Dragging up the past
investigating historical representations of drag in South Africa
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.25741Keywords:
drag, South Africa, language, gender, sexuality, subculturesAbstract
Drag performances at bars, clubs, pageants and shebeens are wildly popular in South Africa. This can be gauged by the number of websites and posts on various media platforms. However, despite these popular cultural manifestations of drag, academic interest in theorising drag is limited. In this article I attempt to ignite academic interest in theorising drag in the South African context. The reason why I use the term 'ignite' is that after an extensive data base search I only found four published articles on drag, the last of which was published in 2004. In addition, no South African gay and lesbian non-fiction book has included a discussion of drag since Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa (1994), edited by Gevisser and Cameron. The five chapters on drag in Defiant Desire have been used by the researchers above to corroborate or illustrate their arguments about drag in South Africa but have never before been the object of an academic investigation. In this article I 'drag up the past' by foregrounding the five chapters on drag from Defiant Desire and I investigate in particular how the language used by the various writers positions the role and place of the drag queen in political and personal political discourses of the time.
References
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Chetty, D. (1994a) A drag at Madame Costello’s: Cape moffie life and the popular press in the 1950s and 1960s. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 115–27.
Chetty, D. (1994b) Lesbian gangster: the Gertie Williams story. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 128–33.
De Waal, S. and Manion, A. (2006) Pride: Protest and Celebration. Johannesburg: Fanele.
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Freed, L. F. (1970) Sex and sex education. South African Medical Journal 44: 800.
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Gevisser, M. and Cameron, E. (eds) (1994) Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.
Gevisser, M and Reid, G. (1994) Pride or protest? Drag queens, comrades and the Lesbian and Gay Pride March. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 278–83.
Halberstam, J. (1997) Mackdaddy, superfly, rapper: gender, race, and masculinity in the drag king scene. Social Text. 52/53: 104–31. https://doi.org/10.2307/466736
Isaacs, G. and Mckendrick, B. (1992) Male Homosexuality in South Africa: Identity Formation, Culture and Crises. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
Krouse, M. (1994) The Arista sisters – September 1984: an account of army drag. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 209–18.
McCormick, T. L. (2009) A queer analysis of the discursive construction of gay identity in ‘Gayle: the language of kinks and queens: a history and dictionary of gay language in South Africa (2003)’. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 27: 149–61. https://doi.org/10.2989/SALALS.2009.27.2.3.866
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McCormick, T. L. (2015b) A critical engagement? Analysing the same-sex marriage discourse in To Have and to Hold: The Making of Same-Sex Marriage in South Africa (2008): a queer perspective. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics PLUS 46: 99–120. https://doi.org/10.5842/46-0-656
Mclean, H. and Ngcobo, L. (1994) Abangibhamayo bathi ngimnandi (those who fuck me say I’m tasty): gay sexuality in Reef townships. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 158–87.
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Milani, T. M. (2013b) Whither linguistic landscapes? The sexed facets of ordinary signs. Tilburg Papers in Cultural Studies 53. Retrieved on 18 May 2013 from http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/upload/8bb66cff8b94-4270-8e5f-f35f3e620a89_TPCS_53_Milani. pdf
Milani, T. M. (2013c) Expanding the queer linguistic scene: multimodality, space and sexuality at a South African university. Journal of Language and Sexuality 2: 206–34. https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.2.2.02mil
Milani, T. M. (2015) Sexual cityzenship: discourses, spaces and bodies at Joburg Pride 2012. Journal of Language and Politics 14: 431–54. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.14.3.06mil
Reid, G. (2003) ‘It is just a fashion!’ Linking homosexuality and ‘modernity’ in South Africa. Etnofoor 16(2): 7–25.
Retief, G. (1994) Keeping Sodom out of the laager: the policing of sexual minorities in South Africa. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 99–114.
Ricci, D. (1994) Of gay rights and the pitfalls of the ‘PC’: a polemic. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 311–18.
Rubin, G. S. (1993) Thinking sex: notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality. In H. Abelove, M. A. Barale and D. M. Halperin (eds) The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader 3–44. London: Routledge.
Schacht, S. P. and Underwood, L. (eds) The Drag Queen Anthology: The Absolutely Fabulous but Flawlessly Customary World of Female Impersonators. New York: Routledge.
