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This page was created both because "drag" needed an article and as an attempt to clarify, improve and make more inclusive the articles on
drag queens and
drag kings. I have not redirected either of those articles yet, but that's what I hope to do. Please leave your comments below.
Exploding Boy 08:55, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)
The Drag article itself isn't bad. There is no need to throw in Drag King and Drag Queen, though. -- AlexR 19:15, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
What is the origin of the word Drag? Did it derive by combing fag with some other word?
Wearing drag is not only a LGBT thing,it implies that people who wear drag are gay or bi,when many drag wearers are not. Dudtz 6/10/06 6:27 PM EST
it does imply that
the articles for "male" and "female" are relevant to LGBT, clearly, and yet no table there. the table in this article is indicating a deep relationship between LGBT and drag, which doesn't exist. As many people *coughhomophobescough* make the connection mistakenly, the table should be removed for clarification. LGBT is specifically about sexual orientation, which has no connection to drag whatsoever. Makuta Bookworm 17:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Id like to take issue with a number of descriptions and statements in this article. However, the main objection I have is the use of the word 'straight' to describe those going to see the Rocky Horror show 'mostly straight men'... this term 'striaght' I feel is insulting and derrogatory because the opposite of straight is bent, meaning malformed, dysfunctional, deviant, wrongful. Please stop using this word 'straight' to describe hetero men (or women) or issues. They are simply 'hetero'. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
86.13.37.150 (
talk)
21:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
The article says, "The verb is to 'do drag.'" But there's no evidence cited. I've never heard "to do drag", but I've often heard "to go in drag".
Also, "A folk etymology whose acronym basis reveals the late 20th-century bias..." Which bias?
"Drag is practiced by people of all sexual orientations and gender identities." Is that verifiable? What about homophobia? There must be somebody who doesn't "do drag"! Unfree ( talk) 20:00, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
The expression 'to drag up' is certainly common in the United Kingdom, however if someone said they were going to 'do drag' I would be in no doubt as to what they meant Whitenoiseuk ( talk) 12:53, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
I was reading the section on Drag in the performing arts and it says "One is cross-dressing in the performance, which is part of the social history of theatre." I would like to point out that dressing in as a gender not one's own has been a part of the practice of the theater as far back as the middle ages, and perhaps even further. I think it should be noted in the article. » ɧʒЖχ ( ταικ• κоŋτяљ) 12:47, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
“The term originated in Athens, Greece in the fourth century B.C.E. when it was common practice for gender-noncomforming people to be dragged through the streets as punishment”
This sounds very dubious to me, especially since the basic verb 'to drag' is from Old English origins, not Greek. It is a pity the contributor has not cited a page reference for Professor Don Kulick’s book Travesti which appears to focus on transvestitism among Brazilian prostitutes.
The Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper suggests that
[Drag in the] sense of "women's clothing worn by a man" is said to be 1870 theatre slang, from the sensation of long skirts trailing on the floor (another guess is Yiddish trogn "to wear," from Ger. tragen)
Any thoughts? Whitenoiseuk ( talk) 12:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
I share Whitenoiseuk's concern. A great deal of time would have gone by between Ancient Athens and the modern usage causing me to question whether that usage could have continued that long. Beyond that, as Whitenoiseuk notes, the term would have had to somehow been translated from Ancient Greek to English. So the usage wouldn't have just persisted for a long time. It would have had to make enough sense for people to translate it into another language. I'm not saying it cannot be true but that it seems likely that there would have had to at least been other factors that caused the term "drag" to make sense to English speaking people. I like the Online Etymology Dictionary explanation Whitenoiseuk offers. It makes more sense in terms of date and language of origin. My personal suspicion is that it may not have simply been long skirts or simply used in connection with cross-dressing. I've always suspected that, at some point, any costume was referred to as one's "drag". But that is just my suspicion. That would relate, however, to the speculation Whitenoiseuk has offered about Yiddish or German and the fact that "drag" is not always used in reference to cross-dressing.. OdilonRedon ( talk) 20:47, 1 October 2010 (UTC)OdilonRedon
