We're Born Naked ... Notes on Simon Doonan's Complete Story of Drag (Part 3: On Popstar Drag, Movie Drag, and Radical Drag)

Simon Doonan: Drag: The Complete Story (2019) [a]

Alt. cover feat. Curtis Dam-Mikkelsen (aka Miss Fame)  

Photo by Albert Sanchez and Pedro Zalba

 

 

I.

 

And so we come to chapter 7: Popstar Drag ...

 

Doonan claims that for most of the 20th century, "the guiding principle for men's clothing design was anonymity" (163) and that's true, though perhaps requires some qualification - and I don't believe it's because the average male is "terrified of being stared at" (163). 

Actually, the desire for anonymity - founded upon uniformity of dress and the will to conformity - can be traced back to a shift in sensibility known as the Great Male Renunciation, which began in the late- 18th century and saw men abandon ornate and colourful clothing in favour of more sober, functional attire. 

 

It was the age of the dark suit, designed to signal seriousness and professionalism as well as social conformity. But the aim was not anonymity per se, but to look the business whilst not being conspicuous [b].   

 

It's the modern pop star - that 20th century dandy born of the music business in the 1950s - who challenges this: "In order to sell records, the male popstars of the conservative American mid-century needed fans to take notice, and a sure-fire way to stand out was to raid the feminine repertoire." (163)

 

Doonan continues (in a passage that again rather reinforces the argument often put forward by conservative critics; namely, that pop music was an assault on manly virtue):

 

"The boys were encouraged in their flamboyance by a select and influential group of homosexuals, such as gallery owner Robert Fraser, interior designer Christopher Gibbs, Brian Epstein (manager of The Beatles), Robert Stigwood (Cream and Bee Gees), Simon Napier-Bell (The Yardbirds, Marc Bolan), Billy Gaff (Rod Stewart) and Ken Pitt (David Bowie). These gay Svengalis were drag enablers ..." (165) [c]  

 

For Doonan, two names in particular stand out when it comes the golden age of glam rock in the 1970s: Bolan and Bowie - but they were by no means the only two camping it up:

 

"Billowing bohemian blouses and cascading tresses became the norm. Boys wore girls' skimpy knits and crop tops with unisex crushed-velvet bellbottoms. Ladies' accessories [...] were piled on with gypsy-ish abandon. The emerging popstar drag was nothing if not radical." (166)

 

At this point, Doonan return us to his (strangely unisex) vision of utopia "where men and women overcame their vast differences by dressing alike" (168). 

 

I'd really like to know what he thinks these differences are exactly; is he here talking about differences that are constructed socially, or differences that have a crucial biological basis? If these differences are so vast - his word - then can they really be overcome simply by wearing the same clothing or shade of eyeshadow? I doubt it. 

 

And I'm pretty sure also that Doonan's claim that glam rock (or what he calls popstar drag) was "repellent to the establishment" (171) is simply not the case. It may have been viewed by some members of the older generation with mild disdain and dislike, but, in general, it was met with confusion and amusement. It was certainly not feared and hated in the way that punk rock would be a few years later (or even the countercultural, drug-taking hippie movement had been in the '60s) [d]. 

 

While androgynous fashions, a garish use of makeup, and gender troubling behaviour were scandalous to some, glam was a popular, commercial force that was ultimately tolerated - and often enjoyed - by the wider public; Bowie and Bolan and company were regulars on Top of the Pops and their records were not banned (cf. the Sex Pistols). 

 

In sum - and despite what Doonan likes to think - popstar drag was considered frivolous rather threatening and its huge commercial popularity meant it was soon just seen as another form of showbiz. That was true in the 1970s and it remained true in the 1980s, when figures like Boy George and Marilyn [e] were dominating the charts and airwaves.     

 

And don't get me started on Eurovision - an annual festival of "gloriously naff pop, easy to mock but never boring" (181) - if Doonan really thinks this is in anyway radical or presents a positive vision of the future, then, I'm afraid to say, he's more naive than I thought he was.  

 

 

II. 

 

From the world of pop drag to the world of movie drag ... 

 

Those of you who read part 2 of this post will recall I have already noted my favourite celluloid scene involving drag. 

 

For those of you who haven't read part 2, it's the one in Carry On Constable (dir. Gerald Thomas, 1960), in which officers Benson and Gorse - played by Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey respectively - drag up as Ethel and Agatha in order to go undercover as store detectives.      

 

For me, this scene is as good as it gets when it comes to comedy drag on film and I rank it above the work even of Laurel and Hardy in Twice Two (dir. James Parrott, 1933), or Curtis and Lemmon in Billy Wilder's Some Like it Hot (1959). But, funnily enough, Doonan doesn't mention the film - so I guess it's not amongst his favourites, although he predictably raves about the latter as "the most beloved movie of all time" (187).  

  

Doonan also indicates how movie drag is often associated with pervy horror and homicidal insanity - starting with Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and coins the amusing term dragsploitation. Being dressed to kill often means putting on a frock and wig in the mainstream cinematic imagination.   

 

Meanwhile, underground movie makers - including Andy Warhol - also liked to include elements of drag: 

 

"What was unsavoury and objectionable to a mainstream audience - as we've seen, drag was acceptable only as laughable slapstick or the prelude to a homicidal bloodbath - was given a warm and rousing reception in the art houses of yore." (192) 

 

What he had done for soup cans, Warhol also did for drag queens and trans women: 

 

"Warhol's genius was to plonk [... marginal figures and] unconventional attention junkies in front of the camera and let their natural charisma do the rest. Plots were thin but the screen magic is undeniable." (192)

 

I don't mind Candy Darling, but, I have to admit, I'm not a big fan of Divine; described by Doonan as the "empress of underground movie drag" (192), so will skip past the films made by John Waters ... 

