's Queens.

“This American television special on TLC featured RuPaul's Drag Race alumnae,

Alexis Michelle, BeBe Zahara Benet, Jujubee, and Thorgy Thor as they help engaged women plan their upcoming weddings. The show was given a full season titled Drag- nificent!, in 2020,” (Jaksic). Drag Race made many queens famous and gave people the chance to see drag as it is now. While this opportunity seems to be limited to the queens of Drag Race, it opens the door for more representation and for drag to be- come even more mainstream.

There are other shows with drag that do not involve RuPaul or the queens from the show. The underground Ball culture is an integral part of the drag culture, and it has been previously used in the mainstream media, for example, Madonna and her clip Vogue and the already mentioned documentary Paris is Burning. This culture, together with the document, was an inspiration for the newer tv show Pose. It shows how the ball culture functioned, and it gives the audience a glimpse of the lives of drag queens in the nineteen-eighties and nineties. The show is important because of the history of the ball culture and because its diverse cast of characters. Many shows that use drag as a part of the plot fail to show the reality of drag. Anyone can do drag, and it is one of the most diverse subcultures. Pose does a great job of representing all drag queens and all types of drag.

Pose has made history, being the first scripted US series with the largest

number of regular trans characters played by trans actors. As GLAAD's annual

report Where We Are on TV 2018-2019 states “[t]he series broke new ground

46 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG

with centering trans characters and stories at the heart of the show”1 this is

important because a great deal of knowledge comes from media, and shading

light on the living realities and experiences of segments of the population

whose voices are usually not heard has a double result: it teaches to part of the

audience things that they might not be aware of; and it gives back to another

part of the audience stories resembling their owns (Felici 1).

Pose is what the representation of drag queens and the LGBTQ+ community should be. Another show with drag is a Canadian show called Queens. This show is another one that will show the drag community and how it operates.

In the last few years, the focus of the representation of drag shifted to social media, which is not a crucial part of drag queen's marketing. They can reach millions of people worldwide through this, and they can share their version of the artform through it.

For the contestants of RuPaul’s Drag Race, a social media presence is all

but compulsory. Instagram is currently the dominant platform for drag

queens, arguably because its emphasis on imagery supports drag’s long-stand-

ing connection to visual culture and is particularly well-suited to showcasing a

queen’s distinctive looks. Twenty-two former Drag Race contestants have now

surpassed 1 million Instagram followers (RuPaul’s Drag Race Wiki). Such so-

cial media popularity often gestures to the account holder’s offline success,

and indeed, of the twenty-two queens in the ‘million follower club’, many have

developed prolific multimedia careers that include touring but also extend to

47 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG

YouTube, film, television and music production (Turchiano 2018) (Feldman

and Hakim 394).

Media also allow the queens to promote themselves and catch the attention of movie and show creators, modeling agencies, and other brands. In later years drag started to get its attention in the modeling world, and drag queens are now models and faces of many brands. Indeed, this is almost exclusively only for the queens of RuPaul's

Drag Race because they gained much attention from the world thanks to the show, and they have RuPaul as a stamp of approval. Because of the big audience, there are many conventions and festivals now, and even local shows with local queens attract people from other cities or even countries.

From global, drag-focused conventions - DragCon, held in Los Angeles

in May, witnessed 40,000plus attendees this year - that create new tourism

dollars for sponso r cities, to fully-booked cruise liner tours such as Celebrity

Equinox (which crafts "Queens Overboard" voyages), drag is seeing a spike in

multiple markets. Some of the biggest support comes from beauty and fashion

companies - from small shops such as Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics to

huge brands such as Marc Jacobs - that are now willing to hire drag spokes-

people in hopes of getting the same reaction MAC did during its epic VivaGlam

campaigns of the 1990s (Iannacci).

Nowadays, even big companies and modeling agencies are interested in drag queens.

For example, the finalist of the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race UK, Tayce, is the new face of Coca-Cola. It is a massive step for the drag culture because it is one of the

48 THE REPRESENTATION OF DRAG most influential brands in the world. Drag is now considered part of mainstream pop culture, and as such, it gets a fair amount of representation in media, which is only in- creasing every year.