I checked the Oxford English Dictionary. All they have with regard to the term as used in the context of cross-dressing was an 1870 reference to someone saying "We shall come in drag" or something similar. (I talked to a reference librarian on the phone which is why I don't have the exact quote.) This is simply the earliest use of the term in that context that the OED has on record. The OED did not offer any annotations that the librarian could find with regard to how the usage developed. I did ask about that specifically. A second librarian was also checking the reference. OdilonRedon ( talk) 22:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)OdilonRedon
I have always understood the term to originate from Victorian cross dressers wearing the long skirts of the period in London. The rather exaggerated length dragged on the ground as they walked about. Unfortunately I don't have a reference for this. -- Ef80 ( talk) 13:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
The folk etymology is supposed to be: "dressed resembling a girl"; I have no reference for this. The article on Polari gives the origin as a Hindi word, entering English through Romany. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.13.52.125 ( talk) 20:12, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
The theatre section really could do with a bit about pantomime dames. I don't know enough myself about the history of pantomime to write this, but someone surely does. TRiG ( talk) 16:41, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
The article needs to be renamed. "Drag" in this sense, is not about the clothing, it's about the wearing of certain types of clothing (or makeup, or accessories) that are highly associated with one gender, by someone of the other gender. It isn't drag when it's hanging on the rack, and it isn't drag when worn by a person of the "right" gender.
The wrong title leads to all sorts of problems in the article, starting with the
first sentence which
currently says, The term "drag" usually refers to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender, but that's just not correct as it doesn't refer to the clothing at all, but rather the act of donning it by someone whose gender would normally be inappropriate for that type of clothing based on
gender roles in a particular time and place.
Perhaps a better title would be, "In drag", although that makes it an adjective or adverb, and article titles are usually nouns. Here's ngram viewer with some data for common expressions with "in drag". Alternatively, perhaps a different parenthetical disambiguation would resolve it, although I can't think of a single parenthesized word that would work. Mathglot ( talk) 10:21, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
I agreed 100% about this, thought about it a bit, worked on a collage of drag clothing in action, added it and almost immediiately struck out. Sad. See new section below. Good luck with this y'all! Sincerely (I am never sarcastic), -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 15:21, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
Verifiability is a core policy of Wikipedia, and unsourced material may be challenged and removed. The Performing arts section has very few references for its large size, so I've tagged it, and am hereby challenging the the section in its entirety, minus the limited portions substantiated by the four or five references present. Note that this section represents over half the article currently and contains the subsections Theatre, Opera, Film and television, and Music. I hope that references can be found, as much of the material is interesting, but if it takes slashing over half the article to bring it into compliance, then so be it.
In addition, some sections of the text in the section sound very polished, which otoh is great, but otoh I question whether some may have been copied from somewhere without the required attribution. The first paragraph of section Film and television for example includes this sentence:
The self-consciously risqué bourgeois high jinks of Brandon Thomas' Charley's Aunt (London, 1892) were still viable theatre material in La Cage aux Folles 1978...
and it remains pretty much intact since it was added on 6 July 2004. I did a web search but other than one print on demand book from 2013 and various mirror sites I haven't found a likely origin for it, so perhaps the phrasing is the editor's, however the text would still require citations from reliable sources, as does the whole section.
