Good drag? For me, drag ceases to be drag if the wearer intends to pass as a female performer. Drag plays with sexual/gender stereotypes, and sends them up.
When I wear a suit, I often joke that it's corporate drag, and I mean it. I go OTT. The tie knotted properly, the best watch dusted off and taken out of its box, cuff links, dangerously sharp pressed creases in the collar of the shiny white shirt, Brooks Brothers boxers. I even once used moustache wax. A tie is archetypal corporate drag—and I play the tie game pretty well. But what makes it drag, is its
artifice. It's artificial, not real. Deliberately.
If you'll pardon the expression, I'm probably in a different camp from
@Dutchstud. The
clowniness of drag makes it merrier for me, and makes the social satire more vicious. The late
Phyllis Diller described her stage costumes as female clownface, and later acknowledged that this parody of femalehood was both a comic and
political statement. Who is the spiritual heir to Diller? IMHO, the incomparable
Bob the Drag Queen.
But I can't stand RuPaul's Drag Race.
It sucks in the same way all reality TV sucks. Fake emotions. Contrived crisis. Invented enemies. And I find the humour mostly just plain nasty instead of witty, cutting and too-true vicious. I can certainly agree with
@Dutchstud on one thing: give me the
Priscillas any day.
