Acting Out

Everything in life is a big grey area stock full of subjective concepts that are all completely unique to one another. That goes for the reasons as to why people do a lot of things in life as well, naturally.
Folks are attracted to the acting profession for a number of reasons, be it their desire to be in the spotlight and, therefore, the centre of attention. And then there are those who simply want a break from themselves.
Another interesting reason for those who undergo the art of performance is to express all the different faces of that individual's psyche or personality, concentrating solely on that one face, exaggerating those hidden traits; something that we all have deep down somewhere.


Drag queens are personas created by actors. These actors come from a range of backgrounds, sexual orientations, mannerisms, et cetera, and all have their own reason for doing what they do. In regards to actors in general, some, believe it or not, are painfully shy, such as the likes of A-list actor Johnny Depp, who plays a range of eccentric characters from big softie Edward Scissorhands (sounds like an oxymoron if I ever did hear one), to the tea loving Mad Hatter.
Despite Depp's shy or awkwardness as himself, he puts on marvellous displays for his alter egos, wowing and entertaining his audiences to no end at all.



From experiencing the world through the eyes of their other personas, actors are able to experience being someone completely different to themselves; which is, again, the case for many of those who take on drag queens and the likes of pantomime dames in particular as they even go as far as interacting with the general public or the audience that they are currently entertaining in a completely new way.


I'm a really self-conscious and shy person in real life myself, but I've thoroughly enjoyed the odd spot of acting here and there, and am definitely considering seeking out groups to do it more. My reason for that is because, well, it's damn fun. It's fantastic seeing people's reactions to the different faces and personality traits that you can take on. I suppose that's one advantage to being a bit of a mouse; you can observe the way other people interact with each other, hear what they have to say to and about each other and put that into play by exaggerating those traits in your own creative writing or performances. It's great to experiment with 'cause, for the most part, people don't think you're all there or not actually participating in conversation (this makes it sound like I'm mute; I'm not, I do speak from time to time, hah).





 That helps to add a slight personal touch to the documentary we're making, mind you. It helps us to potentially better connect with our subject, helping them feel a lot easier about expressing themselves as we can find a degree or some form of common ground. It helps add to the genuine interest we have for our subject's own individual and personal case as well. It means something to everyone involved.

Yes, But What IS It?

It's all well and good to find interest in something, but you really need to pinpoint exactly what this something is. Is it a clear cut definition, or is it something a little more subjective? This helps narrow down the search as to what precisely we need to be looking for, and what we need to expand on. So what, strictly speaking, are drag queens, and what precisely do they do? Pretty interesting, actually.

 Oxford online dictionary defines 'drag queen', an informal noun, as 'a man who ostentatiously dresses up in women's clothes'. That is to say, a man who adorns himself in over the top women's clothing in a caricature fashion. However, it is worth pointing out that a drag queen is an entirely separate entity from a male transvestite, who dresses up in women's clothing for their own pleasure; a drag queen, on the other hand, does so in the name of entertainment purposes.

 A drag queen is an adopted persona, undertaken by an actor to perform and entertain. A transvestite just goes about his day in clothing typically suited for females; simple as.

(Left to right) Richard O'Brien, a transvestite cult film writer,
and Aaron Coady, alias Sharon Needles, winner April 2012 of RuPaul's Drag Race

 But why choose the word 'drag' to describe such an out there profession, as it were? The word 'drag' is generally used as a descriptive word to go with boring things or people, so why slap the name onto an aesthetic paired with certain actions that is anything but boring? This is where it gets subjective. The word 'drag', according to Wikipedia's entry on drag (clothing), is:

'used for any clothing carrying symbolic significance but usually referring to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender'.

 That goes straight back to the paragraph concerning the meaning of 'drag queen' in general. I also highlighted key words and phrases that really stuck out to me; for example, 'carrying symbolic significance' highly suggests to me that the outfit is not chosen at random, that everything is planned out. This persona that the actor has adopted, is a well thought out character, perhaps even with a background to create some degree of believeability, depending, of course, on how far the actor wants to go with it. In regards to the believeability, this adds a sense of relation between character and audience members. This helps to add comic effect, and, although, judging by looks alone, one may not initially feel there is any deeper meaning, bear in mind that the caricature is also treated as satirical, whether to society itself as a whole, or to other in the spotlight celebrities.

John Linehan as
pantomime dame,
May McFettridge

 The very names that the actor chooses for his drag alter ego is from puns or named after others. For example, American drag queen Sharon Needles is a word play of the term 'sharing needles', an unhygienic intravenous drug past time, created when Aaron Coady and his brother attempted to come up with an offensive. Another example is local Belfast pantomime dame, May McFettridge, whereupon her first name was in homeage to John Linehan's mother-in-law, and the surname was 'thought up' in a pulled-out-of-the-hat situation.

As I stated previously, some drag queens will carry more symbolic significance than others, but many choose their looks and general personalities for the use of satire; satire, created by the ancient Greeks, in which certain aspects of society or people etc., are ridiculed, often in the form of comedy, particular in modern days, and are gross exaggerations of what it is they are ridiculing (see this video on a more clear cut definition and differences between comedy, tragedy, and satire). Put simply, the drag queen persona has a deeper meaning than what may meet the eye; perhaps a grotesque exaggeration of society, say. But many different queens exist for many different reasons, it is important to note.

 I brought up May McFettridge as an example earlier, who is a pantomime dame based here in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Funny that, as one of the debated origins for the word 'drag' apparently comes from theatre slang, of the long skirts or dresses trailing on the floor. You will almost always find at least one character in a pantomime, a theatre show, where it is a man dressed up ostentatiously as a woman, so I thought it was worth noting at least once. While on that note, another possible origin for the word 'drag' actually comes from an abbreviation, which is Dressed As Girl; 'drab' being Dressed As Boy, for the female counterparts, however is much less as well known.

 The word drag on its own identifies meaningful clothing assigned to one particular gender, worn by the other. When used to create the manifestation of a drag queen, we soon discover a series of pretty out there caricatured women; entire characters or alter egos created by actors as a form of niche entertainment and performance. Now that the meanings are clear enough to delve deeper into the world of drag, we can look into precisely why it's done.

 Are you excited? 'Cause I certainly am.