On Androcentrism & Its Relevance to Drag
This section is an expansion on one particular area of interest that came up in research and discussion with interviewees.
The questions that elicited some of the most interesting responses for me were those focused on gender identity. All but one of the performers I interviewed, including those who responded to questions by email, identify themselves as non-binary. One thing that arose in several interviews was the erasure of drag kings. This related to a concept I came across in my initial research called ‘androcentrism’, which became a talking point with several interviewees. Western androcentrism is the idea that male dress, presentation and behaviour are the ideal or the norm, and are therefore invisible. Thus, people dressing or presenting in more feminine-coded ways are immediately more notable, whereas people who present as masculine can fly more easily under the radar (Heller, 2020, p.29). The idea that men are the norm and therefore invisible, as they can move through the world with more ease, feeds into the world of drag. Drag kings are less visible in the drag scene because they are offered fewer opportunities than queens. In Dylan Sutcliffe’s interview, he mentioned how the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009) tends to fall into misogynistic tropes of finding drag queens funny purely because they are imitating female bodies (2022). This idea that drag is about imitating female-ness purely because it is funny is quite reductive and paints an inaccurate picture of drag as an art form. In The Second Sex (1949) theorist Simone de Beauvoir asks the question ‘what is a woman’, before going on to say ‘It would never occur to a man to write a book on a singular situation of males in humanity’ (De Beauvoir, 2011, p.20). RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) calls into question and dissects the presentation of women, yet it seems De Beauvoir’s statement holds true as RuPaul insists on excluding drag kings and their questioning of maleness and masculinity. RPDR also buys into androcentrism by excluding drag kings and AFAB artists. RuPaul has been repeatedly quoted as saying, ‘Drag loses its sense of danger and its sense of irony once it’s not men doing it’ (Cuby, 2018). The idea that men doing drag is the only way it can be ironic or political is inherently misogynistic, especially as the over-glamorising of drag can in many ways perpetuate the female beauty standard that women have been held to for so long. In one episode of RPDR, drag queen Milan was criticised for looking like a man in a challenge that involved dressing up as a celebrity. Milan was dressed as non-binary singer and actor Janelle Monae (Brennan, 2017, p.36), who often dresses in more masculine-coded outfits. While the show supposedly strives for authenticity in the impersonation of women, its idea of ‘woman’ is outdated and subscribes to a hyper-feminine and glamorous ideal, hence the exclusion of drag kings and AFAB performers from the show. Academic Jack Halberstam argues that male femininity is something celebrated amongst homosocial cultures, while female masculinity is seen as a futile attempt to have power that is forever out of reach (1998, p.9). Seeing women and non-binary people performing in drag and performing that power is just as, if not more political than men in drag. Drag kings often go against beauty standards, and some drag artists aim to be particularly grotesque or disturbing. For example, drag king Isaac Dix performed an act at Femmegedon (2022) dressed like a dog with teats on his chest, and at one point ate Nutella out of a black bag, making it look disturbingly like dog faeces. Drag kinging is also a place that offers a celebration of female masculinity, away from its invisibility in androcentric societies. Half of the interviewees are drag kings and had a great deal to say about king erasure. Few had heard of androcentrism yet agreed it seemed highly relevant to drag.