Shefer, T., Boonzaier, F. and Kiguwa, P. (2006) The Gender of Psychology. Cape Town: Juta and Company.
South African History Online (2016) A history of Drum magazine. Retrieved on 30 August 2016 from www.sahistory.org.za/topic/drum-magazine.
Spruill, J. (2004) Ad/dressing the nation: drag and authenticity in post-apartheid South Africa. Journal of Homosexuality 46(3–4): 91–111. https://doi.org/10.1300/J082v46n03_06
Swarr, A. L. (2004) Moffies, artists, and queens: race and the production of South African gay male drag. Journal of Homosexuality 46(3–4): 73–89.
Swarr, A. L. (2009) ‘Stabane’: intersexuality and same-sex relationships in South Africa. Feminist Studies 35: 524–48.
Swarr, A. L. (2012) Paradoxes of butchness: lesbian masculinities and sexual violence in contemporary South Africa. Signs 37: 961–86. https://doi.org/10.1086/664476
Van Zyl, M., de Gruchy, J., Lapinsky, S., Lewin, S. and Reid, G. (1999) The Aversion Project: human rights abuses of gay and lesbians in the SADF by health workers during the apartheid era. Cape Town: Simply Said and Done.
Visser, G. (2003) Gay men, leisure space and South African cities: the case of Cape Town. Geoforum 34: 123–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7185(02)00079-9
Visser, G. (2008) The homonormalisation of white heterosexual leisure spaces in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Geoforum 39: 1347–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2007.11.004
Warner, M. (1999) The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics Of Queer Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Barrett, R. (1999) Indexing polyphonous identity in the speech of African American drag queens. In M. Bucholtz, A. C. Liang and L.A. Sutton (eds) Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse 313–31. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barthes, R. (1977) Lecture in inauguration of the chair of literary semiology, College de France (trans. R. Howard). Oxford Literary Review 4(1): 31–44. https://doi.org/10.3366/olr.1979.005
Baxter, J. (2003) Positioning Gender in Discourse: A Feminist Methodology. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230501263
Butler, J. (1991) Imitation and gender insubordination. In D. Fuss (ed.) Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories/Gay Theories 13–31. London: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2004) Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge.
Chetty, D. (1994a) A drag at Madame Costello’s: Cape moffie life and the popular press in the 1950s and 1960s. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 115–27.
Chetty, D. (1994b) Lesbian gangster: the Gertie Williams story. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 128–33.
De Waal, S. and Manion, A. (2006) Pride: Protest and Celebration. Johannesburg: Fanele.
Donham, D. L. ([1998]2005) Freeing South Africa: the ‘modernization’ of male–male sexuality in Soweto (1998). In J. Robertson (ed.) Same-Sex Cultures and Sexualities: An Anthropological Reader 261–78. Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470775981.ch14
Foucault, M. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith). New York: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M. (1978) The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality Volume 1 (trans. R. Hurley). London: Penguin.
Freed, L. F. (1949) The Problem of European Prostitution in Johannesburg: a Sociological Survey. Johannesburg: Juta.
Freed, L. F. (1954) Medico-sociological data in the therapy of homosexuality. South African Medical Journal 28: 1022.
Freed, L. F. (1963) Crime in South Africa. Johannesburg: Juta.
Freed, L. F. (1968) Homosexuality and the Bill. South African Medical Journal 42: 567.
Freed, L. F. (1970) Sex and sex education. South African Medical Journal 44: 800.
Gevisser, M. (1994) A different fight for freedom: a history of South African lesbian and gay organisation – the 1940’s to the 1990’s. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 14–88.
Gevisser, M. and Cameron, E. (eds) (1994) Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.
Gevisser, M and Reid, G. (1994) Pride or protest? Drag queens, comrades and the Lesbian and Gay Pride March. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 278–83.
Halberstam, J. (1997) Mackdaddy, superfly, rapper: gender, race, and masculinity in the drag king scene. Social Text. 52/53: 104–31. https://doi.org/10.2307/466736
Isaacs, G. and Mckendrick, B. (1992) Male Homosexuality in South Africa: Identity Formation, Culture and Crises. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
Krouse, M. (1994) The Arista sisters – September 1984: an account of army drag. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 209–18.
