![]() Before long, performances grew more secular until the dawn of a new era: original dramatic plays. Recreations of these religious stories eventually were further dramatized, sometimes including subplots that didn't exist in the original text. From there, it's not hard to connect the dots. "Women played no active part in the services and the offices of the church, so the original acting was done exclusively by men, choirboys assisting the clerks and playing women's roles when required," Baker notes in Drag. In an effort to help the illiterate and, well, less intelligent members of the congregation better understand church worship, parts of the mass were dramatized in very simple ways."Īs for the cross-dressing component of these sacred performances, women were omitted from the craft entirely. Roger Baker also pulls a thread back to ancient civilizations, noting that drag "presided over the creation of drama in ancient Greece where masked actors played Hecuba and Clytemnestra." Meanwhile, in England, Baker writes that "formal drama came, literally, from the church. David notes that it rose to popularity in the 17th century, and "is more popular and less ritualistic than Noh." In Kabuki theater, the female impersonators are "carefully made-up, speak in falsetto voices, and move to suggest the essence of femininity."Īnother book that shed quite a bit of light on what we might call the "sacred" drag queen is titled Drag: A History of Female Impersonation in the Performing Arts. Noh derives from Dengaku, a folk dance associated with rice planting and fertility, and in its ancient, self-enclosed spiritual world, 'female' actors wearing masks follow stylized routines in a complex and rarefied pattern of symbolic gestures." Kabuki, of course, is a form of Japanese theater that many more people are familiar with. "In Japanese theater," David writes, "drag divides the Kabuki and Noh dramas. And every era and every new iteration of the art form has been crucial to the shape and success of drag today. The fact is, drag has been a part of our culture for centuries. ![]() And before that, it was an exaggerated and integral part of the theater culture. Before that, drag was submerged deep in underground clubs and back-alley bars. In fact, this sort of public awe - sometimes, it borders on worship - of drag queens has really only cropped up in the past decade or two. And even outside of RuPaul's Drag Race, queens have been able to build incredible followings via social media, live performances, YouTube, and podcasts.ĭrag hasn't always been received this way. The show's third All Stars season is about to launch, marking a new competition between some of the top drag queens in mainstream media. With its move from Logo to VH1, it racked up almost 1 million viewers for the premiere and held strong with over 800,000 season finale viewers. RuPaul's Drag Race has just had its most successful season yet. In this moment, drag culture is bigger and more popular than it's ever been. They've plunged their hands deep down into their own psyches and pulled out the weirdest, fiercest, and most theatrical parts of themselves, then mashed them together to form something new. Oftentimes, I've heard drag performers describe their personas as though they were another person. When so impeccably dressed and flawlessly painted, the person underneath the queen disappears almost completely. It's not okay.In the 21st century, a drag queen is not just a man who wears women's clothes a drag queen is an entirely separate entity. "I'm so sorry to my community, and I'm just devastated," the teary-eyed singer said, who is a homosexual woman, adding, "This is not right. The What I Need singer took to Instagram to reveal that before the show's start, an "undercover cop" told her about possible legal action against her for including drag performance. Previously, Hayley Kiyoko slammed the law against drag shows after her concert in Nashville featured two drag queens. "** anybody up who is, like, trying to *** with anything with" drag queens," the critically-acclaimed star added. The political pundit comments came amidst the Fast X star's furious reaction to the opponents of the drag queen public's performances. But there are drag queen shows out there right now that are deeply disturbing, and they're happening in front of young children." When I lived in Chicago, we went to one that was super fun. She continued, "Yes, there's fun drag queen shows. "Why doesn't Charlize Theron come and ** me up, because I'm 100% against her on this," the opinion-maker railed on the Oscar winner. Megyn Kelly has clapped back at Charlize Theron over the latter defense of drag queens in public places, including in the kids' presence. Megyn Kelly picks fight with Charlize Theron over drag queens
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |