Premium
Behind the Make‐Up: Gender Ambivalence and the Double‐Bind of Gay Selfhood in Drag Performance
Author(s) -
McNeal Keith E.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
ethos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1548-1352
pISSN - 0091-2131
DOI - 10.1525/eth.1999.27.3.344
Subject(s) - ambivalence , sociology , gender studies , normative , hegemony , romance , human sexuality , dialectic , power (physics) , queer , psychology , aesthetics , psychoanalysis , social psychology , epistemology , politics , art , political science , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , law
This paper examines the motivational role of ambivalence in the genesis and reproduction of drag performance ritual, focusing on a particular drag cabaret in Atlanta, Georgia. Drag ritual has evolved as an institutionalized performance genre in response to a core set of ambivalent conflicts in the culturally modeled subjectivities of gay men due to the psychocultural hegemony of hetero‐normative models of gender and sexuality. This situation means that the gay male life‐course is characterized by a dialectic of transgression and conformity stemming from conflict derived from both masculine and feminine self‐representations, understood here as the "double‐bind of gay selfhood." The paper argues for theoretical expansion within cultural models analysis and emphasizes the relevance of performance theory, feminism, and the analysis of culture and power in psychological anthropology.