Bugs Bunny, for example, when dressed in drag, was trying to outwit Elmer Fudd, the hunter, who was hoping to “kill the wabbit.” That famous Merrie Melodies short is also a tribute to Wagner, with Bugs in drag on the back of a horse, wearing pink eye shadow, a blond wig of braids, and some very sexy falsies that look out of place in a Warner Bros. I knew it was meant to be humor if someone I thought of as a man appeared dressed as a woman. By comedians, by entertainers, by brave friends who were afraid and still did what they had to do anyway.
Most of us, maybe even more now than back then, still do. As a kid, I was watching a lot of men and women in gowns on television. If I’m remembering correctly, this was among the things that came to us in Maine in the ’70s or early ’80s with cable, most likely on some PBS channel.ĭrag of this kind was uncontroversial and all around me back then. I watched the show with my dad, and it was a special treat, happening only on the nights when he’d let me stay up with him to laugh at these British people and their jokes about sexism, sex, and social gaffes. For those of you too young to know, he was a British comedian whose shows ran in the U.S.
My first drag-queen story hour was probably The Benny Hill Show. And yet maybe it was my father dressed as a fortune teller, with one hoop earring and a kerchief on his head, reading palms in a tent for the Portland, Maine, chapter of the Rotary’s fundraiser.īritish comedian Benny Hill, 1954 Express // Getty Images Was it Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye singing a duet in the musical White Christmas? Or Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria? Barbra Streisand in Yentl? Harvey Korman on The Carol Burnett Show? Or Jim Bailey as Barbra Streisand, also on The Carol Burnett Show? I loved the variety shows of the 1970s and ’80s, and a performer in drag was not an unusual treat. Lately, I have been trying to think of when I first saw someone in drag. I used to think I was alone in such experiments until I wrote about them and learned that I was not. I wanted that power too-the command over someone’s attention. Who was I imitating when I was 11, dressed in my grandmother’s old nightgown, telling my cousins they should call me Penelope? Who was I imitating when I began to sneak into my mother’s bathroom to experiment with her makeup? It felt powerful to see her alter the color of her lips or to darken the edges around her eyes and eyelashes. I n an accompanying portfolio photographed by Ryan McGinley, seven of today’s most vital and creative queens speak about what drag means to them. But for practitioners of the art, it’s not just about putting on a show it’s about finding truth, community, and freedom.įor Bazaar ’s July digital cover story, Alexander Chee explores the ways in which drag has always been a part of our culture and what’s at stake when gender expression is demonized, politicized, or, worse, criminalized. RYAN McGINLEYĪround the country, drag performers are under threat, thrust to the center of a culture war. Jewelry, talent’s own jewelry and Swarovski.
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