Annual CU Drag Show

On Saturday, November 4th, 2017 I had the pleasure of attending the Annual CU Drag Show, starring a wide variety of students. Drag performances consist of individuals who take on and impersonate stereotypical behavior associated with either the male or female gender and ultimately challenge the gender binary. The event took place in the lower gym of the CU Rec Center and the set-up consisted of many chairs and an elaborate stage with flamboyant lighting. The show was introduced by a few speakers that made sure everyone in the audience understood that this was a safe space, how to be an ally, and that if they couldn’t comply they should leave.
There were several performers, Drag Queens and Kings alike, all of which I believed challenged the …show more content…
Matthew Brown’s lecture, the gender binary is defined as, “[t]he idea that there are only two types of people: male-bodied people who are masculine and female-bodied people who are feminine,” (Brown, 2017). This performer challenges this idea that there are only two types of people. The performer explicitly chose songs from the one Disney Princess movie that doesn’t fall in line with the others where: woman meets a man, the woman has a troubled life or a secret, man saves or validates her, a conflict arises and is resolved and then they get married. The Disney story of Mulan is all about challenging the gender binary. The song, “Reflection,” reveals how Mulan considers the duality of her identity. From the Disney movie Mulan, we know that she comes from a conservative family that expects her to embody the female-bodied person who is conservatively feminine. Mulan knows that not only will she never be the person her family expects, but that she won’t even “pass for a perfect bride or a perfect daughter.” Notice how Mulan says “pass,” which in context of the drag performance, illustrates how both Mulan and the performer question where they fall on the gender binary. This lyric is an example of the struggles that many queer people face when their reflection on the outside doesn’t match how they feel on the inside. When switching to the song, blatantly titled "I'll Make a Man Out of You,” immediately has a double meaning. In the Disney movie, the head of the army challenges his recruits’ idea that gruffness and poor social habits are the measures of manhood. Instead, he has his soldiers fulfill their masculine promise by becoming refined fighting machines. In parallel, of course, Mulan becomes a “man” by this new definition. In the drag performance the performer also in parallel, appears to become a

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