This book is motivated by a distinctive question: how should business and consumer research understand the new marketplace of drag? It is an important question, and the chapters provide engaging and insightful responses to it. The question also invites a host of supplementary questions, research projects and hopefully fertile debates.

Underlying the question is the recognition of the broad trend of the past 20 years that has seen the steady rise of drag and a wider engagement from mainstream culture. Whereas drag was once a marginalized subculture within already stigmatized LGBT+ cultures (Newton, 1979), drag has become mainstream and is vibrant both in less marginalized LGBT+ spaces and in arts and performance cultures across North America and the UK. Heteronormativity persists, however, and there remain huge inequalities in the demographics of drag performers who can benefit from this mainstreaming (McCormack and Measham, 2024), yet drag is present in heterosexual bars and nightclubs, museums and theatres primarily through a touring economy of national and international drag performers (LeBlanc, 2021; Baxter et al, 2023).

As a gay man, my engagement and consumption of drag has run the gamut of experiences that are possibly typical of gay men of my generation. In no particular order, they include Lily Savage and Dame Edna Everage as ‘themselves’ on TV; gender-bending and cross-dressing in films for comedic effect, from the Carry On films to Mrs Doubtfire; movies where drag was centre stage, such as The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Birdcage and Hedwig and the Angry Inch; and seeing Tina C, Pam Ann and many drag performers in London in my late teens and early 20s. I was sadly born slightly too late to see Hinge and Bracket on the TV, or Lily Savage at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, but old enough to watch RuPaul's Drag Race (RPDR) from the beginning, including its Season 1 filter.

There is much complexity and fascinating debate to be had regarding these experiences. Was Dame Edna a drag queen? Is Pam Ann? Should straight actors play drag queens in films like Priscilla, and should a drag performer have starred in The Birdcage? Laamanen et al explore these nuanced debates in the introductory chapter to this book, with fresh and insightful perspectives that successfully incorporate recognition of the changing drag scene and both the challenges and advances brought about by RPDR.