drag (entertainment)

{{further|Drag queen#Terminology, scope, and etymology}}

The origin of the term drag is uncertain; it may date as far back as the Elizabethan era in England, where it was used to describe male actors playing female roles in theaters where cross-dressing was the norm.{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer Culture |editor-last1=Gerstner |editor-first1=David A. |title=Drag |last1=Baroni |first1=Monica |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=851qoMjA3icC&pg=PA191 |date=2012 |orig-year=1st pub. 2006 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=978-1-136-76181-2 |oclc=815980386 |pages=191 |access-date=27 April 2018 }} The first recorded use of drag in reference to actors dressed in women's clothing is from 1870.{{cite book |editor1=María de los Ángeles Gómez González |editor2=J. Lachlan Mackenzie |editor3=Elsa M. González Álvarez Tan|author1=Felix Rodriguez Gonzales |title=Languages and Cultures in Contrast and Comparison |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Sk6AAAAQBAJ |series=Pragmatics & beyond new series v 175 |date=26 June 2008 |publisher=John Benjamins |location=Philadelphia |page=231 |chapter=The feminine stereotype in gay characterization: A look at English and Spanish |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Sk6AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA221 |isbn=978-90-272-9052-6 |oclc=860469091 |access-date=29 April 2017 }} One suggested etymological root is 19th-century theater slang, from the sensation of long skirts trailing on the floor. Another possible origin is the Yiddish term {{lang|yi|trogn}} meaning "to wear", from the German {{lang|de|tragen}}.{{cite web |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=drag |title=Drag |website=Online Etymology Dictionary |access-date=March 9, 2021}} It may also have been based on the term grand rag, which was historically used for a masquerade ball.{{cite journal |url=https://www.academia.edu/49043126 |title=William Dorsey Swann |first=Channing Gerard |last=Joseph |journal=African American National Biography |date=20 May 2021 |publisher=Oxford African American Studies Center |access-date=26 May 2021 |archive-date=2 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210902155525/https://www.academia.edu/49043126 |url-status=live }}

Men dressed as women have been featured in certain traditional customs for centuries. For example, the characters of some regional variants of the traditional mummers' play, which were traditionally always performed by men, include Besom Bet(ty); numerous variations on Bessy or Betsy; Bucksome Nell; Mrs Clagdarse; Dame Dolly; Dame Dorothy; Mrs Finney; Mrs Frail; and many others.{{cite web |url=http://www.folkplay.info/Texts/CastIndex_.htm |title=Character Name Index to Folk Play Scripts |author=Peter Millington |access-date=1 Dec 2011}}

The variant performed around Plough Monday in Eastern England is known as the Plough Play{{cite book |last=Hole |first=Christina |date=1978 |title=A Dictionary of British Folk Customs |page=238 |publisher=Paladin |isbn=0-586-08293-X}} (also Wooing Play or Bridal Play){{cite web |url=http://www.folkplay.info/Notts/Td00023.htm |title=Folkplay Info: Bibliography of Nottinghamshire Folk Plays & Related Customs |author=E.C. Cawte |date=1967 |access-date=1 Dec 2011}} and usually involves two female characters, the young "Lady Bright and Gay" and "Old Dame Jane" and a dispute about a bastard child.{{cite web |url=http://www.folkplay.info/Texts/89sk63cm.htm |website=Folk Play Research |title=Cropwell, Notts. Ploughboys' Play – 1890 |access-date=1 Dec 2011}} A character called Bessy also accompanied the Plough Jags (also known as Plough Jacks, Plough Stots, Plough Bullocks, etc.) even in places where no play was performed: "she" was a man dressed in women's clothes, who carried a collecting box for money and other largesse.

"Maid Marian" of the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is played by a man, and the Maid Marians referred to in old documents as having taken part in May Games and other festivals with Morris dancers would most probably also have been men. The "consort" of the Castleton Garland King was traditionally a man (until 1956, when a woman took over the role) and was originally simply referred to as "The Woman".

{{See also|History of cross-dressing#On stage and on the screen}}

File:Julian Eltinge 1925 NVA.jpg

Cross-dressing elements of performance traditions are a widespread and longstanding cultural phenomena.

The ancient Roman playwright Plautus' ({{Circa}} 254–184 BCE) Menaechmi includes a scene in which Menaechmus I puts on his wife's dress, then wears a cloak over it, intending to remove the dress from the house and deliver it to his mistress.{{Cite book |last=Germany |first=Robert |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/960871058 |title=Mimetic Contagion: Art and Artifice in Terence's Eunuch |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-19-105887-5 |location=Oxford |pages=105 |oclc=960871058 |quote=Menaechmus has smuggled his wife's palla out of the house by wearing it under his cloak, which he presumably parts or doffs in line 145 to reveal his unusual underwear ... He seems to think he is 'just like' something in an abduction painting.}}{{Cite book |last=Dufallo |first=Basil |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D0ALl6rPshIC&dq=%22palla%22&pg=PA21 |title=The Captor's Image: Greek Culture in Roman Ecphrasis |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-19-973587-7 |pages=21–22 |language=en |quote=Menaechmus I ... emerges from his house wearing, under his male cloak (pallium), a woman’s mantle (palla) that he has stolen from his wife ... Revealing the palla, Menaechmus then inquires whether he bears any resemblance to the paintings ... 'What's that fancy getup you've got on?' Peniculus queries. 'Tell me I’m the most charming of men,' demands Menaechmus.}}{{Cite book |last1=Plautus |first1=Titus Maccius |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hBsecPnpOhAC&q=pretty+boy |title=Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics |date=1993-06-03 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-34970-3 |editor-last=Gratwick |editor-first=A. S. |pages=152 |language=en |quote=Men. is facetiously comparing himself with Ganymede and Adonis as types of champion 'pretty boy' whom Zeus and Venus ... found irresistibly attractive.}} Menaechmus says: "Look at me. Do I look the part?" [{{lang|la|Age me aspice. ecquid adsimulo similiter?}}] Peniculus responds: "What in the world have you got on?" [{{lang|la|Quis istest ornatus tuos?}}] Menaechmus says: "Tell me I am gorgeous." [{{lang|la|Dic hominem lepidissimum esse me.}}]{{Cite web |last=Plautus |title=Menaechmi (Scene II) |url=http://monumenta.ch/latein/text.php?tabelle=Plautus&rumpfid=Plautus,%20Menaechmi,%201,%20%20%20%202&level=4&domain=&lang=1&links=&inframe=1&hide_apparatus=1 |access-date=2022-03-15 |website=monumenta.ch |language=la}}{{Cite web |last=Plautus |title=Menaechmi |url=https://pages.pomona.edu/~cmc24747/sources/menaechmi.htm |access-date=2022-03-15 |publisher=Pomona College |language=en}}

