Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Classics: A Fabulous History of Drag Queens

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SMNTY Classics: A Fabulous History of Drag Queens · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
0:06
Speaker 2: I'm welcome to Stephan never told you productive of iHeartRadio,
0:18
Speaker 2: and today we come with a happy update. I will
0:22
Speaker 2: say that the date is June thirteenth. Ah, yes, I
0:28
Speaker 2: was right to June thirteenth, twenty twenty three. So this
0:30
Speaker 2: could change by the time it comes out. But we
0:33
Speaker 2: recently had an update episode about things going on in
0:36
Speaker 2: the queer community, and a lot of it was not
0:39
Speaker 2: good news. And then within a couple of days after
0:41
Speaker 2: we recorded that, a lot of it became outdated, as
0:46
Speaker 2: we suspected. At the top of that episode we said,
0:48
Speaker 2: but one of the good things was we were discussing
0:52
Speaker 2: Tennessee's proposed ban on drag performances, even though they never
0:58
Speaker 2: called it that, but that's essentially what was being targeted.
1:00
Speaker 2: But as of June third, twenty twenty three, quote, a
1:05
Speaker 2: federal judge in Tennessee has ruled that a state law
1:07
Speaker 2: limiting public drag show performances represented an quote, unconstitutional restriction
1:12
Speaker 2: of the freedom of speech. As a matter of text alone,
1:14
Speaker 2: the Adult Entertainment Act is a content and viewpoint based
1:18
Speaker 2: restriction of speech. So yay, And that was like we
1:22
Speaker 2: said in there, that was the Trump appointed judge. Right,
1:27
Speaker 2: It's still disheartening because it still doesn't feel safe, but
1:30
Speaker 2: it is. That's a good thing. That's a positive thing
1:34
Speaker 2: that we can celebrate. And after we did that episode,
1:36
Speaker 2: I got to thinking, like, could I get in trouble
1:39
Speaker 2: for cosplay? I mean, anyway at this point, yeah, I
1:44
Speaker 2: think I could.
1:45
Speaker 3: Right.
1:45
Speaker 2: So it is it's like such a huge it spans
1:49
Speaker 2: so much more, and it's something that we really need
1:52
Speaker 2: to keep our eye on and keep fighting against. But
1:56
Speaker 2: we'll take this this positive and keep going that. We
2:00
Speaker 2: wanted to bring back an episode that Kristen and Caroline
2:03
Speaker 2: did on the history of drag queens. This is a
2:05
Speaker 2: bit of an older one, so I think some of
2:07
Speaker 2: the conversation has evolved, but still the history is really interesting,
2:12
Speaker 2: so please enjoy.
2:17
Speaker 4: Hello and welcome to the podcast.
2:18
Speaker 3: I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we are talking
2:22
Speaker 3: about drag queens and drag.
2:26
Speaker 1: Yes where it came from.
2:27
Speaker 5: We're going to talk about some famous queens from from
2:30
Speaker 5: way back in the day and some more.
2:32
Speaker 1: Modern people that you've heard of, like RuPaul.
2:34
Speaker 3: And I think that we should go ahead and say
2:35
Speaker 3: that we don't talk about drag kings quite so much.
2:39
Speaker 3: But we're really focusing in this episode on drag.
2:43
Speaker 1: Queens, and drag kings could be a whole episode unto themselves.
2:46
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, but men dressing in women's clothing in a
2:52
Speaker 3: theatrical setting has been going on for quite some time.
2:57
Speaker 3: Female impersonation, as it's often refreed or two, goes back
3:02
Speaker 3: to ancient Roman literature. You have it in classical Chinese
3:06
Speaker 3: theater Elizabeth Elizabethan theater, since women were generally banned from
3:12
Speaker 3: performing on the stage, so the guys had to perform
3:15
Speaker 3: all of the.
3:15
Speaker 5: Parts, right, And we've seen everybody's seen Shakespeare in Love,
3:19
Speaker 5: which shows not.
3:20
Speaker 4: Everybody, not me, Chris hasn't seen anything.
3:23
Speaker 1: Really.
3:24
Speaker 4: I tried to reference this morning.
3:25
Speaker 1: I tried to reference Karati Kid and it failed.
3:29
Speaker 5: But now, in what's I call it Shakespeare in Love
3:33
Speaker 5: they show men on stage as women. But then of
3:37
Speaker 5: course they also show Gwyneth Paltrow as a man, so
3:40
Speaker 5: it's a really good example of everything anyway.