 

And, because I hate them so, I'm also not going to say anything either about those "upbeat, non-sexual, non-homicidal, and worthy" (195) films made in the 1980s, when drag became family-friendly, Tootsie (dir. Sydney Pollack, 1982), starring Dustin Hoffman, and Mrs. Doubtfire (dir. Chris Columbus, 1993), starring Robin Williams. 

 

Similarly, I don't wish to say anything about The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (dir. Stephan Elliott, 1994) - although that's not a film I've seen (and, by the sound of it, don't think I want to, either; even Doonan describes it as shrill and cartoony).   

 

Ultimately, whilst I'm all for films spreading joy and celebrating individuality, I don't want to have sequins thrown in my face and an ideological message shoved down my throat to do with the need for greater DEI. 

 

In other words, I prefer those films involving drag and/or trans actors that are non-shrill and non-cartoony and don't invite audiences to dress up and sing along à la The Rocky Horror Picture Show (dir. Jim Sharman, 1975) - films such as Sean Baker's Tangerine (2015), described by Doonan thus:

 

"Tangerine is a groundbreaking 2015 movie that combines the early Warhol approach - find charismatic gender-fluid individuals and let the cameras roll - with more solid plotlines. It is is also very Warholian in that the individuals are not presented as noble or worthy." (204)    

  

 

III. 

 

And finally ... chapter 9 - Radical Drag - and a chance to really examine the politics of the topic (or at least Doonan's understanding of such) ... 

 

Before we turn to the material in chapter 9, however, I'd like to pick up on a sentence from earlier in the book (ch. 8), which suggests where I think Doonan will be heading:   

 

"In these trans-positive times [...] nobody is going to high five a hetero dude for frocking up unless he actually means it. Dragging up purely for attention or dough would, in our era of increased sensitivity, be viewed as less than respectful." (185)

 

That, I think, is true - but it's also a call for authenticity that I find problematic and something which has led to a lot of recent debate within the acting profession: should a straight cis male actor be able to play gay or trans (even if he does so in all sincerity and his performance is sympathetic and convincing)? [f] 

 

I would answer 'yes' to this, but understand the controversy surrounding the issue - particularly when it is presented in terms of representation and opportunity, rather than in terms of authenticity or the need for lived experience in order to play a part (lived experience is the most overrated thing in the world - something that the unimaginative unempathetic pride themselves on). 

 

And surely, if drag is radical in any sense, it's precisely because it deconstructs gender roles; how does that square with a modern sensitivity that insists only certain people have the right to inhabit certain identities? Answer: it doesn't.    

 

Moving on ...

 

Predictably - but still a bit disappointingly - in chapter 9 Doonan returns to all his favourite themes to do with Victorian prudery and puritanism in contrast to the subversive fuck you attitude of drag queens whose rebellion against the binary nature of society is to be uncritically lauded:

 

"Even when done in jest, the donning of a frock or a drag king suit is a provocation that automatically messes with the stale conventions of any society." (208)

 

Subscribing to this line of thought gives Doonan a good deal of what Foucault called speaker's benefit - i.e., a false sense of pride in one's own courage and rebelliousness in daring to speak up and speak out on issues which are (mistakenly) believed to still be feared and subject to censorship by mainstream society. 

 

Foucault argued this perceived transgression actually reinforced existing power structures and that the benefit of speaking in terms of repression and resisting power is merely a way to feel edgy and enlightened, while still adhering to an old-fashioned and untenable model of sexual politics.  

 

It strikes me as a little odd that, having compiled a complete history of drag, Doonan sometimes writes as if nothing important really happened before the late-1960s and '70s (i.e., when he was a young man):

 

"When, in the late 1960s, the counter-culture began to bloom - black power, gay lib, women's lib - drag followed suit. With the gays for solidarity, drag finally had the support it needed to hit the streets and to walk tall [...] Harassment and discrimination continued, but this time the dragsters fought back, birthing new and creative genres of drag activism." (210)

 

Out of this period of political upheaval, three radical groups emerged: the Cockettes [i], the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence [j], and the Radical Faeries [k] ... Now, without wishing to denigrate members of these groups - about whom my knowledge is strictly limited - one might ask whether they are truly sticking it to the Man or, actually, just engaging in theatrics and arty provocation?   

  

The fact is that, during the period Doonan specifies, drag was already being recuperated into the Spectacle as a safe (and highly commercial) form of subculture - as he himself has shown in his chapters on popstar drag and movie drag.  

 

I have respect and admiration for those highly idiosyncratic individuals and brave souls who "through a combination of daring, resilience and reckless disregard for their own safety, lubricated the wheels of social progress" (218), but I have to admit I'm increasingly bored by radical activists of every stripe - dragged up or otherwise.      

That doesn't mean I'm a Trump supporter. But it does mean I don't find drag so "wickedly compelling in these new politicized times" (233) and don't believe that drastic times require dragtastic measures. 

 

Doonan closed his 2019 study insisting that, thanks to technology and social media, "mocking, shocking, radical satirical drag" (233) would spread into "every corner of the universe" (233), presumably changing things for the better. 

 

And yet, as we know, Trump won the Presidency for a second time in 2024 - winning both the Electoral College and the popular vote - and his administration has taken a firm stance against drag culture, prioritising the removal of drag performances from public venues like and limiting federal funding for related initiatives. 

 

So it seems that a revolt into a queer politics of style might not be the answer after all ...   

 

 

Notes

 

[a] The page numbers given here (in round brackets) refer to the 2024 concise paperback edition published by Laurence King. 

