Final Major Project

There are many outlets of artistic expression, one of those ways is through drag. A drag artist can either be a man dressing as a woman (Drag Queen), or a woman dressing as a man (Drag King) and can also include transexual and transitioning performers as either drag kigs or queens. Drag should not be confused with cross-dressing, which is more about a secretive personal choice as drag artistry is more about performance.
Drag artistry can be linked back to a long tradition of men performing in women’s clothing. This has been seen regularly in Shakespeare, beginning at a time when women were not able to act in female roles on the stage. From that point in history, men dressing as women for the sake of performance can be seen in multiple films including Some Like it Hot (1952) and Tootsie (1982).
There are three elements to drag, beginning with a stage name, and continuing on to the reinvention of their identity. The final aspect of drag is reliance on the audience’s understanding of gender fluidity, making the drag artist more believable and accepted in their new gender role.

“The authenticity of femininity is always undermined by a drag queen’s roughness, which often includes a vulgar stage presence and desire to shock”, drag now is much more about glamour and femininity or masculinity in the extreme. (Carmen, n.d)

During the 1980s the club scene was central to the development and popularity of drag performance and impacted the ways in which young people expressed themselves and their gender.

Boy George said “At all those clubs I’d go to before I was famous, it was all about the look you had and being the most outrageous. They basically were stage outfits, although I didn’t think of it like that at the time. I was very influenced by Bowie, rock, punk and disco, and was into any and all clothing, even religious clothing – it didn’t need to be designer fashion” (Johnston, 2020)

Including Boy George other multiple music artists were also testing the gender boundaries within the public eye. These include performers such as David Bowie and Freddie Mercury.

As Boy George put it, “Most drag queens have no desire to be female but they revel in their ability to confuse and create illusions. Then there are those who are completely unfeminine but just like the feel of sheer tights and the flick of a big wig”(Johnston, 2020) 

The popularity of drag has increased within mainstream culture in recent years, beginning with the work of RuPaul in 1992. This work continues today and has become hugely popular and influential. RuPaul’s ‘Drag Race’ has in very recent years brought drag culture into the mainstream, with more and more gay people expressing themselves through drag performances, as well as some heterosexuals. With the popularity of drag growing daily the expectations are higher than ever. Behind-the-scenes fashion designers, hairstylists, makeup artists and photographers get the chance of sharing their artistry to become noticed. Drag has therefore become more extreme in its artistic expression in recent years, becoming the epitome of glitz and glamour.