In any case, for now, I've just tagged the section, but if there's been no activity in, say, a month or so, then I'll start to prune this section down to remove unsourced material and remain in compliance with policy. Mathglot ( talk) 23:51, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
Pinging you here per your talk page request. Not sure if Drag (clothing) is on your watchlist, but it was in rough shape. I've made a series of edits recently; hopefully, it's better than it was, but it seems like it has a ways to go. If it's something you'd be interested in contributing to, I'd be honored. Naturally, feel free to tweak/revert my changes, if not an improvement. There are also a couple of Talk page sections above that could use comment. Mathglot ( talk) 00:21, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
[[:File:Wild Side Story 1973 collage.jpg|thumb|left|1973 all male cast of Wild Side Story, performing in street clothes mixed with stage wadrobe, includes Roxanne Russell, and Rena Del Rio]] I did hours of work on a collage of very rare photos from 1973 that I have access to and added it to the article. To show several different styles of Drag (clothing). Soon deleted with this summary "Good subject in the image, but collages don't show up well, plus the original is of poor quality. Find a better one and include it." - as if there are a lot of relevant, rare, free images of that kind around to be plucked like abundant ripe fruit in a vast orchard. Oh, well! The word "picky" irresistably comes to mind. Sorry, You find a better one! I'm (knocked) out. -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 15:10, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
A discussion about the similarity and differences among several articles including Cross-dressing, Transvestism and other related articles (this one, Transvestic fetishism, Ball culture, et al.) is taking place at WT:LGBT. Your feedback is welcome. Mathglot ( talk) 22:32, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Recently, an IP added new section Ball culture. While there is plenty of good information here, it needs to be cut way back. The problem is: wrong venue. We already have an article entitled Ball culture, and the material should be merged there. Once that is done, by following the guideline about Summary style, this article may contain a brief section summarizing the "Ball culture" topic, as the Parent article. IP 2A02:8388:1600:9100:FC87:A2EE:DBD1:B8D8 (I've pinged you on your talk page) could you please move this information, or merge it into Ball culture first, and then we can see about what kind of summary we want to retain in this article. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 12:24, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
My edit summary " 'or' did not make sense there" was apparently not enough, so asked to explain after this reversal, OK: People who are disguised as women are always dressed as women. People who are dressed as women are at times in disguise as women, at times not disguised as women. Thus "or" is not an applicable word there. Is that difficult to understand? -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 20:08, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
I feel like Drag (performance) would be a better title based on the content of the article. Thoughts? –
Anne drew
02:21, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
It is my experience that some drag persons (queens as well as kings) who do not perform for any other audience than themselves alone. They entertain themselves, not the general public. Can we add that in some appropriate wording to the lead? -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 14:55, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Drag (entertainment) article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
![]() |
|
This page was created both because "drag" needed an article and as an attempt to clarify, improve and make more inclusive the articles on
drag queens and
drag kings. I have not redirected either of those articles yet, but that's what I hope to do. Please leave your comments below.
Exploding Boy 08:55, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)
The Drag article itself isn't bad. There is no need to throw in Drag King and Drag Queen, though. -- AlexR 19:15, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
What is the origin of the word Drag? Did it derive by combing fag with some other word?
Wearing drag is not only a LGBT thing,it implies that people who wear drag are gay or bi,when many drag wearers are not. Dudtz 6/10/06 6:27 PM EST
it does imply that
the articles for "male" and "female" are relevant to LGBT, clearly, and yet no table there. the table in this article is indicating a deep relationship between LGBT and drag, which doesn't exist. As many people *coughhomophobescough* make the connection mistakenly, the table should be removed for clarification. LGBT is specifically about sexual orientation, which has no connection to drag whatsoever. Makuta Bookworm 17:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Id like to take issue with a number of descriptions and statements in this article. However, the main objection I have is the use of the word 'straight' to describe those going to see the Rocky Horror show 'mostly straight men'... this term 'striaght' I feel is insulting and derrogatory because the opposite of straight is bent, meaning malformed, dysfunctional, deviant, wrongful. Please stop using this word 'straight' to describe hetero men (or women) or issues. They are simply 'hetero'. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
86.13.37.150 (
talk)
21:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
The article says, "The verb is to 'do drag.'" But there's no evidence cited. I've never heard "to do drag", but I've often heard "to go in drag".
Also, "A folk etymology whose acronym basis reveals the late 20th-century bias..." Which bias?