 

[b] Roland Barthes writes about all this in The Language of Fashion, trans. Andy Stafford, ed. Andy Stafford and Michael Carter (Berg, 2006).  

 

[c] Some might also suggest that Doonan's enabler narrative strips the artists of their own agency; framing them as puppets of a homosexual cabal (a trope that again feeds into the conservative and homophobic agenda). 

 

[d] Doonan doesn't say much about punk, other than that it was unconventional in every way, but not drag-friendly: "While drag was largely anathema to the genre, the punk makeup styles [...] have proven influential to subsequent drag queens." (175) 

      Again, I'm tempted to push back on this claim ... An openly queer aesthetic - informed by the drag queens, transvestites, and transsexuals associated with Warhol - was crucial to the clothing designed by McLaren and Westwood for their boutique, Sex. Iconic items of punk clothing - such as bondage trousers and the Tits T-shirt - were intentionally transgressive and could be worn by either sex.  

      One might even describe Jordan - with her extreme theatrical look - as a kind of drag queen. And who can forget Malcolm's cross-dressing in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980)?  

 

[e] Doonan obviously had the hots for gender-bending popstars Boy George and his pal Marilyn, admitting that he was "totally smitten" (176) with the former and claiming (rather laughably) that the latter's appearance on Top of the Pops in 1983 "is seared into the national consciousness" (178). 

      That might be true of a few ageing new romantics and homosexuals, such as Doonan himself, but I suspect it's not true for most UK residents. 

 

[f] The same debate is also taking place with reference to race and disability; should a black actor, for example, be allowed to play a role previously associated with a white actor (a lot of people were exercised by the prospect of Idris Elba becoming James Bond); or should an able-bodied actor be given the role of a paraplegic - think, for example, of Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic in Oliver Stones's Born on the Fourth of July (1989)? 

      Again, as I say in the main text, I recognise that there are a limited number of roles open to actors belonging to minority groups, but, even so, I can't get behind the idea that an actor must be X, Y, or Z in order to play the part (though the current trend within the profession seems to be moving more and more in that direction).  

 

[h] See Foucault writing in The History of Sexuality 1: The Will to Knowledge (1976). 

 

[i] With their glitter-encrusted beards, the Cockettes "pioneered a delightfully amateurish do-it-yourself genre of performance drag" (213). 

 

[j] The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were a "group of gays [... wearing] nun's habits and a smidgen of makeup" (214), who wished to challenge religious fundamentalism with impromptu street theatre. According to Doonan: "By combining elements of religious piety with rampant decadent artifice, they successfully satirize conventions of gender and morality." (214)

 

[k] Founded in California in the late '70s, the Radical Faeries "embody many aspects of counter-culture, including environmentalism, paganism, communal living and free love" (215). Their drag is characterised by "a wilful randomness and lack of rigour" (215) and often they prefer nudity and body paint.  

 

To read part 1 of this post, click here.

To read part 2 of this post, click here. 

 

 

We're Born Naked ... Notes on Simon Doonan's Complete Story of Drag (Part 2: On Butch Drag, Black Drag, Historical Drag, and Comedy Drag)

Simon Doonan: Drag: The Complete Story (2019) [a] 

Photo by Greg Endries and posted on simondoonan.com 

 

 

I. 

 

I don't have much to say about women who like to cross-dress as men (drag kings). 

 

It's not that butch drag doesn't deserve analysis, it's just that the topic doesn't particularly excite my interest and Doonan irritates me in this chapter with his lazy politics of empowerment (which I critiqued in part one of this post): 

 

"Butching it up, aping the style of men and making it their own, has put many women in the driver's seat and improved their lives." (70) [b]

 

It seems that hyper-femininity only empowers when you're a man and that women who are happy wearing pastel twinsets with matching skirts are regressive and reinforcing the gender binary. For Doonan, a woman in trousers who has released her inner butch feels powerful, looks stylish, and can earn big bucks. 

 

And, best of all, she has "banished the ditsy ruffled femininity" (75) that he finds so objectionable.   

 

Doonan's closing section to chapter 3 - 'Fey is the new butch' - argues that for many young people in this non-binary age of gender fluidity, "dressing with heavy-handed masculinity" and "aping the patriarchy (82) does not appeal. 

 

They want a new (non-toxic) look connected to their trans identity; more nuanced - which, I suppose, is fair enough, although, in my view, identity remains the problem (can't you see) and self-expression remains far less exciting (for me as a Deleuzian) than becoming-imperceptible.          

 

 

II. 

 

I also don't have much to say about black drag queens; although again, it's more because I feel this is outside my area of experience, knowledge and real interest [c], not because I believe it's undeserving of critical commentary, or is marginal to the world of drag. 

 

Doonan, however, seems knowledgeable of and fascinated by the black drag queen as "an enduring icon" (85) and source of inspiration. One almost worries, in fact, that his admiration tips over into racial fetishism at times: 

 

"She generously and magnanimously enriches the culture [...] and we must all bow down before her.

      The Medusan ferocity that characterizes glamour drag queens is amplified in the black drag queen, and augmented with unique black irony and wit. The black drag queen is both comedic and glamorous. The black drag queen is fierce." (85) 

 

I can, I suppose, see the appeal - but this goes a bit too far, I think. 

 

Doonan is, one suspects, over-egging the pudding in the attempt to firstly compensate for his white privilege and, secondly, assuage his white guilt. Talented black artists and performers have obviously made a vital contribution to contemporary popular culture (as have Jewish artists and performers), but whether we all need to fall down on our knees and kiss their arses in eternal "#gratitude" (85) is debatable.    

