How to be a (wo)man?

To be honest, at first I thought this was going to be a super weird, extremely awkward, completely alien show. And to some extent I was right. But at the same time I was wrong. I was definitely wrong. I thought this was going to dismantle the binaristic view of gender and further complicate the relationship of appearance and gender. I thought that the fluidity with which the women (or men?) could move about through their different roles by varying their appearance would prove everything that we’ve been discussing in class and learning about in the readings. This especially seemed to be the case when the men dismissed their gender by referring to their female persona in their person—as if she was another person entirely. Underneath these surface evaluations, I suspect that there are actually other things happening. I think that the show actually reinforces binaristic ideals. The drag queen want to look like an over the top woman to prove. Maybe drag queens can perform the female gender better than most biological women. The focus on appearance is especially true when Willam says, “I can’t be the pretty one anymore” when Kenya Michaels comes on. Additionally, the men who aren’t in drag—the crew—are barely in anything at all. This exposes their very male figure particularly at times 11:21 and 11:26 when they zoom in on the men’s bottoms and genitals. Anyway, the point I’m seeing is that heteronormative ideals are everywhere, even in places we don’t suspect it.