As we get deeper into the 2000s it started to be harder to find drag in modern films. So we are expanding the range of this column to include television series. Who is the first man in a dress? Robert Livingston dressed in drag when he starred in the 1944 film Goodnight Sweetheart. The film […]
Today Drag in Cinema looks at three films featuring male actors in drag. Coming to America with Arsenio Hall dressed as a woman in a nightclub scene playing opposite his male self, Peter O’Toole as a drunken lord in full farthingale in Rebecca’s Daughters, and Christopher Lee in the 1972 horror flick The Wicker Man. Lee is the high priestess (priest?) of a pagan cult.
Dina Amberle has been in the kitchen all day cooking up a feast for her avid patrons. Today she roasts some of the benefits of the pandemic lockdown for trans and nonbinary folks. While that’s working in the oven she puts on a pot and boils up some right wing over-reaction to trans girls in girls’ sports. Then she adds in an appreciation from the viewpoint of a crossdresser for women’s figure skating, and fires up another burner to heat up some Black Lolitas. For dessert Dina bakes a tasty tart featuring a fashion blogger with a quirky sense of style. Don’t miss out on the fare you’ll find at Dina’s Diner.
Today we take a look at female impersonation in Japanese cinema. The following films used men to portray female characters. Unlike many movies made in the USA the “man in a dress” was not meant to get laughs. The actors were honestly portraying female characters. Tamasaburo Bando “Yasha-ga-ike” (“Demon Pond,” ) 1979 is a foreign […]
Digging into the TGForum Archives we found a post from 1997 by Ms Bob & Carol Kleinmaier on the early 20th century female impersonator Julian Eltinge. He appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway and in movies, both silent and the talkies. There hasn’t been a female impersonator as popular or famous until the arrival of RuPaul on the drag scene. Julian Eltinge, The Crinoline Girl is our Retro Rerun and is illustrated with photos that did not appear in the original post.
It’s TransTainment time! From online Christmas drag to and 11-hour drag marathon for New Year’s Eve, we’ve got all the news. RuPaul’s queens will be working overtime with online streaming events. Courtney Act stars in a live on stage play in London, and it’s been 50 years since the performance art theater group The Cockettes came into being in San Francisco. Find out all about it in this month’s TransTainment.
For the past few years we’ve been running our Drag in Cinema feature. This month we forego the need for “cinema” using drag and present a slideshow of actors from film and TV whose work required them to appear in drag. Among them are Dr. Strange and Captain America, Captain Kirk, and a former Doctor Who. See who these ladies actually are in our Male Celebrities Doll Up feature.
Our Columbian correspondent, Katherine Diaz, files a report on how the worldwide pandemic has affected the crossdressing and drag communities in her nation. She also announces a virtual present to the world that will happen in December. Read on to learn just what it will be.
Alt-comix cartoonist Steven Lafler has giving TGForum the chance to publish his newest work, “1956 Sweet Sweet Little Ramona.” The story is about Ramón, a.k.a. Ramona who hails from Texas and is a young trans women looking to be herself in the atmosphere of 1950s New York City. It ain’t easy! She descends into working the streets to support herself while she dreams of becoming a fashion model. This is her story we are presenting with a new page every week. (BTW, if you want to correspond with the cartoonist on TGF she’s known as Fiona Mallratte.)
This edition of our Drag in Cinema blog is a bit different. Rather than showcasing cisgender male actors donning drag in the interest of the film’s plot the films featured today all star professional drag queens. Among them; Panti Bliss, Bianca Del Rio, and Jinkx Monsoon.
Today we slip the constraints of linear time and bounce around the time stream to check out drag in cinema that missed covering in previous editions of Drag in Cinema. We look at Back to the Future, Part II, Trick from 1999, and the 2006 feature She’s The Man which features a female character impersonating her brother at an exclusive school. Then we stop 2010 for All Good Things, a film based on the exploits of suspected murderer Robert Durst.
When Drag in Cinema looked at the films of the 1990s we missed a few instances of men in drag. Among the Pedro Almodóvar’s ninth film High Heels. It was released in 1991 and featured a male actor portraying a judge who adopts a drag performer disguise as well as another male disguise. Then we take a look at Mixed Nuts, the 1994 remake of a French comedy that features Liev Schrieber in drag. 1996 brought us I Shot Andy Warhol with two male actors portraying Warhols superstars, and then in 1999 Willem Defoe does a scene in drag in the vigilante action pic Boondock Saints. Get ready to go to the movies with Drag in Cinema!
Today Katherine Diaz, our Columbian Correspondent, looks back briefly at the roots of drag as performance and part of street culture. As long as there have been different attire for the sexes there have been males who adopt feminine presentations to entertain, to express their own femininity, or to poke straight culture in the eye. And Katherine, as always, provides a video to go along with the blog.
Drag in Cinema is well into the first decade of the 21st century when we start with Hairspray in 2007 and John Travolta becoming Edna Turnblad, through the years up to 2012 and the spectacle of Ron Perlman in drag. There are a couple of other films in between and we have a video of the makeup and prosthetics it took to transform Travolta.
Today’s Drag in Cinema starts in 2004 with the film Connie and Carla and takes us through the first decade of the 21st century till 2007. In between we look at Stage Beauty, Kinky Boots, Big Momma’s House 2 and several more. We also talk about a trilogy of underground films produced by and starring RuPaul that she made in the ’80s but rebooted in 2007.
We call it TransTainment and it’s news about transgender people in the arts and entertainment! Today we look back to the 1968 documentary The Queen which follows drag contestants in 1967’s Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant. Then we learn about the first trans character coming to The Chi. A Southeast Asian trans activist and artist is mixing art and activism. Laverne Cox has produced a film about the way transgender people have been featured in film and TV. Doctor Who, in the audio adventures, has a new Companion and she’s transgender. Josie Totah is starring in an updated Saved By The Bell as a popular cheerleader. And that’s not all of our trans entertainment news.
Today Drag in Cinema looks at the use of drag in films from the 1990s. The decade kicked off with Tila Swinton in male drag in Orlando. It ended with the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a character identified as a drag queen in the film Flawless in the last year of the decade. In between there are several films that used drag for mostly comedic purposes, and one film that celebrates drag for the joy it can bring.
Kristy Leigh takes a scholarly look at three of the films in the 1990s that presented transgender characters as not just freakish beings who defied gender norms but began to move toward more diversity for transgender characters. The films she discusses are “Paris is Burning”, “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”, and “The Crying Game”. There are footnotes.
What do you call it when transgender actors, musicians, singers and other performers create exciting characters and works in the arts? We call it TransTainment! Today we bring news of the winner in the Secret Celebrity Drag Race, it’s an actor from Riverdale, learn about Billy Porter’s Met Gala Instagram challenge, meet Brazilian drag queen singer Pabllo Vittar, and several others. Do not fail to get caught up on trans people in the arts with your monthly dose of TransTainment!
It has been several weeks since our lives forcibly changed making us take the virtual path as the most relevant at the moment, and feel a slight reflection on what our lives were before. Before this, my artistic life ran from bar to bar or from cultural place to cultural place. Now, it goes from […]
After presenting all of the Drag in Cinema articles from the TGForum Archives we continue to move the series along. Today we look at the use of drag characters in films from the 1980s. From Victor/Victoria to Torch Song Trilogy, these films had an impact on movie audiences. Dustin Hoffman’s character finds the only way he can land an acting job is to cross the gender border and audition as a woman. Along the way he learns things about being a man. Torch Song Trilogy took a four hour play and turned it into a two hour film that educated a straight audience about the life of a drag performer. Read on for more about drag in the cinema of the ’80s.
Today it’s a frothy mix of songs in honor of the Transgender Day of Visibility, the drag queen from the CW show “Katy Keene”, transgender comedians — and space art. That’s right. A transgender artist’s work is orbiting the Earth right now. It’s all the showbiz and arts news in the feature we call TransTainment! With trans artists, performers, and musicians and themes featuring trans people.
The New Drag In Cinema feature kicks off with coverage of few films from the 1970s that were not covered in the old Drag In Cinema column. From well known iconic films like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the original French production of La Cage aux Folles, to lesser known films that featured drag, even a Soviet made-for-TV movie based on Charlie’s Aunt, you’ll find the today in our new Drag In Cinema column.
I want to highlight the talent of many Drag artists who attended this great fashion show event I organized called Di-Modelare. I have few words to express the talent that was observed that day, from the deepest and most romantic to the most eclectically invigorating and transcendental. It was a fashion event embodied in nine […]
TransTainment fills you in on happenings in the arts and entertainment involving transgender actors, drag queens, and transgender driven stories and songs. Today we look at a new play by Charles Busch, learn about a new film starring Jazz Jennings, are introduced to the person who was the USA’s first drag queen, learn about Billy Porter’s appearance on Sesame Street, and discuss RuPaul’s appearance on SNL. TransTainment is the TWIT of showbiz and the arts!
Melanie Yarborough of Sand Diego’s Neutral Corner reports on San Diego’s Imperial Court’s 48th Annual Coronation. The Imperial Court system has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for many charities and causes. It was originally founded in San Francisco in 1965 by José Julio Sarria. The San Diego chapter of the Imperial Court was founded half a decade later in 1971. Last weekend the San Diego Court welcomed its new emperor and empress. Melanie has all the details.
