Wednesday, January 24, 2018

DRAG NOSTALGIA III

This post finds us where we last left...now entering into the late40's.In the late 1940s, leaders like J. Edgar Hoover pushed for the U.S. to adopt greater conservatism. This photo shows that drag performance could still be mainstream, though. Ironically, J. Edgar Hoover was also rumored to... of being a transvestite.
1947: The Flamingo Club in Los Angeles was one of the hottest performance houses in town, attracting both gay and straight audiences. And despite growing conservatism in the United States, a drag queen could still make a living and please hundreds of fans.

1950: This San Antonio drag queen proves that traditional states like Texas could appreciate drag entertainment.

The 1950s were more “Leave it To Beaver” than drag-friendly, but queens like Kitt Russell still remained. And continued to sell out houses night after night.

1952: Clubs like the Jewel Box Revue and Madame Arthur’s French Fun House continued to delight audiences with nightly drag shows.

1952: The “Fun-Maker’s Ball” proves that drag balls continued to flourish in the 1950s.

The art of “female impersonation” continued to evolve as quickly as the make-up quality. Professional drag queens were expected to be "passable" as actual women.

1956: Drag celebrity impersonations, like this one of Marilyn Monroe, began to appearing in acts,and were proving more popular in drag acts.
1960s: The 1960s were a time of great change and revolution, especially sexually. The era of McCarthyism and Eisenhower was over.
Drag queens began to gather more regularly and openly in some of the country's first gay bars, such as the Stonewall Inn. Even this photo from Kansas City, MO, shows that drag entertainment had spread to the Midwest.
Drag continued to evolve from “female impersonators” and professional performers into a form of creative self-expression for gay men.Drag became less about a making a living and more about finding a community.

1960s: Though not emblematic of the “drag scene,” this unique photo shows a 1960s Los Angeles police troop in drag. There were frequent attacks on older women by muggers, so the police dressed in drag as a trap.

1969: This photo, taken the same year as the Stonewall Riots, shows a similar plan in NYC. This drag-wearing cop might actually have been part of the raids.
1969: In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. 
Such raids were not unusual in the late 1960s, an era when homosexual sex was illegal in every state but Illinois. That night, however, the street erupted into violent protests, lead by a number of drag queens, and street demonstrations that lasted for the next three days. The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay rights movement in the United States and around the world. And would bring drag even further out of the closet.

19 comments:

  1. Ah, sixties fashion was kind to absolutely no one! That picture of all of the cops in drag looks like a group of immigrants from the "old country" wherever that is. The following picture, the expressions on the faces of the two women eyeing the cop are priceless!

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    1. I KNOW! those ladies are like "WTF is THAT?"

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  2. I have been enjoying this and other years you have done this. I remember when that sorry excuse for a network LOGO started "drag history month". Nothing more then a ploy to get viewers and hype up Drag Race. Not one mention of any history EVER. I even wrote a letter asking about this and where the history was. Never got a response. LOGO is an insult to the community. Thank goodness Drag Race jumped to VHI. But THANK YOU for your posts over the years. It is probably one of maybe 15 sites one can find any info of drag history. Thank you for that. You have quite the archives of queens!

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    1. Couldn't agree more with you sister.

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  3. Goddess Orie1/25/2018

    First time to comment!!!!!

    I too agree with Cleo.Thank you so much for posting this!!! When I heard about drag history month a couple years back, I thought exactly the same thing. As a non normative drag performer myself, I found it offensive. However I am slightly less eloquent with words. Fuck LOGO!!!! Stay Glam!

    xoxoxo
    Goddess Orie

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    1. Welcome Goddess.... and stop but in any time and feel free to chime in.

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  4. What an evolution. May we never experience the era of Pencism.

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  5. It's amazing to see the changes in clothes and hair, and attitudes, over the years.

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  6. I too have liked this series....its been nice to see the evolution of drag. Makes you wonder who the first drag queen may have been.

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    1. Not sure of a name, but I'm guessing it was probably a guy in Greece in a play to claim that prize

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  7. Another interesting installment! xoxoxox

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  8. Another great post. A community's history is important... "You can't know where you're going until you know where you've been." Too many LGBTQ youngsters don't appreciate what the previous generations had to go through to reach this tenuous point of acceptance.
    Hugs!

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  9. Imagine arresting people for wearing a dress, what a waste.

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  10. I wish I could ask one of those drag queens what they think of drag now a days. Like on their looks, style and techinque.

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  11. Kitt Russell was divine!

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  12. Thank you for sharing this wonderful information. History is important, because they contain life lessons learned the hard way. And if we're smart, we pay attention and use that hard won knowledge to make life better for us and the people we care about.

    I'm guessing that the 60s drag queens were high when they decided to put together their looks...

    And I'd definitely have to be high to believe those LA and NY cops could pass as women...

    The blond musician in Madame Arthur’s French Fun House has done the impossible: She has made the accordion look elegant and sexy!

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    1. You must not have had enough Tide Pods yet if you don't find those cops in drag hot.

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