Behind the Glitz and Glam: Unveiling Mae West’s “The Drag”
Exploitation or empowerment of the 1920s’ blossoming gay community?
Even though Mae West, in her play The Drag, uses the gay community as a means of capitalizing on a 1920s theatrical trend, her accurate education on homosexual scholarship and portrayal of the double entendres and drag shows central to many gay people’s lives provide visibility for the blossoming community.
In her paper, Mae West Live: “SEX, The Drag, and 1920s Broadway”, which places West’s plays in their broader historical context, Marybeth Hamilton discusses how representations of open sexuality on Broadway did not begin with The Drag. In 1926, Lulu Belle, for example, revealed the story of a multiracial, seductive sex worker to a responsive middle-class audience. Hamilton argues that West was “convinced that if audiences flocked to the ersatz realism of Lulu Belle, they would come in droves to the real thing”. With The Drag, West hoped her depiction of vibrant gay life would feed into a cultural and theatrical fad of the 1920s, enticing receptive young audiences to attend her show and secure her capital.
However, this economic motivation, which Hamilton says is exploitative of gay people, doesn’t necessarily discredit West’s attempts at accurately raising awareness of an emerging, thriving gay community.
Specifically, West begins The Drag by educating her audience on the scholarly legal and scientific discourse around homosexuality at the time. In the play, when characters Dr. Richmond and Judge Kingsbury debate over David Caldwell, Dr. Richmond’s gay patient, the Judge argues that the law serves a crucial purpose in regulating homosexuality’s “degrading, pernicious effect” on “the very foundations of society.” The character’s view of gay people as “outcasts” directly echoes the New York City police and judicial system’s emerging endeavors to push the vice of homosexuality away from “mainstream” white neighborhoods and into the overlooked fringes of the City, such as Harlem.
Additionally, while Dr. Richmond seems to defend David from the harsh legal system that criminalizes homosexuality, he nevertheless describes him as “a trick of fate — a misfit of nature”. His efforts to categorize David’s “condition” through Enlightenment diction and natural law echo attempts from late 1800s scholars such as James Kiernan, Richard Krafft-Ebing, and Karl Ulrichs to define homosexuality and heterosexuality through medical terminology. Ultimately, the fact that West incorporates correct pieces of scholarly rhetoric on homosexuality when this discourse was just emerging demonstrates how she actively cares about providing her audience with a nuanced education on sexuality, albeit according to the limited 1920s’ understanding.
West also highlights how gay people in The Drag resist the oppression that homophobic people like the Judge and Doctor perpetuate by not shying away from expressing their identity, both subtly through double entendres and overtly in drag shows.
For example, when gay characters Clem and David enter Dr. Richmond’s office, Clem says to their idling taxi driver “ride me around a while, dearie, and then come back for her, if you’re so inclined”. To unsuspecting outsiders, Clem’s comment to the cab driver, whose profession involves riding people around, seems ordinary. However, hidden beneath this seemingly commonplace phrase lies a deeper shade of meaning known only to gay people, a sexual innuendo. The “riding” subtly signifies intercourse, which Clem’s later use of the word “Davy,” a colloquialism for heterosexual men who sometimes engage in gay sex, to refer to the taxi driver supports.
Through Clem’s example, West accurately demonstrates how double entendres were crucial to gay survival. They allowed gay men “to communicate with one another in hostile surroundings without drawing attention from others,” as George Chauncey in Gay New York explains, in this case, from homophobic people like the Doctor.
Moreover, while double entendres enable gay men to subtly communicate in mainstream society, private drag shows serve as spaces for these men to openly celebrate their identities. In another scene in The Drag, at Rolly’s party, the character Kate describes their experience at a previous drag show that the police raided: “We had a grand time — The police were perfectly lovely to us — weren’t they girls.” Rather than focusing on the terrifying experience of being held in custody, Kate depicts the raid as “a grand time,” which, while this can be seen as a defense mechanism to cope with the unfortunate reality of police brutality, ultimately highlights how drag shows nonetheless represented positive experiences for gay people in 1920s America.
Specifically, in an oppressive, heteronormative society, drag shows allow for spaces where gay men could tear down their straight facades and express themselves through femininity, fashion, and music. Understanding the importance of drag to gay life, West dedicates an entire act to the drag ball at Rolly’s apartment. By including minimal stage directions, which encouraged her gay actors to express themselves in an unscripted manner, West exposed the audience to an authentic drag experience.
Adding to her focus on authenticity, The Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi discusses how West cast actual gay men in her play during a time when the actors’ union prevented them from getting any speaking roles. Hiring gay actors is a testament to West’s attempts at accurately representing and empowering the gay community, especially since earning wages in a capitalist system was crucial to gay survival, as D’Emilio discusses.
Nevertheless, while West strived to be as accurate as possible, The Drag had its limitations. West openly encouraged her actors to exaggerate stereotypes associated with gay people to make more money and left out lower-class and Black people from her representation of the community.
Still, with The Drag, West crucially takes a first step toward raising awareness of a blossoming gay community outside the perspectives of homophobic disciplinary authorities, whose records represent most of the documented information on pre-World War II gay American history.
