Drag has always cameoed in Hollywood films, early examples being Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers and Jerry Lewis for comedic effect. It all changed when Some Like It Hot (1959) was released and hoisted drag onto the big screen and within the public consciousness.
Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis starring as two musicianswho disguise themselves as women to escape from the mob. The film avoids demonising the men, and the end sequences between Lemmon and Joe E. Brown is iconic. It leads to Lemmon’s character exposing the Brown that he is a man, to which Brown responds “Nobody’s perfect”. Despite being played for laughs, it depicts an acceptance for drag and a provacative closing sentence.
A year later, this acceptance would change and turn into something more sinister. A man in drag becomes a murdering psychopath. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), replaced the comedic association with drag to madness and murder. The public perception of drag is changed for the worst, and people associate drag with homicidal insanity.
Homicidal (1961), Gunn (1967) and The Tenant (1976) are just a few examples of films enforcing the stereotype that drag and violent mental illnesses are connected as the killers in these films are in drag. The mainstream cinema perpuates these harmful stereotypes, but indie cinema had began to subvert these stereotypes,
John Walter’s Female Trouble (1974) was one of the first films since Psycho to use drag as comedy and as a punch-line. Divine was the ultimate drag queen and she had a unique magnetism that made her a star. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) was another example of a film where drag was campy fun and became iconic for anyone interested in drag.
By the 1980s, drag began to be less threatening and more family-friendly. With AIDS ravaging the gay and trans communities, the world needed to remove the harmful stereotypes of drag. One of the key films that changed this, was Tootsie (1982).
Family films like Tootsie, Mrs Doubtfire (1993) and The Birdcage (1996) humanised drag and gave meaning behind it. In Mrs Doubtfire, the lead character dresses up in drag to see his children and learns to be a better father. The Birdcage brings together a conversative and liberal family together with drag. That drag can be heroic and liberating.
Drag became a mainstream success, and Yentl (1983) became an award-winning film about a woman in drag. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) became a surprise hit for its positive LGBT theme and introducing it into the mainstream. Whilst films like Tootsie were mainstream, they didn’t focus on LGBT drag.
Since the late 90s, drag in cinema has two representations. The first is for comedic effect, with Tyler Perry’s Madea franchise being a prime example. A mainstream comedy normalised drag to the masses and lead to fans of the art form. Hurricane Bianca (2016) starring Biance Del Rio shows the instance when real-life drag queens use their personalities to make their own films.
The second form of drag is more serious and geared towards individuality of the characters. In Les Miserables (2012), the character of Éponine changes her changes from feminine to masculine to join the rebellion.
The upcoming film Mulan (2020) has a similar theme in which the title character dresses in drag to save her father’s life. Kinky Boots (2005) is a comedy film in which a drag queen saves a shoe business, but it humanises drag and shows that they are normal, and not abnormal creatures.
Drag in TV has a more diverse representation with shows like The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula and RuPaul’s Drag Race. The shows may have catty elements, but show the heart of the drag stars and that drag is an art form that represents their personality.
Drag has gone through a transition throughout history, sometimes for the best and sometimes for the worst. With popular shows making drag more acceptable, there is hope that the future of drag in cinema will be bigger. Hopefully we’ll have a new genre of drag films.
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