File:MFA PELIKE 04.jpg

In England, actors in Shakespearean plays, and all Elizabethan theatre (in the 1500s and 1600s), were all male; female parts were played by young men in drag because women were banned from performing publicly.{{cite web |url=https://www.writerstheatre.org/blog/gender-shakespeares-stage-history/ |title=Gender on Shakespeare's Stage: A Brief History |last=Garcia |first=Lucas |date=November 21, 2018 |website=Writers Theatre |access-date=March 6, 2021}} Shakespeare used the conventions to enrich the gender confusions of As You Like It, and Ben Jonson manipulated the same conventions in Epicœne, or The Silent Woman (1609). During the reign of Charles II (1660–1685) the rules were relaxed to allow women to play female roles on the London stage, reflecting the French fashion, and the convention of men routinely playing female roles consequently disappeared.{{cite thesis |type=Doctoral |last=Nelson |first=Christopher William |title=Perception, power, plays, and print: Charles II and the restoration theatre of consensus |date=2012 |url=https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1415&context=gradschool_dissertations |publisher=Louisiana State University |page=117 |access-date=March 6, 2021}}

In the 1890s, the slapstick drag traditions of undergraduate productions (notably Hasty Pudding Theatricals at Harvard College,{{cite web |url=https://hastypudding.org/hpc-history |title=Hasty Pudding Club History |publisher=Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770 |access-date=March 6, 2021 |archive-date=April 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415041526/https://hastypudding.org/hpc-history |url-status=dead }} annually since 1891, and at other Ivy League schools like Princeton University's Triangle Club{{cite web |url=https://princetoniana.princeton.edu/traditions/performing-arts/triangle-club |title=Triangle Club |publisher=Princeton University |access-date=March 6, 2021}} or the University of Pennsylvania's Mask and Wig Club), and many other universities in which women were not permitted admission, were permissible fare to the same upper-class American audiences that were scandalized to hear that in New York City, rouged young men in skirts were standing on tables to dance the can-can in Bowery dives like The Slide.{{cite web |url=https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/the-slide/ |title=The Slide |website=NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project |access-date=March 6, 2021}}

Drag shows were popular night club entertainment in New York in the 1920s, then were forced underground, until the "Jewel Box Revue" played Harlem's Apollo Theater in the 1950s with their show, "49 Men and a Girl".{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/nyregion/28storme.html|title=A Stonewall Veteran, 89, Misses the Parade|date=June 27, 2010|last=Fernandez |first=Manny|newspaper=The New York Times}}{{cite web|url=http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c217.shtml |title=Storme The Lady of the Jewel Box |work=Women Make Movies |date= n.d.|accessdate=August 1, 2010}}{{Cite news|url=http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-stonewall-activist-storme-delarverie-dies-at-93-2014may27-story.html|title=Stonewall activist Storme DeLarverie dies at 93|first=Deepti |last=Hajela|agency=Associated Press|work=San Diego Union-Tribune|access-date=October 12, 2017}} For most of the performance, the "girls" were men in glamorous drag. At the end, the "one girl" was revealed to be the dashing young "man" in dinner clothes—Stormé DeLarverie—the MC who had been introducing each of the evening's acts.{{Cite web|title=The Cowboy Of The West Village |url=https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/nancy/episodes/nancy-podcast-cowboy-west-village-nod|access-date=2020-08-11|website=WNYC Studios|language=en}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.stonewallvets.org/StormeDeLarverie.htm|title=Stormé DeLarverie, S.V.A. Stonewall Ambassador * Jewel Box Revue * Imperial QUEENS & Kings of NY|last=Williamson|first=K. Storme DeLarverie |website=Stonewall Veterans' Association|access-date=October 12, 2017}}

The plot device of the film Shakespeare in Love (1998) turns upon the Elizabethan convention of the Shakespearean originals and the changes that came with women being allowed on stage during the reign of Charles II. However, drag remains a strong tradition in British comedy. This is seen in current-day British pantomime, where traditional roles such as the pantomime dame are played by a man in drag and the principal boy, such as Prince Charming or Dick Whittington, is played by a girl or young woman, as well as in comedy troupes such as Monty Python (formed in 1969).

Within the dramatic fiction, a double standard historically affected the uses of drag. In male-dominated societies where active roles were reserved to men, a woman might dress as a man under the pressures of her dramatic predicament. In these societies a man's position was above a woman's, causing a rising action that suited itself to tragedy, sentimental melodrama and comedies of manners that involved confused identities. A man dressed as a woman was thought to be a falling action only suited to broad low comedy and burlesque. Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo are an all-male ballet troupe where much of the humor is in seeing male dancers en travesti; performing roles usually reserved to females, wearing tutus and dancing en pointe with considerable technical skill.{{cite web |url=https://trockadero.org/ |title=Homepage |publisher=Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo |access-date=March 9, 2021}}

These conventions of male-dominated societies were largely unbroken before the 20th century, when rigid gender roles were undermined and began to dissolve. This evolution changed drag in the last decades of the 20th century. Among contemporary drag performers, the theatrical drag queen or street queen may at times be seen less as a "female impersonator" per se, but simply as a drag queen. Examples include The Cockettes, Danny La Rue or RuPaul.

