“Why has drag escaped critique from feminists and the LGBTQ community?”
“Why is it funny for men to dress up as women and not for women to dress up as men? There’s something about this performance that says that femininity and, in turn, women, are a joke (just like white people dressing up as “Indians” for Halloween turn Indigenous peoples and cultures into a joke or simply a costume one can put on or take off at will). If only being a woman was simply a costume one could take off…”
Really good questions, but I am not sure if I have the energy right now to disapprove of something new.
Also, I guess the bigger difference between drag and race-face is the history — where race-face was/is exclusively oppressive to the people on whom the costume is based, while drag was empowering for some people with non-hetero, non-cis identities and there was more of a celebration of the ability to wear this costume and to wear that identity. The positivity makes it a less experientially violent thing, I guess. There isn’t that icky vibe. (Not that this means it isn’t also all the things in the article — it just does also serve a positive purpose, it’s sexist AND freeing)