49 RUPAUL´S DRAG RACE

5 RuPaul´s Drag Race

RuPaul´s Drag Race is a big franchise with shows not only in America but also in many other countries, and most of the representation of drag in pop culture is based on it. The queens competing in the show gain much attention from the world, and it is on them how they utilize this platform. Most of them take the opportunity and use it to develop their drag and continue to appear in mainstream pop culture.

For example, the queens Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova run a successful

YouTube channel together to talk about drag, the show, and other topics. A lot of queens also repeatedly appear in the franchise, as contestants or as quests, for exam- ple, Vanessa "Vanjie" Mateo is a queen from seasons 10 and 11, and since then, she also appeared in season 12, All-Stars 5, does a lot of shows and tours under Drag Race with other queens.

5.1. The Fame of the Chosen Queens

RuPaul's Drag Race UK had its second season in the first half of 2021, giving other queens in Britain the opportunity to become stars alongside the American queens. In the summer of 2020, Canada's Drag Race had its first season, however it did not include RuPaul as a host but one of the finalists from America's Drag Race season 11. “Canada's Drag Race is the fourth international rendition of the Drag Race franchise which is the first English speaking version to not have RuPaul as a host, however, he does appear in video messages and narrates the title sequence,” (Jaksic).

Throughout the years, the show had its spin-off in Chile, Netherlands, and Thailand,

50 RUPAUL´S DRAG RACE which also did not include RuPaul, and they did not gain that much fame outside their countries, but it is proof of drag slowly becoming a part of mainstream television worldwide. Drag Race Spain and RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under also premiered in

May 2021.

The American Drag Race also has many spin-offs, for example RuPaul's Drag

Race All-Stars. RuPaul chooses some popular queens that they think did not get enough opportunity to shine, or the audience liked a lot to come back and compete again. This show has a little bit of a different format than the main one. In the first season, the returning queens were put into pairs, and they went through the whole competition together, which also meant that two queens went home every episode. In the next three seasons of All Stars, queens competed by themselves, but the twist was that RuPaul chooses two top queens and three (this changed throughout the seasons and episodes) bottom queens and the top queens then lip-synced against each other, and the one that won got a prize also got the responsibility to send one of the bottom queens home. It created even more drama than in the original drag race because it al- lowed the queens to strategize a lot, which escalated into some heated arguments, and it also created some of the best shocking surprises of the show. In All-Stars 4, the fan-favorite Manilla Luzon was given a third opportunity to compete for the crown, and it looked like she was going to win. There were already some arguments in the season about how the queens will vote, if it will be according to the judges' critiques, or if they are going to play favorites. Everybody was shocked when Manilla ended up in the bottom for the first time, and Naomi Smalls sent her home, getting rid of the

51 RUPAUL´S DRAG RACE strongest competition. All-Stars created opportunities for more drama and moments like this, and it helped to make the show enjoyable even after so many seasons.

RuPaul tries to do everything they can to create perfect drama and perfect heartfelt moments between the queens because it keeps the views on a high level.

The emotional talks between the queens while they are getting ready for the runway, are an essential part of the show because it makes it relevant and brings the queens closer to the audience. They talk about critical LGBTQ+ issues, the struggles of people of color, and religion. Overall, the show focuses on educating the public about drag and the issues that drag queens and queer people face. “In every season of RPDR, there have been episodes and challenges revolving around the theme of gay pride,

HIV/AIDS awareness and education, and education about historically significant gay- and drag-related issues,” (Gonzáles and Cavazos 665). The queens also share their own emotional life stories, which might feel forced sometimes, and while that might be the case sometimes, they are also there to humanize the queens. “On the contrary, the series offers many portrayals of drag queens as holistic people who are to be seen as equal13 to their heterosexual and heteronormative counterparts by the show’s pro- ducers: as relatable and realistic characters as opposed to caricatures,” (Gonzáles and

Cavazos 665). Drag Race shows that drag queens and queer people are still just peo- ple. They have hardships, families and are in happy relationships. The show talks about essential matters like HIV, homelessness, police brutality, and LGBTQ+ issues and links to charities dealing with these issues, and all of this brings the queens and the show itself closer to the audience. While these talks make the viewing rates high,

52 RUPAUL´S DRAG RACE the show is also trying to make a difference in the world and make it better for the

LGBTQ+ community.

