Drag queens are creative individuals who revel in their originality. As the episteme goes, drag queens are unique, talented and inhabit a demeanor of charisma and nerve and thus, queens tend to be entitled to their own personal authority, and wield an autonomy of their very own individuality. Although autonomy is rightfully deserved, precursors of the modern drag community and the discourses formed prior and that continue to be seen in today’s conversations as traces of content and meaning cannot be disregarded or undermined. It may seem as though my argument is a plea to give credit to the individuals and events of the past that have shaped drag and its world of wonder; however, the argument touches upon a wider look at the background of drag. More so than a history repeating itself or diverging into a criminalizing of modernity, I believe recognition and understanding of traces of precursor text in modern text has the ability to further meaning and further the discussions of identity and the authority associated. | Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve & Talent are attributes that are sought in contestants of Rupaul's Drag Race. These attributes have become so popular that they are sought by club employers and pageant judges. It has become a metonym for queens, for it is agreed that all should possess these attributes. When you hear these words you think - drag! |
I’d like to begin by denoting our beloved queens as borrowers of content and meaning. All queens behave and create their illusions by means of practice, that is, practice of what is not owned by them. The queens of Rupaul’s Drag Race reveal this in their interviews, especially when asked about their inspirations. |
On a makeup discussion panel at the 2015 Drag Convention, Trixie Mattel, Drag Race season 7 contestant, claims she “used to look like a human being in drag with normal hair, normal makeup and it was fun, but [she] wasn’t feeling it too much … so [she] read a book about how [doll factories] painted dolls in the fifties and sixties.” Her findings lead her to create the makeup design she uses today. Many other queens reveal that they practice the looks of celebrities. Dorian Corey, in the documentary Paris is Burning, notes that many queens of his time desired to look like Marilyn Monroe and thus painted themselves to represent a similar facial bone structure and wore bobbed and feathered wigs.
Monroe is known to have encouraged many queens to draw a singular beauty mark above the lips and even on other areas of the face. Even my mother draws one on occasionally. Without Monroe’s and other celebrities’ looks, the modern looks we see today including the acceptable and the outrageous as deemed beautiful or shocking would be different; the very rules and language used to describe and praise positively or negatively or simply in neutral description would vary. This is not to say a beauty mark above the lip may have never been created, but the vocabulary, the language, the presumptions made when we see a Monroe beauty mark would cease to exist. The meaning of the mark would vanish.
But the message goes beyond appreciation of all the Monroes of the past and enters a discourse that examines intertextuality, a term defined by James Porter as the referents or traces a text may have to other texts. When examining a text’s intertextuality we look for the bits and pieces of content of a given artifact that can be traced back to some other text, a precursor text that brought that content into being and thus allowed it to be used, to be repeated (34). The ability to be repeated and to be used whether it is as obvious as a citation or implicit as an abstract ideal such as the recurrence of the American Dream is labeled by Porter as the text’s irritability. This ‘repeatability’ of text may be seen by examining the behaviors and language queens use today.
But the message goes beyond appreciation of all the Monroes of the past and enters a discourse that examines intertextuality, a term defined by James Porter as the referents or traces a text may have to other texts. When examining a text’s intertextuality we look for the bits and pieces of content of a given artifact that can be traced back to some other text, a precursor text that brought that content into being and thus allowed it to be used, to be repeated (34). The ability to be repeated and to be used whether it is as obvious as a citation or implicit as an abstract ideal such as the recurrence of the American Dream is labeled by Porter as the text’s irritability. This ‘repeatability’ of text may be seen by examining the behaviors and language queens use today.
Langanja Estranja in her first appearance in the workroom of Rupaul’s Drag Race, shouts “come on season 6; let’s get sickening!” and death drops onto the floor. The other queens responded with praise - “yes, bitch, work” (Gia Gunn). Audiences are enamored by Langanja’s stunt and instantly make presumptions - ‘if she can death drop, she must be a dancer’. The assumption comes to fruition because the knowledge known - the action [death drop] as a dance move popular in the world of drag, seen in drag performances from well known queens Alyssa Edwards, Shangela Laquifa - allows inferences to be made. These queens and their use of death drops in the past (and we could continue going back to wence the death drop originated) are traces | |