How Mainstream Media has damaged the Drag Community
There are many differing opinions within the LGBTQ community, and with increasing acceptance worldwide, more and more of LGBTQ culture is making its way to the mainstream.
One of the subcultures on the front lines of mainstream acceptance is the art of drag. With its elaborate costumes, breathtaking performances and social commentary, it’s no surprise that people want to get involved.
However, depending on your genitalia or gender identity, you may be surprised to find that this supposedly loving and accepting community may want nothing to do with you.
Drag was originally an art form meant to push the boundaries on the social construct of gender, consisting of performers from all sides of the LGBTQ community. However, with growing popularity and exposure, a lot of the “less digestible” performers have been disregarded in favor of their cis-male counterparts. Gay men whom identify as the gender they were born as.
Mainstream media has almost exclusively portrayed drag queens as cis-gay men, failing to acknowledge many important trans, female, and queer performers in the process.
The exclusion of these voices and opinions in the mainstream has altered what drag means to a new generation, causing increasing tension in a community meant to be founded on love and acceptance.
While popular media like “RuPaul’s Drag Race” have done a lot of good in terms of bringing exposure to gay issues, these mainstream outlets have seriously damaged the drag community by actively excluding trans, female, and queer performers from gaining exposure, and in doing so is redefining drag to exclude these groups.
Since drags exposure to mainstream media, most notably RuPaul’s Drag Race, many trans, female, and queer performers have been actively excluded from taking part. In the essay “drag’s cis-male problem,” published in i-D Vice, Tom Rasmussen (2016) criticizes how non cis-male drag performers are excluded from the community and the public's perspective of the art form, reinforced by the popular reality show “RuPaul's Drag Race.”:
“Cis men gain earning potential and a form of mainstream acceptance (…) while the ‘less digestible’ set are barred because of their birth sex and gender, or the way they feel comfortable expressing their gender, which is ironic for a show that preaches ‘that we are all born naked, and the rest is drag’.”
Rasmussen refers to a well-known quote from the show that describes gender as a performance, that we are born naked, and everything past that is a construct or illusion. For someone who makes such a statement at the end of every episode, the fact that only cis gendered men have been featured on RuPaul’s Drag Race is ironic. In fact in an interview with The Guardian in 2018, RuPaul states:
“Drag loses its sense of danger and its sense of irony once it’s not men doing it, because at its core it’s a social statement and a big f-you to male-dominated culture.”
If ‘we are all born naked and the rest is drag’, then why would trans, female, and queer queens be any less of a social statement?
The idea is to exaggerate the gender roles society has placed on us, and who better to make a statement about these constructs then those who experience the oppression that comes along with them?
RuPaul’s stance that drag is a male artform not only upholds the gender constructs drag is supposed to challenge, but also prevents trans, female, and queer drag performers from gaining the exposure they need to be successful.
Mainstream Medias exclusion of trans, female, and queer drag performers is altering the public’s perception of who can be a drag queen, and in doing so is further ostracizing an already vulnerable group, putting them at further risk.
In “Why do some people want to stop women performing drag?”, an article published in Dazed, Jake Hall (2017) addresses the evident rejection and harassment of female queens:
“Queer nightlife is still extremely male-dominated- (….) If women are allowed through the door, many report that they are harassed, groped, or jeered at by gay men. I’ve seen it myself too — ”.
This is unfortunate, as even in regular non-gay bars, women often face this same harassment at the hands of straight men. One would hope that the gay community, who should know perfectly well what its like to be victims of harassment, would be a safe place for these women to express themselves freely.
In the short documentary “Can’t drag us down: meet London’s female queens” published by Broadly (seen above) , nonbinary queen Victoria Sin (2015) , testifies:
“the worst misogyny that I’ve encountered has been (in) gay spaces, (gay men) basically looking me in the eye and telling me (…) I hate you because you’re a woman and this is not your space”.
Not only is Sin’s gender identity being disregarded for their female anatomy, but simply because of their anatomy their entire art form is being invalidated.
Sin and so many other trans, female, and queer drag queens are members of the LGBTQ community, and to receive such outward hostility from their own community is disheartening to say the least. A lot of this hostility comes from the lack of representation these queens receive in media. If Sin or another femme queer queen had been invited to participate in RuPaul’s Drag Race and given femme queer queens the media voice and representation they so desperately need, the inclusivity in gay spaces would be drastically improved.
However, until mainstream media makes room for trans, female, and queer drag performers, they will likely continue to receive negative attention and treatment.
While popular media like RuPaul’s Drag Race have done a lot of good in terms of bringing exposure to gay issues, these mainstream outlets have seriously damaged the drag community by actively excluding trans, female, and queer performers from gaining exposure, and in doing so is redefining drag to exclude these groups.
Not only are trans, female, and queer queens withheld from their best means of success through media, but as a result the lack of exposure results in open hostility and mistreatment of these queens in the places they should feel safest.
The solution is quite simple, and its all up to media producers:
