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Cultural Construction of Gender
Gender as a social construct of society and culture
Cultural Construction of Gender
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I.
Introduction
“I always say “we’re born naked and the rest is drag.” Any performer who puts on an outfit to project an image is in drag. Everything you put on is to fit a preconceived notion of how you wanna be seen. It’s all drag. Mine is just more glamorous‟ (RuPaul, Baker 1994:258).
In this research paper I will examine pop icon Lady Gaga’s portrayal of her alter ego 'Jo Calderone' as s/he displays drag as a critical intervention into the media’s claims of the real. Through her status as a pop icon, she intentionally involves with and satirises conventional ideas about what is ‘proper’ in terms of gender norms with her portrayal of drag, namely, her alter ego – Jo Calderone.
This includes the dissection of masculinity and femininity
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Judith Butler’s theoretical understandings have described drag to a larger extent and clarified it more commonly. She states that the way in which we dress and present ourselves, in terms of behaviourally and aesthetically hold particularly gendered semiotics that create a specific ‘identity’ due to collectively ‘conventional’ signs that resemble with each sex. These contrasting definitions allow for a more thorough investigation of drag in relation to the performative and performativity, an investigation that leads away from its common associations and investigates the claim that “It’s all …show more content…
We do this by examining the means of entertainment through performance. In a more commonly known sense, a classified drag performance is made up of a performer clothed in a costume that is visually representative of the opposing gender of that of the performer. Allowing hair and make up to coincide with that of the chosen gender. All features of this costume are ‘usually’ exaggerated to accentuate the feminine or masculine given trait intended by the costume. It is also accentuated through the behavioural characteristics exhibited by the performer. Thus novelty is created through the apposition of semiotics and signs. In saying so, we believe that the audience is aware of the biological gender the performer exhibits – he is a male; yet this gendering is confused by the female-gendered signs portrayed through the costume, make up, hair and behavioural characteristics. It is this novelty that consents for drag, in this sense, to be a form of entertainment. This is because the idea of the socially/culturally accepted norm is challenged, making this fascinating to
Today we can see items of clothing that are commonly worn that have grown out of this initial innovation of freeing a woman’s body. This can be seen in clothing from the Spring 2017 New York Fashion week (see Figure 2), as the model’s bodies are freed by the more minimal use of material. The lowering of necklines and the increase in skin shown in haute couture over the decades is owed to Art Deco fashion and is symbolic of the rise of women’s rights over the years, as the physical discomfort and restrictions that the tight corsets of previous eras could be considered of women’s place in society. The new style being a stance against the oppression. It dictates that a persons own comfort and style is to the upmost importance, not to contort one’s body into something it is not meant to. Today it is shown in loose and cropped pants, shorts, low necklines, cropped tops, and various other clothing that reveals skin that was once covered. Art Deco fashion is also seen today through “chic garçonne” ideal that emerged out of early feminism that made women want to do the same things that men could, and so adopted smoking, sport, an interest in vehicles, a flirty sense of
Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988): 519-31. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Web. 11 May 2011.
Next, Butler theory suggest that bodily representation are subversive within sexual minorities. This in essence is Butler proposing that bodily representation within the queer community go against the social conventions which have been gendered by social norms. She states “Such acts, gestures, enactments, generally constructed, are performative in the sense that the essence or identity that they otherwise purport to express are fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other discursive means.” this points out performativity as being a key factor in social representation, the inner reality gets presented by the outer reality, although this suggests that acts and gestures are natural it too suggests that subversive
It is hard to imagine drag not consisting of a type of stage activity and of being a part of a theatrical performance. Contreras also points in Ester Newton’s book, Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. In framing drag’s importance to queer theory, it is also important to consider drag practice also a particular expression of racial identify (Contreras, 2005). In this book, Contreras explains that drag´s relationship to sexual and racial identities are discussed in a context in which relatively is visible academic work about drag, such as Marjorie Garber’s books Vested Interest: Cross Dressing and Cultural Anxiety where she elides these
In “performative acts” Judith Butler argues gender identity a success induced by social sanction, she argues that we are not born into gender, gender is created by your performance. She always believes gender is a topic that should not be binary, the fact that gender is binary makes people think they only have two choices and thinking they don’t have their own choice to make. When the author says performance he means performance by acts of the body. Butler reflects gender as a coming from and spirit within the inside of you
...mance as Ixion gained rave reviews, but when she moved to another theater, the reviews took an abrupt shift to the discourse of burlesque. They called it the “leg business” and the “nude drama,” and performers were recast as “brazen-faced, stained, yellow-haired, padded limbed creatures” (Allen 16). Burlesque became to be known as a vehicle to over-sexualize women and an opportunity for women to parody masculinity. William Dean Howells wrote an essay on burlesque, he declared: “[T]hough they were not like men, [they] were in most things as unlike women, and seemed creatures of a kind of alien sex, parodying both. It was certainly a shocking thing to look at them with their horrible prettiness, their archness in which was no charm, their grace which put to shame” (Allen 25). Burlesque could be said to be grounded in the aesthetics of transgression and the grotesque.