 

Also, I'm less than convinced that "creativity and originality is a function of marginal status" (86) and that individuals "with marginal status have always contributed disproportionately to the culture" (86). Perhaps. But I'd be a bit more convinced if Doonan actually offered some evidence to back up his claims. As it is, I see such thinking as, at best, romantic and, at worst, indicative of slave morality.  

 

Ultimately, some black drag queens are fabulous - and some are not. To say, as Doonan does, that all of them possess "that mystical creative charisma" (88) is just a form of positive stereotyping or benevolent prejudice.  

 

 

III. 

 

Chapter 5 is on drag history - or herstory as Doonan insists on writing, thereby referencing a feminist pun and common etymological misunderstanding. It is, apparently, a brutal, bizarre and cautionary tale, full of "madness and excess" (103). So sounds interesting ...

 

The Ancient Egyptians loved a bit of androgynous glamour and the Greeks and Romans were also keen on drag and traces of transvestism are woven throughout ancient mythology and history. In fact, as Camille Paglia notes, drag is a global phenomenon. 

 

Fast-forwarding to modern Europe (and no one can race through world history faster than Doonan) ... 

 

"The Renaissance was a groovy, swinging period of creative expression and new ideas. Despite the cultural flowering, the Christian Church maintained an unforgiving position regarding the [...] evils of cross-dressing." (114) 

 

Fortunately, however, drag continued to flourish - seeking refuge in the theatre, where there's always been a steady supply of fresh-faced young men eager to don frocks and play the female roles: 

 

"With a bit of padding and extra rouge, a 16-year-old lad might give a convincing portrayal of a 26-year-old woman at the height of her erotic powers." (116)

 

Shakespeare perhaps pushes drag to its meta-most point in As You Like It, a play in which a male actor dresses as a woman, who dresses as a man, who dresses as a woman. Unfortunately, Shakespeare died in 1616, "thereby missing the dawn of the nelliest period in history: the Baroque" (119) [d]. 

 

That's a fun description of the period between 1600-1750, but I can't vouch for its historical accuracy. Indeed, it might be said that the Baroque was not inherently effeminate, but rather characterized by dramatic and ornate styles designed to project masculine power, wealth, and status.

 

While male fashion included elements such as wigs, high heels, and ribbons, these were viewed as lavish, not effeminate. In contrast, the subsequent Rococo period was deemed to be feminine and delicate; light and airy with lots of soft pastel colours and the use of natural forms such as shells and flora in art, interior design, and fashion. 

 

The point is: when reading history, one must be careful not to project one's own values and desires into the past and avoid interpreting events from a perspective shaped by the present. The past is not "a giant gender-inclusive dressing-up box, just waiting to be plundered" (131), no matter what drag performers may choose to believe [e]. 

 

Moving on, this note by Doonan caught my eye: 

 

"There was nothing unisex about the eighteenth-century Brits. Men's attire was butch and militaristic. Women's fashions were ornate and romantic in the extreme. The gendered nature of clothing added massively to the frisson generated by cross-dressing ..." (123)

 

If that's the case - and I think it is the case - then one might ask what's so desirable about dissolving the male/female binary and celebrating gender neutrality; hasn't Doonan just provided a thrilling argument not only for maintaining sexual distance but for widening the gulf? Uni-anything is always boring. 

 

Doonan closes chapter 5 by zooming into the modern (and postmodern) world, beginning in the so-called Mauve Decade of the 1890s when "drag becomes a thing, with a name and a reputation to uphold" (131) [f] and ending up in the present; "an era of relative tolerance where the acceptance and visibility of drag and trans have surged dramatically" (133). 

 

In a paragraph mixing cultural pessimism with political optimism, he writes:

 

"Masculinity is in retreat and gender nonconformity is on the march. Will it last? Some scholars point out that drag and trans have surged in late-stage civilizations [...] and that this freewheeling exploration of identity was immediately followed by sharp decline and total eclipse. Hopefully the prominence of drag and trans in our society is not an augur of doom, but rather a sign of the arrival of a progressive utopia that will last for eternity." (133)   

  

If I were Doonan, I'd keep more than my fingers crossed ... 

 

 

IV. 

 

Comedy drag, says Doonan, is an enduring showbiz staple that continues to amuse; everyone loves a pantomime dame - apart from those, like me, who don't find Christopher Biggins particularly amusing, either in or out of drag [g]. 

 

For Doonan, the dame might be a loveable figure, but, to my mind, she often represents the most banal version of the craft. Whilst glamour drag at least hints at something dangerous and transformative, the comedy drag of the pantomime variety feels too much like a cheap caricature; a way of neutralising the seductive threat of the feminine by turning it into an end of the pier joke. It's drag devoid of anything Medusan. 

 

In fact, Doonan admits as much: 

 

"Comedy drag sprang from a desire to disarm the nightmarish female archetypes of Victorian England [...] Strict governesses, relentless nags, ruler-wielding schoolteachers and cruel stepmothers [...]" (140)

 

Reading this, one might almost think there was something a little misogynistic about it [h], though Doonan says that such drag performance has "obvious psycho-therapeutic benefits" (140) (I'm not quite sure for whom). 

 

Whilst reading between the lines, one suspects Doonan also sees a radical political element to this genre of drag; that it represents an attack on Queen Victoria - "the ultimate disapproving matriarch [... who] unwittingly fuelled the bawdy drag-strewn irreverence of Victorian music halls" (140) - something that really wasn't the case.   

 

For while true that 19th-century British music halls and pantomimes frequently featured drag queens and female impersonators - and whilst satirical commentary was often part of the act - there is no evidence that Queen Victoria was a direct or frequent target of mockery. 

 

Indeed, direct mockery of the monarch was heavily restricted by censorship laws and tempered by the popularity of the Queen amongst her subjects. Any ridicule of the rich and powerful was aimed at the swells, toffs, and big nobs in society - not Her Majesty [i]. 

 

Moving on, Doonan has some interesting things to say about the boom in comedy drag post-Second World War:

 

"The returning troops brought home their enthusiasm for drag and somehow infected the entire population. [...] It is no exaggeration to say that, once the telly started to appear in British living rooms, we Brits began to drown in drag." (147) 

 

He and his best pal loved dressing up in drag and watching comics on the TV dress up in drag. But I guess one has to be that way inclined and, as indicated in a note below - [g] - as a child I was never particularly taken with drag. 

 

Thus, for example, whilst it's true that Benny Hill would perform in drag "in order to generate cheeky-but-family-friendly primetime laughs" (147), he did not invent one single, famous drag character that defined him and I much preferred watching Hill as Fred Scuttle or Ernie the milkman to seeing him in drag.   

 

Things changed in the late '60s, when "gay culture came screaming out of the shadows, with drag following close on its heels" (148). As gay bars, pubs and clubs proliferated, "so did the number of performing drag queens" (148). 

 

But they weren't so family-friendly; "this new wave of drag queens was angry, loud, proud and foul-mouthed" (148) - but also very funny, says Doonan: "The rude and fabulous creativity and comedic talent that gushed forth during this period of new-found freedom is remarkable." (148)

 

Drag, says Doonan, became "more gay, and more postmodern" (149); a sentence that makes smile and which one feels tempted to interrogate, but which I'll pass over due to space restrictions, though one would like to know what Doonan means by the latter term, which he uses on several occasions in his book. I guess he simply means comedy drag became "hipper and more self-aware" (150), for constructing as he is a complete story of drag, I doubt he's overly incredulous towards metanarratives.    

 

And today?

 

"Today, as more and more trans comedians and entertainers take the stage, the face of comedy drag is changing. The bawdy raging postmodern campy humour of pub, club and disco is morphing into something more subtle and emotionally real." (158)

 

I think Doonan is saying that drag has gone woke and is now designed for a new "gender-inclusive generation" (158) who respond less to cruelty and irony and more to vulnerability and victimhood; less Lily Savage and more Justin Vivian Bond, whose act is "infused with a subtle melancholic humour" (159) and promotes values of care, community, and kindness. 

 

The world, says Doonan, "has become a kinder, gentler place" (159) - I have to say, I haven't noticed that here on Harold Hill - and drag queens are spreading a message of "inclusivity, creativity and empowerment" (160). 

 

Unless you happen to be a straight white male, which for Doonan equates with being overbearing, treacherous and Trumpian. Out with toxic masculinity and in with "suave gay metrosexual identity" (160). Who's subscribing to simplistic binary opposition now, Simon?   

 

Notes

 

[a] Page references given in this (in round brackets) refer to the concise paperback edition of this work, published by Laurence King, in 2024.  

 

[b] Surely this is really only true of a few women working in the arts and showbiz ...? I'm not sure that the most successful approach for women in other (traditionally male) environments has been to masquerade as one of the boys - and don't see why they should have to do so just to prove themselves and gain respect. 

 

[c] Having said that, I did write a post earlier this year on voguing (27 Jan 2026) - click here - though it was essentially about Malcolm McLaren and Madonna, rather than the black dancers and drag queens who created the scene. 

 

[d] For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, nelly is a slang word used to describe an overtly effeminate man (not necessarily but more often than not homosexual), who adopts stereotypical feminine behaviours, mannerisms, or interests. Whilst historically used negatively in the straight world, it is sometimes used as an affectionate label within the queer community (as here by Doonan). 

 

[e] Doonan writes: "But history is not all thigh-slapping pastiche and nostalgia. To study the arc of civilization is to be drenched in blood, madness and brutality. Drag and trans, always vulnerabe to shifts in politics, have often felt the cat-o'-nine-tails." (133)

 

[f] Actually, the first recorded use of the term drag in its modern sense was in 1870. It is believed to have originated in theatre slang; male performers playing female roles wore long skirts that would literally trail or drag on the floor.   

 

[g] Come to think of it, I've never really been fond of drag artists. As a child, I grew up watching Danny La Rue on TV, but never found him remotely entertaining and hated his sentimental theme song, 'On Mother Kelley's Doorstep' (a popular music hall number from the 1920s). I also declined all offers to attend a pantomime at Christmas.

      Having said that, I did like Dick Emery's Mandy (Ooh! You are awful ...) and one of my favourite scenes in any of the Carry On films is in Carry On Constable (1960), in which Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey drag up as Ethel and Agatha. I discuss this scene in a post dated 9 April 2022, titled 'Carry On Cross Dressing': click here.   

 

[h] The question of whether drag is misogynistic is a subject of intense debate. Critics argue it creates a grotesque caricature of women, while proponents view it as a celebration of femininity and a subversion of rigid gender norms. 

      It's certainly worth considering if the empowerment of the performers that Doonan celebrates is based upon the mocking exploitation of actual women. Worth recalling too how blackface used to be hugely popular and seen as just a harmless bit of fun. 

      Readers interested (and perhaps undecided) on this issue might like to see two letters published in The Guardian (7 April 2024); one arguing that drag is a sexist caricature, the other that it's a fascinating and fabulous art form: click here.  

[i] Readers might also note that there remains a rumour circulating in certain drag circles that one artist was so popular that Victoria reportedly attended a show in disguise to find out what all the fuss was about. This is most likely an urban legend, but it nevertheless casts further doubt on Doonan's claim that the Queen was completely humourless and/or a target of public ridicule. 

