It’s hard to believe that the word “drag” was ever anything less than larger-than-life, because let’s face it: Drag is fabulous.Jim Thomas was one of the community members who ensured ‘Drag Story Hour’ at Helena’s Montana Book Co went off safely. But it’ll always have its roots in queer culture. Today, “drag” can involve dressing up, wearing crazy makeup, gender crossing or having a persona or fictional character. Now the largest drag convention in the world, it’s a place for queens and queers alike to celebrate all things art, culture, and drag. The show even had The New York Times asking: “Is This The Golden Age of Drag?”īuilding off the success of the show, the first RuPaul’s DragCon took place in Los Angeles in 2015. In 2009, the show RuPaul’s Drag Race premiered on Logo TV, a reality competition in pursuit of “America’s next drag superstar.” Over the course of 10 seasons - and spin off shows - the series introduced drag to a new generation and millions of viewers, and truly brought drag to the mainstream. The 2000s made way for the definition of “drag” to broaden from rigidly being about “realness” to a more expansive art form for gay men, trans folks, queer women, and more. There was the hit movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in 1994 and the moment wasn’t just for the queens. The word only continued to get more popular from there. “People ask me all the time where I see myself in 10 years. Not long after, The Washington Post wrote about the honorific: “ America's favorite drag queen.” In 1993, RuPaul went from New York’s gritty East Village scene to the stage of the March on Washington to perform his hit song “Supermodel.” While drag had entered pop culture, the 1990 documentary shocked audiences - and made drag more visible. It poured out of balls and onto the streets of New York City, with the annual Wigstock festival kicking off in 1984. It was a peak time for balls with categories, like “butch queen first time in drag at a ball” and “high fashion evening wear” that we see in Paris Is Burning. Into the 1980s, “drag” meant trying to look as much like a woman as possible. Meanwhile, the disco singer Sylvester sung hits like “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” in drag to international acclaim. In John Waters’ 1972 film Pink Flamingos, Divine scandalized audiences with her filthy character and became an icon along the way. The rise of masculinity in 1970s gay culture diminished the popularity of drag queens, but drag found its way into pop culture. In the 1950s, drag queens began performing in bars and spaces that specifically catered to gay people, like the Black Cat in San Francisco.Īnd, as more gay bars began to pop up, drag solidified itself as a gay art form - not just straight men impersonating women for the sake of comedy. The participants were called “members of the third sex,” a term that described same-sex attracted masculine women or feminine men.ĭuring this time period, there was a division among queer white men: You were either a masculine guy who blended in, or you were a fairy - feminine and dressed in drag. An article from The Afro-American newspaper titled “Queer Sex Busy Planning Drags” detailed a “drag” attended by 300 people - some with a “keenness for blond wigs” - and plans for upcoming drags. They were often house parties where Black queer people would congregate together.īy 1932, the term was headline-worthy. The drag ball tradition goes back to the ‘20s - minus the voguing we see today. The first drag ball goes as far back as 1867, when both males and females at the Hamilton Lodge in Harlem dressed up and competed for awards for the best gown or feminine figure. The danger and segregation of bars in the 1920s paved the way for drag balls. (In fact, it’s possible that “drag king” emerged at this time.) A little later, the Harlem Renaissance had celebrated performers like Gladys Bentley, who wore a top hat and tails. At the turn of the century, women performed as male impersonators. Playing with gender and performance wasn’t reserved to men alone, of course. Rosanoff’s 1927 Manual of Psychiatry defined drag as “an outfit of female dress worn by a homosexual” or as an actual event, “a social gathering of homosexuals at which some are in female dress.” One theory is that it entered the community from Polari, a secret language born out of the criminalization of homosexuality in England that drew on theatre slang.īy 1927, “drag” was clearly linked with the LGBTQ+ community. Their petticoats would drag on the floor, and so they referred to dressing up as women as “putting on their drags.”īy the 1920s, the term “drag” was being used by gay people. This definition probably originated in the theatre of the late 1800s, where male performers wore petticoats to perform as women.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |