EARLY DRAG QUEENS (part two)

American Hysteria

W!ZARD Studios

Society & Culture

4.4 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2023

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For part two of our series, we are starting in the anti-gay moral panic of the 50s and 60s to see how the drag scene continued to transform underground, with female impressionists dazzling the starlets they tried to copy as closely as possible. We'll be introduced to a nationwide pageant circuit which allowed drag queens the opportunity to compete just like Miss America contestants, leading to a popular and well-reviewed documentary that revealed the controversial personal lives of these performers. Then we'll drop right into the Gay Liberation Movement where rifts between gay men, lesbian feminists, and drag queens led to a harsh animosity. Next we'll look at the southern tradition of Womanless Weddings that stretches back to the 1800s, where well-to-do men acted out every part of ceremony as a community wide ritual of hilarity. Finally, we'll travel all the way back to 16th century London where a moral panic around the theater's evil influence very much included the boys and men who dressed in woman's costumes to play their roles. Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Tell us your teenage tale on our Urban Legends Hotline! American Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Sound design by Clear Commo Studios Research Assistant: Riley Swedelius-Smith Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler Voice Acting by Will Rogers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	On this podcast, we explore fantastical thinking, moral panics, urban legends, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and crazes, examine the forces that shape our culture, and tell the stories that create the realities we share, and sometimes the realities we don't.
0:25.3	I'm your host, Chelsea Weber Smith, and this is American Hysteria.
0:32.5	In the vernacular, it's called a dragball.
0:35.3	You see, each of our contestants is a man.
0:38.3	But we are part of the exploitation of women by men for entertainment or profit.
0:44.3	I have been thrown in jail for gay liberation, and you all treat me this way?
0:50.3	I'll tell you the truth, it's a changing world we live in.
0:53.3	Yeah, honey, it's here today and gone tomorrow.
0:57.0	We return now to our place in the national audience, looking up at the towering American archetype of the drag queen, who has been both beloved and despised, treated as a national darling, a sickening degenerate, a goofy joke, and even a harbinger of doom to come.
1:34.5	In part one of our series, we looked at the elaborate balls thrown by William Dorsey Swan,
1:41.1	a formerly enslaved man who created a vibrant secret drag scene that was eventually
1:47.8	found out and raided over and over again by police. Then we saw how the vaudeville scene produced
1:56.3	Julian Eltinge, a well-respected female impersonator, famous enough to end up on Broadway and in silent Hollywood movies.
2:06.9	A man who had to go to great lengths to prove just how masculine he was off stage.
2:15.1	Masculine enough that the public could accept his on-stage quirks and feel comfortable
2:22.1	enjoying them. We saw how the Harlem dragballs made famous during the Harlem Renaissance of the
2:30.2	1920s paved the way for the pansy craze of the 1930s when gay was in, and many of the most
2:40.5	beloved performers in America came out of the closet to a surprisingly warm reception.
2:49.0	Then we saw those dreams dashed as quickly as they came when the Great Depression
2:54.7	led to a loss of work and thus a loss of masculine identity and the public deemed
3:02.8	homosexuals and gender non-conforming individuals as sexual psychopaths that deserve to be institutionalized or imprisoned.
3:14.3	Finally, we witnessed the soldier shows of World War II that contained more than their fair share of drag, where GIs, both closeted gays and dedicated straits,
	...

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