This chapter negotiates a range of significant feminist responses to drag
performance published in the last forty years. As a whole, this chapter primarily concentrates on feminist responses to the performance of femininity, thereby reflecting the Anglo-American feminist trend of focusing on drag queen performance at the expense of drag king performance.67 Further, by focusing primarily on the performance of femininity, I aim to shed light on the way in which femininity is frequently positioned as performative and constructed, while
masculinity has been naturalized to a far greater extent (Serano, 2012: 171-3).68 This chapter is divided into five sections, each of which concentrates on a particular era of feminist thought or on a certain perspective. These sections combine to shed light on the positioning of drag performance as necessarily either subversive or reactionary. First, I explore three texts engaging with the radical feminist idea that drag queen performance constitutes a mockery of womanhood: Janice Raymond’s ‘The Politics of Transgenderism’, Marilyn Frye’s ‘Lesbian Feminism and the Gay Rights Movement: Another View of Male Supremacy, Another Separatism’, and bell hooks’ ‘Is Paris Burning?’. Of the three, Raymond’s text is the most strident, taking an unmoving, transphobic stance (1994: xxv-xxxv), and arguing that drag queen performance is necessarily misogynistic (1994: xxvi-xxix). While I strongly disagree with Raymond’s position, I chose to include this excerpt both due to the influential 67As Troka, LeBesco and Noble point out, although ‘work about drag queens was abundant, drag
kings were mentioned mostly in passing (if at all) prior to the late nineties’ (2002: 4) in the Anglo- American context. There have been many excellent examples of scholarship on drag king
performance in the last two decades, particularly within queer theory. Overall, however, scholarship on drag queens and the performance of femininity remains dominant within Anglo-American feminist studies of drag. Further, my primary focus on the performance of femininity in this chapter seeks to balance my focus on drag king performance in my chapter on queer theory.
68 Julia Serano, whose ‘Reclaiming Femininity’ is discussed towards the close of this chapter, offers a
nuanced discussion of the impact of misogyny on the perception of femininity as necessarily more artificial than masculinity (2012: 171-3).
status of The Transsexual Empire, and in order to debunk Raymond’s arguments. Marilyn Frye echoes some of Raymond’s arguments regarding misogyny at work in drag queen performance (1983: 137-8), but equally suggests that there can be ‘a gentler politic’ (138) at work in other performances. Consequently, Frye’s chapter begins to break away from the belief that drag is necessarily misogynistic, yet unfortunately presents an image of drag as occupying one of two wholly
dichotomous positions – that of perpetuating the status quo or that of challenging it. Notably, bell hooks’ chapter ‘Is Paris Burning?’ cites Frye’s ‘Lesbian Feminism’ in order to stress the perspective that drag queen performance does not necessarily challenge existing norms (2009: 279-30). However, hooks broadens the analytical framework employed by Raymond and Frye by concentrating on the impact that whiteness can have on drag queen performance (276-83), and on the way in which whiteness affects the challenges that drag can seek to pose (278). Having examined the way in which each of these texts position drag in relation to misogyny, I turn to the second section of this chapter, which is devoted primarily to Esther Newton’s
Mother Camp, but which mobilizes José Estaban Muñoz’s concept of
‘disidentification’ (1999: 11) to elucidate one of Newton’s concepts. This enables me to concentrate in depth on Newton’s ground-breaking study while equally demonstrating how an intersectional approach such as that of Muñoz (1999: 8) can bring Newton’s work up to date for a contemporary audience. The third section of this chapter examines one text; Carole-Anne Tyler’s Female Impersonation. Seeking to elucidate the concept of femininity as performance, Tyler explores femininity in a range of contexts, primarily situating her work in relation to psychoanalytic theory (2003: 49-53) and theories of mimicry (37-9). The chapter’s fourth section discusses Julia Serano’s ‘Reclaiming Femininity’ and ‘And Then You Cut Your Hair:
Genderfucking on the Femme Side of the Spectrum’, a conversation between Amy André and Sandy Chang. As theorists who openly discuss their femme identities, André, Chang, and Serano bring a valuable ‘insider’ perspective to this chapter as a whole, balancing out the voices in the thesis who are speaking about femininity from the ‘outside’.69 The chapter concludes with an analysis of Simone de
69 Of Serano’s work, ‘Crossdressing: Demystifying Femininity and Rethinking “Male Privilege”’ (2016,
Beauvoir’s ‘La lesbienne’ and Laure Murat’s Le loi du genre. My analysis of ‘La lesbienne’ concentrates primarily on Beauvoir’s concept of ‘protestation virile’ (1976: 198) – a concept which merits attention as a result of its influential status in French feminist contexts70, and due to its richness and complexity. Focusing on deconstructing sexological concepts and the legal history of LGBTQIA+ people in France, Murat’s text differs markedly from the majority of works explored in this thesis. However, La loi du genre merits close attention here due to the insight it provides into the positioning of drag as necessarily either reactionary or subversive, and as a result of its analysis of Rachilde’s Monsieur Vénus, which I explore in my final chapter.
