Nordic Journal of African Studies (Sep 2023)
Queer Femme Drag Futures
Abstract
To document an inclusive and comprehensive queer history means to write about queer femininity and queer femmes. Depending on their perceived outward form, queer femmes are often the most hypervisible and overtly queer, yet at other junctures also the most invisibilized. Often also the most disparaged and overlooked, it is in aesthetic performance, such as drag, where queer femmes are most celebrated and most visible. Cape Town has a long running history of queer femme drag performance, yet there is not a rich history of documenting the lives and experiences of those who perform and participate in drag performance in this place that has somehow gained the enduring moniker of ‘Africa’s Gay Capital’. José Esteban Muñoz (2009, 1) writes in Cruising Utopia that “the here and now is a prison house”, and that it is queerness that allows the individual or group to look beyond the boundaries of where we are trapped. In considering heteronormative ideals regarding dress, presentation, perception, and roles in our society, I look towards the queer femme aesthetic performance and presentation of drag as a tool that allows individuals and groups to go beyond Muñoz’s prison house of the here and now. As Black and Brown Queer South Africans, individually, and as a group, we are confronted with political, social, and, historical trauma, both consciously and unconsciously. Invoking Christina Sharpe’s (2016) concept of ‘the wake’ alongside Muñoz’s ‘prison house’, I aim to discuss the role of queer femme aesthetic performances in the wake of historical trauma for those who seek joyful queer experiences in Cape Town through the mode of drag performance. This article will address queer femme drag as an aesthetic performance and response to the historic and systemic violence perpetrated against the People of Colour in the Western Cape of South Africa who largely make up the participants of drag performances and pageantry here.
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