Do Drag Queens Adopt a Female Style Or a Distinct Drag Queen Speech? Hannah Essing

Home , Aja (entertainer), Crystal (drag queen), Drag (clothing), Valentina (drag queen)

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Breaking Away From the Binary: Do Drag Queens Adopt a Female Style or a Distinct Drag Queen Speech? Hannah Essing

RuPaul's Drag Race [RPDR] is an media. He received several Emmy American reality TV show that aired for Awards for his show. He also released the first time in 2009. In typical Ameri- several music albums, even two books. ca's Next Top Model demeanour contest- He is often credited with being one of the ants are competing for the title of Amer- most influential Drag Queens and mak- ica's next drag superstar, participating in ing Drag more approachable for a wider various challenges from singing to acting audience. to walking the runway. The contestants are performing Drag Queens. Although In his essay "Indexing Polypho- Rusty Barrett describes Drag Queens as nous Identity in the Speech of African "almost always gay men" (313), this American Drag Queens", author Rusty erases the identity of many of the con- Barrett argues, that African American testants. Many of them identify as gay Drag Queens adopt a "'white-woman' men, however a number of contestants style of speaking" (413) as one of their also find themselves on the trans-spec- voices utilised in their performances. But trum, identify as non-binary, gender- the question is: Do Drag Queens not nec- queer, or as transsexual, sometimes al- essarily adopt a "female" style, but a dis- ready in transition. Here lies one of the tinct "Drag Queen" way of speaking? biggest issues with the analysis of Drag: Furthermore, what are the markers of it might be very easy to see the contest- this style? In the context of the show, the ants as men dressing up as women, but aim is not to sound like a woman, but to that would adhere to a binary that sound like a Drag Queen and to adhere to doesn’t always apply to Drag Queens. the rules and speech patterns used by Drag Queens, as this article further illus- The show gained a wider audience trates. In his essay "Speaking Like a and more attention in mainstream media Queen in RuPaul's Drag Race: Towards a after it changed from being aired on Speech Code of American Drag Queens", LogoTV to the more mainstream station Nathaniel Simmons argues that "drag VH1. The host is RuPaul, an African- queens use nonverbal aesthetics to com- American Drag Queen and one of the municate a coherent drag identity as most widely known Drag Queens in the

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Queens blur gender lines and use perfor- Drag scene. mance as a space in which to bend the dominant American gender narrative bi- Drag is a way of blurring gender nary" (631). lines and expressing identity that cannot be limited to a gender binary, neither in Drag Queens style themselves as identity nor in linguistic style. Claiming female with the help of make-up, wigs, that Drag Queens are trying to imperson- duct tape, fake nails and padding, but ate female speech patterns therefore re- they also very often use an excessive stricts the art form to a gender binary. amount of gesturing. In addition, Drag The point in question is whether lan- Queens also style their language to fit the guage should be looked at through a bi- idea of "linguistic drag". This particular nary perspective at all. Drag Queens blur way of speaking derives from Ball cul- the lines of the gender binary, the per- ture, which is an underground LGBT sub- formers themselves often do not fit in a culture in the United States. Their origin binary system. To sort them in these bi- lies in cross dressing balls that white nary categories is adhering to stereo- men hosted in the 1930s, often excluding types and a traditional view of gender black members. The Ball Culture in New that is being reconsidered nowadays, for York started as a counter movement to example by scholars like Judith Butler. those problematic white dance events. Ball culture tried “to figure out how to I look at four scenes where Aja's respond to a society that devalued their style of speech was particularly promi- lives and attempted to erase their pres- nent and point out the markers of their ence” (Brathwaite). performance and which resources they use to style themselves as a Drag Queen. This article focuses on Aja1, a con- This research is necessary to work testant of season 9. Aja is the stage name against a prevailing binary thinking in of Jay Rivera from Brooklyn, who is the academia and to motivate researchers to youngest Queen to participate in season think outside these barriers. 9, as they were 22 during filming. When they are introduced to the other Queens Although there is some research in the first episode of season 9, fellow on Drag and Drag Queens, a lot of it relies contestant Sasha Velour explains that on Rusty Barrett's research. This poses Aja "is the number one name in Brooklyn quite a few problems. When analysing that people are talking about right now", whether Drag Queens stylise their lan- referring to their successful career in the guage after white women, Barrett bases

