Drag Roles In Movies Can Be A Lifeline For Kids Whose Gender Doesn't Fit
Gender has become a hot political topic, and drag shows have become the battleground for a conservative war against self-expression. Fire-and-brimstone-spewing lawmakers are creating legislation to shut down drag shows and penalize anyone who performs drag around children. The biggest point of contention seems to be drag events at libraries, where performers read age-appropriate books to children. While it's entirely possible that some parents are just afraid that their children will learn to read and think for themselves, they claim that drag queens are "indoctrinating" children.
There's just one massive flaw in that logic: drag performers have been around forever and have been a huge part of pop culture for decades, so why are they only a concern now?
Drag has existed for centuries but had a boom in mainstream popularity in the 1990s, popularized by Madonna's "Vogue," which brought the drag culture of New York City ballrooms into people's living rooms via MTV. Gender-bending was nothing new, of course, but for the first time, seeing this style of expressive performance was accessible to the masses. For a young, confused child who felt like a freak because gender roles often felt genuinely painful, seeing people who transcended the binary was life-changing. Though it may be viewed as flawed by some, seeing films like "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar" as a child showed me gender-non-conforming joy for the first time, and gave me hope for happiness in my own future. As drag bans continue, these movies will become even more of a lifeline for young people whose gender just doesn't fit.
The nuances of drag and gender
Before we dig into the magic of the movies, it's important to note the difference between drag performers and transgender individuals, because the two are not one and the same. Drag is a performance, often including cross-dressing, and a form of expression that does not necessarily reflect the gender or sexuality of the person doing it. To put it simply: not all drag queens are transgender (or even queer!) and not all transgender or gender non-conforming people do drag. One of the best early examples of drag in Hollywood is "Some Like It Hot," where two cisgender, heterosexual men dress as women because they are on the run and in hiding.
They had to release it without the approval of the Hays Code because of the cross-dressing elements, but the public didn't care and made "Some Like it Hot" a hit all the way back in 1959. Drag is big in comedy, and troupes like Monty Python and the Kids in the Hall used it much like Shakespearean players of old, giving us the giggles with depictions of men in dresses.
Transgender and other gender non-conforming people might use drag as a form of self-expression, of course, and there are absolutely trans and non-binary drag queens and kings who embrace the outlet. Unfortunately, some audiences don't understand the difference, and the proliferation of drag performed by cisgender men in cinema has given people the wrong idea about transgender women. There are a lot of nuances and conflicting views even within the trans community — more than I can dig into here. For a thorough look at the impact of these kinds of films from a variety of transgender and non-binary voices (and not just my own), make sure to check out the documentary "Disclosure," streaming on Netflix.
Finding gender joy for the first time
The first time I ever saw any kind of intentional gender play, it was Robin Williams pretending to be an English nanny (with a Scottish accent) in order to spend more time with his kids during a messy divorce in "Mrs. Doubtfire." While comical, it was a means to an end for the character and not a part of who he really was. Then my babysitter rented "To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar" and I saw true gender-bending joy. Here was Patrick freaking Swayze, a sex symbol who oozed masculinity in his other roles, playing a sweet, maternal drag queen who just wanted to help people be true to themselves and spread a little beauty in the world.
"To Wong Foo" is a drag Cinderella story with a happy ending, and though it's a little dated and lacking in drag authenticity outside of a RuPaul appearance at the beginning, it was paramount to learning to accept myself as a kid who didn't feel like a boy or a girl. While I would love to see a remake with actual drag queens and trans creators involved, "To Wong Foo" was pure cinematic joy for me as a child, with a message all about learning to accept yourself, standing up your yourself, and loving yourself. It felt like a celebration for those of us whose gender isn't neat and tidy, and such celebrations could be tough to find.
Finding power in breaking the binary
I was raised as a little girl but more often felt like I was a boy. Other than Disney's "Mulan," there weren't exactly any representations of my experience at the movies. The closest thing I could find was "Boys Don't Cry," which told the story of murdered trans man Brandon Teena, and that was as far from joyous as possible. Reality is terrifying and depressing enough when you exist outside of the gender binary, so I didn't need reminders of the potential hell I could face if I lived authentically to myself. Instead, I needed heroes, and drag performers are the colorfully costumed heroes of breaking the binary.
