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Decolonize That!
Decolonize Drag
Although imagined as a subcultural practice, drag seems to be everywhere we from AI filters on TikTok and SnapChat to brunchtime entertainment, from state legislations to political rallies. The pervasive presence of drag can be attributed to the intense popularity of reality TV competition RuPaul's Drag Race.
The show, screening its fourteenth season in 2022, is an unprecedented global queer phenomenon, spawning official spinoffs and a host of other series worldwide. Yet as drag enters the mainstream through this particularly fabulous, feminine, and commercialized format, some kinds of gender-based performance fall out of the purview of what we (could) call drag, and are at risk of erasure.
Decolonize Drag details the ways that gender is used as a form of colonial governance to eliminate various types of expression, and tracks how contemporary drag, including that on Drag Race, both replicates and disrupts these institutional hierarchies. This book focuses on several gender performers that resist and laugh at colonial projects through their aesthetic practices. It also features the voice of Khubchandani's drag alter ego, judgmental South Asian aunty LaWhore Vagistan. From the firsthand perspective of a drag artist, LaWhore describes encounters with depoliticized versions of drag that leave her disappointed and perplexed, and prompts Khubchandani for context and analysis.
Their dynamic sets the tone for the book, investigating how drag—and gender more broadly—has been privatized and delimited so that it's only available to certain people. Decolonize Drag argues for more abundance in and access to fashioning gender, and considers how drag changes meaning and efficacy as it shifts across geographies.
The show, screening its fourteenth season in 2022, is an unprecedented global queer phenomenon, spawning official spinoffs and a host of other series worldwide. Yet as drag enters the mainstream through this particularly fabulous, feminine, and commercialized format, some kinds of gender-based performance fall out of the purview of what we (could) call drag, and are at risk of erasure.
Decolonize Drag details the ways that gender is used as a form of colonial governance to eliminate various types of expression, and tracks how contemporary drag, including that on Drag Race, both replicates and disrupts these institutional hierarchies. This book focuses on several gender performers that resist and laugh at colonial projects through their aesthetic practices. It also features the voice of Khubchandani's drag alter ego, judgmental South Asian aunty LaWhore Vagistan. From the firsthand perspective of a drag artist, LaWhore describes encounters with depoliticized versions of drag that leave her disappointed and perplexed, and prompts Khubchandani for context and analysis.
Their dynamic sets the tone for the book, investigating how drag—and gender more broadly—has been privatized and delimited so that it's only available to certain people. Decolonize Drag argues for more abundance in and access to fashioning gender, and considers how drag changes meaning and efficacy as it shifts across geographies.
224 pages, Paperback
Published November 28, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 12, 2024
I got this book having read Khubchandani’s wonderful 2015 article “Lessons in Drag” where Kareem interviews LaWhore about her work. That scholarship had taught me something that Kareem writes about later in the book: political work “looks like laughter, enthusiasm, and fun (pg. 136).”
Decolonize Drag simultaneously details drag from an academic, popular, and personal perspective. Some of my favorite moments include:
- Ethnographies of nightclubs, especially scenes where Khubchandani credits queens for working with contradiction or visualizing labor.
- Making her own RuPaul puns in Chapter 3, especially “neolibRUlism.”
- LaWhore’s introduction and outroduction, nicely bookending the academic tone.
For myself, the beginning started a little slow as Kareem laid out more basic concepts defining drag in comparison to gender and in relationship to white supremacy. Not to say that that’s not important writing, I just personally felt like I had been exposed to these debates. However, I think this is a great book for an introduction to critical performance studies and a vision for what contemporary drag could and should become!
Decolonize Drag simultaneously details drag from an academic, popular, and personal perspective. Some of my favorite moments include:
- Ethnographies of nightclubs, especially scenes where Khubchandani credits queens for working with contradiction or visualizing labor.
- Making her own RuPaul puns in Chapter 3, especially “neolibRUlism.”
- LaWhore’s introduction and outroduction, nicely bookending the academic tone.
For myself, the beginning started a little slow as Kareem laid out more basic concepts defining drag in comparison to gender and in relationship to white supremacy. Not to say that that’s not important writing, I just personally felt like I had been exposed to these debates. However, I think this is a great book for an introduction to critical performance studies and a vision for what contemporary drag could and should become!
July 24, 2024
This has so much great commentary about what drag is in a variety of cultures (outside of white-washed pop culture). This critiques RuPaul's drag empire really well (from a fan of the franchize) and gives examples of how drag has been done and how it talks about far more than just gender. It ends with more about how to do decolonized drag (and how we should all go out there and fuck it up!). I would have loved for this to be even longer and more in depth, but it was still really great!
June 22, 2024
read an article by this scholar in fall term and it was really good so I was delighted to come across this book! super interesting and important topic that I didn’t know much about previously, written in a way that is both accessible and very informative. loved!!!
July 24, 2024
so i guess i do drag now, and that gives me a peripheral frame of reference for a decolonized practice of performance. overall, i feel justified in the artistic choices i've made so far, challenged to tweak my presentation in ways unforeseen, and craving more of the drag described throughout. after all, written word can only capture a spark of the lightning that electrifies live entertainment.
