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Traction queen, Lady Bunny
Article informationAuthor, Joey SlimRole, BBC News Arabic – Beirut
39 minutes ago
A few days ago, a group of young men in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, attacked patrons of a bar that was hosting a “drag” show, or the art of drag.
The group threatened the artists and the audience and ordered them to leave the venue, considering that what is happening is a “devilish show” and that such appearances (men wearing women’s clothing) are unacceptable to that group and “the residents of the area.”
Videos of the attack circulated, and one of them showed two performers inside the bar removing make-up from their faces before leaving under threat.
What is the art of traction? What is its relationship to the gay and transgender community and their rights around the world?
What is the art of traction?
Dragooning or the art of dragging is a performance art that cuts between the masculine and feminine genders, as the artist wears types of clothing and make-up that belong to the other gender identity while exaggerating this identity.
Although this type of art began on stage and within the limits of artistic and entertainment performances, it has become a way of self-expression and a celebration of pride in belonging to the gay and transgender community.
One of the popular and believed to be the most correct theories about the origin of the term “dragging” is that it refers to the way dresses and gowns are “dragged” across the floor behind actors playing female roles.
Another theory suggests that the word “drag” is derived from “polarie,” a form of British slang that was popular among the gay men and theatrical community in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The word “drag” in this language means: clothes.
Reports from BBC News Arabic
Drag queens usually wear flashy women’s clothes in terms of colors and shapes, wearing wigs in addition to heavy cosmetics, in order to present a feminine show.
And while the largest percentage of traction queens are still gay men, trans women, non-binary people, and people with other diverse sexual identities perform in these performances as well.
On the other hand, there are the “drag kings” or drag kings, as the artists wear clothes that exaggerate the identity of the man with makeup that makes them appear more masculine. However, this type of performance art is not as common in popular culture as drag queen art.
This art attracts marginalized people of different sexual identities in general, and those who are united by the fact that they do not find acceptance from their families and social surroundings.
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Traction Queen Divine is best known for her collaboration with American director John Waters, and their films together, such as “Pink Flamenco” and “Politister” and others, have gained wide acclaim.
History of the art of traction
The art of traction has its roots in ancient Greece and Roman civilization, when men played women’s roles on the stage, which we also find in Shakespeare’s theatre.
This is due to the prohibition of women in those eras from performing and acting on the stage, which for long periods was the preserve of men.
In the nineteenth century, drag queens were known as misogynists, especially in vaudeville.
Then, in the early 20th century, traction art began to be associated with the gay and transgender community. And after men’s playing women’s roles was confined to theaters, this began to spread to the alternative scene in American and European cities, i.e. bars and night clubs, especially in places such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City.
LGBTQ and trans culture became more widespread, including traction culture, after the Stonewall bar riot in New York in 1969, which was a landmark in the LGBTQ struggle.
This culture gained popularity in Harlem, New York City, in the late 1980s.
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RuPaul Charles
RuPaul Charles and Lady Bunny are among the most famous drag queens in the history of American and international popular culture, in addition to Devine, who became famous for her collaboration with American director John Waters, and their films together, such as “Pink Flamenco” and “Politister” and others, won wide fame.
In recent years, this type of art has achieved greater visibility around the world, especially with the broadcast of “Ropaul’s Drag Race” (RoPaul’s Drag Race) on the Netflix platform.
He also produced two seasons of the French version of the show, Drag Race France, on state-run France TV.
Despite this, male and female drag artists are still clashing in some countries and cities around the world to extract their right to practice their art, which is also often the source of their livelihood.
Last March, the US state of Tennessee banned drag art outside adult nightclubs, while the states of Arizona, Texas and Kansas are preparing to end the same ban.
Likewise, artists who present this type of show are still fighting around the world in places that still restrict the gay and transgender community.
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In recent years, this type of art has achieved greater visibility around the world, especially with the broadcast of “RoPaul’s Drag Race” on the Netflix platform.
The art of traction and gender
Draft art is a liberating art and closely related to the struggles of the LGBT community.
On the one hand, traction art enables the LGBT community to gain recognition through the visuality that this type of performance provides.
He also recovers the stigma historically attached to men who “act like women” or “females”.
He captures stigma and stereotypes, and uses them to benefit the gay community and its rights, instead of using them to shame and exclude it.
On the other hand, this type of art embodies a central idea in gender studies, which is the separation of the human race from its gender, that is, the separation of its physical composition from its social type and tendencies, and the fact that the first does not determine the second or vice versa.
Queer theory points to a basic idea of refusing to have a fixed essence to being a man or a woman. In other words, gender is not a human “nature”, and accordingly a male child will not necessarily remain a man, just as a female child is not a woman “forever”.
The art of traction comes at the heart of proving this idea, as it shows from its beginnings how a man can brilliantly play the role of a woman and vice versa.
According to the theory of the American philosopher Judith Butler, which dates back to the nineties of the last century, gender is essentially a “performative” thing, that is, a set of actions and behaviors that people learn to perform through social structures that precede their existence. Therefore, gender is widely seen as a “social component”.
In her work on the art of preposition, Butler cites the American anthropologist Esther Newton, who sees the preposition as “a double reflection that appearances are deceiving,” i.e., “my outward appearance is feminine, but my inner appearance is masculine.” Likewise, it may be, “My outward appearance is masculine, but my inward appearance is feminine.”
What “dragging queens” do, in Butler’s opinion, is “destabilize gender meanings in the discourse of right and wrong”.
“If we think we see a man dressed as a woman or a woman dressed as a man, it is because we take the appearance we see as the reality of gender,” says the author of “The Gender Problem.”
And she adds, “The traction serves to show that reality is not fixed as we usually think. It (the traction) subverts the idea that there is a real gender identity.”
Butler points to the satirical aspect of traction, saying, “By being a parody, traction makes us question the truth of the original.” That is, when we see a man in a woman’s dress and makeup, and he can brilliantly imitate that woman, we will question the stability and definitiveness of being a man in the first place.
“By imitating gender, preposition implicitly reveals the imitative structure of that same gender—as well as its casualness,” says Butler.
In her opinion, this refers to “the cultural mechanism that makes gender, being a social component.”
