THE 3272 - Shakespeare to RuPaul: Drag in Entertainment

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With witty text, dazzling photography, and corralled into thematic chapters, this is the first flamboyant and poignant survey of drag culture. Drag is not just for fabulous queens and drag enthusiasts, but for anyone interested in gender fluidity and the culture surrounding it.

Drag: A British History is a groundbreaking study of the sustained popularity and changing forms of male drag performance in modern Britain. With this book, Jacob Bloomfield provides fresh perspectives on drag and recovers previously neglected episodes in the history of the art form. Despite its transgressive associations, drag has persisted as an intrinsic, and common, part of British popular culture--drag artists have consistently asserted themselves as some of the most renowned and significant entertainers of their day. As Bloomfield demonstrates, drag was also at the center of public discussions around gender and sexuality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from Victorian sex scandals to the "permissive society" of the 1960s. This compelling new history demythologizes drag, stressing its ordinariness while affirming its important place in British cultural heritage.

Favorite examples of cross-dressing or cross-gender performances include Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, Vesta Tilley as Burlington Bertie, Maxine Peake as Hamlet, and Drag Queen RuPaul outrageously fronting the RuPaul Drag Race. Cross-Dressing in Performance tells the story of the different ways performers cross-dress. Janet Tennant looks at many of the memorable performers over the years who have adopted the characters and dress of others, and why they have done so: to tell stories, to amuse, to create memorable alter-egos, to rebel or call attention to social and political issues or merely for reasons of expediency. Tennant examines cross-dressing at different periods of theatrical history in the Western canon, predominantly in Britain and North America. Not following a conventional historical timeline, Tennant instead examines the different types of cross-dressing/cross-gender performance: Boys in Shakespeare, Heroes in Opera, Pantomime Dames, and Drag Queens being just a few. And no study of cross-dressing can, of course, forget its origins in Ancient Greece. It's a Drag: Cross-Dressing in Performance discusses the present and attempts to predict the future of cross-dressing in performance. How will the drive towards equality affect the use of cross-dressing and cross-gender role casting? Will gender-blind roles become as prevalent as color-blind casting? Will audiences continue to be amused and impressed, or will gender differences in entertainment cease to be important?