1 Since Aja identifies as genderfluid I will use the pronouns "they/them" when referring to them.

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his ideas on the criteria for female speech on a stage, or in a stage-like area such as by Robin Lakoff (Lakoff, Language and a space in front of a camera or micro- Woman’s Place, 1972). phone" (557). Moreover, the "audience has an expectation of skill, and the per- "using specialist vocabulary linked to wom- former is therefore subjected to an in- en's supposed interest (using precise colour tense audience gaze" (557 - 558). This terms, the vocabulary of sewing, etc)", applies to a reality TV show. RPDR is tar- "'empty' adjectives like divine or cute", "using tag questions in declarative utterances", geted at a mainstream audience, how- "using hedges and super polite forms", ever, there is a wide audience of Drag "avoiding telling jokes" and "'speaking in fans who expect their Queens to adhere italics', which refers to speaking on the as- to certain standards. Linguistic Drag is sumption that no attention is being paid to one's speech" (Lakoff 8 – 19) one of them; the audience is used to a particular speech behaviour of Drag Lakoff's ideas do not meet today’s stand- Queens’ performances. This points out ard of linguistics and gender studies. It is that stylised speech needs "an accultur- very clear to see how outdated these as- ated audience able to read and predis- sumptions about a female way of speak- posed to judge the semiotic value of a ing are. Furthermore, talking of "wom- projected persona or genre" (Coupland en's language" in general insinuates that 154). Also, the contestants have to prove there is a category of "woman" that is themselves to a jury who is familiar with universal and shares the same linguistic drag and its performance conventions. background, no matter what class, eth- Audience design as Bell and Gibson call nicity, sexuality or age. This belief is ra- it, plays a part here, meaning that ther general and essentialist. According "speakers adapt their language style to Judith Butler's thesis on gender per- largely in response to their listeners", formance, gender is "in no way a stable while referee design is said to involve the identity", but "an identity tenuously "initiate use of linguistic features to in- constituted in time" (Butler 519). In this dex a targeted referee group" (Bell and respect, a “woman” is a fluid social con- Gibson 560). Both hold true for Drag per- struction not an object with essential formance on RPDR. The same applies to common features. the factor of indexicality, the idea that "present acts of meaning-making de- Drag slang can also be seen as pend upon the meanings of parallel past staged language, in terms of Bell and acts" (560). Drag slang is a very distinct Gibson's sociolinguistics of perfor- way of speaking with its own system of mance. Stage performance is the "sche- meaning, vocabulary and catch phrases, duled identification and elevation […] of which can be understood only if one is fa- one or more people to perform, typically

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miliar with it. That points to the indexi- the wig look more natural. To "snatch" cality of Drag performance. something is also a very prominent word in Drag culture and especially on RPDR, The following four scenes illus- there is even a segment called "The trate how Aja uses a specific way of Snatch Game". Therefore, this sentence speaking to underline their identity as a explicitly calls to Drag culture and Drag Drag Queen. While analysing the four slang. Considering this scene from the scenes in aspects of the use of vocabu- point of view of Lakoff's criteria for fe- lary, Drag Queen slang, Lakoff's criteria male speech pattern, it is clear that in for female speech patterns will be con- this case, Aja is "using specialist vocabu- sidered as well, since various articles use lary linked to women's supposed inter- it as an argument for female speech pat- est" (Barrett 222) and also speaking in terns in Drag slang. Therefore, this will italics, when they remark that they are serve as a way of comparing and refute "so happy" to see everyone. these ideas. In the next scene, the Queens are The first scene is Aja's introduc- preparing for a challenge, where they tion in the first episode. The Drag Queens have to act as different characters. Every enter the room successively, introduce role has an assigned adjective, like themselves in Drag and comment on it "snoozy" or "sassy". Aja explains it as out of Drag. They meet the other contest- following: "There's literally, like, an ad- ants for the first time and get the chance jective for every single Queen" (“She to talk about their own and the others’ Done Already Brought It On”, 07:13). style and perceived personality. When When discussing the way to go on from Aja enters the room, they call their own there, they propose: "Should we, like, drag "vangy" (“Oh. My. Gaga!”, 09:50). stand up and do it, just sort of like… give Aja's use of vocabulary is often rather it a flavour?" (08:05). As one can see, Aja unusual and the word itself does not ex- extensively uses the discourse marker ist. It is, however, a slang word, defined "like". This discourse marker is often by the Urban Dictionary as "a funny, described as a part of "Valleyspeak", a amazing, loving, sweet, beautiful, and sociolect originating in South California perfect girl that can be called a princess". (Woo). Although this Valleyspeak is of- Another remark Aja makes is: "Your ten associated with young girls and often edges are officially snatched" (“Oh. My. stereotyped as "dumb" or "superficial", Gaga!”, 09:48). This is very explicitly it is quite widespread through media, Drag slang. When women of colour wear even outside of California. Therefore, wigs or weaves, "edges" are the natural even Aja, who is from Brooklyn, uses the hair that is left out to blend in and make typical discourse marker. A study shows

