“Drag Ain’t Nothing New”: Performance under Political Scrutiny
Earlier this month, the state of Tennessee recently passed a law that explicitly limits drag performances in public places.
Writer Solycre Burga, in her 2023 article for Time, “Tennessee Passed The Nation’s First Law Limiting Drag Shows. Here’s The Status of Anti-Drag Bill Across The U.S”, writes, “while the law does not make all drag shows illegal across Tennessee, advocates still worry about the broader effects of the bill across the queer community… which prohibits ‘adult cabaret performances’ in public places where minors could watch.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Tennessee released the following statement on Twitter, “We are concerned that government officials could easily abuse this law to censor people based on their own subjective viewpoints of what they deem appropriate, chilling protected free speech & sending a message to LGBTQ Tennesseans that they are not welcome in our state.”
Tennessee is one of many states that are discussing the banning of LGBTQ representation as part of a greater agenda that is rooted in conservatism and censorship. Other states that either have similar bills underway or in the beginning stages include Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, South Carolina and even Texas.
William Melhado, in his 2023 article for The Texas Tribune, writes, “Texas Republicans Have Filed Dozens Of Bills Affecting LGBTQ People. Here’s What They’d Do”, writes, “Texas lawmakers this year are expected to debate several bills that could bring major changes to the lives of gay and transgender Texans… Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made it a Senate priority to pass measures that pertain to classroom instruction about LGBTQ people, the college sports teams transgender students can join and medical treatments that can be provided to transgender youth.”
This has nothing to do with drag performers and their impact on children. This has everything to do with the threat drag performance poses to the homophobic political rhetoric at the hands of white cisgender men in power.
Drag performing has been a practice for thousands of years. The most widely known account is during the Shakespearean era when women and girls were not allowed to perform in theater plays and so boys and men performed the female lead roles.
That of course has morphed into modern iterations in popular films such as Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) with the late Robin Williams dressing as an elderly woman nanny to spend time with his children, Juwanna Mann (2002) with Miguel Nunez Jr. dressing as a female basketball player in order to redeem his dormant career, and more obvious, To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), which features the late Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo who all appear as drag queens embarking on a road trip.
Each of these examples all feature heterosexual men actively engaging in drag performance and all of these films have gone on to become classics. In fact, the former features Williams interacting with child actors, the youngest being five. What is among the forgotten is that drag performance is just that: a performance- a public act with the intention to entertain.
The conservative fight against drag performance and its impact on children is far from over. Unfortunately, heterosexual sensitive men in positions of authority abusing their power to cover their own prejudice is not anything new. Only time will tell as to how this will continue to unfold.