Other films followed pretty early in my adolescence, primarily "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." My parents introduced me to "Rocky Horror" because they were dressing as the characters for Halloween, and I could identify with creator Richard O'Brien's confusion about gender and sexuality, portrayed through the many characters. The most powerful of them all was Tim Curry's Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who strutted around in fishnet stockings and commanded the entire castle. He wasn't explicitly a drag queen but absolutely transcended gender norms. Though the language used in the film is up for debate, his incredible power from existing somewhere between masculine and feminine is still undeniable. I wanted some of that for myself and found a kind of faux-femininity through Frank that helped me fit in and feel fierce.
Finding love for myself
Because I was a suburban white kid in the southern United States prior to the streaming era, I didn't have a lot of access to international films or even most indies, but I managed to snag a copy of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" from my local video store when I was a young teenager. Here, I was given another beautifully flawed example of someone who exists outside of the basic boy/girl dynamic. Like all of the other examples on this list, Hedwig was played by a cisgender man, though it's notable that Hedwig herself isn't exactly trans.
She decides to have gender reassignment surgery in order to escape a bleak future in East Berlin and marry a man who will take her to America, but she was perfectly happy living as a boy before. When the surgery is botched and her husband leaves, she's trapped with a body that doesn't feel right and is desperate for someone who understands. John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig was revelatory because I knew exactly what it felt like to perform femininity as a means of survival, but the story had an even more powerful message beyond that.
Hedwig spends most of the movie seeking her other half, believing in the idea from Plato's Symposium that all humans were originally two and we were split by the gods. At the end of the film, she learns that she's a whole person without anyone else and that she isn't wrong because of her unique situation — she's a beautiful expression of the in-between. She's a complex character whose trauma left her bitter and flawed, but that complexity felt closer to reality and made me feel seen. People are messy, and gender can be messier still, and that's okay.
Finding the greater queer canon
Digging further into drag performance in film history led me to Jennie Livingston's 1990 documentary masterpiece "Paris is Burning," following drag ballroom culture in New York City. This was drag at its most authentic, as an expression of not only gender defiance, but other marginalization due to sexuality, race, and socioeconomic status. The AIDS crisis raged and many of these incredible young people only had the ballrooms in which to feel anything other than fear and sorrow, and it's an incredibly powerful thing to see. "Paris is Burning" was fictionalized with the FX series "Pose" in 2018, and though the series was a bit soapy at times, it was heartfelt and gave some truly incredible transgender performers a moment to shine for a broader audience. "Paris is Burning" was foundational, but it was far from the only film about the trans experience that helped shape my worldview.
There were other movies, too, like "XXY," an Argentine drama about an intersex teenager, and "Tomboy," Céline Sciamma's look at trans-masculinity at an early age. The further down the rabbit hole I got in exploring films about gender, the more comfort I found in the beauty and the passion of existing as your most authentic self, even when archaic and misguided societal norms say otherwise. Drag performers were the gateway drug to self-discovery and self-expression, which I think is something everyone should be encouraged to do.
Drag is big, bold, and beautiful
Trans and non-binary adolescents are at a much higher risk of suicidal ideation than their cisgender peers, and a big part of that is isolation. People in their communities, including their families, might not be accepting of their gender exploration, and that can be absolutely brutal. Many hide that part of themselves until they are older and can safely express who they are.
Seeing fictional depictions of joyous gender expression outside of the binary can be a lodestone, a way to experience even a bit of that joy in otherwise oppressive situations. For others, it's a way to recognize something in themselves for the first time. Even for cisgender, heterosexual people, an appreciation of drag can provide a way to step outside of social norms in a "safe" way, and can help them realize that the boundaries of the binary aren't as simple as they seem.
The crackdown on drag performances is part of a larger attack on the rights of transgender and non-binary people, with pundits asserting that drag is always sexualized and children seeing drag acts is harmful. I argue the opposite: drag and other forms of gender expression can help children feel more confident in themselves and potentially have the language to advocate for themselves. Even if it just leads to a love of the colorful world of drag culture, it can give young queer kids a home and young straight kids a better understanding of their LGBTQ+ peers.
A better understanding of ourselves and each other can lead to a better future for all of us, and drag performers are on the front lines of self-expression and understanding.