What a drag
The Kentucky Senate has just passed a bill outlawing drag shows in public. “Drag Queen Story Time” in public libraries has been a recurring story and controversy of late. The Boy Scouts of America now forbids any campfire skits where one dresses as a member of the opposite sex. And I’ve read a couple of memes going around which claim that all of Shakespeare’s plays were drag performances, since the female characters were all played by adolescent boys.
Time to work out some basic understandings.
Having boys play women’s parts was usual in Shakespeare’s days. It was part of the suspension of disbelief we all must have in order to watch a play. Many years ago, one of my former Scouts – then in high school – found himself in a school theater troupe lacking sufficient girls to play all the parts in Annie, so this self-confident young man put himself forward to play the part of Mrs. Hannigan. It works the other way, too, particularly in opera where contraltos are often assigned to “britches roles.” As one musician I know describes being a contralto, you’re limited to playing “witches and bitches and boys in britches.” Anyway, there’s a word for this: it’s called “acting.” A man playing a wizard, or a woman, or a bear, or a robot, is just what actors do.
Not but what Shakespeare couldn’t play with the convention, even be a bit subversive with it. In Twelfth Night, we have a shipwrecked young woman, Viola, disguise herself as a young man, Cesario, for her own safety. She (as he) winds up being the go-between twixt Duke Orsino and the Countess Olivia. She falls in love with the Duke beneath her disguise, the Countess falls in love with her thinking she is a man, everybody’s feelings are explored, and all the while, we are aware of the undertones of the character being played by a young boy. The boy who is playing a girl who is playing a boy attracting the attentions of both an adult man and an adult woman adds a bit of edginess to the romantic situation. Still, even though this is a comedy, it is all played straight – or it would be simply bawdy. Upper class characters don’t do bawdy in Shakespeare; that’s left to the lower class characters.
Drag – as opposed to straight acting – is performative in a different way. Drag belongs to Carnival, to the Feast of Fools, to the misrule of Boxing Day. By upending the normal social conventions, those conventions are in fact affirmed. So, appointing the youngest servant to be Master for a day, while the actual master waits on him, is only for fun: everybody knows who’s really in charge. Likewise, a bunch of burly men wearing wigs with balloons beneath their sweaters on a British music hall stage or accompanying a Mardi Gras float is a bit of misrule. Milton Berle or Flip Wilson often appeared in women’s clothing on stage, to great applause. Nobody is fooled by the costuming; if they were, it wouldn’t be funny. For the essence of humor (as opposed to a joke) is the sudden perception of incongruity.
Sexual drag is a different thing, for it is intended to be transgressive, not affirmative, of the assumed social order. Drag queens are not trying to hide their masculinity; they’re not actually women (they are exaggerations of women), and they want you to understand that. So, they’re not like Shakespeare’s actors. But they’re not kidding or poking fun, like Carnival performers or Milton Berle. They’re not trying to be funny, they’re dead serious. They want you to see them as men dressing as women, but deny the very distinctions they are making. In effect, they’re breaking the fourth wall. They’re not inviting you to suspend disbelief, but refuse to believe, to join a conspiracy to say that what you know is not so. And there is a menacing edge to that. This is drag as propaganda, and if you refuse to join up, you will become their enemy.
All three kinds of dressing up have been around for as long as there have been costumes and makeup, I suppose. There are people who are playing a part, there are people who are humorously inverting the social order or poking fun at social conventions, and there are people who want to redefine what “man” and “woman” mean – for themselves at least, but increasingly, for everybody else.
Time to work out some basic understandings.
Having boys play women’s parts was usual in Shakespeare’s days. It was part of the suspension of disbelief we all must have in order to watch a play. Many years ago, one of my former Scouts – then in high school – found himself in a school theater troupe lacking sufficient girls to play all the parts in Annie, so this self-confident young man put himself forward to play the part of Mrs. Hannigan. It works the other way, too, particularly in opera where contraltos are often assigned to “britches roles.” As one musician I know describes being a contralto, you’re limited to playing “witches and bitches and boys in britches.” Anyway, there’s a word for this: it’s called “acting.” A man playing a wizard, or a woman, or a bear, or a robot, is just what actors do.
Not but what Shakespeare couldn’t play with the convention, even be a bit subversive with it. In Twelfth Night, we have a shipwrecked young woman, Viola, disguise herself as a young man, Cesario, for her own safety. She (as he) winds up being the go-between twixt Duke Orsino and the Countess Olivia. She falls in love with the Duke beneath her disguise, the Countess falls in love with her thinking she is a man, everybody’s feelings are explored, and all the while, we are aware of the undertones of the character being played by a young boy. The boy who is playing a girl who is playing a boy attracting the attentions of both an adult man and an adult woman adds a bit of edginess to the romantic situation. Still, even though this is a comedy, it is all played straight – or it would be simply bawdy. Upper class characters don’t do bawdy in Shakespeare; that’s left to the lower class characters.
Drag – as opposed to straight acting – is performative in a different way. Drag belongs to Carnival, to the Feast of Fools, to the misrule of Boxing Day. By upending the normal social conventions, those conventions are in fact affirmed. So, appointing the youngest servant to be Master for a day, while the actual master waits on him, is only for fun: everybody knows who’s really in charge. Likewise, a bunch of burly men wearing wigs with balloons beneath their sweaters on a British music hall stage or accompanying a Mardi Gras float is a bit of misrule. Milton Berle or Flip Wilson often appeared in women’s clothing on stage, to great applause. Nobody is fooled by the costuming; if they were, it wouldn’t be funny. For the essence of humor (as opposed to a joke) is the sudden perception of incongruity.
Sexual drag is a different thing, for it is intended to be transgressive, not affirmative, of the assumed social order. Drag queens are not trying to hide their masculinity; they’re not actually women (they are exaggerations of women), and they want you to understand that. So, they’re not like Shakespeare’s actors. But they’re not kidding or poking fun, like Carnival performers or Milton Berle. They’re not trying to be funny, they’re dead serious. They want you to see them as men dressing as women, but deny the very distinctions they are making. In effect, they’re breaking the fourth wall. They’re not inviting you to suspend disbelief, but refuse to believe, to join a conspiracy to say that what you know is not so. And there is a menacing edge to that. This is drag as propaganda, and if you refuse to join up, you will become their enemy.
All three kinds of dressing up have been around for as long as there have been costumes and makeup, I suppose. There are people who are playing a part, there are people who are humorously inverting the social order or poking fun at social conventions, and there are people who want to redefine what “man” and “woman” mean – for themselves at least, but increasingly, for everybody else.