"Drag is practiced by people of all sexual orientations and gender identities." Is that verifiable? What about homophobia? There must be somebody who doesn't "do drag"! Unfree ( talk) 20:00, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
The expression 'to drag up' is certainly common in the United Kingdom, however if someone said they were going to 'do drag' I would be in no doubt as to what they meant Whitenoiseuk ( talk) 12:53, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
I was reading the section on Drag in the performing arts and it says "One is cross-dressing in the performance, which is part of the social history of theatre." I would like to point out that dressing in as a gender not one's own has been a part of the practice of the theater as far back as the middle ages, and perhaps even further. I think it should be noted in the article. » ɧʒЖχ ( ταικ• κоŋτяљ) 12:47, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
“The term originated in Athens, Greece in the fourth century B.C.E. when it was common practice for gender-noncomforming people to be dragged through the streets as punishment”
This sounds very dubious to me, especially since the basic verb 'to drag' is from Old English origins, not Greek. It is a pity the contributor has not cited a page reference for Professor Don Kulick’s book Travesti which appears to focus on transvestitism among Brazilian prostitutes.
The Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper suggests that
[Drag in the] sense of "women's clothing worn by a man" is said to be 1870 theatre slang, from the sensation of long skirts trailing on the floor (another guess is Yiddish trogn "to wear," from Ger. tragen)
Any thoughts? Whitenoiseuk ( talk) 12:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
I share Whitenoiseuk's concern. A great deal of time would have gone by between Ancient Athens and the modern usage causing me to question whether that usage could have continued that long. Beyond that, as Whitenoiseuk notes, the term would have had to somehow been translated from Ancient Greek to English. So the usage wouldn't have just persisted for a long time. It would have had to make enough sense for people to translate it into another language. I'm not saying it cannot be true but that it seems likely that there would have had to at least been other factors that caused the term "drag" to make sense to English speaking people. I like the Online Etymology Dictionary explanation Whitenoiseuk offers. It makes more sense in terms of date and language of origin. My personal suspicion is that it may not have simply been long skirts or simply used in connection with cross-dressing. I've always suspected that, at some point, any costume was referred to as one's "drag". But that is just my suspicion. That would relate, however, to the speculation Whitenoiseuk has offered about Yiddish or German and the fact that "drag" is not always used in reference to cross-dressing.. OdilonRedon ( talk) 20:47, 1 October 2010 (UTC)OdilonRedon
I checked the Oxford English Dictionary. All they have with regard to the term as used in the context of cross-dressing was an 1870 reference to someone saying "We shall come in drag" or something similar. (I talked to a reference librarian on the phone which is why I don't have the exact quote.) This is simply the earliest use of the term in that context that the OED has on record. The OED did not offer any annotations that the librarian could find with regard to how the usage developed. I did ask about that specifically. A second librarian was also checking the reference. OdilonRedon ( talk) 22:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)OdilonRedon
I have always understood the term to originate from Victorian cross dressers wearing the long skirts of the period in London. The rather exaggerated length dragged on the ground as they walked about. Unfortunately I don't have a reference for this. -- Ef80 ( talk) 13:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
The folk etymology is supposed to be: "dressed resembling a girl"; I have no reference for this. The article on Polari gives the origin as a Hindi word, entering English through Romany. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.13.52.125 ( talk) 20:12, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
The theatre section really could do with a bit about pantomime dames. I don't know enough myself about the history of pantomime to write this, but someone surely does. TRiG ( talk) 16:41, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
The article needs to be renamed. "Drag" in this sense, is not about the clothing, it's about the wearing of certain types of clothing (or makeup, or accessories) that are highly associated with one gender, by someone of the other gender. It isn't drag when it's hanging on the rack, and it isn't drag when worn by a person of the "right" gender.
The wrong title leads to all sorts of problems in the article, starting with the
first sentence which
currently says, The term "drag" usually refers to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender, but that's just not correct as it doesn't refer to the clothing at all, but rather the act of donning it by someone whose gender would normally be inappropriate for that type of clothing based on
gender roles in a particular time and place.
