I have always been fascinated by gender. I always wanted to wear makeup as a kid, so naturally Halloween was my favorite holiday. The first time I dressed in drag I was 10, and I dressed as my grandmother to go to a Halloween party at my parents church. As I was getting ready, I told my mom I wanted to be a princess the year after, but she thought that would be taking things too far. Perhaps she was right. I went to the party, the other kids teased me endlessly and kept snatching my wig and running away. I was devastated! At such a young age, these kids already had a clear definition of gender norms, and my grandma outfit stuck out from the other boys in their superhero getups. In spite of this, my fascination with makeup and and feminine things continued throughout my childhood, and I always hid extra Halloween makeup in the bathroom and practiced painting my face after my parents went to sleep. When I came into adulthood, doing drag was the natural progression of things.
Montana is certainly not the first place people think of when they think of Drag. Locals even, are often surprised to find that there are drag shows in the area, as they aren’t a staple in nightlife here. In spite of this, there are drag performers all over Montana who travel across the state to be on a stage. None of us have booking fee’s and typically shows are held in the name of different charities, so Montanan drag performers certainly aren’t doing it for personal gain. Considering the cost of travel, cosmetics, and costuming, drag is one expensive hobby. With all of the hassle, I often find myself wondering why I put so much time and money into it for just a few minutes of stage time 4-5 times a year. More importantly, what does this desire to gender bend say about me and the other local performers?
Drag is highly rhetorical, as I think all forms of performance are. Without an audience with whom you have something to convey, performance cannot exist. This interaction between performer and audience is a communicative transaction. But what message is coming across in these transactions? By doing these interviews I hoped to find out what performers were communicating to their audience and their motivation for doing so.
What surprised me most was how similar the responses were. Most of the interviewed performers focused on celebrating individuality and promoting equality. I expected this, but I also expected more diversity in these responses. Personally, I’ve tried to model my myself after performance art, and there’s usually an underlying concept or theme I’m trying to convey to an audience. Drag on the national level is often a commentary (more often than not a mockery) on pop culture and social norms. While none of the performers brought this intention up in their interviews, I think this is still evident in their drag performance. By taking popular media and filtering it through our rhetorical mindset, we become farcical celebrities for the night, which allows us to act as or poke fun at the entertainment industry. I think the reason most performers focused on the social implications of drag rather than their artistic processes behind it, is because Montana has a lot of growing to do in terms of cultural diversity, and we’re all trying to make it a more inclusive place to live.
Several of the responses in the video bring up exposing the community to non-gender norms or gender fluidity and the like, and I cannot stress the importance of this enough! To me, this is one of the greatest messages drag performers can send to an audience. By crossing over the gender binary, we show the community that it’s okay to not fit within that binary. People who identify as transgender struggle tremendously to fit into society. Finding work, having identification (that matches the gender they present as), and using public restrooms are all confusing hurdles for a trans person, not to mention the fear they experience of not being accepted by the community. Doing drag leads to education on these matters and we hope that makes makes our culture more accepting towards people of diverse gender.
The most unique interview I took was with Micah Harder. His report of how performing as a man has helped him handle his aspergers in his real life, exemplifies how drag can help us become better people outside of the persona. Drag is a confidence builder. Getting on a stage dressed as the opposite gender takes nerve, and by repeating that action, we build our confidence in situations outside of drag. When you’re halfway through a number and your wig falls off, or you trip, or you forget the lyrics, you learn to just keep performing. In my experience, the audience always applauds a recovery, and it’s a method I’ve applied to my life out of drag. Pick yourself up when you fall down is such a cliche’, but applying it to a performance and seeing an instant positive reaction solidifies that advice and makes it easier to apply in your real life.
The Montanan drag scene is still in it’s infancy, but each show raises thousands for local charities, many of which are not LGBT related. We aren’t only concerned about the LGBT community, because no matter how you identify we are all a part of the same community, whether you’re gay, straight, or transgender etc. Our mission is to encourage diversity, and make Montana a beautiful place to live for all individuals, and maybe, if we give it time, kids can feel more confident dressing as their grandmothers for Halloween.
