The Drag King Book - Del Lagrace
Volcano, Judith Halberstam Uitgever: Serpent's Tail; 1999, 160
pg.
Door middel van een combi van foto’s
en text, brengt dit boek de subcultuur van de drag kings in kaart. Met
geposeerde en ‘live action’ foto’s worden alle aspecten van de
vrouwelijke mannelijkheid, die je in de Drag King scene kunt vinden,
belicht. Het boek bevat 100 foto’s waarvan 25 in kleur.
What is a Drag King? Why have Drag
Kings not been as numerous or as popular as their Drag queen
counterparts in popular culture? Are Drag Kings lesbians? 'The Drag
King Book' explores the lives, communities and performances of many of
the leading Drag Kings in mid-late 90's New York, San Francisco,
London, Berlin, Milan and Paris through photographs, text and
interviews. In it's second printing and still going strong it remains
the first and unfortunately only visual monograph of a drag king scene
that has expanded exponentially throughout the world in the six years
since publication.
It is impossible to separate my
personal relationship with facial hair from my hermstory with the Drag
King scene that erupted in London and around the globe in the mid
1990s. The thought of coming out as a bearded lesbian was terrifying
and it was only when I hooked up with Simo Maronati that I found the
courage to let it all hang out, consequences be damned! I was also due
to compete in the first Drag King contest ever at the London Lesbian
& Gay Film festival during the spring of 1996. I thought that
possibly having a beard of my own might give me a much needed
edge....since I was well aware that I did not possess an iota of
'authentic' masculinity. As it happened I was the biggest loser.
My leather daddy stripper persona was a bit too genderqueer in an
era where ‘realness’ was the currency. But from that one event a new
queer time and place began that included Drag King clubs, lots of
mainstream press, including a faux exhibition of my work on Sex &
The City and a free trip through the Channel Tunnel to Paris for a
gaggle of Drag Kings. The biggest bonus by far though was that
Judith Jack Halberstam, (an academic already writing about Female
Masculinity and one of the contest judges) and I became friends and
went on to produce THE DRAG KING BOOK together over the next five
years. ¨
Now that more than twenty years have
passed a new generation of Kings are in the spot light, although they
are still given far less space than there sister Drag Queens.
Many of the Kings I photographed in the 90s now live their lives as men
or trans after finding the performance of masculinity a better fit than
the options they had been living. As for myself, I continue to believe
that dis-obedience, dis-ruption and defiance of gender norms and ALL
norms are the cornerstones of queer cultural production.
This book, the first to chart the
explosive rise of drag kings, combines the photographs of Del LaGrace
Volcano with the text of Judith Halberstam. The text, a savvy mix of interviews
and theory, contains important insights on the notion of female
masculinities as exhibited by the drag king scene. The photographs of
drag kings in London, New York, and San Francisco showcase these
exuberant performers with an appropriate sense of admiration. They
include posed studio shots, live action pictures, as well as the
intimate images of drag kings dressing up and practicing their looks.
The book celebrates the most important new developments on the New York
and San Francisco club scene.
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