3:41
Speaker 4: Moving on, So if we look at.
3:44
Speaker 3: The etymology of drag Queen, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary,
3:52
Speaker 3: it originated or at least drag originated in eighteen seventy
3:57
Speaker 3: theater slang, which I'd like.
3:59
Speaker 4: To hear a lot of Sydney theaters lang.
4:04
Speaker 3: Women's clothing worn by a men a man coming from
4:07
Speaker 3: the idea of the skirts dragging across the stage. Interesting,
4:12
Speaker 3: which doesn't make sense because you would maybe think that, uh,
4:15
Speaker 3: you know, men are typically taller than women, So wouldn't
4:18
Speaker 3: that imply that a woman's dress would be shorter on
4:21
Speaker 3: a man than that you'd have less drag? So shouldn't
4:24
Speaker 3: they be drag less queens?
4:26
Speaker 1: Dragless queens?
4:27
Speaker 5: Well, that's just a mouthful, but no, I mean, I'm
4:30
Speaker 5: assuming they made the skirts longer for gentlemen, Yes, long
4:33
Speaker 5: gentlemen's skirts.
4:35
Speaker 3: And then queen, which couldn't be considered more of a
4:38
Speaker 3: derogatory term to describe a gay man, which has been
4:42
Speaker 3: around since the nineteenth century and obviously since then, uh,
4:47
Speaker 3: in terms of drag queens, the term queen has kind
4:50
Speaker 3: of been what's the word reclaimed in a more more
4:54
Speaker 3: positive sense to to embrace it, right, and then putting
4:58
Speaker 3: both drag and queen together. It comes into the universal
5:04
Speaker 3: vernacular by the nineteen fifties, which which is pretty early.
5:08
Speaker 5: Actually, Yeah, drag queens really really flourished. They kind of
5:12
Speaker 5: got their start, yeah, for what we know them now
5:14
Speaker 5: to be, in the fifties and sixties, and they really
5:17
Speaker 5: flourished in the eighties and nineties, which is also the
5:20
Speaker 5: time I mean, if you think about it, that the
5:21
Speaker 5: gay culture really started to flourish right.
5:24
Speaker 3: As well, because we have to mention that in the
5:26
Speaker 3: nineteen fifties and sixties in particular, drag was definitely going on,
5:32
Speaker 3: but it was far more underground and even criminalized. For instance,
5:37
Speaker 3: with the nineteen sixty nine Stonewall riots in San Francisco,
5:43
Speaker 3: people say that the riots were partially inspired by drag queens,
5:47
Speaker 3: some of whom were arrested when the police raided the
5:49
Speaker 3: Stonewall in and then the protests and response to the
5:54
Speaker 3: Stonewall police raid was partially led also by drag queens.
5:59
Speaker 5: Right now, they're just trying to bring attention to the
6:02
Speaker 5: total lack of civil rights respect, you know, that sort
6:06
Speaker 5: of thing. One individual from the San Francisco.
6:09
Speaker 1: Area is Jose Julio Saria.
6:11
Speaker 5: Aka Impress First Jose, a World War Two veteran. He
6:16
Speaker 5: worked at the Black Cat in San Francisco, which had
6:19
Speaker 5: an international reputation as a meeting place for gays and
6:22
Speaker 5: as a result, police tried to close it down in
6:25
Speaker 5: nineteen forty nine just because of that.
6:29
Speaker 1: Jose was known for his arias.
6:31
Speaker 5: He often sang opera at the at the bar, and
6:34
Speaker 5: you kind of used it, actually used the lyrics to
6:36
Speaker 5: warn people of potential police entrapment schemes through his songs.
6:41
Speaker 4: And this is something I did not know about.
6:44
Speaker 3: Jose Julio Saria in nineteen sixty one filed as the
6:49
Speaker 3: first openly gay candidate in the world to run for
6:52
Speaker 3: public office, and he sought the position of San Francisco
6:55
Speaker 3: City Supervisor, which would be the same political office that
6:59
Speaker 3: Harvey Milt would win sixteen years later. Yeah, he did
7:03
Speaker 3: not Sorry, obviously didn't win that time around, but he
7:07
Speaker 3: came in ninth out of thirty two, which for the
7:10
Speaker 3: gay community at.
7:11
Speaker 4: The time thought was it was huge. Yeah, it was
7:13
Speaker 4: very significant.
7:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, some more developments happened in San Francisco around this time,
7:19
Speaker 5: a lot more. There's a lot more of a crackdown
7:22
Speaker 5: by authorities on gay bars, and after numerous San Francisco
7:26
Speaker 5: bars were closed, the Tavern Guild of San Francisco was
7:29
Speaker 5: formed and they put on the city's first large public
7:33
Speaker 5: drag ball called the box Arts Ball. And it was
7:36
Speaker 5: during the third one of these balls that Jose was
7:38
Speaker 5: named Queen of the Ball, and.
7:40
Speaker 1: He ended up that wasn't enough, you know, that was
7:43
Speaker 1: not enough.
7:43
Speaker 5: He ended up naming himself Impress of San Francisco. And
7:47
Speaker 5: this sort of gave rise to this whole system of
7:54
Speaker 5: LGBT rights groups called the international court system. They developed
8:00
Speaker 5: the by laws of the Imperial Court of San Francisco.
8:04
Speaker 5: But these courts, these groups have just spread all over
8:07
Speaker 5: the country, all over Canada, Mexico, the US, and there
8:11
Speaker 5: are more than sixty five chapters, and they spend a
8:14
Speaker 5: lot of their time raising money for charity.
8:17
Speaker 3: But that imperial system is something that is common within
8:22
Speaker 3: the whole drag hierarchy, because drag does take on a
8:27
Speaker 3: lot of different forms from female impersonation, which is separate
8:32
Speaker 3: from just straight you know, the typical drag that we
8:36
Speaker 3: might think of it as a little more over the top,
8:38
Speaker 3: whereas female impersonation is something like, you know, someone who
8:42
Speaker 3: wants to look like Britney Spears and kind of own
8:45
Speaker 3: that personality.
8:47
Speaker 4: But a lot of times.
8:48
Speaker 3: With the events, it is within that kind of kind
8:52
Speaker 3: of court system, right, which I think is kind of
8:55
Speaker 3: interesting and going back a little bit in drag history,
8:58
Speaker 3: we have Alan haynesians who died at the age of
9:01
Speaker 3: ninety in two thousand and eight, and he I believe
9:05
Speaker 3: was a British performer who teamed up with Terry Gardner,
9:10
Speaker 3: who had been a drag queen in the years leading
9:12
Speaker 3: up to World War Two, at which point he went
9:14
Speaker 3: into the Navy, and then he rose to fame in
9:16
Speaker 3: the early fifties when he partnered with Danny LaRue and
9:21
Speaker 3: what they did was something called pantomime, which was basically
9:26
Speaker 3: the British form of early form of theatrical cross dressing
9:30
Speaker 3: and drag.
9:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, they actually had fourteen number one pantomime performances, so
9:36
Speaker 5: they're pretty popular. Alan Haynes went on to open his
9:39
Speaker 5: own club in London's Soho neighborhood after he and LaRue
9:43
Speaker 5: went their separate ways. And no list of famous drag
9:56
Speaker 5: queens would be complete without Dorian Corey, who actually died
9:59
Speaker 5: in nineteen ninety three. Dorian Corey was featured very heavily
10:05
Speaker 5: and Paris Is Burning a really interesting documentary about drag
10:10
Speaker 5: queens in New York.
10:11
Speaker 1: Who created voguing and drag balls.
10:14
Speaker 5: I actually watched a video of Dorian performing the voguing dance.
10:20
Speaker 4: The voguing is amazing.
10:21
Speaker 3: And although I have not seen Shakespeare in Love like
10:25
Speaker 3: I don't hate, hold your horses, because I have seen
10:28
Speaker 3: paris Is Burn and I do highly recommend it. It
10:33
Speaker 3: focuses a lot on the African American drag community in
10:38
Speaker 3: the I believe it takes place in the early eighties,
10:41
Speaker 3: and all of the different categories that they have in
10:46
Speaker 3: there in their pageants and competitions are just amazing, and
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Speaker 3: the voguing on top of that even more incredible.
10:58
Speaker 4: So definitely check that out. And during Corey toured the US.
11:03
Speaker 3: In the nineteen sixties, obviously before Paris's Burning came out
11:07
Speaker 3: as part of a cabaret drag act and an odd
11:12
Speaker 3: post mortem note here after during Corey died, friends found
11:18
Speaker 3: the mummified body of a man in a trunk in
11:21
Speaker 3: her closet.
