Queer Theory: Rupaul's Drag Race

Literature Review
Queer Theory
RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) will be analyzed and interpreted alongside the application of Judith Butler’s queer theory in Gender Trouble (1999) and her essay “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Butler’s ideology is reflected in RPDR and research has failed to interpret the show as a microcosm of a progressive society that accepts all genderqueer identities while repudiating gender roles. Her theory emphasizes the fluidity of gender, how gender is socially constructed, and how its definition is historically based. She reports the difference between sex and gender, invalidating claims that say are the same: “the discrete and tactic datum of primary sexual characteristic”
Dennis Schep, a doctoral candidate at the at the Free University of Berlin, discusses the argument on how Butler’s theory can be interpreted as a hindrance to women’s fight for quality: “although gender performativity is certainly a powerful tool in the battle against homophobia and other types of sexual discrimination, it may also inhibit certain strands of feminist and/or transgender politics by foreclosing the essentialist coordinates that serve to ground them.” However, queer theory must be interpreted to explain the fluidity of gender roles, norms, and constructs through the exaggerated performance of gender roles. His main argument lay in Butler’s theory becoming a “hegemonic framework within the field of gender studies… lead[ing] to the foreclosure of certain possible gendered identities.” The limiting of gender identity can be seen in Jay Poole’s discussion on the representations of gay males in the media. Poole, Ph.D., analyzes the portrayal of homosexuals in television shows and “straight media.” He specifies that queer characters are being typecast and that it enforces gender roles by mentioning the social constructs of femininity and masculinity in application to gay couples: “the consequence of adopting gender characteristics that truly blend traditional gender boundaries seems to place people in the margins even within marginalized groups, e.g.
Jessica Strübel-Scheiner, Ph.D., investigated the continual view of drag as being “staples of Hollywood films and… ‘endearing object[s] of amused pity.’” Her study, assessing self-esteem in men who are active in the drag scene, shares similar interpretations of drag as being platforms to critic the established gender roles in society by performing said roles to an absurd extent, usually being exaggerated. Despite Strübel-Scheiner’s analyses not correlating with this study, her elucidations on the misinterpretation of drag as being detrimental to feminist movements further provides insight into the perspective being delved in. The drag queen’s aesthetic, specifically their way of communication on the show RPDR, is interpreted in detail by Nathaniel Simmons, Ph.D. The speech and colloquialisms of drag queens offer insight into the implications behind drag as Simmons defined the usage and connotations of the words “drag family” and “fish.” Drag families are construed to be a collective of queens “that will assist one throughout hardships and difficulty” and the term “fishy” is used to describe a queen exuding femininity. These definitions, alongside Strübel-Scheiner’s interpretation, both support the interpretation of drag as being a performance that satirizes traditional gender