{{Main|Ball culture}}

File:Voguing Masquerade Ball (30354045202).jpg, 2016]]

Ballroom culture (also known as "ball culture", and other names) is an underground LGBT subculture that originated in 1920s New York{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof0008hugh_h87ra |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof0008hugh_h87ra/page/208 208] |title=The Collected Works of Langston Hughes |last=Hughes |first=Langston |date=2001 |publisher=University of Missouri Press |isbn=978-0-8262-1410-2 |oclc=45500326 |access-date=4 December 2019}} in which people "walk" (i.e., compete) for trophies, prizes, and glory at events known as balls. Ball participants are mainly young African-American and Latin American members of the LGBTQ community.{{Cite journal |journal=Gender, Place & Culture |last=Bailey |first=Marlon M. |date=2014-04-21 |title=Engendering space: Ballroom culture and the spatial practice of possibility in Detroit |volume=21 |issue=4 |pages=489–507 |doi=10.1080/0966369X.2013.786688 |s2cid=15450392 |issn=0966-369X }} Attendees dance, vogue, walk, pose, and support one another in one or more of the numerous drag and performance competition categories. Categories are designed to simultaneously epitomize and satirize various genders, social classes and archetypes in society, while also offering an escape from reality. The culture extends beyond the extravagant formal events as many participants in ball culture also belong to groups known as "houses", a longstanding tradition in LGBT communities, and racial minorities, where chosen families of friends live in households together, forming relationships and community to replace families of origin from which they may be estranged.{{cite web|last=Podhurst |first=L. |author2=Credle J. |title=HIV/AIDS risk reduction strategies for Gay youth of color in the 'house' community. (Meeting Abstracts) |publisher=U.S. National Library of Medicine |date=2007-06-10 |page=13 |volume=12 |issue=913 |location=Newark, NJ |url=http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/102231503.html |access-date=2007-10-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090817103315/http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102231503.html |archive-date=August 17, 2009 }}{{Cite book|title=Voguing and the house ballroom scene of New York City 1989–92 |last=Stuart |first=Baker |date=2011 |publisher=s.n.|isbn=978-0955481765|oclc=863223074}}

Ball culture first gained exposure to a mainstream audience in 1990 when its voguing dance style was featured in Madonna's song "Vogue", and in Jennie Livingston's documentary Paris is Burning the same year. Voguing is a highly stylized type of modern house dance that emerged in the 1980s and evolved out of 1960s ball culture in Harlem, New York.{{cite book |last1=Baker |first1=Stuart |last2=Regnault |first2=Chantal |title=Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York City 1989–92 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cq2NZwEACAAJ |access-date=4 December 2019 |year=2011 |publisher=Soul Jazz Records |location=London |isbn=978-0955481765 |oclc=792935254}} In 2018, the American television series Pose showcased Harlem's ball culture scene of the 1980s and was nominated for numerous awards.{{cite web |author=TV News Desk |title=New Ryan Murphy Musical Dance Series POSE Gets Full Season Order |url=https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/New-Ryan-Murphy-Musical-Dance-Series-POSE-Gets-Full-Season-Order-20171227 |website=BroadwayWorld.com |date=December 27, 2017 |access-date=2019-12-04}}

In Baroque opera, where soprano roles for men were sung by castrati, Handel's heroine Bradamante, in the opera Alcina, disguises herself as a man to save her lover, played by a male soprano; contemporary audiences were not the least confused. In Romantic opera, certain roles of young boys were written for alto and soprano voices and acted by women en travestie (in English, in "trouser roles").{{cite web|url=http://www.bohemianopera.com/roles_af.htm|title=Bohemian Opera Resources and Information|website=www.bohemianopera.com|access-date=27 March 2018|archive-date=5 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151105230346/http://www.bohemianopera.com/roles_af.htm|url-status=dead}} The most familiar trouser role in pre-Romantic opera is Cherubino in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro (1786).{{cite web |url=https://www.operanorth.co.uk/news/the-marriage-of-figaro-in-a-nutshell/#:~:text=%E2%80%94%20The%20teenage%20boy%20Cherubino%20is,to%20escape%20the%20Count's%20wrath! |title=The Marriage of Figaro in a Nutshell |date=January 7, 2020 |website=Opera North |access-date=March 9, 2021}} In Beethoven's opera Fidelio Leonore, the faithful wife of Florestan, disguises herself as a man to save her husband. Romantic opera continued the convention: there are trouser roles for women in drag in Rossini's Semiramide (Arsace), Donizetti's Rosamonda d'Inghilterra and Anna Bolena, Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini, and even a page in Verdi's Don Carlo. The convention was beginning to die out with Siebel, the ingenuous youth in Charles Gounod's Faust (1859) and the gypsy boy Beppe in Mascagni's L'Amico Fritz, so that Offenbach gave the role of Cupid to a real boy in Orphée aux Enfers.{{cite web |url=https://eno.org/discover-opera/explore-more/operas-greatest-trouser-roles/ |title=Opera's Greatest Trouser Roles |website=Discover Opera |access-date=March 9, 2021}} But Sarah Bernhardt played Hamlet in tights, giving French audiences a glimpse of Leg (the other in fact being a prosthesis) and Prince Orlovsky, who gives the ball in Die Fledermaus, is a mezzo-soprano, to somewhat androgynous effect. The use of travesti in Richard Strauss's Rosenkavalier (1912) is a special case, unusually subtle and evocative of its 18th-century setting, and should be discussed in detail at Der Rosenkavalier.

{{Main|Cross-dressing in film and television}}

The self-consciously risqué bourgeois high jinks of Brandon Thomas's Charley's Aunt (London, 1892) were still viable theatre material in La Cage aux Folles (1978), which was remade, as The Birdcage, as late as 1996.

