There is something undeniably marvelous about drag. The dramatic makeup, elaborate costumes and larger-than-life theatrics all contribute to an otherworldly atmosphere.
The spectacle of drag relies on exaggeration, but it also relies on recognition. The humor and performance are often built on established stereotypes and familiar shorthand about what we know as femininity and womanhood. As drag has entered the cultural mainstream, these exaggerations of womanhood become louder, more attention-grabbing and in many cases, more objectionable.
Gender performance has existed for centuries. Modern drag, primarily tied to underground queer communities, emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Drag balls became a space for community and self-expression for people who couldn’t openly present how they wanted in broader society. These gatherings were usually held secretly because participants faced discrimination and arrest. Drag balls later flourished in Harlem and developed into the ballroom culture that influenced contemporary drag, music, dance and popular culture.
In recent years, drag has become more mainstream and more commercialized. Rather than simply a mode of self-expression, it has become a way to make money and a recognizable entertainment genre. As it becomes entertainment consumed by a mass audience, performers have incentives to make the performance bigger, louder, more shocking and more immediately recognizable.
Not only does this include drag queens adopting behavioral stereotypes of women such as being high maintenance, overly emotional, shallow, materialistic and promiscuous, but it also often involves temporary body modifications like huge breasts, exaggerated hips and big lips. There is a reliance on not just making femininity look ridiculous but using women’s bodies themselves as a punching bag. This also, in turn, promotes the idea that women with body types like that are inherently sexual or worthy of being made into a spectacle in some way.
While women and nonbinary people certainly participate in drag, they have not occupied the same mainstream or commercial space as male drag queens. Shows like “RuPaul’s Drag Race” have overwhelmingly centered male drag queens, making the male performance of femininity the most visible representation of drag in popular culture.
This matters because the cultural conversation surrounding drag often treats the performance of femininity as inherently subversive, without fully considering how that femininity is being constructed or whose experiences of womanhood are being represented. The relative absence of other gender perspectives can therefore limit the conversation around what drag is actually saying about gender and alienate performers who are not men.
Of course, this criticism becomes more complicated when considering who is actually performing drag. Most drag queens are members of a marginalized community due to their sexual orientation — drag has provided queer people a space to express identities that broader society sought to suppress. It would be reductive to suggest that drag performers occupy a position of uncomplicated social power. A gay man, for example, can experience homophobia and discrimination while simultaneously participating in cultural stereotypes about women. Marginalization in one aspect of identity does not necessarily eliminate privilege in another.
My criticism is not that drag cannot be politically subversive. Rather, it is that the performance of femininity can still reproduce sexist ideas even when the person performing it is marginalized in other ways. The fact that drag emerged as a form of queer resistance does not make it immune to criticism when its contemporary forms rely on stereotypes that have real consequences for women.
The issue lies not in the performance of femininity but in the association between those exaggerated performances and women as a whole. Men can enjoy the traditionally feminine without creating an exaggerated and borderline offensive depiction of womanhood.
By including aspects of the female body in the performance, it becomes clear that it is not just about exploring dress and expression, but about adopting a full female persona that is then often denigrated, demeaned and stereotyped. Drag is often championed as a progressive art form for blurring gender lines, when in reality it tends to become regressive insofar as it reinforces restrictive constructs created by the gender binary when it comes to women and offers little commentary on masculinity or the role of men.
There is nothing inherently objectionable about a man performing femininity. A man wearing a dress, applying makeup or adopting feminine mannerisms can challenge the assumption that these things belong exclusively to women. The problem begins when those elements are exaggerated into a caricature and then presented as synonymous with womanhood. A man doesn’t need to become a hypersexualized caricature of a woman to challenge masculinity.
It seems contradictory that a male performer can put on an exaggerated version of femininity, receive applause and financial compensation for it, and then remove the costume and return to a society in which those same feminine characteristics can still be used to diminish women. For the performer, femininity can be temporary, theatrical and profitable. For women, the stereotypes attached to femininity can have real social consequences. Women are harassed and sexualized due to a body they can’t escape or take on and off like a costume. Women do not have the option to shed these realities of their womanhood, but drag queens can profit off them.
Feminine modes of expression do not belong to women, and male performers should feel free to utilize them. The issue is twofold: the use of female bodily markers, such as breasts and hips, alongside the performance of female stereotypes in a regressive way. In this combination, the performance moves beyond the superficial aspects of femininity and instead risks reducing women themselves to their bodies and stereotypical representations. The use of women’s bodies to embody these stereotypes makes this reduction concrete.
Typically, when historically marginalized groups are subjected to stereotypes and exaggerated caricatures, there is a plethora of outcry and criticism. But despite women being an economically, socially and politically disadvantaged class who are harmed by perpetuating stereotypes, critiques of drag are few and far between. I think that ultimately, these are not issues specific or exclusive to drag, but are indicative of a culture that doesn’t take the ridicule of women seriously.
Shefa Stein-Talesnick is a junior majoring in philosophy, politics and law.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the Staff Editorial.