"Drag kings are still largely unknown," she said. So, to be able to express my anger in a comedic way was a great relief."Īs interest in kings grows, Fischer is leading work on a website that traces the history of masculine drag from Tang Dynasty China in 618 to pop star Rita Ora recently performing dressed as rapper Post Malone. "It gets boring to be angry, in a way, because it's so one-note. It doesn't matter what you wear, what you look like: women are prey, targets. "In New York, there's plenty for women to be angry about - you walk the streets and you are constantly harassed. Dick, aka Mo Fischer, who first began performing in New York in 1995. "My motto has been instead of being an angry woman I became a funny man," said veteran drag king Mo B. He sees them as a celebration of his masculinity.įor others, taking to the stage as a drag king can offer a chance to respond creatively to misogyny in daily life and behave in ways that would not be acceptable as a woman. Silver said that while his performances are playful, they have also helped him to realize he was a trans man. "For me, drag kinging is a big 'up yours' to all that… It's deconstructing toxic masculinity and I think completely flipping society's views on what it means to be a man." "Men are told to be a certain way – they can't be emotional, they can't cry," said Silver. "There is a movement away from conventional, stereotypical ideas about how men and women should be," he said.ĭrag offers a chance to knowingly examine and question gender roles, he added, with many performers agreeing they had wanted to challenge stereotypes of masculinity. The rise in drag kings comes amid a cultural shift over gender, said Nigel Edley, an expert in gender roles and masculinity at the Nottingham Trent University in Britain. Much of the recent growth of interest in the drag scene can be traced back to the popular US television talent show RuPaul's Drag Race, which has made stars of some competitors and helped to boost a gay subculture into the mainstream. Read also: US icon RuPaul brings drag queens out of the closet "There did seem very few on the scene, but now it's really exploded." "When I first started, there was still a lot of people who didn't know what a drag king was or had never seemed to have heard the term before," said British performer Sammy Silver.
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