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Argumentative Essay On Drag

789 Words4 Pages

Drag is an act. Yet, an act of what? Can drag be discerned as imitation or critique of gender tropes through parody and exaggeration of heterosexual archetypes? Is it a complex and multidimensional performative act with subversive potential, or merely an expression of gender identity or desire? Is drag a radical political machination that can be used to denaturalise heterogeneous norms? Is drag is an object which casts a dense and expansive shadow from which implications of existing on the marginalised periphery of mainstream culture can be discerned? In this essay I seek to explore the motives and outcomes of drag, in Jennie Livingston’s documentary film Paris is Burning (1991), which records the activities of gay and transgender black and latino men aligned with the Harlem underground drag-ball circuit. …show more content…

Trophies are won by exact The men are fixated with the execution of ‘realness’ or precise replication of heterogonous social types such as executive or military realness and also occasionally minority types such as ‘bangee boy’ or ‘bangee girl’, which are terms directly routed in gay subculture. This realness is paradoxical. Precise replication occurs within a Ball context, which in itself contains codes that are strictly adhered to. The Ball culture is in itself a microcosm in which a reality is created. In this reality success and stardom is something that must worked for to be obtained. There are levels, hierarchies, a distinct

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