![\"\"](\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/09\/JoeGaffney_SimonDoonan_8595-670x447.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSimon Doonan may be known for his crisply tailored suits and vibrant prints, but don\u2019t let the menswear fool you. The author and style icon knows a thing or two about drag as well.<\/p>\n
His new book Drag: The Complete Story<\/em> takes an in-depth look at the art form throughout history. With wry humor and a keen eye for its cultural context, Doonan examines drag going as far back as ancient Egypt all the way up to RuPaul<\/a>\u2019s Drag Race.<\/p>\n Yes, from the Pyramids to Drag Race. Epic.<\/p>\n As drag continues to infiltrate mainstream pop culture, Queerty<\/em> caught up with Doonan to chat<\/a> about his own history with wigs and frocks, his current favorite queens, and why some people seem to have such strict definitions of what is and isn\u2019t drag.<\/p>\n Do you remember the first time you saw a drag queen?<\/strong> And then my childhood best friend\u2014we lived in a little industrial town near London\u2014we used to do drag together. I\u2019ve got pictures of him and me in drag when I was 10 years old. And he became a drag queen. When we moved to London we lived together in a little squalid apartment, and he would do his drag act at various clubs, including a famous club called April and Desmond\u2019s owned by April Ashley who was a famous transwoman who also was a drag queen.<\/p>\n Do you remember how you felt the first time you ever did drag?<\/strong> Related:\u00a0Barney\u2019s Top Gay Simon Doonan Takes Mandatory Promotion<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n What do you think it was about British culture at that time that made it more ubiquitous than it was in the States? <\/strong> When was the last time you did drag? <\/strong> Why did you want to write this book? What did you want to add to the conversation about drag? <\/strong> What is the biggest misconception about drag? What do people get wrong about it?<\/strong> Related: Catch all the sickening looks from RuPaul\u2019s DragCon 2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n One of the byproducts of the success of Drag Race<\/em> that I\u2019ve found really interesting is this impulse to police the boundaries of drag. RuPaul at one point said that she wouldn\u2019t want trans<\/a> performers or cis women<\/a> to compete on Drag Race<\/em>. What do you think is behind that need to define drag as something for cis male<\/a> performers?<\/strong> Drag Race<\/em> also seems to have introduced drag to a generation of young cisgender women<\/a>. Why do you think it\u2019s so appealing to them? <\/strong> In Victorian England, the drag kings of that era were enormously popular with women<\/a>. They were rich and played on Broadway. I think women<\/a> back then, because they had to deal with the oppressive, patriarchal Victorian maleness, there was nothing more hilarious and therapeutic than seeing a woman<\/a> who was doing a parody of a kind of oppressive, patriarchal masculinity.<\/p>\n The book has a chapter on drag kings, but I was surprised not to find one on faux-queens\u2014cis women<\/a> who perform exaggerated feminine drag. <\/strong> Has there been a drag performance that you\u2019ve seen recently that you can\u2019t stop thinking about? <\/strong> As you\u2019ve said, drag is having a huge moment right now thanks in part to RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/em>. But that show won\u2019t last forever. Do you have a sense of where drag goes from here? <\/strong> Yeah, I think you made a really remarkable point in the intro about how everyone assumed that mainstreaming drag would mean the death of its creativity and subversion, but that hasn\u2019t been the case. <\/strong> Everything changes, the culture evolves, but I find it very difficult to predict where it\u2019s gonna go. Usually, the swings are counter, so if you live<\/a> in a very freewheeling, groovy period, things can get a bit rigid after that. But there\u2019s always gonna be unconventional people at the margins who keep everything interesting and fun.<\/p>\n What\u2019s your advice to someone who\u2019s doing drag for the first time? <\/strong> But basically there are no rules, which is a great place to be.<\/p>\n \nwww.queerty.com\/simon-doonan-drags-incredible-past-present-future-20190921?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Simon Doonan on how drag\u2019s the antidote to \u201ctoxic masculinity\u201d Simon Doonan may be known for his crisply tailored suits and vibrant prints, but don\u2019t let the menswear fool you. The author and style icon knows a thing or two about drag as well. His new book Drag: The Complete Story takes an in-depth look … Continue reading Simon Doonan on how drag\u2019s the antidote to \u201ctoxic masculinity\u201d<\/span>
\nGrowing up in England after the war, drag was kind of everywhere. It\u2019s such a big part of British culture. On TV there were many, many comedians who used drag\u2014often straight guys<\/a> who did comedy drag. So, I was never not around drag queens.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/09\/sd_biddie_drag-659x670.jpg\")
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\nNo, because it was just everywhere. I had straight friends who did drag. When I moved to London in the 70s drag was just ubiquitous. Punk rock guys<\/a> would do drag. I can\u2019t think of one of my straight male<\/a> friends who I don\u2019t have pictures somewhere of him in drag.<\/p>\n
