Is Drag becoming a Drag?

Yesterday, someone writing on behalf of the Waterworks Pub (a gay bar in Albany, New York) lamented on Facebook that yet again, no Drag Queens had stepped up to host their mid-week drag night. Apparently the bar was offering $50 to the performers in order to help them market their shows and draw in patrons. (My boyfriend remarked, “$50, that’s all? They’ll spend more than that in makeup!”) The comments that followed fell into two categories: those who were getting a little tired of the obsession with drag performances…and a defensive response from the bar that included the charge that ‘the community’ was complaining rather than supporting the bar’s efforts. The entire thread was then quickly deleted.

It reminded me of an incident a number of years ago, where some local Bears planned a fundraiser for a local New Hampshire AIDS Service agency. Drawing on their own natural interests, they began putting together a pool party at a local hotel, complete with a burgers-and-beer cookout. Unfortunately, some in the Agency immediately insisted on having their Drag friends do an Esther-Williams-styled, in-the-water Drag Show at the BBQ…and the entire event fell apart before it was held.

This brings me to the central (and controversial) question of this blog post:

“Has the GLBT community ignored its own members by having gone overboard in its obsession with Drag?”

I want to make it clear from the start that I appreciate a good Drag performer, especially one that actually sings rather than simply lip-synchs. I admit that Ru Paul’s Drag Show is a guilty pleasure of mine, and I’ve gone to Boston to see Jujube, Raven, and Pandora Boxx. For Mother’s Day, my sister, brother-in-law, and boyfriend took my mother to see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert on Broadway. Attending the annual Invasion of the Pines is on my personal bucket list. I have no objection to, and in fact enjoy, good Drag.

Having said that, there *is* such a thing as too much of a good thing, especially when that ‘good thing’ begins to become socially ‘required,’ ‘expected’ and ‘normative’ of the entire community.

The gay male community has a seemingly reflexive ‘need’ to use Drag Queens as their ‘symbols and spokespersons.’ The result is that it conveys an image to the world, that Drag is, in fact, what all gay men are all about. As a younger man struggling with the coming out process, I told myself many times that I couldn’t possibly be gay, ‘because I’m not like that – I don’t want to dress up like that.” And unfortunately, I have discovered dozens upon dozens of men who were closeted for much of their lives because they felt the same conflict; in essence, the gay male community did not ‘communicate’ its muscle-bear-and-leather masculine role models to the general public the way it did with its Drag Performers.

Even in retelling the history of the Stonewall Riots, we have created a mythology surrounding Drag Queens: it is almost accepted without question in gay circles that the Stonewall Riots were begun by the Fierce Queens who took off their stiletto heels and began fighting back against the police. The objective reality is that the riots began when a lesbian, hit on the head with a billy club after complaining that the handcuffs they slapped on her were too tight, turned to the crowd and shouted, “Why aren’t you guys doing something?!” The crowd – largely anti-authority young people, hippies, and gay males (but not Queens) – erupted into the “riot.” The Stonewall was not full of Drag Queens – in fact, official Stonewall Policy was to limit the number of transvestites allowed to enter to less than a handful each night. But our Drag mythology remains…

It seems to me that there is a parallel between the Drag Art Form and the Black Minstrel Art Form of a century earlier.

In the late 1800s, many white performers donned black face and appeared in shows that lampooned black people. Using extreme forms of caricature and stereotype, blacks were characterized as simple, childish, lazy, and superstitious. It was, by its nature, "over the top" for its silliness. Eventually, the most successful minstrel artists were black performers themselves, who perfected this niche entertainment market: Billy Kersands, James A. Bland, Sam Lucas, and Wallace King became greater performers than whites in blackface.

The problem with the success of minstrel, of course, is that it perpetuated a stereotype of the entire black community: the art form that gave these men a voice and a safe place to make their way against all odds, also served to cement, in the public’s mind, a certain ‘image’ of Americans of African descent.

In much the same way, Drag has been the same type of double-edged sword. It has allowed talented performers to engage in outrageous caricatures, with seven-inch heels, four-foot hairdos, five pounds of make-up, three-inch lashes, sequined dresses and super bitchy, self-indulgent attitudes that elicit smiles and laughs from an entertained audience…and often, in its earliest days, it was performed in clubs where gay men could be considered relatively ‘safe.’

But, like minstrel, it also perpetuates the stereotype that gay men are effeminate, female-wannabes among the general heterosexual public. And the more I speak with gay men, the more I hear frustration and even resentment that GLBT community leaders continue to push the notion of the Drag Queen as the highest form of ‘community spokespersons.’

Most if us – quite frankly, more than 95% of us – are simply not personally into drag. But it is continually thrust upon us, and its adoration ‘required’ of us.

At last month’s Mariage Equality rally in Albany, NY, several hundred people – straight allies, lesbians, gay men – gathered to press for legislation in the Capital West Plaza. Among this crowd – which looked like it could have been any crowd at any political event – there was a single outrageously dressed Drag Queen. We watched a news reporter show up to get a scoop on the day’s events...and, as could have been predicted, she headed straight for the Drag Queen, conducted her interview, and filed her story.

There it was: 250-300 of your most average looking neighbors supporting marriage equality, and when the news hit the public airwaves, the public was left with the suggestion that we're all about cross-dressing queens.

And the Waterworks Pub still insists on its weekly drag nights, rather than listen to patrons who suggest it's not what they really want...