Negotiating Drag Queen Performance and Misogyny: Rereading Marilyn Frye, bell hooks and Janice Raymond
To varying degrees, each of the texts explored here mobilizes the assumption that drag queens are gay men who perform in gay male subcultural spaces. As both ‘Lesbian Feminism’ and ‘Is Paris’ concentrate on subcultural spaces primarily dominated by gay men and seek to challenge gay male misogyny, they arguably have a rationale for mobilizing this assumption.71 While Raymond also disparages misogyny, I contend that she belittles drag queen performance in order to create an atmosphere of male violence against women, which she then utilises to further her own transphobic agenda.72 Nevertheless, as I demonstrate here, the positioning of drag as a uniquely gay male practice is reductive, and causes problems in each of the texts concerned.
‘Reclaiming Femininity’ (2012). However, I feel that ‘Reclaiming Femininity’ is more pertinent to this thesis due to its invaluable insights into personal inclinations, and especially personal inclinations into femininity (2012: 179-81) and due to its negotiations of the subversive/ reactionary dichotomy (2012: 182-3) and of the relationships between performance and performativity (180).
70 For further details on the influential nature of ‘protestation virile’, see Sam Bourcier’s ‘Des
"Femmes travesties" aux pratiques transgenres: repenser et queeriser le travestissement’ (2006 : 124-5) and Christine Bard’s Une histoire politique du pantalon (2010: 246)
71 Frye discusses aspects of ‘gay male culture and the male gay rights movement’ (139) in US
contexts, whereas hooks’ explores the drag ball subcultures as depicted in Livingston’s Paris Is Burning (2009: 278-90).
72 Raymond refuses to acknowledge trans women’s womanhood, insisting instead that transitioning
constitutes an act of violence and appropriation (1994: xiv-xv). Consequently, her positioning of drag queen performance as a misogynistic, uniquely gay male practice acts as a keystone of her argument that the enjoyment of femininity by anyone other than cis women is a mockery of womanhood (1994: xxviii-xxix).
In Frye’s words, her chapter seeks ‘to cast doubt on the assumption that there is any basic cultural or political affinity here at all on which alliances [between gay men and lesbians] could be built’ (1983: 130). It is therefore unsurprising that Frye does not engage with drag performances within contexts which may reveal such an affinity or commonality. If Frye had wanted to reflect on parallel performances within and across LGBTQI+ subcultures, she could have examined performances by non-heterosexual male impersonators – such as Stormé DeLarverié, a male
impersonator who performed with the Jewel Box Revue ‘from the late 1930s to the early 1970s’ (Drorbaugh, 1993: 121) – or performances by drag queens who did not identify as male.73 Instead, Frye positions drag queen performance, and/or ‘female impersonation’74 as an aspect of gay men’s ‘affectation of femininity’ (137), and explores these ‘affectations’ from two angles. Frye first examines ‘female impersonation’ and gay male ‘effeminacy’ (138) from the perspective that these function as an ‘exercise of masculinity’ (138) and can act to demonstrate gay men’s loyalty to manhood and to misogynistic, patriarchal structures.75 Frye argues that these behaviours cannot be seen as stemming from an identification with
femininity or with women, but instead represent a desire for ‘power and control over the feminine’ (137).