\nI think in the United States, the culture is underpinned by that Puritan aesthetic. British culture is underpinned with a sort of ribald, mocking, satirical take on the establishment\u2014making fun of Queen Victoria, making fun of female<\/a> archetypes, making fun of male<\/a> archetypes. Drag kings were hugely popular in England going back to the Victorian era, making fun of the patriarchy. The English impulse to make fun of the establishment often resulted in drag. Monty Python, they\u2019re always in drag. So, it didn\u2019t seem like that big a deal to me.<\/p>\n
\nWell, my birthday is on Halloween, so I often, over the decades, have done drag on my birthday. I guess as a Brit, I never thought, I\u2019m gonna do drag. I just thought I would dress up as a milkmaid or something demented and fun. That was my impulse.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/09\/SD_.drag_02-536x670.jpg\")
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\nI\u2019d just written a book about soccer players for a publisher in London called Laurence King. And Laurence King said to me, \u201cDo you wanna do a book about drag queens? Because there is currently no broad, sweeping history of drag.\u201d I said, \u201cLet me think about it.\u201d Because there\u2019s no point in doing a book unless you feel that it\u2019s the right moment. And I realized, yeah, drag is having a pretty major moment. There are many things right now in the culture that are propelling drag forward. There\u2019s the gender revolution that we\u2019re going through which is completely unprecedented. It\u2019s put drag front and center. There\u2019s the Trump bump; the politicization of drag. There the new meticulousness of drag, the new emphasis on artistic expression that you see with look queens like Ryan Burke. And then there\u2019s RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/em>, which has put drag on a global platform in a way that is, again, unprecedented. So, I thought, yeah, this was a good moment to do a history book about drag, because people are interested.<\/p>\n
\nI think it\u2019s such a rapidly evolving landscape that when I started this book three years ago it was very different. The old rules went out the window. When I started this book, I thought I had to be very careful to put kind of a firewall between drag and trans<\/a>. Three years ago, that was very much the case. And all of a sudden, these preconceptions went out the window and you have drag queens like Peppermint and Monica Beverly Hills coming out as trans<\/a> on RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race. The preconceptions and the boundaries started crumbling. It\u2019s a fabulous free for all where people can create new identities. There\u2019s an incredible range of people who are expressing themselves and playing in this arena now.<\/p>\n
\nIn general, the people I encounter in the drag world don\u2019t have that impulse to police other people. But I know what you\u2019re talking about. When all the boundaries start crumbling and it becomes this fabulous creative free for all there are always gonna be people who want to set limits on things or question other people\u2019s version of things. I think those people are probably in the minority. Most people are celebrating this incredible garden where people can cultivate their identities.<\/p>\n
\nI know exactly what you\u2019re talking about. When I went to DragCon, I would say the majority of people there were [cis women]. It\u2019s so fascinating from a cultural point of view. I guess it\u2019s probably a result of several factors. The transformational creativity of drag is everywhere on YouTube. Many of the beauty influencers are drag queens or extremely feminine men<\/a> who love to paint and present themselves in this very fabulous, glamorous, artificial way. I think women<\/a> are responding to that. And we live<\/a> in an age when the phrase toxic masculinity is sort of on many lips. So maybe it has something to do with a non-threatening version of maleness. I think there\u2019s probably something quite appealing about that.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/09\/SD_.drag_03-469x670.jpg\")
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\nI know, that would have been great. I finished writing the book over a year ago, but it takes so long to do all the pictures and everything. So, that would have been great to include. Again, that is another part of the drag phenomenon that rapidly grew during the time that I was writing the book. I allude to it. There\u2019s so much\u2014today I was thinking, Oh, shit, I didn\u2019t get Milk into the book!<\/em> That\u2019s very much the nature of doing a book, a lot of cringing after they come back from the printers.<\/p>\n
\nI worked with Susan Bartsch recently on Love Ball 3. Billy Porter hosted, all these incredible queens were performing. And it was my first encounter with Charlene. Seeing her perform in Gotham Hall, this glamorous former bank building, and there\u2019s Charlene flying around with it all hanging out\u2014it was truly a knock your socks off moment.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/09\/Simon-Doonan-Susanne-Bartsch-511x670.jpg\")
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\nNo, I don\u2019t. I don\u2019t have any vision into the future. As I say in the introduction, no one could have foreseen the moment that we\u2019re in now where drag is such a big part of the culture.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, entirely the opposite has been true. And that\u2019s probably because of the gender revolution that we\u2019re in, and also the creativity of the drag queens. In the old days, you\u2019d put on a wig and slap on some blue eyeshadow and it was a hasty process. Now, as I said, one of the things propelling it forward is this meticulousness.<\/p>\n
\nI would say go for comedy drag over glamor drag. To go into that glamor drag world, the bar is so high. Comedy drag, there\u2019s a lot more leeway.<\/p>\n<\/a>
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