McCormick, T. L. (2009) A queer analysis of the discursive construction of gay identity in ‘Gayle: the language of kinks and queens: a history and dictionary of gay language in South Africa (2003)’. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 27: 149–61. https://doi.org/10.2989/SALALS.2009.27.2.3.866
McCormick, T. L. (2015a) Queering discourses of coming out in South Africa. African Studies 74: 327–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2015.1067998
McCormick, T. L. (2015b) A critical engagement? Analysing the same-sex marriage discourse in To Have and to Hold: The Making of Same-Sex Marriage in South Africa (2008): a queer perspective. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics PLUS 46: 99–120. https://doi.org/10.5842/46-0-656
Mclean, H. and Ngcobo, L. (1994) Abangibhamayo bathi ngimnandi (those who fuck me say I’m tasty): gay sexuality in Reef townships. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 158–87.
Milani, T.M. (2012) Queering the matrix? Discursive regimes of language and identity in HIV/AIDS contexts. SPIL Plus 4: 59–75.
Milani, T. M. (2013a) Are ‘queers’ really ‘queer’? Language, identity and same-sex desire in a South African online community. Discourse and Society 25: 615–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926513486168
Milani, T. M. (2013b) Whither linguistic landscapes? The sexed facets of ordinary signs. Tilburg Papers in Cultural Studies 53. Retrieved on 18 May 2013 from http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/upload/8bb66cff8b94-4270-8e5f-f35f3e620a89_TPCS_53_Milani. pdf
Milani, T. M. (2013c) Expanding the queer linguistic scene: multimodality, space and sexuality at a South African university. Journal of Language and Sexuality 2: 206–34. https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.2.2.02mil
Milani, T. M. (2015) Sexual cityzenship: discourses, spaces and bodies at Joburg Pride 2012. Journal of Language and Politics 14: 431–54. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.14.3.06mil
Reid, G. (2003) ‘It is just a fashion!’ Linking homosexuality and ‘modernity’ in South Africa. Etnofoor 16(2): 7–25.
Retief, G. (1994) Keeping Sodom out of the laager: the policing of sexual minorities in South Africa. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 99–114.
Ricci, D. (1994) Of gay rights and the pitfalls of the ‘PC’: a polemic. In Gevisser and Cameron (1994): 311–18.
Rubin, G. S. (1993) Thinking sex: notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality. In H. Abelove, M. A. Barale and D. M. Halperin (eds) The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader 3–44. London: Routledge.
Schacht, S. P. and Underwood, L. (eds) The Drag Queen Anthology: The Absolutely Fabulous but Flawlessly Customary World of Female Impersonators. New York: Routledge.
Shefer, T., Boonzaier, F. and Kiguwa, P. (2006) The Gender of Psychology. Cape Town: Juta and Company.
South African History Online (2016) A history of Drum magazine. Retrieved on 30 August 2016 from www.sahistory.org.za/topic/drum-magazine.
Spruill, J. (2004) Ad/dressing the nation: drag and authenticity in post-apartheid South Africa. Journal of Homosexuality 46(3–4): 91–111. https://doi.org/10.1300/J082v46n03_06
Swarr, A. L. (2004) Moffies, artists, and queens: race and the production of South African gay male drag. Journal of Homosexuality 46(3–4): 73–89.
Swarr, A. L. (2009) ‘Stabane’: intersexuality and same-sex relationships in South Africa. Feminist Studies 35: 524–48.
Swarr, A. L. (2012) Paradoxes of butchness: lesbian masculinities and sexual violence in contemporary South Africa. Signs 37: 961–86. https://doi.org/10.1086/664476
Van Zyl, M., de Gruchy, J., Lapinsky, S., Lewin, S. and Reid, G. (1999) The Aversion Project: human rights abuses of gay and lesbians in the SADF by health workers during the apartheid era. Cape Town: Simply Said and Done.
Visser, G. (2003) Gay men, leisure space and South African cities: the case of Cape Town. Geoforum 34: 123–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7185(02)00079-9
Visser, G. (2008) The homonormalisation of white heterosexual leisure spaces in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Geoforum 39: 1347–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2007.11.004
Warner, M. (1999) The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics Of Queer Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Published
2018-07-05
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
McCormick, T. L. (2018). Dragging up the past: investigating historical representations of drag in South Africa. Gender and Language, 12(2), 168-191. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.25741