File:Dame Edna (6959711768).jpg in 2012]]

Dame Edna,{{cite web |url=https://www.dame-edna.com/ |title=Homepage |website=Dame Edna Everage |access-date=March 9, 2021}} the drag persona of Australian actor Barry Humphries, was the host of several specials, including The Dame Edna Experience. Dame Edna also toured internationally, playing to sell-out crowds, and appeared on TV's Ally McBeal. Dame Edna represented an anomalous example of the drag concept. Her earliest incarnation was unmistakably a man dressed (badly) as a suburban housewife. Edna's manner and appearance became so feminised and glamorised that even some of her TV show guests appear not to see that the Edna character was played by a man.{{cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/farewell-dame-edna |title=Farewell, Dame Edna |date=March 20, 2012 |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=March 9, 2021}} The furor surrounding Dame Edna's "advice" column in Vanity Fair magazine suggests that one of her harshest critics, actress Salma Hayek, was unaware Dame Edna was a female character played by a man.

In 2009, RuPaul's Drag Race first premiered as a television show in the United States. The show has gained mainstream and global appeal, and it has exposed multiple generations of audiences to drag culture.{{Cite web|title=Drag Race Inc.: What's Lost When a Subculture Goes Pop?|url=https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/drag-race-inc-whats-lost-when-a-subculture-goes-pop.html|last=Jung|first=E. Alex|date=2019-06-11|website=Vulture|language=en-us|access-date=2020-05-10}}

In the United States, early examples of drag clothing can be found in gold rush saloons of California. The Barbary Coast district of San Francisco was known for certain saloons, such as Dash, which attracted female impersonator patrons and workers.

William Dorsey Swann was the first person to call himself "queen of drag". He was a former slave, who was freed after the American Civil War, from Maryland. By the 1880s, he was organizing and hosting drag balls in Washington, D.C. The balls included folk dances, such as the cakewalk, and the male guests often dressed in female clothing.{{Cite news|last=Joseph|first=Channing Gerard|date=2020-01-31|title=The First Drag Queen Was a Former Slave|journal=The Nation|language=en-US|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/society/drag-queen-slave-ball/|access-date=2020-05-09|issn=0027-8378}}

In the early 20th century, drag—as an art form and culture—began to flourish with minstrel shows and vaudeville. Performers such as Julian Eltinge and Bothwell Browne were drag queens and vaudeville performers. The Progressive Era brought a decline in vaudeville entertainment, but drag culture began to grow in nightclubs and bars, such as Finnochio's Club and Black Cat Bar in San Francisco.{{Cite book|last=Boyd|first=Nan Alamilla|title=Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965|publisher=University of California Press|year=2003|isbn=0-520-24474-5}}

During this period, Hollywood films included examples of drag. While drag was often used as a last-resort tactic in situational farce (its only permissible format at the time), some films provided a more empathetic lens than others. In 1919, Bothwell Browne appeared in Yankee Doodle in Berlin.{{Citation|title=Yankee Doodle in Berlin|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0010925/ |website=IMDB |date=2 March 1919 |access-date=2020-05-09}} In 1933, {{Lang|de|Viktor und Viktoria}} came out in Germany, which later inspired First a Girl (1935) in the United States.{{cite web |url=https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/cteq/viktor/ |last=Thompson |first=Rick |title=He and She Weimar Screwballwerk: Viktor und Viktoria |date=October 2002 |website=Senses of Cinema |access-date=March 9, 2021}} That same year, Katharine Hepburn played a character who dressed as a male in Sylvia Scarlett.{{Cite web|title=10 great drag films|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-drag-films|website=British Film Institute|date=28 August 2015 |language=en|access-date=2020-05-09}} In 1959, drag made a big Hollywood splash in Some Like It Hot (1959).{{Citation|title=Some Like It Hot|date=19 March 1959|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053291/|access-date=2020-05-09}}{{Cite news|last=Nicholas Barber|title=Why Some Like It Hot is the greatest comedy ever made|language=en|url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170817-why-some-like-it-hot-is-the-greatest-comedy-ever-made|access-date=2020-05-09}}

In the 1960s, Andy Warhol and his Factory scene included superstar drag queens, such as Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn, both immortalized in the Lou Reed song "Walk on the Wild Side".{{Cite web|title=Andy Warhol's Superstars Define 15 Minutes Of Fame|url=https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/new-york/new-york-city/articles/andy-warhols-superstars/|last=Scarisbrick|first=Sean|website=Culture Trip|date=17 December 2015|access-date=2020-05-09}}

File:Wild Side Story 1973 collage.jpg version of Wild Side Story, 1973]]

By the early 1970s, drag was influenced by the psychedelic rock and hippie culture of the era. A San Francisco drag troupe, The Cockettes (1970–1972), performed with glitter eyeshadow and gilded mustaches and beards. The troupe also coined the term "genderfuck".{{Cite web|title=The Cockettes: Rise and fall of the acid queens|url=https://www.salon.com/2000/08/23/weissman/|date=2000-08-23|website=Salon|language=en|access-date=2020-05-09}} Drag broke out from underground theatre in the persona of Divine in John Waters' Pink Flamingos (1972): see also Charles Pierce. The cult hit movie musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) inspired several generations of young people to attend performances in drag, although many of these fans would not call themselves drag queens or transvestites.{{Cite web|title=After 40 Years, 'Rocky Horror' Has Become Mainstream|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/09/after-40-years-rocky-horror-has-become-mainstream/407491/|last=Schwab|first=Katharine|date=2015-09-26|website=The Atlantic|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-09}}

