Drag: A Brief History Lesson

Drag Queen: a man who dresses up like a woman and acts like a woman for comic and/or theatrical entertainment. They wear layers of makeup, large wigs, six-inch heels, and over-the-top clothing. You will often see them lip syncing to a song sung by a female artist while they dance around, usually provocatively or humorously depending on the song, on stage.

Drag first started in the world of theater. In England during the early 1600s, all actors in Shakespearean plays and in Elizabethan theatre were men, therefore any female role was portrayed by a man. During rehearsals and performances the note Dr.A.G. (dressed as girl) was written on the scripts to inform the actor if he would be playing a woman. William Shakespeare would also write plays where the character had to dress up like the opposite sex. For example The Twelfth Night is about a woman named Viola who dresses up as a man to help a sea captain who has rescued her.

Drag is an art form, a job, but also a culture and I would say is even a subculture of gay culture. There is an entire drag vocabulary which is also used in the gay male community. Here are a few examples:

 fishy (adj.): to look like a woman, not like a man dressed like a woman.

    kai kai (n.): the circumstance in which two men dressed in drag engage in sexual activity

    throwing shade (v.): the art of insulting

        tuck (v.): to affix one's male genitalia in a way that it is not visible so that one resembles a woman (n.): the product of a man affixing his genitalia (typically with duct tape and multiple pairs of pantyhose) so that it is not visible

These phrases are often heard on the drag reality show RuPauls Drag Race (see gifs above). RuPaul is one of the most famous drag queens of our time. Not only is she a drag queen, but an actor, model, singer and author. She started as a struggling musician and filmmaker in the 1980’s in Atlanta Georgia and now hosts reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race where drag queens compete to be the number one queen. This has made the drag lifestyle not only more exposed to the public, but shown how acceptable of a lifestyle it is. One thing that makes RuPaul unique from other drag queens is that she accepts the use of both pronouns “he” and “she”:  

"You can call me he. You can call me she. You can call me Regis and Kathy Lee; I don't care! Just as long as you call me."

RuPaul is the most innovative Drag Queen and is never afraid to stand up to people who bring the lifestyle and culture down:

“What other people think of me is not my business. What I do is what I do. How people see me doesn't change what I decide to do. I don't choose projects so people don't see me as one thing or another. I choose projects that excite me. I think the problem is that people refuse to understand what drag is outside of their own belief system.”

Werkkkkk!