 

 

Part one of this post - on glamour drag and art drag - can be accessed by clicking here. 

 

Part three of this post - on popstar drag, cinema drag, and radical drag - can be accessed here. 

 

We're Born Naked ... Notes on Simon Doonan's Complete Story of Drag (Part 1: On Glamour Drag and Art Drag)

(Laurence King Publishing, 2024)

 

 

I.

 

Firstly, I should point out that the above is a concise edition. And so, whether it's quite as comprehensive as the story told in the complete (hardback) edition, published in 2019, I don't know. 

 

However, I'm guessing by the shared number of pages, that it is and that this (paperback) edition is therefore just smaller in size, but not scope; a book to be carried and read on the tube, rather than left at home sitting on one's coffee table. 

 

I believe the only real textual difference is that this mini-edition comes with a Foreword by Fenton Bailey, the award-winning British producer, director and author of Screen Age: How TV Shaped Our Reality ... (2022) - a book that I have not read, but which, as a Baudrillardian and one who forages "the detritus of popular culture" [a], has a title that interests.   

 

As Bailey points out, Doonan aims to give drag historical context in the hope that this will give drag queens a greater understanding of themselves, thus providing "a creative boost and a sense of empowerment" (2). 

 

Obviously, I'm tempted, as a Foucauldian, to insert a rolling eye emoji here, as this clichéd notion of empowerment is one that triggers a certain amount of irritation and disdain. But I shall resist the urge to do so, even though it pains me to see how this concept continues to be employed by the very people it was designed to further entrap by providing a false sense of agency that hides the real functioning of power.  

 

Bailey also insists that we live in performative times and that drag is thus the perfect medium or art form for the 21st century: 

 

"We are children of the screen [...] we have grown up [...] watching countless performances. It makes sense that we would explore and express ourselves in the same way, playing and performing as the star of our own musical/drama/sitcom - or all three." (3)

 

That's an interesting point of view and one I'm broadly sympathetic with. 

 

However, I smiled to see Bailey end his Foreword by suggesting that it's conservatives who have "failed to address any of the serious issues facing America and the world" (3) - not drag queens and trans activists who subscribe to this playful and performative ideology. 

 

That seems a little partisan and sectarian to me ... And I'm surprised that after eighteen seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race - Bailey and his partner Randy Barbato are executive producers - he's still subscribing to a repressive hypothesis and speaking about attempts to erase the LGBTQ community [b].   

 

To demonise conservatives and posit a simulated political struggle is to avoid looking at how drag itself has been institutionalised and robbed of its subversive character by the corporate-media machine that Bailey himself plays a leading role within. What is the drag queen today if not just another neo-liberal subject within a commercial universe ...? 

 

 

II.  

 

To be fair, Simon Doonan is alert to the dangers of corporate assimilation. As he notes in his Introduction, the mainstreaming of drag over recent years "seemed like a death knell" (7). 

 

However, thanks to the success of RuPaul's Drag Race and the new generation of queens, drag has been reinvented and the future looks even more fabulous than the past. The gender revolution has also transformed everything for the better; gender fluidity results in a revival of interest in drag. 

 

"And who could have anticipated the vigorous politicizing and reinvigoration of drag that would be triggered by the election of Donald Trump?" (9) 

 

Who indeed? It seems that conservatism can be catalysing and not just repressive, then. Doonan kind of gives the game away by acknowledging that the politics of resistance is symbiotic with oppression.   

 

Like Bailey, Doonan quickly falls into a trap of his own making. On the one hand, he insists that we must cast aside old definitions and preconceived notions; learn to accept that the rules have changed: "In fact, there are no rules." (10)

 

But, on the other hand, he is obliged to apologise in advance to the rule-enforcing pronoun police: "I have done my best to use the correct pronouns and to dot all my i's and cross all my gender-identity t's" (11), so any offensive faux pas are "completely unintentional" (11).

 

Unfortunately, I'm not sure, Simon, ignorance of the new morality is a defence in woke law ...

      

 

III. 

 

The first chapter is on what Doonan calls Glamour Drag ... One of the defining characteristics of which is fierceness and the ability to deliver "taboo-busting spectacle" (13); something a bit Medusa-like. Having said that, Doonan wants to backtrack a little: "It would be a mistake, however, to think of glamour drag as being nihilistic" (16). 

 

To which one can only say, that's a shame - but worse is to follow; ultimately, says Doonan, drag is not a confrontation with the terrifying aspect of womanhood, it's a way of "satirizing our gender confusion, misogyny and castration anxieties [...] thereby mitigating our hang-ups" (16). 

 

In other words: "Drag is profoundly therapeutic." (16)  

 

At this point, I can no longer resist inserting the emoji I thought about inserting earlier: 🙄

 

If this is true, then drag is not an art and nor is it transgressive; it is rather a queer form of self-help (or self-empowerment to use that term again). 

 

But perhaps it isn't true: Doonan himself later quotes Holly Brubach (author of the 1999 study Girlfriend) who sees glamour drag "as less of a psycho-therapeutic" (40) phenomenon and more an attempt by men to to enter the 'realm of appearances' and so enjoy "'the privilege of not being accountable to truth or meaning or content, of dwelling entirely on the surface'" (40). 

 

Somewhat surprisingly, Doonan says this point is essentially true - thereby moving across from the sexual politics of desire to the fetishistic politics of seduction; i.e., a magical and ritualistic form of artifice that challenges the modern obsession with truth, transparency, and sexual liberation. Again, as a Baudrillardian, this makes happy. 

 

Moving on, one comes across other problematic claims: "The Victorian and Edwardian eras were noteworthy for their extreme prudishness." (18). Again, if the author only bothered to read a little Foucault, then he'd know not to say such silly things [c]; no woman ever fainted at the sight of a piano leg. 