For many decades, American network television, only the broadest slapstick drag tradition was generally represented. Few American TV comedians consistently used drag as a comedy device, among them Milton Berle,{{cite web |url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-milton-berle-20020328-story.html |last=Brownfield |first=Paul |title=From the Archives: Milton Berle, 93; Legendary Comic Trouper Dies |date=March 28, 2002 |website=Los Angeles Times |access-date=March 9, 2021}} Flip Wilson,{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/27/arts/flip-wilson-outrageous-comic-and-tv-host-dies-at-64.html |title=Flip Wilson, Outrageous Comic and TV Host, Dies at 64 |date=November 27, 1998 |website=The New York Times |access-date=March 9, 2021}} and Martin Lawrence,{{cite web |url=https://www.post-gazette.com/life/fashion/2007/04/22/Are-black-men-dressed-as-women-just-a-drag/stories/200704220134 |last=Jones |first=Lamont |title=Are Black Men Dressed as Women Just a Drag? |date=April 22, 2007 |website=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |access-date=March 9, 2021}} although drag characters have occasionally been popular on sketch TV shows like In Living Color (with Jim Carrey's grotesque female bodybuilder){{cite web |url=https://www.distractify.com/p/jim-carrey-in-living-color-characters |last=Gatollari |first=Mustafa |title=Jim Carrey's Pre-Star Brilliance Shone on 'In Living Color' With His Characters |date=April 14, 2020 |website=Distractify |access-date=March 9, 2021}} and Saturday Night Live (with the Gap Girls, among others). On the popular 1960s military sitcom, McHale's Navy, Ensign Parker (Tim Conway) sometimes had to dress in drag (often with hilarious results) whenever McHale and/or his crew had to disguise themselves in order to carry out their elaborate schemes. Gilligan's Island occasionally features men dressing in women's clothes, though this was not considered drag since it was not for a performance.

On stage and screen, the actor-playwright-screenwriter-producer Tyler Perry has included his drag character of Madea in some of his most noted productions, such as the stage play Diary of a Mad Black Woman and the feature film he based upon it.{{cite magazine |url=https://ew.com/article/2006/12/08/history-actors-drag/ |last=Stransky |first=Tanner |title=A History of Actors in Drag |date=December 8, 2006 |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |access-date=March 9, 2021}}

Maximilliana and RuPaul co-star together in the TV show Nash Bridges starring Don Johnson and Cheech Marin during the two-part episode "'Cuda Grace". Maximilliana, looking passable, leads one of the investigators to believe he is "real" and sexually advances only to learn that he is, in fact, male, much to his chagrin.{{cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115285/ |title=Nash Bridges |website=IMDB |date=29 March 1996 |access-date=March 9, 2021}}

In the United Kingdom, drag has been more common in comedy, on both film and television. Alastair Sim plays the headmistress Miss Millicent Fritton in The Belles of St Trinian's (1954){{cite web |url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1955/10/11/the-belles-of-st-trinians-pcartoonist/ |last=Schwabacher |first=Thomas K |title=The Belles of St. Trinian's |date=October 11, 1955 |website=The Harvard Crimson |access-date=March 9, 2021}} and Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957).{{cite web |url=https://www.cinemaessentials.com/2020/10/blue-murder-at-st-trinians-1957-comedy-film-review.html |title=Blue Murder at St. Trinian's |access-date=March 9, 2021}} He played the role straight; no direct joke about the actor's true gender is made. However, Miss Fritton is quite non-feminine in her pursuits of betting, drinking and smoking. The gag is that whilst her school sends out girls into a merciless world, it is the world that need beware. Despite this, or perhaps because of Sim's portrayal, subsequent films in the series went on to use actresses in the headmistress role (Dora Bryan and Sheila Hancock respectively). The 21st century re-boot of the series however reverted to drag, with Rupert Everett in the role.

On television, Benny Hill portrayed several female characters. The Monty Python troupe and The League of Gentlemen{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jan/08/when-good-tv-goes-bad-league-of-gentlemen-no-laughing-matter |last=Moores |first=JR |title=When Good TV Goes Bad: How The League of Gentlemen became No Laughing Matter |date=January 8, 2018 |website=The Guardian |access-date=March 9, 2021}} often played female parts in their skits. The League of Gentlemen are also credited with the first ever portrayal of "nude drag", where a man playing a female character is shown naked but still with the appropriate female anatomy, like fake breasts and a merkin.{{cite web |url=https://www.nme.com/news/league-gentlemen-creators-gender-politics-character-babs-trans-identity-2177841 |last=Trendell |first=Andrew |title='The League Of Gentlemen' creators defend 'lampooning' trans issues in comeback episode |date=December 19, 2017 |website=NME |access-date=March 9, 2021}} Within the conceit of the sketch/film, they are actually women: it is the audience who are in on the joke.

Monty Python women, whom the troupe called pepperpots, are random middle-aged working/lower middle class typically wearing long brown coats that were common in the 1960s. Save for a few characters played by Eric Idle, they looked and sounded very little like actual women with their caricatural outfits and shrill falsettos. However, when a sketch called for a "real" woman, the Pythons almost always called on Carol Cleveland.{{cite web |url=https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/453511/Carol-Cleveland-The-Python-pin-up |last=Robertson |first=Peter |title=The Monty Python pin-up Carol Cleveland: I was just in awe of them all |date=January 13, 2014 |website=Express |access-date=March 9, 2021}} The joke is reversed in the Python film Life of Brian where "they" are pretending to be men, including obviously false beards, so that they can go to the stoning. When someone throws the first stone too early the Pharisee asks "who threw that", and they answer "she did, she did,..." in high voices. "Are there any women here today?" he says, "No no no" they say in gruff voices.