11:22
Speaker 5: Yeah, they went in to look for Halloween costumes actually,
11:25
Speaker 5: and they're just going through. They didn't find anything they
11:27
Speaker 5: really wanted to use, but they found this dusty, old
11:30
Speaker 5: drunk with the body inside that had been wrapped in
11:33
Speaker 5: fake leather that had accidentally mummified.
11:37
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, do.
11:38
Speaker 4: We know the backstory behind it like that?
11:40
Speaker 5: Well, the person It took a while, but the person
11:42
Speaker 5: was finally identifyed there was a bullet wound at the
11:44
Speaker 5: back of his head, huh. And the person was finally
11:46
Speaker 5: identified as this guy who had been known as a
11:50
Speaker 5: criminal like a rapist and a thief and all that stuff.
11:54
Speaker 5: But there was nothing about you know, if doing Corey
11:57
Speaker 5: really killed this person or how this person and ended
12:01
Speaker 5: up in the closet mummified one one person one a
12:07
Speaker 5: queens of Dori and Corey actually said that there was
12:10
Speaker 5: a note.
12:11
Speaker 1: There was some note.
12:12
Speaker 5: That indicated that he killed this person in defense or something.
12:17
Speaker 4: But Betty, it's all very it's all very sketchy.
12:19
Speaker 3: Well, if anyone, if anyone has any insight into the
12:22
Speaker 3: Dorian Corey mummy.
12:24
Speaker 1: Body in the closet, let us know.
12:26
Speaker 3: But moving along, we got to talk about one of
12:30
Speaker 3: the most famous drag queens in Western pop culture.
12:34
Speaker 4: That would be Divine mm hmm, born Harris Glenn Millstead.
12:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, she of the very arched eyebrow. Oh yeah, they're
12:43
Speaker 5: actually almost kind.
12:44
Speaker 1: Of scary looking.
12:46
Speaker 3: Yeah.
12:46
Speaker 5: She was a character actor and the singer who first
12:49
Speaker 5: became famous through appearances in John Waters Films, and what
12:51
Speaker 5: I thought was interesting, I didn't realize that Divine actually
12:54
Speaker 5: grew up just down the streets. I don't know, I imagine,
12:57
Speaker 5: can you imagine those two kids playing together?
13:00
Speaker 4: Like, what were they like?
13:00
Speaker 1: It's children, amazing, amazing.
13:03
Speaker 5: But yeah, you might know if you're not sure who
13:06
Speaker 5: we're talking about, you might know Divine as one of
13:09
Speaker 5: the lead characters in Hairspray. She's also in Pink Flamengo's
13:12
Speaker 5: Female Trouble and Polyester.
13:14
Speaker 4: And I think that Divine ended up dying prematurely from
13:18
Speaker 4: some kind of heart condition.
13:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was rushed hard.
13:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was right after Hairspray came out, which
13:24
Speaker 3: really sent her star through the roof exactly.
13:27
Speaker 4: So that's kind of tragic.
13:30
Speaker 3: And then we also have Lady Bunny, who is another
13:34
Speaker 3: drag queen that you probably that you would probably recognize.
13:38
Speaker 3: She is the co founder co producer in MC of Wigstock,
13:41
Speaker 3: which is an annual all day outdoor variety show. And
13:45
Speaker 3: she also pops up in just like random tabloid magazine
13:50
Speaker 3: doing fashion critiques, which is kind of awesome.
13:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, she was on RuPaul's Drag you if you guys
13:56
Speaker 5: remember that, how could you forget? And speaking of RuPaul's
14:00
Speaker 5: Drag You, there's RuPaul Rue Paul RuPaul Charles born in
14:05
Speaker 5: San Diego, moved to Atlanta when he was a teen.
14:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, a delicate flower moved to Atlanta.
14:12
Speaker 5: I actually went to Northside High School. I don't know
14:13
Speaker 5: if that that doesn't mean anything to anyone outside of Atlanta,
14:16
Speaker 5: but that's pretty cool. It's like more of a kind
14:18
Speaker 5: of like a performing arts high school.
14:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Rue really got his start in in Atlanta,
14:25
Speaker 3: which makes me proud to say we were recording live
14:27
Speaker 3: from Atlanta Race.
14:28
Speaker 1: Well, not live, No, Well, I'm live to us, yes
14:31
Speaker 1: right now, not to you so much.
14:34
Speaker 3: And now that we are talking about Rue Paul the
14:37
Speaker 3: song the nineteen ninety three hit Supermodel.
