Martijn Crowe has just come back from the International Film and Gender Studies Festival Imperfectu in Mexico, where he hold a lecture about the phenomena of Drag Queens, about their role in the society and other issues related to Drag Queens entering the public domain.
“With entering in public space by performing on television, partaking in manifestations and parade and being hired by the bourgeois that can afford them, Drag Queens also enter the public space and are strictly bound to the rules of how to behave in the bourgeois society they are part of. In fact it means in a way that they are accepted and usable for the bourgeois and the challenge and the rebellion is over.
So what is going on? What mechanism in human behavior and in society gives spaces to phenomena like drag queens? How is it possible that cross-dressing changed into Drag Queens, changed into Celebrities of universal grandor?
A society, of which we are all part of, is not a given fact. The participants of a society create society on an almost daily basis. The interaction people have with each other is producing this society.
There was something to fight for in the sixties and the Drags did, knowingly or not, but feeling for sure. In the beginning of the fight, it was dangerous to be gay, and even more dangerous to be a Drag Queen. So being Drag meant something for the liberation of gender. Drag Queens were some of the icons that helped the fight that were used in the LGTB movement and in countries like Russia and Bolivia, they still are. The question is if they are still that effective in challenging and making people question their own truths?” – Martijn Crowe.
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