While being a queen on the show can make people into a star, it is saved for only some of the queens in America. It is hard to get on the show because more and more queens are trying to get in every year. Some of the queens, Tamisha Iman from season 13 or Mayhem Miller from season 10 and All-Stars 5, were famous queens in the American world of drag even before they were in the show, and it still took them many years trying to get on the show. Once the queens get on the show, their success depends not only on how well they do on the show but how do the viewers accept them. An example of this is already mentioned queen Vanessa "Vanjie" Matteo. Even though she ended in the first episode of her initial season (season 10), she made so many fans fall in love with her that RuPaul had no other chance than to bring her back for the next season and to keep bringing her back as a guest. The same hap- pened with Shangella in the earlier seasons (seasons 2,3 and All-Stars 3). The whole idea behind All-Stars is to let RuPaul bring the queens from previous seasons back, and with that either make the audience happy and force them to watch their favorite queen again or bring back some problematic queens and create more drama, which also keeps the audience glued to the tv.

All Stars are not the only way to bring some queens back into the franchise, and other American spin-offs allow it. Drag U is a show with the drag queens from the earlier seasons (from season 1 to season 4), and they are judged on how good is the transformation of three women into drag queens. They must give a drag makeover to

53 RUPAUL´S DRAG RACE three women, and the queens are then judged on how well the transformation went.

The queens in this are mainly the fan favorites, like Raven, Jujubee, Latrice Royale, and Manila, and those are also the ones that RuPaul constantly brings back to the show as guests or as contestants. Similar to this is RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race that aired in 2020 and only had four episodes. Three celebrities in each episode get a drag mentor and then undergo a drag transformation. This one has not only the queens that are fan favorites and come back a lot but even winners from past sea- sons, like Bob the Drag Queen or Trixie Mattel. Drag Race also goes on tours with the show´s queens, for example, WERQ the world or RuPaul's Drag Race LIVE! Las Vegas.

While the show makes drag more visible to people that this artform would not usu- ally reach, it shows only few selected queens and only some forms of drag.

5.2. The Representation of Different Types of Drag Queens

When the first season of RuPaul's Drag Race aired in 2009, the drag world and the LGBTQ+ community were excitedly waiting for representation that will accu- rately illustrate the diverse reality of drag in America. The show was a welcomed change in the LGBTQ+ representation in popular culture, and it is essential even to- day because it gives voice to many different people, and it points at the importance of drag as an art form in American culture. Nevertheless, there are many problems with the diversity of the representation in the show. After the first season, it looked like the show checked all the boxes regarding diverse representation. "At the beginning of season one, the show included Queens who ranged in age, experience, and race

54 RUPAUL´S DRAG RACE

(RuPaul herself is African American), and also highlighted different types of drag per- formances," (Edgar 136 – 137). This has been true throughout all the seasons and spin-off, but it almost looks like RuPaul is just checking the boxes of diversity.

There are few different categories of drag that change through time, but some are always present in the show. Camp queens are comedy queens with a quirky sense of fashion, and they are heavily represented in the series. They rely on their sense of humor, sometimes to their detriment, the judges criticizing their inability to be more diverse and try to create more characters than just one. This was the case of Tina

Burner in season 13. She is a campy queen, and because of her name, her signature colors are red, yellow, and orange, she relies on her humor, and her signature style quickly got trying because she was unable to do anything else. Many comedy queens are also plus-size queens, and while it is a good thing that the show represents all body types, it feels like they mostly want plus-size queens when they are funny. As if humor and the queen´s body type went together. Funny plus-size queens include Vic- toria “Porkchop” Parker (season 1) Lawrence Chaney (UK season 2), and Jaymes

Mansfield (Season 9).

Because the terms drag and female impersonation were continuously used in- terchangeably throughout history, there is this idea that the primary purpose of drag queens is to embody all the stereotypes of what a woman should be. The queens in the show are forced to work with the binary expressions of gender, either being what is traditionally masculine or feminine. Masculine queens are called butch queens, and they are often criticized for it. The judges are trying to force them to change it up a

55 RUPAUL´S DRAG RACE little bit. In the most recent season, the drag queen Joey Jay was known for her short wigs and more of a masculine look, but the judges criticized her a lot because of it, and they wanted her to at least change the hair. While it might get a bit repetitive and boring to see a queen with the same look every time, she is not the only one that got this critique. For example, Milk (season 6 and All-Stars 3) is one of those more an- drogynous queens considered weird and out of the box, and while drag should push the boundaries of what is considered "normal" and conventional, it does not always fit with the show's idea of what a drag queen should be. On the other hand, there are fishy queens, who are precisely the embodiment of the stereotypical perfect woman.

