We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2025
The role of broad categories of identity such as gender, sexuality, social class and ethnicity in identity performance for drag kings and queens is a central question in understanding if such performances challenge or reinscribe the identities they imitate or indeed the identities that are used to define the performer. This is not an idle question as, for some critics of drag, the performances have consequences for the perceived target of their imitations. As with other forms of identity appropriation, drag has implications. For some critics, the implications are detrimental and disempowering to women. Drag and other female impersonation performances ‘may be glamorous or comic, and presented by gay men or straight men. Nonetheless, all of them represent a continuing insult to women, as is apparent from the parallels between these performances and those of white performers of blackface minstrelsy’ (Kleiman, 2000: 669).
Kelly Kleiman notes that there are striking parallels between drag and blackface and there are certainly several obvious similarities. I will make the following twin observations to encapsulate the irony of these parallels, particularly in relation to contemporary attitudes towards forms of imitation, appropriation and identity:
Blackface is outrageous – it was never about someone white attempting to pass as someone from a different ethnicity; it is about applying a mask to represent the other in a ludicrous way for cheap laughs. It is meant as a type of unadulterated mockery, accompanied as it is by flamboyant gestures, and especially when ‘characteristic’ music is part of the performance. White people, who, after all, occupy a dominant position in society, might find it amusing to adopt an exaggerated, stereotypical persona of someone from a different, less socially powerful ethnicity for the purpose of ridicule and comedic effect, but there are serious social implications, as reflected in changing attitudes to its acceptability. Indeed, people who think it is in some way acceptable should be educated about how prejudice is at the basis of their (conservative and anti-progressive) opinion, as it is ultimately designed to be disempowering.
Drag is outrageous – it was never about someone male attempting to pass as someone from a different gender; it is about applying a mask to represent the other in a ludicrous way for cheap laughs. It is meant as a type of unadulterated mockery, accompanied as it is by flamboyant gestures, and especially when ‘characteristic’ music is part of the performance.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