 

Doonan is much better at simply giving us names, dates, and other details concerning actual drag queens from days gone by (and the book comes with many fantastic images). Though I'd have liked to have heard a little more about this claim: "The sexualization of drag [in the 1950s] was propelled by working-class gay men, living out fantasies of seducing heterosexual men and thereby becoming 'real women'." (23)

 

If that's true, then it feeds into (and arguably justifies) the so-called Lavender Scare which - along with the fear of communist infiltration - defined American culture in the post-War period [d]. 

  

I'm hoping Doonan might also say a bit more at some point about the relationship between drag queens and trans women - one might imagine certain tensions arising amongst those for whom femininity is pure artifice and performance (i.e., about the clothes and the makeup and the wigs and about the way you walk and talk) and those for whom it is born of hormonal drugs and gender affirming surgery.    

 

This paragraph, referring to the world after Wigstock - a drag festival founded in 1984 in Manhattan's East Village - certainly caught my attention:

 

"The post-punk era saw an explosive growth in a new kind of drag queen culture. Suddenly drag became much hipper, smarter, and, yes, postmodern. Glamour drag queens began to graze on perverse aspects of pop culture, mashing it up and spewing it back at their audience with knowing vigour. Judy and Marilyn were fine for the old gin-swilling gay audiences of the 1950s, but the Wigstock generation craved fresh sources of dragspiration." (33)

 

Doonan explains how the "new wave dragsters were inspired by a broad range of camp cultural offerings" (35), drawn from the worlds of film and popular music, and "propelled drag out of the gay ghetto and into broader culture" (35). In other words - and these are Doonan's words - the tacky gave way to the trendy. 

 

Drag culture formed a close alliance with the growing Harlem ball scene (i.e., the world of voguing) and it was "only a matter of time before drag hit the runways" (35) of the fashion world; the supermodels were, argues Doonan, essentially a type of drag queen - and Billy Beyond was a type of supermodel.   

 

Finally, Doonan closes his first chapter by inviting readers to meet the look queens ... 

 

"Look queens are glamour drag queens who generate shock and awe through extreme levels of cosmetic artistry. [...] They take that shimmering feminine visual realm that Brubach talked about, and magnify it for the age of Insta selfies and social media." (43)

 

Again, it was Jean Baudrillard who got there first and provides the best description of these look queens: 

 

"Everyone seeks their look. Since it is no longer possible to base any claim on one's own existence, there is nothing for it but to perform an appearing act without concerning oneself with being - or even with being seen. So it is not: I exist, I am here! but rather: I am visible, I am an image - look! look! This is not even narcissism, merely an extraversion without depth, a sort of self-promot­ing ingenuousness whereby everyone becomes the manager of their own appearance." [e]

 

There is, as we have mentioned, a politics attached to this - but it's a politics of seduction and not the politics of empowerment - a term that Doonan tediously returns to. To seduce, is to disempower the subject who exerts their gaze - it's the revenge of the object (something we have discussed many times on Torpedo the Ark).   

 

But seduction requires a certain horror and Doonan insists that the look queens have "helped to expunge any sordid and sinister overtones" (43) associated with drag; "constructing a creative, welcoming environment for cis females and young kids" (43). It's glamour drag for all - which is very democratic and inclusive, but also very boring; just another form of good clean fun for all the family. 

 

 

IV. 

 

Chapter two is on art drag. But readers who hope this will mean I reproduce a picture of Grayson Perry - the patron saint of such - are going to be disappointed. For I do not like Grayson Perry and do not recognise him as a "beloved public intellectual" (45). 

 

I'm a bit suspicious of this bold claim: "The incendiary nature of drag telegraphs edgy avant-gardism ..." (45) - particularly as it comes just a couple of pages after Doonan has told us that drag is now free of any danger or threat. You can't have it both ways, Simon. 

 

And, ultimately, there's a world of difference between Duchamp and Grayson Perry. As there is, indeed, between Warhol and Perry. The latter may be indebted to these two - who isn't? - but while Perry works within the conceptual framework they established, he seems keen to place art back on a more traditional basis (i.e., as something involving craftsmanship rather than just amusing ideas, ready-made objects, and mass production).     

 

Whilst I'm not overly keen on Grayson Perry, I really dislike someone else that Doonan seems to think the business - Leigh Bowery. 

 

Did Bowery really achieve "unimaginable levels of artistic originality, perversity and creativity" (57), or, ultimately, was he not just a self-indulgent narcissist looking to shock via crude provocation? 

 

One can't deny he had a talent for this - and that he was influential on the work of many talented individuals - but I think we need to keep things in critical perspective when it comes to figures who are regarded as iconic and/or legendary (though I appreciate that the curbing of enthusiasm is not a concept understood within the world of drag; a world wherein everyone and everything is fierce and fabulous all of the time).      

 

Doonan says that in comparison to someone such as Bowery, Duchamp's "early forays into art drag now seem quite genteel" (61). And I suppose that's true. But - Barthesian criticisms of gentility aside - I think I prefer some degree of refinement and self-restraint and see these as vital components of art (and society). I don't like vulgar individuals whether they are seeking to naturalise bourgeois values or passing themselves off as transgressive. 

 

One might even build a case arguing that in the current age good manners and good taste might ironically be seen as avant-garde (because countercultural) - and that it just might be more interesting to be charming and delightful than "appalling and provocative" (63). 

 

But that's another post, for another day ...  

 

  

Notes

 

[a] Fenton Bailey, Foreword to Simon Doonan's Drag: The Complete Story (Laurence King Publishing, 2024), p. 2. Please note that all future page references to Doonan's book will be given directly in the main text (in round brackets). 