Perhaps a better title would be, "In drag", although that makes it an adjective or adverb, and article titles are usually nouns. Here's ngram viewer with some data for common expressions with "in drag". Alternatively, perhaps a different parenthetical disambiguation would resolve it, although I can't think of a single parenthesized word that would work. Mathglot ( talk) 10:21, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
I agreed 100% about this, thought about it a bit, worked on a collage of drag clothing in action, added it and almost immediiately struck out. Sad. See new section below. Good luck with this y'all! Sincerely (I am never sarcastic), -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 15:21, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
Verifiability is a core policy of Wikipedia, and unsourced material may be challenged and removed. The Performing arts section has very few references for its large size, so I've tagged it, and am hereby challenging the the section in its entirety, minus the limited portions substantiated by the four or five references present. Note that this section represents over half the article currently and contains the subsections Theatre, Opera, Film and television, and Music. I hope that references can be found, as much of the material is interesting, but if it takes slashing over half the article to bring it into compliance, then so be it.
In addition, some sections of the text in the section sound very polished, which otoh is great, but otoh I question whether some may have been copied from somewhere without the required attribution. The first paragraph of section Film and television for example includes this sentence:
The self-consciously risqué bourgeois high jinks of Brandon Thomas' Charley's Aunt (London, 1892) were still viable theatre material in La Cage aux Folles 1978...
and it remains pretty much intact since it was added on 6 July 2004. I did a web search but other than one print on demand book from 2013 and various mirror sites I haven't found a likely origin for it, so perhaps the phrasing is the editor's, however the text would still require citations from reliable sources, as does the whole section.
In any case, for now, I've just tagged the section, but if there's been no activity in, say, a month or so, then I'll start to prune this section down to remove unsourced material and remain in compliance with policy. Mathglot ( talk) 23:51, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
Pinging you here per your talk page request. Not sure if Drag (clothing) is on your watchlist, but it was in rough shape. I've made a series of edits recently; hopefully, it's better than it was, but it seems like it has a ways to go. If it's something you'd be interested in contributing to, I'd be honored. Naturally, feel free to tweak/revert my changes, if not an improvement. There are also a couple of Talk page sections above that could use comment. Mathglot ( talk) 00:21, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
[[:File:Wild Side Story 1973 collage.jpg|thumb|left|1973 all male cast of Wild Side Story, performing in street clothes mixed with stage wadrobe, includes Roxanne Russell, and Rena Del Rio]] I did hours of work on a collage of very rare photos from 1973 that I have access to and added it to the article. To show several different styles of Drag (clothing). Soon deleted with this summary "Good subject in the image, but collages don't show up well, plus the original is of poor quality. Find a better one and include it." - as if there are a lot of relevant, rare, free images of that kind around to be plucked like abundant ripe fruit in a vast orchard. Oh, well! The word "picky" irresistably comes to mind. Sorry, You find a better one! I'm (knocked) out. -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 15:10, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
A discussion about the similarity and differences among several articles including Cross-dressing, Transvestism and other related articles (this one, Transvestic fetishism, Ball culture, et al.) is taking place at WT:LGBT. Your feedback is welcome. Mathglot ( talk) 22:32, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Recently, an IP added new section Ball culture. While there is plenty of good information here, it needs to be cut way back. The problem is: wrong venue. We already have an article entitled Ball culture, and the material should be merged there. Once that is done, by following the guideline about Summary style, this article may contain a brief section summarizing the "Ball culture" topic, as the Parent article. IP 2A02:8388:1600:9100:FC87:A2EE:DBD1:B8D8 (I've pinged you on your talk page) could you please move this information, or merge it into Ball culture first, and then we can see about what kind of summary we want to retain in this article. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 12:24, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
My edit summary " 'or' did not make sense there" was apparently not enough, so asked to explain after this reversal, OK: People who are disguised as women are always dressed as women. People who are dressed as women are at times in disguise as women, at times not disguised as women. Thus "or" is not an applicable word there. Is that difficult to understand? -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 20:08, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
I feel like Drag (performance) would be a better title based on the content of the article. Thoughts? –
Anne drew
02:21, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
It is my experience that some drag persons (queens as well as kings) who do not perform for any other audience than themselves alone. They entertain themselves, not the general public. Can we add that in some appropriate wording to the lead? -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 14:55, 8 April 2023 (UTC)