Firstly, I'm really sorry that it's taken me so long to post. I get so into class and yet I'm always the last one to put something up here lol! Anyway, let me just start off by saying that although I don't frequently watch the show, I do love
Drag Race because although some may find it exploitative and trivializing to drag queens and the LGBTQ community, I think it's great to put these issues in the home of Americans weekly. So I decided to contain my excitement on being assigned drag queens for homework and look at Sontag's essay first to ensure that I'd have the right concepts in mind while watching it. I'm glad I did because I enjoyed it so much that I put one of the quotes on the dry erase board outside my wall. I think that Sontag really captures the concept of trends and the unwritten, yet absolutely abided, rules of how we enforce a trend. Being from New York or honestly just being an eighteen year old girl attending college I feel it all the time; the people that try way too hard to establish their differences thereby making them "cool" while at the same time not drifting too far from the boundaries of societal norm to ensure they'll still receive the validity they so feverishly yearn for. It's almost poetic.
It was very interesting to see the process by which one assimilates into a group through the lens of a group that traditionally people don't really want to assimilate into. I'm sure that most of the jocks that went into the show weren't really interested in getting out of the experience, only claiming a pay check; so to mold them and drench them so heavily into all the things that make you "you" in attempt to coin your style is difficult. But, when you're actually successful and you have these men getting into being a drag queen, that's pretty radical. It makes me wonder though, if it's so easily possible for someone to transform another into a mirror image of themselves, are the identities and personas that we've taken so much time to construct really all that meaningful? Like the eyeshadow pot of a MAC makeup tray, it seems a bit shallow.
--Jheanelle G.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteEven though the values of the identities one painstakingly established seem to diminish when someone else comes and transforms one into something different, I still think one's individuality holds worth.
ReplyDeleteJust like others have said, life could be called a play. In order to survive in society, one must seize different roles depending on the social situation and "perform" accordingly. The personas one adopts and perfects, therefore, all make up parts and pieces of you. Yes, it does seem shallow, but it's a necessary part of life.
-Jeremy