All dressed up with somewhere to go: Drag expressions on social media and the theatricality of the everyday | Intellect Skip to content
1981
Fashion, Erotic and Photography
  • ISSN: 2050-0726
  • E-ISSN: 2050-0734

Abstract

This article aims to explore the theatricality of the queered, costumed male body in drag in relation to domestic spaces. To achieve this aim, this exploration is done through the visual analysis of one case study as a methodological tool to examine imagery that presents the male body transformed into a hyperbolic manifestation of itself. The imagery examined in this article exposes the queered space of the costumed male body as a vessel in which it is read from a diversity of perspectives: the aesthetic body, the political body and the ethical one. This examination is guided by Alan Read’s notion of the theatricality of the everyday, Peter Boenisch’s concept of relational dramaturgy and Erving Goffman’s frame analysis as a methodological tool for the dramaturgical exploration of images posted online. Imagery posted online as part of the ambit of the mundane affects and interacts with immaterial spectatorship, other representational bodies and the performativity of the new scenographic space created by its presence online. The proposed immaterial queered, costumed body online becomes a space for theatricality that yields visual cues for viewers in this newly created theatrical space. The dramaturgical possibilities of the representational body facilitate an emblematic quality of the fabric of the mundane and transform it into a new point of reference from which to read theatricality.

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2021-05-01
2024-04-26
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References

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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): body; costume; masculinities; performance; queer; space
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