July 24, 2024
I decided to pick this up after a vendor from my local anarchist bookfair waxed poetic to me about it. I'm so glad I did. In fact, I loved this book so much I emailed the author as soon as I finished it just to tell him everything I thought was great about it. This is more or less what I had to say:
First, LaWhore Vagistan is the funniest drag name I've heard in a long time.
Right off the bat, the image of Kristy Yummykochi being disrobed by ICE agents was so powerful and haunting it had me in tears. I knew then, that I was in for a compelling read.
Going in, I expected a critique of drag, and this is what I got. But more than just being a sharp, well-informed and nuanced critique of the current state of drag as an art form and the way it's perceived by the mainstream, it's a celebration of its (too often unmet) potential. Khubchandani's passion for drag is palpable throughout the entire book, as is his admiration for his fellow artists.
I love that he consistently brings up examples of decolonized drag done right, by performers whom he speak of with so much reverence. Had I been one of these artists, I'd be very proud to have been featured in his work. This also speaks to his credibility: it's obvious he knows what he's talking about.
I also appreciate the way he applies his own critical theory to himself, for example by considering whether his call to decolonize drag is itself a colonizing move, or naming LaWhore Vagistan alongside other Asian queens who "[draw on] cutesy racialized wordplay ... to make themselves legible".
Khubchandani's humble approach, his ability to speak from a place of love without ever mincing his words, as well as his self-awareness, are what makes him stand out from other authors of critical theory who, in my opinion, tend to be overly preachy, patronizing and scolding in tone, bordering on whinyness. This makes these works annoying for me to read even when I agree with what is being said. Decolonize Drag is not like that. It is fun and lighthearted throughout.
Another cool thing is Khubchandani frequently gives shout outs to drag kings, who more often than not are underappreciated and left out of conversations on drag.
Now that I've read this book, the connection between gender and culture seems so obvious that I feel almost silly for not noticing it before. This is despite being well aware of the uniqueness my local drag scene as a result of its cultural and linguistic distinctions (I'm from Québec). Similar to LaWhore Vagistan, drag queens in Québec frequently play on the matante (Québécoise aunty) stereotype. However, their performance is completely different from that of LaWhore Vagistan despite also incarnating an "aunty" trope, because as Khubchandani explains it in his book, gender doesn't exist in a vacuum- it is informed by a host of other things including culture, race, ethnicity, geography, as well as class and disability status. (Another crucial thing is the matante represents the settler, the colonizer- not the colonized.) Thus, a Québécoise aunty is not a South Asian aunty is not a Mexican aunty and so on.
I couldn't describe in English what a matante is and how she differs from other aunties because language is so crucial to her character. If she doesn't speak Québec French, with all its quirks and eccentricities, she ceases to be a matante. And this is, unfortunately, where I have to remove one star from what would otherwise be a 5 star book: Khubchandani never addresses the topic of language or dialect. I was excited for him to explain how language impacts his performance of LaWhore Vagistan, but that moment never came. In my opinion, this makes his analysis incomplete. What does it mean to perform a character from a non-anglophone culture in an anglo-centric context? What does it mean to have to perform in the colonizer's language (whichever language it may be)? In doing so, what are the nuances that get lost in translation? This is only a sample of the many relevant questions that were sadly never explored. This is somewhat baffling given the role that language plays in the colonizer's toolkit.
I nonetheless consider Decolonize Drag to be required reading for everyone who partakes in drag -fan or performer- and everyone who thinks of themselves as understanders of gender. It is brilliant and thought-provoking. I plan on bothering all my friends about it until they decide to read it.
First, LaWhore Vagistan is the funniest drag name I've heard in a long time.
Right off the bat, the image of Kristy Yummykochi being disrobed by ICE agents was so powerful and haunting it had me in tears. I knew then, that I was in for a compelling read.
Going in, I expected a critique of drag, and this is what I got. But more than just being a sharp, well-informed and nuanced critique of the current state of drag as an art form and the way it's perceived by the mainstream, it's a celebration of its (too often unmet) potential. Khubchandani's passion for drag is palpable throughout the entire book, as is his admiration for his fellow artists.
I love that he consistently brings up examples of decolonized drag done right, by performers whom he speak of with so much reverence. Had I been one of these artists, I'd be very proud to have been featured in his work. This also speaks to his credibility: it's obvious he knows what he's talking about.
I also appreciate the way he applies his own critical theory to himself, for example by considering whether his call to decolonize drag is itself a colonizing move, or naming LaWhore Vagistan alongside other Asian queens who "[draw on] cutesy racialized wordplay ... to make themselves legible".
Khubchandani's humble approach, his ability to speak from a place of love without ever mincing his words, as well as his self-awareness, are what makes him stand out from other authors of critical theory who, in my opinion, tend to be overly preachy, patronizing and scolding in tone, bordering on whinyness. This makes these works annoying for me to read even when I agree with what is being said. Decolonize Drag is not like that. It is fun and lighthearted throughout.
