2023-10-17 11:08:08
Bonus shows, sold-out shows and media craze like never before, drag culture is on everyone’s lips. Deciphering the most exciting pop movement of the last ten years.
Paris, August 20. The deluge of shouts, applause and snapping fingers would almost have caused the roof of the Grand Rex to collapse. Reason for this thunderous ovation, in which I participate in joyful fun? The entry onto the track of the four finalists of Drag Race France (S2), who came to compete in a final glittering contest to win the crown of new queen of France. “We are at the forefront of History,” laughs Mel, the friend with whom I attend live the recording of what is already establishing itself as the “world cup” of the community. LGBT+. For 2 hours, the sequences follow one another, between hot tears, peaks of crude humor and “LÉ-GEN-DAI-RES” songs, performed in outfits worthy of the tales of the Arabian Nights. Highlight of this baroque show: an anthology lip-sync (lip-sync battle with the lyrics of music, editor’s note), from which the “queen of voguing” Keiona emerges the winner of a competition in reality TV format which , during its first edition, rose to the rank of third most viewed program of 2022 on France.tv Slash, with 2.6 million spectators. At the Grand Rex, they crown the “queen of queens” with ecstatic encouragement, and with their chest held high, as if swollen by a feeling of accomplishment.
“For a queer meeting to be set in such a prestigious space, and broadcast on public service… Wow, what. In 2015, I had to rush to the mini-cellars of poor Parisian bars to see shows… what a long way to go! », Mel says. Before launching, suddenly cheered up: “This is just a taste, the drag revolution is underway! “. Really ?
ENERGIZE THE PATRIARCHY
From the bottom to the top. The expression fits like a glove to the extraordinary destiny of “drag” culture (for dressed as a girl), the modern version of which has smoldered, for years, in the electric intimacy of the New York ballroom scene of nineties. There, precarious minorities – Hispanics and Afro queer, in particular – whom an oppressive mass perceived at best as entertaining freaks, at worst as an abomination to be eradicated, found in these live performance competitions “a space in which to exist”, asks Apolline Bazin, editor-in-chief of Manifesto XXI and author of Drag, a queer art that shakes up the world, to be published on November 8. To reverse the stigma, “those who were fighting for their survival gave birth to extravagant characters” which they staged, via several borrowings from the codes of the parade, voguing or even singing – but not only that. “Drag art is at the crossroads of several disciplines, and its territory of expression is unlimited in itself. From sewing to makeup, including cooking, everything is possible, as long as there is the ambition to create a relationship.” Which approach, if it does not necessarily carry a militant message, “is always part of a political posture as drag, whatever its variation, transgresses gender binaries, and attacks hegemony heterosexist.”
“Obviously we are dynamiting the patriarchy! », abounds in a rascally breath of Justine, who found on the Brussels stage the ideal window of opportunity to “send the heteronormative vice waltzing away”. The one who identifies as gender fluid slips into @Zack’s sneakers every evening thanks to drag to carry high, and with a lot of lascivious strip tease, the criticism of a “society consumed by narrow-mindedness “. Because once the powerful bubble of cabarets – thought of as safe places – explodes, the furies of the street remain; then the very ones who shone with their outrageous panache in front of the public, suddenly level the walls. The face is low, the stomach is in knots. “The fairy tale of the scene should not obscure the reality of intolerance,” points out our king. Last summer, the competitor of the second season of Drag Race France Kitty Space was hit in the face, under a torrent of gayphobic insults; while in September, the former leader of Action Française in Rennes disrupted a reading workshop on gender equality, led by drag performers.
“LGBTphobia remains anchored in our society,” deplores Joël Deumier, spokesperson for SOS Homophobia, whose latest report reported an LGBTphobic physical attack every two days between 2021 and 2022, as well as an increase in reports transphobic, for 179 recorded over the same period. A figure which could be explained by “the influence of the anti-trans offensive in the United States”, “the freeing of victims’ voices”, but also a “backlash” effect. “As at the time of Marriage for All, we are observing a backlash to the visibility of LGBT+ minorities; in this case those linked to transidentity, highlighted on an unprecedented scale, thanks to the large-scale diffusion of cultural objects such as Drag Race.
“DRAG TRANSGRESSES BINARITIES AND ATTACKS HETEROSEXIST HEGEMONY. »
DREAM CREATURES
If the arrival of the show RuPaul’s Race (spiritual mother of international Drag Race) on Netflix in 2017 marked a decisive shift towards the democratization of drag culture, queens are now extending their influence beyond the borders of this competition . Here Cardi B and the Kardashians borrow their “yaaas queen”, “shade” and other “okuuuur” from the drag lexicon. Elsewhere the brands, sensitive to the call for air caused by the success of the Races, are getting started, no doubt convinced that drag, a sort of “Queen Midas” of glam, would only have to touch a product with the tips of their (false) nails to transform it into a trendy – even progressive – emblem. No wonder, then, that Coca Cola made a drag artist the face of its centenary campaign or that Violet Chachki became Prada’s muse. “There is an undeniable “trendy” effect,” attests Kindergarten, a queer party collective particularly known for making its parties a place for drag experimentation. “Where, a few years ago, this culture was confined to a confidential party world, we are now witnessing a galloping multiplication of distribution channels.” At the risk that the subversive scope of drag ends up diluted in a “mainstreamization”, at least partly orchestrated in the form of opportunistic pink washing?
“Seeing the appetite for capitalist profitability and a drag art with underground roots moving hand in hand is something disconcerting,” concedes Diamanda, a queen working at the first transvestite cabaret in the history of Paris, the cult Madame Arthur. Good. The fact remains that, from there to associating the resounding entry of queens and kings into pop culture with a Faustian pact – a kind of contract which would include in its alienations the curse of marketing distortion – there is a step that our artist refuses to take. cross. “Let’s see the glass half full!” The hype effect has caused an economy to burgeon around a sector which, historically, was sorely lacking. It is thanks to this momentum that we can address to an unprecedented audience the reality of racial, sexual, economic and gender oppression, and prove to the “general public” that we can free ourselves from the shackles of binary”. It’s not Sindbad who would say the opposite. Anyone who broke away from the “heteronormative Matrix” had their own epiphany, when they discovered the stage drag prodigies. “You see these dream creatures, from SF, heroic fantasy, diva aesthetics, or a little bit of all that at once, talking about emancipation, and you say to yourself: but what what the hell am I doing? “.
Leaving his “hetero cis plan-plan guy” look in the closet, here is our freedman who opens the door to unsuspected delights, having a blast robbing cosmetics stores, trying out iridescent eyeliner, daring to wear a crop top on a night out – above all, by playing with codes, Sindbad “deconstructs” his masculinity. Could this colorful trajectory, examples of which we have seen emerging in recent years, reflect a “dragification” of society? “It’s a course to pursue, but the horizon remains distant,” says Apolline Bazin. “Today we are witnessing a timid recognition of the plurality of gender identities, but “dragification” would be the level “above”; the shared awareness that everyone does drag on a daily basis, performing more or less conventional masculinities or femininities.” And it is only on the condition of this reflective light shed on our social roles that, collectively, we could “take the direction of a difference that is celebrated, rather than “tolerated””. So tomorrow, all your drag? We already have the lipstick – cyan, please.
By Antonin Gratien
Photo Jeanne Pieprzownik
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#movement #decade #Drag #Years