Drag bingo and trivia events have thrived for years, yet they have seen an increase in recent times due to the controversial lock out laws.
Tessa Robinson reports:
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: Sourced <bluray.com>
Cross-dressing has also been involved with typical ‘larrikin’ behaviour such as what is shown on The Footy Show where very hetero-masculine men put on ridiculous dresses and parade around like women.
Joanna McIntyre, lecturer in Screen and Media Studies at the University of the Sunshine Coast, has studied drag and transgender representation throughout Australian history. She said that queer drag’s original impetus is to bring together masculinity and femininity within the same figure in order to critique traditional gender structure. “Keeping masculine signifiers like the beard and feminine signifiers like makeup and wigs… can be very disruptive and destabilising to a binary gender structuring.”
They will survive and they will not be dragged down by Sydney's lock-outs
By Tessa Robinson
Batting her eyes through long lashes and a bouquet of voluptuous blonde hair, Felicity Frockaccino pulls out a new number from the cage. She raises her head, the light reflecting off her rouge earrings as she calls out to the crowd, “51, your first chance to go… up the bum!”
This drag bingo night at the Salisbury Hotel is one of many around Sydney. Drag performer Shay Evans, otherwise known as Felicity Frockaccino, works as a drag bingo hostess two nights a week. He said the lockouts have had a great impact on drag performing.
Mr Evans said: “you’ve got a window of 8 till midnight where you can drink freely and then at midnight its like ‘oh no you can’t have that shot love, no no you can’t drink, you can’t be happy, you can’t have fun and as drag queens we’ve had to adapt to that because a lot of our shows were after 1:30... We do a lot of bingo’s, trivia’s, all sorts of earlier gigs now, so the night starts really early for us now.”
Rachelle Kennedy, manager at the Salisbury Hotel, said that their turnover has increased since the events have started. Ms Kennedy said: “it brings in new faces every week… if we didn’t have that on Wednesdays we probably wouldn’t have anyone in on Wednesdays.”
Australia and especially Sydney, has seen a long tradition of queer drag performing unique to the rest of the world ranging from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert to Dame Edna Everage. Drag in Australia presented itself with an extreme extravagance and spectacular costumes, focusing less on a sexualised form of performance. It instead centres more on entertainment and humour.
Although combining these gender signifiers in one form can often critique a typical gender structure, Ms McIntyre said that generally in the case of hetero-masculine, footy show type drag, “the masculine figure is really subsuming the feminine and the whole point is to reaffirm the masculine figure underneath.”
Ms McIntyre explains the implications for such acts of entertainment and how they do not critique gender binaries at all, but merely mock the idea of femininity.She said: “I have a niece and a nephew, they’re 2, I just know that if we put boy clothes on the girl everyone would think it was adorable but if put a dress on the boy and took him in public it would be deemed cruel."
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"It has this really quite insidious implication that being like a women and being feminine is something to be avoided.” - Joanna McIntyre on hetero-masculine drag
Australian football player's in drag: Sourced <The Herald Sun>
It can be argued however that queer drag has the effect of critiquing gender, breaking down binary gender structures and creating more acceptance towards LGBTIQ identities especially when performed in straight venues.
Shay Evans said that in his gigs he often chooses a pretend husband for the night. “Its just a bit of fun to ease the guys into it. You know, make them feel a bit hot, a bit sexy and they love it! Then at the end of the night, he’s like, ‘oh they’re just having a bit of fun.’”
The feathers on Portia Turbo’s wig flutter as she saunters around the room, peering down at the clipboard in her hand through oval shaped glasses. She asks the crowd what the currency of Nicaragua is. Portia Turbo has been hosting trivia for the last 15 years and although drag performing is very much something associated with the gay community, he said that shows began in heterosexual spaces before they moved to queer venues.
“They were trans. It wasn’t cross-dressers… it wasn’t until the purple onion which happened in Kingsford that the first cross-dressing bar happened, that was 70s… 60s...”
"Showbiz is the great leveller, anybody can be in showbiz and for that moment, and it bridges a divide." - Portia Turbo
The lockout laws have affected many late night venues in Oxford Street, which have limited the amount of drag shows now available. The influx of new patrons now going out in Newtown, another fairly queer orientated area, has also seen an impact on the gay and lesbian spaces there and has now begun to cater more for a heterosexual audience. Drag queens seem to have adapted fairly well to the new laws, however, the drag king scene has faced significant set backs due to the decrease of lesbian spaces available.
Drag king performing has never reached the level of popularity as drag queen's have, possibly due to the fact that it doesn't lend itself to the spectacular as much considering women often wear men's clothes anyway. Drag kings tend to receive a greater appreciation in queer spaces and haven't become as common in the mainstream, heterosexual sphere.
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Antontio Mantonio at Heaven: Sourced <Beverly Buttercup youtube channel>
A chair swivels around to reveal Antonio Mantonio, winking and raising his dark, thick eyebrows while stroking his goatee and adjusting the tennis ball in his glittery, star adorned tights.
Drag king performer Olivia Oliver-Hopkins, also known as Antonio Mantonio, said: “Unfortunately, and specifically in the lesbian community, drag doesn’t seem to be as popular anymore.”
“I don’t know that there’s the support for it that there used to be and I think we need another figure like Sexy Galexy to put the time and effort into that.”
Kerryn Drysdale has been completing her PhD on drag king performing at Sydney University and has investigated the type of spaces that drag events are most popular. She is also worried about the amount of lesbian spaces since the laws have been enforced,
She said: “I think this is going to be hugely detrimental to a queer social life, not to be able to have spaces. There’s not a lot of commercial infrastructure especially around women’s social spaces.”
Although drag has the ability to create positive, social change, it also has the tendency to be quite exclusive.
Olivia Oliver-Hopkins once thought about being a faux-queen (a woman who dresses as a drag-queen) but instead chose to be a drag-king. “I like f**king with people and faux-queening isn't really f**king with people is it? You also get a lot of hetero faux-queens
which in itself is fine as long as they’re not trying to make it, ‘everyone can do drag’, well yes, but it’s still very much a queer praxis.”
“I came out as bisexual a year ago and that was very difficult… because drag is such a part of the gay community and bisexuality is still a bit controversial unfortunately.” - Olivia Oliver-Hopkins, in drag known as Antonio Mantonio
Sexy Galexy Sourced: <Herald Sun>
Although the lock-out laws have effected drag immensely, it is clear that drag will continue to survive and remain here to stay
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Written by Tessa Robinson
Tessa is many things to many people. Explorer, writer, philosopher, bartender; all words thrown about serendipitously in regards to this woman. An intrepid traveller who aims to one day scale all Seven Summits, Robinson is already a successful travel blogger at 22, and will undoubtedly continue to take the prestiged travel community by storm as she hones her craft. In her spare time, Robinson enjoys memes, purchasing eccentric sweaters, and challenging the mainstream. In lieu of these achievements, Robinson remains forever humble; “I’m nothing special. I’m just Tess”