In the 1970s the most familiar drag artist on British television was Danny La Rue.{{cite web |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/lifeinfocus/danny-la-rue-death-anniversary-obituary-drag-queen-cabaret-hello-dolly-a8934691.html |last=Hayward |first=Anthony |title=Danny La Rue: Female impersonator who made drag into an art form |date=June 2019 |website=Independent |access-date=March 9, 2021}} La Rue's act was essentially a music hall one, following on from a much older, and less sexualised tradition of drag. His appearances were often in variety shows such as The Good Old Days (itself a pastiche of music hall) and Sunday Night at the London Palladium. Such was his popularity that he made a film, Our Miss Fred (1972). Unlike the "St Trinians" films, the plot involved a man having to dress as a woman.{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/jun/01/danny-la-rue-obituary |last=Barker |first=Dennis |title=Danny La Rue Obituary |date=June 1, 2009 |website=The Guardian |access-date=March 9, 2021}}

David Walliams and (especially) Matt Lucas often play female roles in the television comedy Little Britain; Walliams plays Emily Howard—a "rubbish transvestite", who makes an unconvincing woman.{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53038466 |title=Little Britain: Matt Lucas and David Walliams 'very sorry' for blackface |date=June 14, 2020 |website=BBC |access-date=March 9, 2021}}

In the UK, non-comedic representations of drag acts are less common, and usually a subsidiary feature of another story. A rare exception is the television play (1968) and film (1973) The Best Pair of Legs in the Business. In the film version Reg Varney plays a holiday camp comedian and drag artist whose marriage is failing.{{cite web |url=https://www.comedy.co.uk/film/best_pair_of_legs_in_business/ |title=The Best Pair of Legs In The Business |website=British Comedy Guide |access-date=March 9, 2021}}

Early representations of drag in Canadian film included the 1971 film Fortune and Men's Eyes, adapted from a theatrical play by John Herbert,Gerald Pratley, A Century of Canadian Cinema. Lynx Images, 2003. {{ISBN|1-894073-21-5}}. p. 82. and the 1974 film Once Upon a Time in the East, adapted from a theatrical play by Michel Tremblay.Gerald Pratley, A Century of Canadian Cinema. Lynx Images, 2003. {{ISBN|1-894073-21-5}}. p. 161.

The 1977 film Outrageous!, starring Canadian drag queen Craig Russell as a fictionalized version of himself, was an important milestone in Canadian film, as one of the first gay-themed films ever to receive widespread theatrical distribution in North America.Robert Martin, "Outrageous is, under close scrutiny". The Globe and Mail, September 15, 1977. A sequel film, Too Outrageous!, was released in 1987.{{cite news |title=Film: 'Too Outrageous,' a Sequel |author=Maslin, Janet |authorlink=Janet Maslin |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 16, 1987 |url=http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B0DE7D9103FF935A25753C1A961948260 }}

In the 1980s, the sketch comedy series CODCO and The Kids in the Hall both made prominent use of drag performance.David Livingstone, "The camera in drag". The Globe and Mail, June 3, 1993. The Kids in the Hall consisted of five men, while CODCO consisted of three men and two women; however, all ten performers, regardless of their own gender, performed both male and female characters. Notably, both troupes also had openly gay members, with Scott Thompson of The Kids in the Hall and Greg Malone and Tommy Sexton of CODCO being important pioneers of gay representation on Canadian TV in their era.Peter Knegt, [https://www.cbc.ca/arts/canada-has-had-way-more-than-69-super-queeroes-here-are-a-few-we-missed-1.5179860 "Canada has had way more than 69 Super Queeroes. Here are a few we missed"]. CBC Arts, June 27, 2019. The use of drag in CODCO also transitioned to a lesser extent into the new series This Hour Has 22 Minutes in the 1990s; although cross-gender performance is not as central to 22 Minutes as it was in CODCO, Cathy Jones and Mary Walsh, the two cast members common to both series, both continued to play selected male characters.Karen Grandy, "Cross their hearts and hope to lie: They make us laugh by pretending they're not who they are. But are crossdressers merely funny-- or are they hiding a deeper message". The Globe and Mail, November 8, 2000.

The Canadian film Lilies, directed by John Greyson and adapted from a theatrical play by Michel Marc Bouchard, made use of drag as a dramatic device.[https://variety.com/1996/film/reviews/lilies-1200446941/ "Lilies"]. Variety, September 9, 1996. Set in a men's prison, the film centres on a play within a play staged by one of the prisoners; however, as the roles in the play are performed by fellow prisoners, even the female characters within it are played by men, and the film blends scenes in which they are clearly depicted as men performing in their own clothes in the prison chapel with scenes in which they are performing in drag in more "realistic" settings. It became the first gay-themed film ever to win the Genie Award for Best Picture.Peter Knegt, [http://www.cbc.ca/arts/before-moonlight-20-years-ago-canada-crowned-its-own-first-lgbtq-best-picture-1.4019385 "Before 'Moonlight': 20 years ago, Canada crowned its own first LGBTQ best picture"]. CBC Arts, March 10, 2017.

The short-lived French-language sitcom Cover Girl, aired in 2005 on Télévision de Radio-Canada, centred on three drag queens sharing ownership of a drag cabaret in Montreal."Cover Girl is no reality show". Montreal Gazette, January 8, 2005.

In 2017 Ici ARTV aired Ils de jour, elles de nuit, a documentary series profiling Montreal drag queens Rita Baga, Barbada de Barbades, Gaby, Lady Boom Boom, Lady Pounana and Tracy Trash.[http://www.lienmultimedia.com/spip.php?article58793 "« Ils de jour, elles de nuit », Radio-Canada et Zone3 dévoilent l’univers des drag queens"]. Lien Multimédia, April 6, 2017. The documentary web series Canada's a Drag, launched on CBC Gem in 2018, has profiled various Canadian drag performers, inclusive of all genders, over three seasons to date.Craig Takeuchi, [https://www.straight.com/life/1195816/triue-north-strong-and-fierce-vancouver-drag-queens-among-performers-spotlighted "True North strong and fierce: Vancouver drag queens among performers spotlighted in Canada's a Drag"]. The Georgia Straight, February 1, 2019.