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that discourse markers are more often that "damned stage" (18:52) and would used by women, but and younger people still be seen as beautiful. Using curse in general. The gender difference, how- words does not match Lakoff's criteria. ever, vanished the older the participants of the study got (Laserna et al). Looking Talking about their outburst later at Aja’s vocabulary and Lakoff's criteria, on, Aja remarks that "if you're in the this scene is not very telling, since Val- moment and you have some shit to say, leyspeak cannot be seen as a gender mar- say it" (19:16). This is one more instance ker only. of where Lakoff's "non-cursing" rule is broken. Drag Queens often do speak The episode Reunited looks spe- without minding curse words, so La- cifically at Aja and another Queen with koff's criteria for this instance are mis- whom they were in conflict. The audi- guiding. Speaking about Valentina, Aja ence gets to see a clip backstage that also uses the word "girl" (19:33) to ad- demonstrates Aja’s reaction to another dress her. There are many instances of contestant’s (Valentina) successful chal- Aja referring to someone as "girl", just lenge. Aja says the jury "eat [her] up" like other contestants do that. One could (“Reunion”, 18:47) every time she is on argue that this is to signify that they the stage. To eat someone up, as the Ur- acknowledge them as their Drag person- ban Dictionary defines it, means "to ality and their performed femininity. overwhelm someone with loving, but However, "girl" can rather be under- non-sexual, affection". Once again Aja stood as a discourse marker such as uses vocabulary that is not necessarily "dude". Scott F. Kiesling defines "dude" representing their status as a Drag as "a discourse marker that need not Queen, but rather their very young age identify an addressee, and more gener- and their belonging to a "cool", "hip" ally encodes the speaker's stance to his Brooklyn group. This scene is very inter- or her current addressee(s)" (281). He esting when comparing it to Lakoff's cri- explains that it is used "mainly in situa- teria. Although Aja mockingly asks Val- tions in which a speaker takes a stance of entina if she did "stone those tights” – solidarity or camaraderie, but crucially in referring to gluing rhinestones on her a nonchalant, not-too-enthusiastic clothes, commonly done in Drag – which manner" (282). The same can be said for is indeed again "linked to women's sup- the use of "girl" in this context. It is of- posed interests" (Barrett 222) like the ten used when criticising someone or in "vocabulary of sewing" it is more linked astonishment. "Girl" does not refer to to Drag practises than anything else. someone's gender, the same way "dude" Furthermore, Aja says that Valentina does not, since "girl" is also used by the "could walk out in a fucking diaper" on contestants when out of Drag.

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Another instance of Drag slang is shares essential values and traits. when Aja then says: "I don't want to say I read her, I just aggressively compli- Rather than seeing Drag slang as a mented her" (19:40). To "read someone" high performance only, I would argue means to criticise them in a funny way, or that it can be seen as a sociolect, since to roast them. To read someone is typical language is "the chief signal of both per- in Drag slang. In a common instalment manent and transient aspects of our so- on RPDR, it is said that "the library is cial identity" (Crystal 364). Drag slang is open" and "reading glasses" are given. a very prominent, distinct slang that is Then the contestants ridicule each other not only used when in Drag, but also out in a joking way. In this context, critique of Drag: because it shows the belonging of other Queens is often referred to as to a certain group, that is not only limited "being read" or "reading someone". How to stage performances. typical for Drag slang this is, is also shown by a song RuPaul released: "Read However, studying the idea of fe- U, Wrote U". male speech patterns in Drag Queens and reading more about the idea of female These four scenes illustrate that and male speech patterns, it becomes Aja is not imitating female speech pat- clear that there is still a gender binary terns but adhering to a very distinct Drag prevailing in linguistics. Yet Drag is a way slang. Their use of swear words does not of overcoming these categories and a lot fit into Lakoff's categories of female of its performers do not fit into this bi- speech patterns and therefore not to nary, they often identify neither as fe- Barrett's theory of Drag Queens imitat- male or male. For instance, the focus of ing female speech. Furthermore, Aja this study, Aja, identifies as gender- uses a distinct vocabulary that is typical queer. Can someone like this even fit into for the Drag scene. Drag Queens do not binary categories? Are these categories just imitate female speech pattern but even necessary? I believe this analysis use a distinct vocabulary and speech pat- showed that academia should detach tern to stylise themselves as Drag from the outdated binary system. This Queens, not as women. Women as a cat- does not only give more freedom to peo- egory in itself could be considered as ple but also gives way to new grounds and practically non-existent, since they are, new research in linguistics. according to Butler, not a group that

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