Another cool thing is Khubchandani frequently gives shout outs to drag kings, who more often than not are underappreciated and left out of conversations on drag.
Now that I've read this book, the connection between gender and culture seems so obvious that I feel almost silly for not noticing it before. This is despite being well aware of the uniqueness my local drag scene as a result of its cultural and linguistic distinctions (I'm from Québec). Similar to LaWhore Vagistan, drag queens in Québec frequently play on the matante (Québécoise aunty) stereotype. However, their performance is completely different from that of LaWhore Vagistan despite also incarnating an "aunty" trope, because as Khubchandani explains it in his book, gender doesn't exist in a vacuum- it is informed by a host of other things including culture, race, ethnicity, geography, as well as class and disability status. (Another crucial thing is the matante represents the settler, the colonizer- not the colonized.) Thus, a Québécoise aunty is not a South Asian aunty is not a Mexican aunty and so on.
I couldn't describe in English what a matante is and how she differs from other aunties because language is so crucial to her character. If she doesn't speak Québec French, with all its quirks and eccentricities, she ceases to be a matante. And this is, unfortunately, where I have to remove one star from what would otherwise be a 5 star book: Khubchandani never addresses the topic of language or dialect. I was excited for him to explain how language impacts his performance of LaWhore Vagistan, but that moment never came. In my opinion, this makes his analysis incomplete. What does it mean to perform a character from a non-anglophone culture in an anglo-centric context? What does it mean to have to perform in the colonizer's language (whichever language it may be)? In doing so, what are the nuances that get lost in translation? This is only a sample of the many relevant questions that were sadly never explored. This is somewhat baffling given the role that language plays in the colonizer's toolkit.
I nonetheless consider Decolonize Drag to be required reading for everyone who partakes in drag -fan or performer- and everyone who thinks of themselves as understanders of gender. It is brilliant and thought-provoking. I plan on bothering all my friends about it until they decide to read it.
February 29, 2024
Mama, this is just so good. It's fun and quirky and very, very smart. I love the way it asks readers to reimagine what drag is, what drag can do, and how drag might change us—even those of us who don't do drag.
Actually scratch that. We're all born naked and the rest is drag. Of course we all already do drag. We just don't think about what we do as drag.
Khubchandani's book is a delight from start to finish, and it challenges all of us to consume drag more critically and celebrate all drag with a pile of dollar bills and more full-throated cheers.
Actually scratch that. We're all born naked and the rest is drag. Of course we all already do drag. We just don't think about what we do as drag.
Khubchandani's book is a delight from start to finish, and it challenges all of us to consume drag more critically and celebrate all drag with a pile of dollar bills and more full-throated cheers.
July 4, 2024
Great introduction to drag beyond RuPaul’s Drag Race and the ways that drag can signify outside of traditional “female impersonation” and intersect with the realities of race, class, and the reach of empire and colonialism. As someone who has been involved with and performed in punk drag spaces for many years, nothing particularly new here for me, but I HIGHLY recommend this book if you want to know more about drag and its politics outside of the mainstream.
February 26, 2024
Khubchandani's writing style is always engaging in fun. The way that queer vernacular is so easily mixed with their academic expertise impresses me every time. My only critique is that the book felt a bit rushed at times and I wish there was more expansion on the ideas of the book for me to sink my teeth into.
April 23, 2024
This was a solid read. I think it was a great introductory read into ideas and critical thinking that, while they may see obvious, are not often thought about in whiter audiences. Because they've got that ~privilege~ to not think deeper. It's a nice hybrid read between something campy and something more academic. Kareem does a great job of mixing queer phrases and academic "mumbo jumbo." lol
March 17, 2024
Definitely provides very important information about how to rethink drag in current queer spaces. A must read for anyone passionate about equality both within and outside of queerness. However, this was a book for class and didn’t blow my mind or anything.
September 11, 2023
Who knew a critique of the political economy of drag could be so fun? Every chapter packs a pun(ch)! This multi-layered analysis is timely, worldmaking, and most importantly – glamorous.
June 14, 2024
wowowow this was eye-opening, inspirational, and precisely critical. a necessary lens for drag a wide-reaching art form. thank you, Aunty! <3
June 19, 2024
Who do you picture when you picture a drag queen? RuPaul? A Dolly Parton look alike? Due to the commercial success of Drag Race and the financial need to appeal to the lowest common denominator with drag brunches, drag has been reduced to just technology (glam costumes, makeup, cinched waist) and technique (hyper femme body language, pop song lip sync). Author Kareem aka Aunty LaWhore Vagistan asks you to set aside what you think of as "real drag" and shows you what drag can really be (political, trans-inclusive). I was most moved by and intrigued by the examples of artists who use drag as a form of political protest, like Arouse Falastin, an Israeli citizen of Palestinian descent who calls for the liberation of her people. I hope I can find YouTube archival footage of some of the amazing sets referenced.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews