can drag be compared to blackface?
Jun. 16th, 2008 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaA couple of times in the past i've written about the misappropriation of transgender. My point then has been, essentially, that popular culture, the media, and numerous ideologies, have created their own narrative of what it is and what it means to be transgender, and present this in lieu of allowing us to speak for ourselves. Any resemblance this faux-trans narrative has to the genuine experience of transgender people tends to be accidental. Any sympathy extended to transgender people by the cisgender culture is invariably marred by continual references to the superficial trappings of gender presentation ("high heels and lipstick") essentially implying that "dressing up" is what transgender is basically about.
Autumn Sandeen raised an interesting point regarding the extent to which drag (some drag, all drag?) is possibly comparable to blackface. Like her, i do not believe that this comparison can be made some or maybe even most of the time.
For one thing - and this is a significant point and not an aside - many of the drag performers i've met over the years have at least a touch of genderqueerness (and sexual queerness) about them, and so they use drag as a way of expressing this part of their nature in a somewhat safe environment.
Just going off the cuff, and based on my own experiences from having seen drag done in many different ways in many different times and places, the cases i might compare to blackface tend to be the most blatantly caustic and misogynistic. Ms. Sandeen cites an example which falls pretty squarely into this, the case of three male Westchester County (NY) legislators who thought it would be funny to dress as campy prostitutes and perform a Broadway song.
The New York Transgender Rights Organization responded with a protest and a press release [PDF] comparing the event to "a KKK blackface show."
Even in the comments to the post i linked, there are people admonishing us to "have some fun" because this is "funny." Yes, we've all been trained to think it is high-larious when men dress in the most ridiculous caricature of femininity possible and prance around. Maybe it *is* funny and my leftism has just made me humorless, a question i ponder sometimes. OTOH maybe it's worth asking what it is about humor that is supposed to make jokes something light and un-serious which only a uptight stick-in-the-mud would criticize. I'll try to remember that it's perfectly normal to laugh at such a spectacle the next time someone 'reads' me on the street and laughs in my face.
Autumn Sandeen raised an interesting point regarding the extent to which drag (some drag, all drag?) is possibly comparable to blackface. Like her, i do not believe that this comparison can be made some or maybe even most of the time.
For one thing - and this is a significant point and not an aside - many of the drag performers i've met over the years have at least a touch of genderqueerness (and sexual queerness) about them, and so they use drag as a way of expressing this part of their nature in a somewhat safe environment.
Just going off the cuff, and based on my own experiences from having seen drag done in many different ways in many different times and places, the cases i might compare to blackface tend to be the most blatantly caustic and misogynistic. Ms. Sandeen cites an example which falls pretty squarely into this, the case of three male Westchester County (NY) legislators who thought it would be funny to dress as campy prostitutes and perform a Broadway song.
The New York Transgender Rights Organization responded with a protest and a press release [PDF] comparing the event to "a KKK blackface show."
Even in the comments to the post i linked, there are people admonishing us to "have some fun" because this is "funny." Yes, we've all been trained to think it is high-larious when men dress in the most ridiculous caricature of femininity possible and prance around. Maybe it *is* funny and my leftism has just made me humorless, a question i ponder sometimes. OTOH maybe it's worth asking what it is about humor that is supposed to make jokes something light and un-serious which only a uptight stick-in-the-mud would criticize. I'll try to remember that it's perfectly normal to laugh at such a spectacle the next time someone 'reads' me on the street and laughs in my face.