The way the Gurlesque applies mockery and exaggeration through a feminist perspective is more often than not directly linked with a subverted language, a language that purposefully deviates from what is standardized as “the proper language for a woman”. Refusing such standardization and responding to masculine “high-art”, the poems exhibit a political stance through the Gurlesque which employs the feminist understanding that multiplicities and even conflicting alternatives could very well coexist (Irigaray 28-29). The aesthetics of the distasteful comes into question in that regard and constitutes the third completing element of the Gurlesque. The Gurlesque copies the masculine culture without identifying with it, that is to say, it kitschifies
As Entwistle eloquently claims, " it is through our bodies that we see and come to be seen in the world." By using the phrase "come to be seen in the world," Entwistle introduces how dress serves not only as an expedient for individual expression, but also as a mediator between our internal identity and social rules. Our performance of gender is coherent with what societal conventions define as the appropriate set of characteristics of a woman. This dual purpose of dress is manifest in the manner in which Jenner dresses her body: all attempts are made to exaggerate the feminine aspects of her body. For example, her satin corset drapes alluringly around her hips, accentuating the curvature of her hips. She employs significant cosmetics to further beautify her face in order to create a sensual aura. The emphasis on her Jenner 's aesthetics is in concurrence with the importance placed on a female 's looks. The aesthetic appeal is often one of the defining characteristics of a female. And thus, Jenner 's body is dressed in the way a female 's body should be dressed. In conclusion, Jenner 's dressed body plays a salient role in Jenner 's articulation and expression of her new feminine
...on and inherent likeness. The typecasts of gender are successfully erased—men can be feminine, and women can be masculine. The dancers become asexual bodies on stage, celebrated for their complexities and beauty regardless of gender. Developed in the context of an era in which gender equality was struggling to be realized, Bella Figura constructs its own version of gender equality through the homogenous application of nudity.
First, no matter what is represented on stage, the fact that boys are actually playing cross dressing men and women is insistently metaphorical; the literal fact of trans-vestism (that is, the boy actor impersonating either a woman, a woman cross dressed as a man, or a man cross dressed as a woman, not the represented character) is divided between the homoerotic and the blurring of gender. On the other hand, the represented female character who cross dresses functions literally to relieve the boy actor, at least for a time, from impersonating a woman. Represented characters who cross dress may pre-sent a variety of poses, from the misogynist mockery of the feminine to the adroitly and openly homoerotic. In the case of the title character of Jonson's Epicoene, the motif is utilized as disguise intended to effect a surprise ending for Morose and his heterosexual audience, for whom the poet also pr...
Funnily drag did not n’t start out as a form of expression but as a necessity. In Ancient Greece, women could not n’t perform in plays because it was considered deemed “too dangerous”(Conger). In the middle ages, Europe’s Christian church continued the ban
I.) Juarez, Vanessa, and Claire Sulmers. "They Dress to Express." Newsweek 144.14 (2004): 62-63. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 4 Apr. 2011.
My personal interest project is an investigation into the intercultural communication within drag culture. This topic was developed from my interest in drag performers and the stigma associated with this culture. The concepts of persons, society, culture, identity and gender will be evaluated within this culture. A drag performer is a person who dresses in the typical clothing of the opposite gender and often acts with exaggerated feminine or masculine gender roles for the purpose of entertainment or fashion. A drag queen is a male who dresses in typical feminine clothing and in a feminine gender role while a drag king is a female who dresses in typical masculine clothing and in a masculine gender role. Drag performers tend to exaggerate certain
6. Hammond, Colleen. "Dressing with Dignity - History of Women's Fashion Industry - How to Fight Sexual Revolution and Immodesty in Dress!" N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013.
Introduction Most new moms and dads wonder what to except for their newborn baby's development and whether their child's development is on target. Within the first 12 months of a child's life, they will undergo an incredible transformation at an astounding pace. Each baby will reach milestones at a different pace and keep that in mind while we will go over the stages of development from an infant to a toddler. Birth to Three Months During the first three months of baby’s