 

[b] Not only has RuPaul's Drag Race aired for eighteen seasons in the US, but it has inspired many spin-off shows and numerous international franchises. The show has also earned multiple Emmy Awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program, for four consecutive years (2018 to 2021). 

      So I'm not quite sure why Bailey continues to speak only of the repression and erasure of his community by mainstream (heteronormative) society.      

 

[c] I'm thinking of L'Histoire de la sexualité 1: La volonté de savoir (1976) and Foucault's famous interrogation of the repressive hypothesis; i.e., the idea that Western society suppressed sexuality from the 17th to the mid-20th century. Foucault argues that discourse on sexuality in fact proliferated during this period, during which experts began to examine sexuality in a scientific manner and encouraged people to confess their sexual feelings and actions. 

      Interestingly, Foucault also shows how in the 18th and 19th centuries society took an increasing interest in sexualities that did not fit within the heteronormative framework; this included the sexuality of children, the mentally ill, the criminal, and the homosexual.   

 

[d] See the post titled 'Cocksuckers and Communists' (21 May 2015): click here.  

 

[e] Jean Baudrillard, 'Transsexuality', in The Transparency of Evil, trans. James Benedict (Verso, 1993), p. 23.  

 

 

Readers who enjoyed this post might like to see a very early post on TTA - dated 26 December 2012 - and titled 'Life's a Drag' - click here.  

 

 

Part two of this post on butch drag, black drag, historical drag and comedy drag, can be accessed by clicking here.  

 

And for part three on popstar drag, cinema drag, and radical drag, click here.  

 

 

Angela Carter and Lorenzo the Closet Queen

Portrait of Angela Carter by Tara Heinemann in which 

she brings out the almost spectral beauty of the subject

Used with permission

Since her death in 1992, there has, I think, been a marked falling off of interest in the work of Angela Carter amongst readers and critics - even those of a feminist persuasion. Tastes change and her writing now seems a bit too gothic and too queer; the language used is just too rich in an age of austerity (i.e. meanness and fear).

Of course, she still has her fans and loyal supporters and I might even be numbered amongst them, for her books meant a very great deal to me in my youth. But the fact remains that she's now a somewhat less mainstream and thus more marginal figure than she used to be and this is unfortunate, as she is not only a great novelist and teller of tales, but a brilliant journalist and critic.

Her study, The Sadeian Woman, for example, remains one of the best exercises in cultural history and sexual politics produced by an English author and her pieces collected in Nothing Sacred (Virago, 1992) also deserve to be read and re-read; not least of all the essay 'Lorenzo the Closet Queen', which combines two of her great loves and two of my own obsessions, namely, the novels of D. H. Lawrence and the sociology of fashion. 

In the above, Carter offers an all-too-brief sartorial critique of Women in Love - a novel which, as she amusingly says, is "as full of clothes as Brown's". She also argues that if Lawrence catalogues the wardrobes of his heroines with such a loving eye for detail, he does so in order to convince his readers that he possesses a "hot line to a woman's heart by the extraordinary sympathy he has for her deepest needs, that is, nice stockings, pretty dresses and submission" [208].

This, she says, is a piece of literary fraudulence. And yet, as she goes on to add, Lawrence at the same time clearly enjoys being a girl and has a genuine and somewhat touching (if pathologically fetishistic) interest in female apparel. Lawrence, she writes, "is seduced and bemused by the narcissistic apparatus of femininity", even if he only wanted to be a woman "so that he could achieve the supreme if schizophrenic pleasure of fucking himself" [209].

As I noted in an earlier post, Lawrence is particularly fascinated in Women in Love by the thought of brightly coloured stockings and they become a kind of leitmotiv running throughout the novel. Carter writes:

"Stockings, stockings, stockings everywhere. Hermione Roddice sports coral-coloured ones, Ursula canary ones. Defiant, brilliant, emphatic stockings. But never the suggestion the fabric masks, upholsters, disguises living, subversive flesh. Lawrence is a stocking man, not a leg man. Stockings have supplanted legs; clothes have supplanted flesh. Fetishism.
      The apotheosis of the stockings comes right at the end of the novel, where they acquire at last an acknowledged, positive, sexual significance. ... Indeed, the stockings appear to precipitate a condition of extreme erotic arousal in Gudrun; she touches them with 'trembling, excited hands'." [209-10]

The question is, what is Lawrence playing at in this scene of camp ecstasy and girliness? Carter is in no doubt:

"I think what Lawrence is doing is attempting to put down the women he has created in his own image for their excessive reaction to the stockings to which he himself has a very excessive reaction indeed, the deep-down queenly, monstrous old hypocrite that he is." [210]

This seems a bit harsh: but deadly accurate. Lawrence allows himself the "licence to mock the girls for parading about in the grotesque finery he has forced them to don" [211]. He is at once fascinated by female dandyism and the seductive allure of fashion and repulsed by it. If he depicts Gudrun as a kind of whore, then Hermione is turned into a terrifying witch figure by the exotic, aristocratic and self-conscious strangeness of her dress.

Whilst Baudelaire loved women for their unnaturalness, Lawrence hates them for it and many of his female characters end up like drag queens, defined and confined by their own clothing. Carter concludes that for most of the time in Women in Love, Lawrence is like a little boy dressing up in his mother's clothes and attempting to fool us into thinking he writes with the hand (and the eye) of a woman:

"The con trick, the brilliant, the wonderful con trick, the real miracle, is that his version of drag has been widely accepted as the real thing, even by young women who ought to know better. In fact, Lawrence probes as deeply into a woman's heart as the bottom of a hat-box." [214]