As with other forms of drag, it tends to overemphasize specific characteristics, generally the celebrity's mannerisms and fashion. The impersonation is intentionally inexact, however. A drag queen will not attempt to impersonate femaleness in a general way but will attempt to impersonate a specific woman, usually a celebrity. Some drag queens specialize in impersonation, although only in a narrow sense. A radical drag queen, in contrast, mocks gender categories in a broader way by combining the masculine and the feminine in a jarring fashion. Drag of this type does not question femininity but does question the body on which femininity may be superimposed. A passing drag queen appropriates and deploys feminine traits and appearance and may be considered to defy normative expectations of gender and reinforce them simultaneously. Marjorie Garber (1992) differentiates the passing drag queen (who emphasizes femininity if not the actual ability to pass as a woman) from the radical drag queen, "who wants the discontinuity of hairy chest or moustache to clash with a revealingly cut dress" (p. By contrast, the leather community is equally visible in gay pride events, but its members are less reviled, possibly because they are seen as hypermasculine or closer to a normative understanding of gender. Many straight people find drag queens offensive and frightening and base their entire understanding of homosexuals on that relatively small group. They can be a target of criticism within and without the gay community because they are the most visible manifestation of homosexuality. Outside the club setting drag queens are regular fixtures and favorites in gay pride parades and other events staged for the larger community. Those clubs generally have a drag queen hostess who is a local drag favorite and who introduces the drag artists and functions as a mother figure to the drag community. Some clubs specialize in drag, and many others have shows on regular nights. DRAG QUEENS IN GAYCULTUREĭrag shows in gay clubs are a mainstay of gay culture. This brought both the gay rights movement and drag queens into the public eye, and the popular understanding of drag queens (excessive in appearance and behavior, obviously non-normative) generally has remained constant since that time. Drag queens were particularly visible participants in the Stonewall riots of 1969. In the later twentieth century, however, the term became more closely associated with theatrical performance, usually in a cabaret or nightclub. At the beginning of the twentieth century, for example, a drag queen almost exclusively meant a male sex worker who dressed as a woman. The term drag queen has evolved over time, and this makes it difficult to discuss drag queens in a historical sense. Drag kings are linked most closely to drag queens, but they have a different set of goals and expectations and should not be considered as a female version of drag queens. Also related but not identical are various types of female-to-male cross-dressing. This differs from the central goal of drag, which is to violate normative gender categories by refusing to occupy fully either masculine or feminine styles. In female impersonation the goal is to pass as a woman: to persuade observers that the impersonator is biologically a woman. Therefore, while related, the two terms are not synonymous. While drag queens are a form of transvestitism in this general sense, they are almost always identified by their sexuality (gay men) and often have an intentionally transgressive function. It need not, and often is not, tied to sexuality in any way. It more commonly applies to people who wear clothes inappropriate to their recognized sex, regardless of motive. Transvestitism can be a fetishistic practice in which erotic pleasure is derived from an individual wearing clothes typically associated with the opposite sex. The term often is used interchangeably with related but significantly different forms of cross-dressing: transvestitism and female impersonation. The term is believed to have developed in the homosexual community of Great Britain in the nineteenth century and derives from the slang words drag (clothing) and queen (an effeminate man). That recognition is central to the drag queen aesthetic drag queens attempt to make the constructed nature of their gender obvious, intentionally borrowing both masculine and feminine qualities simultaneously to create a gender position outside of either. Wigs, makeup, and fashion often are overdone or out of proportion, creating an exaggerated femininity that is instantly recognizable as false or appropriated. They are typified by exaggeration and excess, often resulting in a clownish or cartoonlike presentation. Drag queens is a slang term that is used to describe one variation of male-to-female cross-dressing drag queens are men who dress as women.
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