73Certain male impersonators, such as Vesta Tilley, affirmed their femininity and heterosexuality
(Stokoe, 2016: 98-102). However, this was by no means the case for all male impersonators. In the 19th-century, Annie Hindle affirmed her masculinity on and offstage and legally married her female
partner (Senelick, 2000: 329-31), and Harlem performer Gladys Bentley ‘provocatively played bull dagger to the hilt’ (2000: 338) in the 1920s, although she claim to have been converted to
heterosexuality in the 1950s (339-40). I suggest that Frye’s chapter would have especially benefited from an analysis of the performances and private life of Stormé DeLarverié, who performed alongside a troupe of ‘female impersonators’ until the 1970s (Drorbaugh, 1993: 121). DeLarverié also took part in the gay rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and participated in the celebrated Stonewall riots in 1969 (Yardley, 2014: n.p.). More information on DeLarverie’s career and activism can be found in Elizabeth Drorbaugh’s ‘Sliding Scales, Notes on Stormé DeLarverié and the Jewel Box Revue, the cross-dressed woman on the contemporary stage, and the invert’ (1993: 120-43) and in William Yardley’s New York Times article ‘Storme DeLarverie[sic], Early Leader in the Gay Rights Movement, Dies at 93’, accessible at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/nyregion/storme- delarverie-early-leader-in-the-gay-rights-movement-dies-at-93.html?_r=0 (accessed 30th September
2016).
74 Frye does not use the term ‘drag queen’, but refers instead to ‘female impersonators’ (1983: 137),
and to ‘the impersonation of women’ (137). Although I will therefore employ the term ‘female impersonation’ in this analysis, I will use quotation marks to indicate the limitations of this term.
75 For Frye, manhood is necessarily linked to a loyalty to structures and ideologies which position
women as inferior to men (see Frye, 1983: 136). In her first section on gay male femininity and drag queen performance, Frye seeks to demonstrate the idea that ‘most gay men are as fully men as any other men: being gay is not at all inconsistent with being loyal to masculinity and committed to contempt for women’ (137).
Further, Frye argues that some gay men and ‘female impersonators’ take pride in their ‘prodigious mastery of the feminine’ (1983: 137), perceiving this mastery as proof of their capacity to perform misogynistic femininity without fear of
‘contamination’, and thereby as proof that they are ‘superior [to other men] in their masculinity’ (138). Thus, at this point in her chapter, Frye positions ‘female
impersonators’ as presenting archetypal examples of a misogynistic gay male perspective which “reveals” that gay men ‘pass the Contempt-for-Women test of manhood’ (138). This part of Frye’s approach raises at least three problems. First, Frye’s treatment of ‘female impersonation’ as a ‘gay institution’ (137) perpetuates the assumption that this form of performance is necessarily performed by gay men within a specific gay male club context.76 This approach consequently neglects both performers of different genders within queer contexts and the pantomime and comedy traditions in which drag is performed by straight men. Second, Frye ascribes specific motivations to gay men and to ‘female impersonators’, rooting their behaviour patterns in misogyny and in a specific relation to masculinity, without accounting for differences between individuals and between cultural contexts. Third, this part of Frye’s work includes problematic assumptions regarding the relationships between sex, gender, sexuality, gender performance and power. While Frye’s piece is clearly intended as a critique of heteropatriarchal society, her depiction of male femininity as a ‘kind of serious sport in which men may exercise their power and control over the feminine’ (137) seemingly relies on associations frequently questioned by feminist thought. Although this image is presumably intended to suggest that ‘female impersonators’ reinforce a hierarchy of male dominance, it continues to place ‘the feminine’ in a submissive position, and does not counter this elsewhere.
The second part of Frye’s discussion of gay male femininity, including ‘female impersonation’, is likely to surprise her readers. Although Frye continues to rely on particular assumptions – e.g. that gay men perform “affected femininity” within gay 76 Frye’s only reference to locations for drag queen performance cites ‘gay bars and clubs’ (137).
Therefore, although Frye appears to recognise that gay male femininity can occur in a variety of spaces, she allows readers to assume that ‘female impersonation’ has one primary locus – i.e. on the gay scene – and that this locus is intimately connected with male homosexuality. Frye thus overlooks the potential effect of differing contexts on ‘female impersonation’.
male contexts– she begins to question the idea that this “affectation” is necessarily a misogynistic exercise of masculinity. Continuing her focus on motivation and intent, Frye argues that, in some cases, this “affectation” may spring from a
different – and ‘gentler’ (138) – politics, and may present a ‘mockery not of women or straight men but of the whole institution of gender – a deliberately irreverent fooling around with one of the most sacred foolishnesses of phallocratic culture’ (139). As is evident from the language she employs here, such a motivation is far more appealing to Frye. Although Frye’s perception of femininity as the
‘paraphernalia of women’s oppression’ (139) means that she is somewhat
disapproving of ‘certain kinds of lightheartedness connected with [it]’ (139), Frye is nevertheless excited by the possibility of a gay male politics which might mock established, heteronormative constructions of masculinity: ‘when the silliness stays put as a good joke on patriarchy it betrays a potentially revolutionary levity about the serious matter of manhood and thus may express a politics more congenial to feminism than most gay politics’ (139). Here, ‘silliness’ acts both to connote ‘lightheartedness’ (139) and play, which Frye emphasizes in this approach, and to strengthen the idea that this play can act to reveal the ‘foolish’ (139) and
constructed nature of heteropatriarchal gender roles.