14:40
Speaker 4: You better work. It's gonna be in my head for
14:43
Speaker 4: the rest of the day.
14:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I hope and everyone else has said too,
14:46
Speaker 3: because it is fantastic. Yeah.
14:49
Speaker 5: RuPaul's been pretty busy with all all her TV shows,
14:53
Speaker 5: Drag You and what's the other one, Drag Race.
14:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the other one.
14:57
Speaker 3: And I do highly recommend if you have the time
15:00
Speaker 3: to read RuPaul's biography on I Think It's RuPaul dot
15:05
Speaker 3: Com on the website. It's very detailed, it's hysterically interesting. Yeah,
15:12
Speaker 3: his personality totally comes through.
15:13
Speaker 4: I love it.
15:14
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed reading. And the pictures are fantastic too.
15:17
Speaker 5: His prom picture from nineteen eighty three from Northside High School.
15:20
Speaker 4: Fantastic, pretty awesome, it is.
15:23
Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome.
15:24
Speaker 3: And speaking of Rue Paul, we want to mention Manila Luzon,
15:29
Speaker 3: who won second place on the third season of RuPaul's
15:33
Speaker 3: Drag Race.
15:35
Speaker 2: Right.
15:36
Speaker 5: Eric Zang and the blog Racheal is Isious talks about Manila,
15:40
Speaker 5: saying that he actually he talks about.
15:43
Speaker 1: How she portrays this Pan Asian culture. She's sort of
15:49
Speaker 1: basically his whole blog is about. Is her personality, the
15:54
Speaker 1: way she portrays Asians?
15:56
Speaker 5: Is it offensive? Is it okay to do it just
15:59
Speaker 5: because she's a she's from the Philippines, or is it
16:03
Speaker 5: still offensive anyway? And he Eric saying basically says that
16:07
Speaker 5: it's funny.
16:08
Speaker 1: She knows what she's doing. You know, she's not trying
16:10
Speaker 1: to insult anyone. But he also says that drag is
16:14
Speaker 1: inherently about the performance of gender and destroying the idea
16:17
Speaker 1: of masculinity.
16:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a lot about a lot about caricature.
16:22
Speaker 3: And when we started looking into scholarly analysis of drag
16:27
Speaker 3: culture and drag culture within the context of gender and sexuality,
16:32
Speaker 3: we quickly found out that the perception is not quite
16:36
Speaker 3: so so clear cut, especially within the gay community.
16:42
Speaker 5: At least back back in the day, right there was
16:44
Speaker 5: a question of whether camp is an embarrassment to the
16:47
Speaker 5: gay community and how you know, there are some parts
16:51
Speaker 5: of the community that really embrace it and think it's great,
16:53
Speaker 5: and there are other parts who consider an embarrassment. Especially
16:56
Speaker 5: like Kristin just said, back back in the day, the
16:59
Speaker 5: Matachine Society, for instance, disapproved of it, didn't think it
17:04
Speaker 5: was helpful to the cause and to acceptance in general.
17:09
Speaker 5: So this book, inside Out Lesbian Theories and Gay Theories,
17:12
Speaker 5: has a chapter on the politics of gay drag, and
17:16
Speaker 5: it talks about how the drag queen may be both
17:19
Speaker 5: a misogynist and be the victim of misogyny, just based
17:23
Speaker 5: on whatever perspective you are using. You know, we talked
17:27
Speaker 5: about how drag isn't always accepted in the in the
17:32
Speaker 5: gay community, and a lot of they talk about in
17:34
Speaker 5: this book a lot of the masculine gay men looking
17:39
Speaker 5: at drag queens as you know, just not part of
17:43
Speaker 5: the same culture that they that they are part of.
17:47
Speaker 5: And then they are feminists like Marilyn Fry who say
17:50
Speaker 5: that drag is a casual and cynical mockery of women.
17:54
Speaker 5: A lot of writers agree with her and say that
17:56
Speaker 5: drag is a parody and a hostile one.
17:59
Speaker 3: But at the same time, though, I don't see, I
18:01
Speaker 3: don't necessarily see what the problem is with with parrotying, uh,
18:06
Speaker 3: the kind of femininity that they have on stage.
18:08
Speaker 4: That is very over the top.
18:10
Speaker 3: It's a lot of it's kind of, in the words
18:14
Speaker 3: of Andrew Ross, defetishizing all of the makeup and the
18:19
Speaker 3: glitz and the glamour and the heels and all in
18:22
Speaker 3: the just the general bedazzlement that is maybe imposed on women,
18:27
Speaker 3: and uh, sort of making a mockery of of sort
18:33
Speaker 3: of the the beauty, the beauty complex.