From the beginning of RPDR, the audience is presented with a formal

position that fishiness is valued over butchness with regards to the presenta-

tion of gender among the drag queen contestants. In the drag community, fish-

iness refers to the presentation of hyper-femininity and a consistent portrayal

of physiological femaleness. On RPDR, queens are expected to reinforce the

valorization of fishiness as well as heteronormative binaries of gender and

sexuality (Gonzáles and Cavazos 663).

However, these queens often get criticized for their beauty, and the judges often tell them not hide behind their beauty and try to spice things up in the challenges and on the runway. It makes sense that the makers of the show want more diversity when it comes to performances and for the winning queen to be able to adapt to every chal- lenge, but the show puts the queens in boxes, and if the queens do not like the boxes and try something different, it is a problem, but if they do stay in the box that they

56 RUPAUL´S DRAG RACE choose, it is also wrong. They want some diversity from the queens, but the judges also say they want the queens to be true to themselves, but it does not always work out for them when they are. An example of this is a queen from season 6, Adore, that the judges tried to put into a box that she did not like, and it caused her self-confi- dence to falter. When she came back for All-Stars 2, it was only for a few episodes, and then she decided to leave because they still tried to put her into a box. However,

Adore is a very successful drag queen with a big fanbase and a promising singing ca- reer. She just did not fit into RuPaul's idea of a successful drag queen.

What seems to be the main issue when it comes to categorizing queens on the show and the representation of drag queens is the idea that drag only works in the bi- nary spectrum.

It becomes clear that genderqueer drag queens and those who wish to

portray anything more than a binary expression of heteronormative gender

are not valued nor are they successful on the show. Queens who embody gen-

derqueer drag personas regularly express their desire to ‘stay true to them-

selves’ and their aesthetics but are quickly sent home as they are reprimanded

for not being able to diversify their looks. RPDR has yet to diversify its unspo-

ken qualifications for success, which seems to be at odds with the increasingly

diversified nature of the drag community (González and Cavazos 663).

It is evident in the lack of representation of transgender or nonbinary people because in the twelve years that this franchise functions, there have been only two transgender queens. More queens realized that they are transgender after the show,

57 RUPAUL´S DRAG RACE but only two were admitted to the show being open about their gender. The first one is Gia Gunn, who, the first time she was on the show, identified as male but later ad- mitted that she is a transgender woman, and RuPaul invited her back for All-Stars 4.

The second one is Gottmik from season 13. More genderqueer queens are part of the drag race franchise, but it is mostly not talked about on the show, or they started to talk about it after their appearance on it, but this is slowly changing. For example, there is an open conversation about gender in RuPaul's Drag Race UK season 2, where many of the queens openly identify as nonbinary.

RuPaul themselves being African American, it might seem as if the show is the most progressive and diverse piece of pop culture out there, but it is far from the truth. While there are different races represented on the show, there are mostly one or two queens of one race every season. The exception to this are African American queens, that while they get represented a lot, they are also treated very differently from the Drag Race fandom. They must work much harder to succeed in the show and win over the fans. Those are also the queens that get the most hate from the fans. In the series about the WERQ the World tour, Asia O'Hara talks about African American queens' struggles. She mentions that she gets much fewer fans to come up to her in fan meetings or on the street and that when there are other queens, white queens, the fans go to them, and they even openly tell her that they do not want her in the picture.

While it might seem that it could be the problem of Asia's personality, other queens often mention Asia and the judges as the most professional and most congenial queen they have worked with. And this is the mildest form of oppression that queens of

58 RUPAUL´S DRAG RACE color face from the fandom. In recent years, the hate towards RuPaul's queens of color on social media rapidly grew, but only in 2020 and 2021 RuPaul and the crew started to talk about it and spoke against racism and the general hate for some queens.