Canada's Drag Race, a Canadian spinoff of the American RuPaul's Drag Race franchise, was launched in 2020 on Crave.{{Cite magazine|url=https://ew.com/tv/2019/06/27/rupauls-drag-race-canada/|title=RuPaul's 'Drag Race Canada' to serve meaty tucks and Canadian bacon|date=June 27, 2019|magazine=Entertainment Weekly|language=en|access-date=June 28, 2019}} The same year also saw the release of Phil Connell's film Jump, Darling, centred on a young aspiring drag queen,Chris Knight, [https://theprovince.com/entertainment/movies/in-jump-darling-cloris-leachman-shines-one-last-time "In Jump, Darling, Cloris Leachman shines one last time"]. The Province, March 9, 2021. and Thom Fitzgerald's film Stage Mother, about a religious woman who inherits her son's drag club after his death,Dennis Harvey, [https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/stage-mother-review-1234690870/ "‘Stage Mother’: Film Review"]. Variety, July 2, 2020. as well as the comedy web series Queens, starring several real Toronto-area drag queens.Debra Yeo, [https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/2020/06/12/its-the-summer-of-drag-two-new-shows-queens-and-canadas-drag-race-fill-out-roster.html "It’s the summer of drag! Two new shows ‘Queens’ and ‘Canada’s Drag Race’ fill out roster"]. Toronto Star, June 12, 2020. 2023 saw the release of the films Enter the Drag Dragon,Andrew Mack, [https://screenanarchy.com/2023/02/enter-the-drag-dragon-watch-this-nsfw-clip-from-the-worlds-first-drag-fu-action-horror-comedy.html "ENTER THE DRAG DRAGON: Watch This NSFW Clip From the World's First Drag-Fu, Action-Horror-Comedy"]. Screen Anarchy, February 21, 2023. Solo,Elsa Keslassy, [https://variety.com/2023/film/global/queer-romance-solo-canadian-director-sophie-dupuis-snd-1235606199/ "Queer Romance Drama ‘Solo’ by Canadian Director Sophie Dupuis Boarded by SND"]. Variety, May 9, 2023. GamodiYves Lafontaine, [https://www.fugues.com/2023/10/02/la-selection-queer-mais-pas-que-de-la-52e-edition-du-festival-du-nouveau-cinema/ "La sélection (queer, mais pas que) de la 52e édition du Festival du nouveau cinéma"]. Fugues, October 2, 2023. and Queen Tut.Alex Cooper, [https://www.advocate.com/film/queen-tut#rebelltitem1 "Watch Alexandra Billings shine in the trailer for the queer coming-of-age film 'Queen Tut'"]. The Advocate, February 8, 2024.

OutTV, a Canadian television channel devoted to LGBTQ programming, has aired the documentary series Drag Heals,Bryen Dunn, "“Drag Heals” – do you have what it takes to unleash your inner drag?" The Buzz, November 2019. the reality competition shows Call Me Mother{{cite news|url=https://etcanada.com/news/786990/outtv-announces-new-drag-reality-series-call-me-mother-hosted-by-et-canada-prides-dallas-dixon/|title=OUTtv Announces New Drag Reality Series 'Call Me Mother' Hosted By ET Canada Pride's Dallas Dixon|date=June 2, 2021|first=Rachel|last=West|website=ET Canada|access-date=June 3, 2021|archive-date=June 3, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210603031930/https://etcanada.com/news/786990/outtv-announces-new-drag-reality-series-call-me-mother-hosted-by-et-canada-prides-dallas-dixon/|url-status=dead}} and Sew Fierce,Christopher Turner, [https://inmagazine.ca/2023/04/new-drag-competition-series-sew-fierce-shines-a-spotlight-on-drag-designers-costumers/ "New Drag Competition Series ‘Sew Fierce’ Shines A Spotlight On Drag Designers & Costumers"]. In Magazine, April 13, 2023. and the satirical reality competition parody Drag House Rules.{{Cite web |last=James |first=Michael |date=2025-02-21 |title=New Show Drag House Rules Is Drag Race Meets Big Brother |url=https://www.starobserver.com.au/news/new-show-drag-house-rules-is-drag-race-meets-big-brother/235561 |access-date=2025-02-23 |website=Star Observer |language=en-US |archive-date=2025-02-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250221234803/http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/new-show-drag-house-rules-is-drag-race-meets-big-brother/235561 |url-status=live }} It has also been directly involved as a production partner in some American programs, including The Boulet Brothers' DragulaJordan Pinto, [https://playbackonline.ca/2017/07/28/outtv-takes-dragula-to-television/ "OUTtv takes Dragula to television"]. Playback, July 28, 2017. and Hey Qween!.

The world of popular music has a venerable history of drag. Marlene Dietrich was a popular actress and singer who sometimes performed dressed as a man, such as in the films Blue Angel{{cite news |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/the-blue-angel-film-debut-of-part-time-berlin-boxer-marlene-dietrich-1.3907065 |last=Brady |first=Tara |title=The Blue Angel: Film debut of part-time Berlin boxer Marlene Dietrich |date=May 31, 2019 |newspaper=The Irish Times |access-date=March 9, 2021}} and Morocco.{{cite web |url=https://www.cnn.com/style/article/marlene-dietrich-dressed-for-the-image/index.html |last=Heing |first=Bridey |title=Marlene Dietrich: The femme fatale who fought social and sexual oppression |date=June 19, 2017 |website=CNN |access-date=March 9, 2021}}

In the glam rock era many male performers (such as David Bowie and The New York Dolls) donned partial or full drag.{{cite web |url=https://www.rebelsmarket.com/blog/posts/the-evolution-of-glam-rock-fashion |last=Marasigan |first=Cherish |title=The Evolution of Glam Rock Fashion |date=June 8, 2014 |website=Rebels Market |access-date=March 9, 2021}} This tradition waned somewhat in the late 1970s but was revived in the synth-pop era of the 1980s, as pop singers Boy George (of Culture Club), Pete Burns (of Dead or Alive), and Philip Oakey (of The Human League), frequently appeared in a sort of semi-drag, while female musicians of the era dabbled in their own form of androgyny, with performers like Annie Lennox, Phranc and The Bloods sometimes performing as drag kings.