18:37
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think that there's I mean, maybe
18:39
Speaker 1: I'm uh not well informed.
18:42
Speaker 5: I don't think I mean, I don't think there's a
18:43
Speaker 5: general perception of drag as being mean spirited, right.
18:46
Speaker 4: You know, exactly generally it's the exact opposite.
18:49
Speaker 3: People. A lot of times if you see drag queens,
18:52
Speaker 3: it's in a parade, it's at a show, you know,
18:54
Speaker 3: it's raising money, raising awareness things.
18:58
Speaker 1: Like that, Yeah, or it's just plain entertainment, you know, exactly.
19:02
Speaker 3: And so that's why, maybe because our exposure to drag
19:06
Speaker 3: has only been in more of the entertainment realm, and
19:10
Speaker 3: especially now that drag is in more of pop culture
19:13
Speaker 3: in general purely for entertainment, it was surprising to read
19:18
Speaker 3: this chapter on politics of gay drag.
19:21
Speaker 4: And this was also in.
19:22
Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety one, Yeah, Britt, in nineteen ninety one by
19:25
Speaker 3: Carolne Taylor. Maybe before well, obviously before drag had come
19:30
Speaker 3: into as much of the mainstream as it is right now, right,
19:35
Speaker 3: drag was super duper in the mainstream and still is.
19:39
Speaker 1: In Sydney, Australia.
19:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, this was one hotspot I did not know about.
19:44
Speaker 1: I didn't either.
19:45
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess I should have known, because I've
19:48
Speaker 5: seen Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which I love. But yeah,
19:53
Speaker 5: Sidney is sort of a center for drag queen culture
19:56
Speaker 5: and it really flourished in.
19:58
Speaker 1: The eighties and nineties.
20:00
Speaker 5: There was an article in an Australian publication that was
20:03
Speaker 5: talking to Mitsi Macintosh, who made a living for twenty years,
20:08
Speaker 5: it's a full time drag queen, and Mitzi was basically
20:12
Speaker 5: saying that part of the reason why drag was so
20:15
Speaker 5: big back in the day was that this community of
20:18
Speaker 5: people were coming together for support amid the aid's outbreak.
20:22
Speaker 5: You know, they were losing friends, losing family, and so
20:25
Speaker 5: they really came together to support each other. And she's
20:28
Speaker 5: saying that basically drag is on the decline in Sydney,
20:31
Speaker 5: even though it's still like huge, because maybe the younger
20:35
Speaker 5: generation is not as concerned with AIDS. So she says,
20:39
Speaker 5: there doesn't seem to be that sense of socializing and
20:42
Speaker 5: community that there used to be.
20:44
Speaker 3: But nevertheless, I do think we have to since we're
20:46
Speaker 3: talking about Sidney, we do have to mention that during
20:49
Speaker 3: the closing ceremonies of the two thousand Summer Olympics, drag
20:53
Speaker 3: Queen's dress in original costumes from Priscilla Queen in the
20:56
Speaker 3: Desert your movie Carolina.
20:59
Speaker 4: They reenact it scenes from the movie, which was the
21:02
Speaker 4: first open involvement of gays in an Olympic event.
21:06
Speaker 1: And there were I mean, there were protests.
21:08
Speaker 5: There were you know, people from the religious community who
21:11
Speaker 5: came out and said that this doesn't represent Sydney. You know,
21:14
Speaker 5: we're about so much more than just drag queens. And
21:18
Speaker 5: I mean that's I feel like that's an overreaction because
21:21
Speaker 5: it's not like the entire closing ceremonies was just a
21:23
Speaker 5: drag show. I mean, come on, but I think, you know,
21:25
Speaker 5: I think it's great that they incorporated bits of that
21:29
Speaker 5: movie into the closing ceremonies. I mean, if it's part
21:31
Speaker 5: of the city's culture, why not. And it's a good movie,
21:35
Speaker 5: so whatever.
21:36
Speaker 4: And I think also that.
21:37
Speaker 3: It's I think that it's a positive thing that that
21:39
Speaker 3: drag has come into more of the mainstream and that
21:43
Speaker 3: it's seen as a more acceptable thing to do.
21:46
Speaker 4: I think that it is perfectly acceptable to engage in
21:50
Speaker 4: that kind of gender play.
