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Dec 15, 2018 · The history of drag queens as an art form dates back to theater and earlier, even before it was associated with the gay community. The term "drag" is said to have originated in the theater. Men played female parts, as women were not allowed to perform in Shakespearean times, and they would supposedly discuss how their costume dresses would ...
A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and have been a part of gay culture . People do drag for reasons ranging from self-expression to mainstream performance.
- Overview
- How did drag begin?
- Who was the first drag queen?
- The legacy of drag balls
Today’s drag queens trace their roots back to clandestine balls hosted by Black performers in the late 19th century.
People dressed in drag celebrate Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1980. Before drag became part of the cultural mainstream, it flourished in drag balls held in secret to avoid persecution.
Before drag queens competed for a crown and the title of America's Next Drag Superstar on the Emmy-winning show RuPaul’s Drag Race, drag emerged from two separate worlds: female impersonators in silent films and popular theater—and underground drag balls that were part of a vibrant LGBTQ subculture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Because of the stigma surrounding drag, much of its history is muddled. But many modern drag queens credit drag balls as the true origin of their art form. Held in secret, these competitions were pioneered by Black and Latino performers—including one who is believed to be the first self-styled “drag queen.”
Some historians believe that drag’s early history can be traced to theater in ancient Greece and Rome, where men would play female characters. Simon Doonan, author of Drag: The Complete Story, writes that female impersonation was also part of kabuki theater in Japan and Peking opera performances in China in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively.
William Shakespeare also encouraged drag in Elizabethan theater—even using it as a major plot device when Viola disguises herself as Cesario in Twelfth Night.
(From LGBT to LGBTQIA+: The evolving recognition of identity.)
But other historians argue that drag’s true origins are a little more recent. Lady J, a drag performer with a doctorate in musicology focused on drag history, traces its debut back to 1860s Victorian England, when Ernest Boulton of the duo Boulton and Park described his cross-dressing act as “drag”—the first known use of the term. Some accounts suggest it was inspired by the petticoats the men wore that would drag on the floor as they performed.
Around the same time in the United States, female impersonators starred in racist minstrel shows, during which mostly white actors wore blackface to portray racial stereotypes of African Americans. A common character in these minstrel shows was a “yaller” gal, or a man dressed as a light-skinned Black woman, Lady J says.
As popular theater evolved to vaudeville style in the 1880s, those portrayals shifted to emulating glamorous white women with thin waists and elegant makeup—perhaps best represented by Julian Eltinge, a silent film superstar.
Few traces remain of the earliest drag balls because participating in them was extremely risky due to gender and social stigmas.
But Lady J says that drag balls can be largely credited to Black and Latino performers. Excluded from or prevented from winning pageants held for white drag performers and female impersonators, Black drag artists began to host their own competitions.
Some scholars believe that annual galas held in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood paved the way in the late 1860s. But others argue that William Dorsey Swann’s dance parties in Washington, D.C. are the first concrete evidence we have of drag balls.
Born enslaved in 1858 in Maryland, Swann began to host drag balls as early as 1882. He was also the first in history to describe himself as a “queen of drag,” a precursor to the modern drag queen.
(12 historic LGBTQ figures who changed the world.)
Swann’s story came to light in 2005, when Channing Joseph, a writer and historian, found an 1888 report in The Washington Post about a police raid on Swann’s home. The report said Swann’s guests wore satin dresses and fascinators and likely competed in a cakewalk, a dance resembling voguing that enslaved people had invented to mimic plantation owners. Swann tried to prevent the police from entering, which Joseph writes allowed a few guests to escape before he was arrested.
Drag balls began to flourish in New York City at the height of the Harlem Renaissance in the early 20th century, as recorded in Langston Hughes’s 1940 autobiography. This evolved into the Harlem ballroom community, portrayed in the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning.
(How the Harlem Renaissance helped forge a new sense of Black identity.)
Drag balls still continue around the world, and their effects reverberate through not only drag culture, but also mainstream culture. For example, voguing became the basis for Madonna’s hit song of the same name, and Mae West’s famous line “Why don’t you come up and see me sometime?” is derived from drag comedian Bert Savoy's lisp-filled bit, Lady J says. Plus, modern slang adapted many terms originally used in balls, like “yas,” “work,” and “shade.”
And the legacies of individual drag queens still live on, especially of Swann: D.C. officials recently rededicated a street to be named after the icon.
Apr 12, 2024 · Drag queen, a man who dresses in women’s clothes and performs before an audience. Drag shows (typically staged in nightclubs and Gay Pride festivals) are largely a subcultural phenomenon. Though drag has never enjoyed mainstream appeal, drag queen is a common enough term in popular culture, partly.
Jun 27, 2019 · Drag is experiencing a golden age, thanks to TV's RuPaul's Drag Race. But the tradition of drag performance has its roots as far back as Greece and has gone through a radical evolution in the...
Learn how drag evolved from theatrical necessity to artistic expression and social activism over centuries. Discover the stories of famous drag queens from Shakespeare's time to RuPaul's Drag Race.
Jan 30, 2023, 11:22 AM PST. RuPaul and Trixie Mattel during the finale of "RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars" season 3. VH1. Drag culture has centuries of history behind it, from Ancient Greece...