Despite its positive elements, this approach has significant limitations. First, it continues to restrict ‘female impersonation’ and the performance of femininity to gay male contexts. To some extent, this limitation is justified by the scope of Frye’s article: her aim is to shed light on the differences between gay male culture and lesbian feminist ideology. However, the lack of attention paid to straight male performers seems particularly odd in light of Frye’s wish to demonstrate
commonalities between gay men and their straight counterparts. Second, here as in her previous approach, Frye focuses primarily on the intent of the performer and consequently overlooks the importance of audience response. Third, this approach appears to assume that femininity is inherently linked to women’s oppression and consequently fails to account for performances of femininity which are experienced
as a conscious critique of dominant perceptions of femininity.77 By focusing
exclusively on gay men’s capacity to engage critically with dominant perceptions of femininity and masculinity, Frye arguably undermines other people’s capacity to do so, thereby enabling audiences to see gay men as the only group of people who have the power to change representations of femininity.
Frye’s emphasis on the importance of intent in both discussions can be useful for new theorisations of drag performance in that it demonstrates that drag queen performance is not homogenous, and that the performer’s attitude can significantly impact on the nature of the performance. However, although this emphasis
provokes a recognition of complexity in drag queen performance, it lacks awareness of the differing attitudes of audience members and of the meanings they invest in the performances they see.78 In addition, Frye undermines the possibility of
variation in effects of, and motivations for, gay male performances of femininity by effectively tying these performances to either a desire to subvert patriarchal systems or to uphold them.
‘Is Paris Burning?’ bell hooks and Ball Culture
‘Is Paris Burning?’ does not position “cross dressing” or female/male
‘impersonation’ as a gay male subcultural phenomenon to the same extent as Frye’s chapter. Rather, hooks acknowledges the existence and importance of performances of masculinity by women79, and of performances of femininity by straight men (2009: 276-7).
77 For example, consider ‘femme’, ‘queer femme’, and ‘hard femme’ identifications in communities
of colour, in queer communities, and trans communities, which may seek to challenge the
assumption that femininity is the exclusive property of a single subset of women. Two examples of scholarship on femme identity are Femmes of Power: Exploding Queer Femininities (2008) edited by Ulrika Dahl and Del La Grace Volcano, and in Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme (2011) edited by Ivan Coyote and Zena Sharman.
78 Notably, Frye’s sole reference to audience response homogenizes audience reactions and
overlooks differences between audience members: ‘Female-impersonators are a staple in the entertainment provided at gay bars and clubs, and they play to a very appreciative audience. Their skill is recognised and admired.’ (137)
79 Although hooks does not explore drag king performance in depth in ‘Is Paris Burning?’, she does
share an anecdote in which she performed masculinity as a young woman (2009: 275-6). Further, this anecdote leads hooks to comment on the different meanings allotted to the performance of drag by men and by women in a patriarchal context (275-6).
hooks’ emphasis on the importance of acknowledging intersections between racism and sexism leads her to focus on the ‘disempowering’ nature of ‘impersonations of black women’ (2009: 276) by black heterosexual men. Consequently, hooks
demonstrates her awareness of the capacity of drag performance to mobilize homophobic and misogynistic structures as a result of racist, colonizing attitudes to black male masculinity (2009: 276-8). Although hooks closely examines the
relationship of “cross-dressing” to normativity and patriarchal structures, she does not assume that ‘cross dressing, […] drag, transvestism and transsexualism’
necessarily uphold these structures: in fact, hooks argues that these presentations and identities can be sites of change, challenge and transformation (2009: 278). For hooks, the capacity of drag queen performances to challenge norms or to uphold them is intimately connected to their apparent relationship to hegemonic norms of whiteness, as well as to the cultural context, gender, and sexuality of the
performer. hooks writes:
For black males, be they gay or straight, to take appearing in drag seriously is to oppose a heterosexist representation of black manhood. Gender bending and blending on the part of