African – American, Latina, and Asian queens must work much harder to get the support of the show's fans. While they get the same opportunities as other queens, they get stereotyped a lot, especially in the first few seasons. There is only about one Asian queen per season, mostly fitting into the categories of fishy queens

(Plastique Tiara in season 11), social media queens, fashion, or make-up queens (Kim

Chi in season 8). Latina queens also get stereotyped a lot in the later seasons, mainly for being the loud, outspoken queens that some people view as violent. This tension is also evident in the comments on social media that queens like Silky or Kandy Muse get and between the queens and judges on the set. The language barrier was a big is- sue in the earlier season because the Latina queens picked for the show did not fully understand or spoke English well, creating tension between the queens. In season three, Alexis Matteo and Yara Sofia were often criticized for their language, and that continued to the All-Stars, where the other queens even picked them to go home one episode just because of their language.

RuPaul's Drag Race has done great things for the representation of drag and the LGBTQ+ community. It tries to educate people about important things and show them that queer people are still just people. They use actual drag queens from Amer- ica to represent the drag of America, and it created a worldwide fanbase. Some things

59 RUPAUL´S DRAG RACE have stayed the same since the first season of the show when it comes to the repre- sentation, which deserves critique. The world of drag is continuously changing, it is not now what it was in 2009, and its representation should go with it. While some of the things that the show does to stay relevant make sense, it could be much better if they let go of some of the stereotypes and the binary expression of drag.

60 CONCLUSION

6 Conclusion

Over the last decade, more accurate representations of drag and the LGBTQ+ com- munity began to appear on television. The drag community got more attention than ever before and started to appear in shows and movies. With that, more knowledge about the history of drag and its representation started to appear. This thesis aimed to analyze this, focusing on RuPaul´s Drag Race and the portrayal of different types of drag in it.

The first two chapters were more theoretical; the first chapter focusing on basic terms used when talking about drag. The first part dealt with the terms drag, drag queen, and female impersonation, explaining them in more detail because they are often used interchangeably. All these terms are connected to theatre, and their his- tory is described in more detail in this chapter. It is also explained how and when drag became connected with the LGBTQ+ community and is now considered a queer slang word.

The second chapter described the history of female impersonation and drag in

Britain and America. Drag is closely connected to female impersonation in England, where women were not allowed on stage, so men played all the roles, even the female ones. Female impersonation was constantly evolving, and over time it developed into drag. Some traditions and practices connected to the theatre were happening over many centuries, even after the actress was introduced to formal drama. After this, the thesis focused on American drag history, which is linked with the Britain one, mainly

61 CONCLUSION on the ball culture of the nineteen – seventies and eighties, because this period has a significant influence on the representation of drag.

The third chapter analyzed the representation of drag in movies and shows. It was divided into four parts. The first part described movies that used female impersona- tion for comedic relief, casting straight actors that did not usually play women. In some movies, like Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), female impersonation was part of the plot.

In other cases, like comedies with Milton Berle, it was there only to make fun of drag and women. The second part of the third chapter, on the other hand, focused on mov- ies and shows with an accurate representation of drag, casting real drag queens.

Some of these movies were created by drag queens for themselves, like the movie

Pink Flamingos (1972), and some were documentaries (Paris is Burning 1990). The next part of the thesis concerned itself with RuPaul and their accomplishments and mentioned some critiques. The last part of this chapter analyzed how the representa- tion looked in the last decade, mentioning different shows and movies.

The final chapter analyzed RuPaul´s Drag Race and how it portrays the diverse re- ality of the drag scene in America. The first part mentioned the fame of RuPaul´s queens and what they do with it. It also stated that while the show gives drag queens significant opportunities, it is only for few chosen queens. The second part analyzes the diversity and stereotypical portrait of some of the categories of drag.

In conclusion, this thesis tries to bring the world of drag a little closer to the reader. It talks about the most used terms and the history of drag because these are essential to understand and analyze the representation. The representation of drag in

62 CONCLUSION the second half of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century underwent a significant transformation, from using men in dresses as for comedic relief, through casting real drag queens in movies, to the queens of RuPaul´s Drag Race taking over

Ameri-ca and eventually the whole world. While it may seem that this is the golden age of the representation of drag, there is still much more work to do. Drag is one of the most diverse communities out there, and it is not just men impersonating women; it is an art form that anyone can participate in, and the representation of it needs to be accurate and change accordingly to the drag community.

63

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