The male grunge musicians of the 1990s sometimes performed wearing deliberately ugly drag—that is, wearing dresses but making no attempt to look feminine, not wearing makeup and often not even shaving their beards. (Nirvana did this several times, notably in the "In Bloom" video.) However, possibly the most famous drag artist in music in the 1990s was RuPaul.{{cite web |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/06/24/iconic-drag-queens_n_10661270.html |last=Markovinovic |first=Monika |title=10 Iconic Drag Queens Who Have Slayed The Beauty And Fashion Game |date=June 24, 2016 |website=Huffington Post |access-date=March 9, 2021}} Maximilliana worked with RuPaul in the Nash Bridges episode "Cuda Grace" and was a regular at the now defunct Queen Mary Show Lounge in Studio City, California until the very end.{{cite web |url=https://www.laweekly.com/l-a-s-drag-scene-was-born-in-a-nondescript-bar-in-studio-city/ |last=Meares |first=Adley |title=L.A.'S DRAG SCENE WAS BORN IN A NONDESCRIPT BAR IN STUDIO CITY |date=May 22, 2017 |website=LA Weekly |access-date=March 9, 2021}} Max (short for Maximilliana) is most well known for her performance as Charlie/Claire in Ringmaster: the Jerry Springer Movie. Max has also appeared in other movies including Shoot or Be Shot and 10 Attitudes as well as on television shows including Nash Bridges as mentioned above, Clueless, Gilmore Girls, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Mas Vale Tarde with Alex Cambert, MadTV, The Tyra Banks Show, The Tom Joyner Show, America's Got Talent, and many others.

In Japan there are several musicians in the visual kei scene, such as Mana (Moi dix Mois and Malice Mizer), Kaya (Schwarz Stein), Hizaki and Jasmine You (both Versailles), who always or usually appear in full or semi-drag.

{{Further|Drag king|Drag queen|Faux queen|Drag show}}

File:Wild Side Story "America" 1977.jpg in Los Angeles, 1977]]

A drag queen (first use in print, 1941) is a person, usually a man, that dresses in drag, either as part of a performance or for personal fulfillment. The term "drag queen" distinguishes such men from transvestites, transsexuals or transgender people. Those who "perform drag" as comedy do so while wearing dramatically heavy and often elaborate makeup, wigs, and prosthetic devices (breasts) as part of the performance costume.

Women who dress as men and perform as hypermasculine men are sometimes called drag kings; however, drag king also has a much wider range of meanings. It is currently most often used to describe entertainment (singing or lip-synching) in which there is no necessarily firm correlation between a performer's deliberately macho onstage persona and offstage gender identity or sexual orientation, just as individuals assigned male at birth who do female drag for the stage may or may not identify as being either gay or female in their real-life personal identities.

A bio queen,{{cite web |last=Nicholson |first=Rebecca |website=The Guardian |date=10 July 2017 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jul/10/workin-it-how-female-drag-queens-are-causing-a-scene |title=Workin' It! How Female Drag Queens Are Causing a Scene |access-date=March 9, 2021}} or female-bodied queen, on the other hand, is usually a cisgender woman performing in the same context as traditional (men-as-women) drag and displaying such features as exaggerated hair and makeup (as an example, the performance of the actress and singer Lady Gaga during her first appearance in the 2018 film A Star is Born).{{cite book |author=Amber L. Davisson |title=Lady Gaga and the Remaking of Celebrity Culture |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uWEsAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA55 |date=2013 |publisher=McFarland |location=Jefferson, NC|isbn=978-0786474752 |page=55 |chapter=2. Dragging the Monster |oclc=862799660 |access-date=12 April 2018 |quote=Within the drag community, 'faux queen' is the title used for a woman who performs as a drag queen.}}

Constructing a drag persona can be seen as a form of "stigma resistance", where consumers who practice drag are able to "embody pride" and work to combat stigma and shame.{{Cite journal |last=Venkatraman |first=Rohan |last2=Ozanne |first2=Julie L |last3=Coslor |first3=Erica |date=2024-12-01 |editor-last=Giesler |editor-first=Markus |editor2-last=Cayla |editor2-first=Julien |title=Stigma Resistance through Body-in-Practice: Embodying Pride through Creative Mastery |url=https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article/51/4/797/7611652 |journal=Journal of Consumer Research |language=en |volume=51 |issue=4 |pages=797–819 |doi=10.1093/jcr/ucae015 |issn=0093-5301|doi-access=free }} Stigma often operates through a process of shame,{{Cite book |last=Ahmed |first=Sara |title=The cultural politics of emotion |date=2014 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-9114-2 |edition=2nd |location=Edinburgh}}{{Cite book |last=Goffman |first=Erving |title=Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity |date=1986 |publisher=Touchstone |isbn=978-0-671-62244-2 |location=New York}} and drag queens are often both socially and economically marginalized.{{Cite journal |last1=Berkowitz |first1=Dana |last2=Liska Belgrave |first2=Linda |date=1 April 2010 |title='She Works Hard for the Money': Drag Queens and the Management of Their Contradictory Status of Celebrity and Marginality |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891241609342193 |journal=Journal of Contemporary Ethnography |language=en |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=159–186 |doi=10.1177/0891241609342193 |issn=0891-2416}} However, drag practices can also provide a means of stigma resistance, offering new ways of managing individual stigma with performances in a supportive community. Venkatraman et al's (2024) interviewees also highlighted that building pride in one's self and identity through drag could then permeate outward into other aspects of the drag performer's life, while Berkowitz and Belgrave (2010) indicate the empowering rewards of drag.

• En femme
• List of transgender-related topics
• List of drag queens
• Travesti (theatre)

{{reflist}}

• {{cite journal |last=Padva |first=Gilad |year=2000 |title=Priscilla Fights Back: The Politicization of Camp Subculture |journal=Journal of Communication Inquiry |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=216–243 |doi=10.1177/0196859900024002007 |s2cid=144510862 }}

{{Drag performance}}

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