The event I attended was part of a speaker series hosted by the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Stockton. It was a special talk called “Drag Queens and Beauty Queens: Gender, Performance, and Marked Bodies”, and it was held on November 17th. The talk dealt with the ins and out of frag, the feminist critique of drag, gender performance, why people become drag queens, and drag performances. The speaker, Doctor Laurie Greene, had already formed opinions on drag culture based on feminist critiques she had studied. She decided to go out into the field and do her own research on drag, and what she had learned surprised her. She spoke to many local drag queens and attended both drag pageants and classic beauty pageants to better understand feminine gender performance. She shared her findings with the people in attendance and explained that the next part of her research would focus on drag kings and masculine gender performance.

  This talk was absolutely fascinating. Drag is still seen as a bizarre and somewhat immoral practice by many people. While there are people like RuPaul who have been bringing drag into the public conscious, there is a lot that people do not know about it. It was very interesting to see drag compared to beauty pageants as extreme performances of femininity. It was also interesting to learn about drag through the the viewpoints of both skeptical feminists and actual drag queens. The talk was very professional and informative. Doctor Greene clearly did her research and I would be happy to attend another talk lead by her after she completes her research on drag kings.