21:52
Speaker 3: And we also have to mention, for instance, you know,
21:54
Speaker 3: like it's not all drag queens just trying to dress
21:57
Speaker 3: up and look exactly like women's also speaking, which we
22:00
Speaker 3: have not really mentioned drag kings at all. And then
22:04
Speaker 3: there's also skag drag, which is slaying for men who
22:09
Speaker 3: will put on women's clothes but leave on beards and
22:14
Speaker 3: things like that, kind of playing with like visibly having
22:17
Speaker 3: the physical markers of being a man, but just dressed
22:20
Speaker 3: in women's apparel.
22:22
Speaker 5: So kind of like Eddie Izard, Yeah, who calls himself
22:25
Speaker 5: the executive transvestite.
22:28
Speaker 4: So I think, I don't know, I don't know that
22:31
Speaker 4: I agree necessarily with that.
22:32
Speaker 3: I can understand that critique of misogyny, but I think,
22:38
Speaker 3: you know, considering that that was nineteen ninety one and
22:40
Speaker 3: it's now twenty eleven, I would hope at least that
22:44
Speaker 3: we've moved beyond that.
22:46
Speaker 5: Right And we were talking about, you know, the difference
22:51
Speaker 5: between drag that's you know, it's doing it as a parody,
22:53
Speaker 5: and then people who dress just as women, who aren't
22:58
Speaker 5: necessarily trying to be like the big drag queen on.
23:01
Speaker 4: Stage more as impersonation.
23:03
Speaker 2: Right.
23:03
Speaker 3: Well.
23:05
Speaker 5: Kate Bornstein, the author of Gender Outlaw on Men, Women
23:08
Speaker 5: and the Rest of Us, reade an article for out
23:11
Speaker 5: magazine called the Trouble with Tranny, and she talks about
23:15
Speaker 5: Doris Fish, who San Francisco's pre eminent drag queen.
23:18
Speaker 4: Of the eighties.
23:19
Speaker 1: And Doris took Kate under her wing.
23:24
Speaker 5: And sort of made it clear to her that in
23:26
Speaker 5: the nineteen sixties and seventies Australia, most of the male
23:30
Speaker 5: to female gender outlaws quote unquote got their start as
23:33
Speaker 5: drag queens. And this is different from her experience in
23:36
Speaker 5: the eighties when male to female transsexuals just wanted to
23:39
Speaker 5: live their lives as close to being a real woman
23:42
Speaker 5: quote unquote as possible and consider drag queens beneath them.
23:45
Speaker 5: And so Doris is taking Kate under her wing. And
23:49
Speaker 5: it's interesting to see the different the different schools of
23:52
Speaker 5: thought on drag because the older school, if you wanted
23:56
Speaker 5: to act, whether you wanted to just perform as a
23:58
Speaker 5: woman or actually become a woman, you sort of had
24:01
Speaker 5: to come up through the ranks, yeah, of drag queens,
24:03
Speaker 5: whereas in the eighties it started to become more acceptable
24:08
Speaker 5: maybe to just like, no, I just I mean, I
24:09
Speaker 5: just want to be a woman, right, you know, and
24:11
Speaker 5: you didn't have to necessarily perform on stage as a
24:14
Speaker 5: drag queen.
24:15
Speaker 3: Well, and think about too, the risks, the legal risks
24:18
Speaker 3: of performing in drag or dressing in women's clothing in
24:22
Speaker 3: the in the fifties and sixties, like we mentioned earlier,
24:25
Speaker 3: perhaps drag was one of the only ways to be
24:30
Speaker 3: able to kind of act that out in public, even
24:36
Speaker 3: though again you were still risking a lot, whereas by
24:38
Speaker 3: the time you get to the eighties, like you said,
24:40
Speaker 3: it was more of something that.
24:42
Speaker 4: You could just that you could do right and slides
24:44
Speaker 4: still have to.
24:45
Speaker 3: Slide someone under the social radar, but not have to
24:48
Speaker 3: worry about getting taken off in a paddy wagon.
24:51
Speaker 4: Right, So where does that leave us today, Carolyn?
25:04
Speaker 1: Well, today we have a lot of women who seem
25:08
Speaker 1: like drag queens.
25:09
Speaker 5: A lot of these articles talk about like Katy Perry
25:13
Speaker 5: and Lady Gaga, who are basically co opting drag.
25:17
Speaker 1: They're women who are imitating women imitating women.
25:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, if that, if you followed, if you followed that,
25:23
Speaker 5: But yeah, you know that Mariah Carey and Beyonce both
25:27
Speaker 5: have sort of alter egos, Sasha Fears and Mimi.
25:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's kind of interesting.
25:31
Speaker 3: I hadn't even I really hadn't thought about that as
25:34
Speaker 3: we were researching.
25:35
Speaker 4: It's a good point. I wonder why, then, why there
25:38
Speaker 4: is some kind of need to co opt.
25:39
Speaker 3: Is it just because we need to push even more
25:42
Speaker 3: gender boundaries in pop culture?
25:44
Speaker 4: I don't know.
25:45
Speaker 1: I don't know.
25:46
Speaker 3: Question for the listeners there it is, let us know
25:50
Speaker 3: what you think about about drag queens. Anyone out there
25:53
Speaker 3: also who performs in drag either King, Queen, Skag whatever.
25:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, curious to know your insight on this.
26:02
Speaker 3: My stuff at houstuffworks dot com is our email address,
26:06
Speaker 3: and I've got an email here from Emerson and this
26:11
Speaker 3: is in response to our episode on condoms, and he writes,
26:15
Speaker 3: I happen to run a gay porn company and needless
26:18
Speaker 3: to say, we go through a lot of condoms. Additionally,
26:21
Speaker 3: when we're stopping to CVS, the condoms are usually the
26:24
Speaker 3: least embarrassing thing we're buying.
26:27
Speaker 4: As for the people in line, the looks are.
26:29
Speaker 3: Just as much out of jealousy as they are out.
26:32
Speaker 1: Of negative judgment.
26:33
Speaker 3: I mean, they're buying snickers and Seltzer and I'm buying condoms,
26:36
Speaker 3: so I'm obviously going to be the one.
26:38
Speaker 4: Having a crazy fun night, at least from their perspective.
26:41
Speaker 3: Anyway, My point is that no one should be embarrassed
26:43
Speaker 3: to buy condoms. First off, it means you're looking after
26:46
Speaker 3: your health, which is something to be proud of.
26:48
Speaker 4: Additionally, you're probably.
26:49
Speaker 3: Buying them in the interest of having a good time,
26:51
Speaker 3: which is also something to be proud of. And Lastly,
26:54
Speaker 3: weirdos like me or they're half an hour ago, buying
26:57
Speaker 3: all sorts of nonsense, decentizing the entire store. So that's
27:04
Speaker 3: what Emerson had to say about buying condoms.
27:07
Speaker 4: This is a good Yeah.
27:08
Speaker 3: Next time you're embarrassed, just imagine, just think about Emerson
27:13
Speaker 3: and what.
27:14
Speaker 4: He took up to the cash register.
27:17
Speaker 5: This is an email from Angela about our Influential Lesbians podcast.
27:22
Speaker 5: You brought up Susie Orman and how she includes spirituality
27:25
Speaker 5: in her financial advice. I'm not a super religious person,
27:28
Speaker 5: but I do enjoy when she does this. I think
27:30
Speaker 5: it makes her advice more personable. It can be hard
27:33
Speaker 5: to wrap our minds around numbers and cold logic.
27:35
Speaker 4: I agree with Angela.
27:37
Speaker 5: By adding the effects of money on our emotions and
27:39
Speaker 5: her spirituality, her advice becomes more relatable.
27:43
Speaker 1: Good point, appreciate it, I agree.
27:45
Speaker 3: Excellent points from all of you who write in to
27:47
Speaker 3: Mom's Stuff at houstuffworks dot com. And as long as
27:50
Speaker 3: you can check us out over on Facebook. Let us
27:53
Speaker 3: know your favorite drag queen's their favorite drag movies.
27:56
Speaker 4: Watch Paris Is Burning and let me know what you
27:58
Speaker 4: think on Facebook.
28:00
Speaker 1: Do some voguing?
28:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, in vogue, Oh my god, can we all learn
28:02
Speaker 4: how to vogue? And start doing it.
28:04
Speaker 1: Vogue and Memory of Dorian Corey and again.
28:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you have any insight into the Dorian
28:08
Speaker 3: Corey mummy, please Facebook, Twitter, at Mom Stuff Podcast.
28:13
Speaker 4: Let us know immediately, And as always, you can check
28:17
Speaker 3: Out the blog during the week Stuff Mom Never Told
28:19
Speaker 3: You at HowStuffWorks dot com