male lesbian icons / female gay male icons S&D

Destroy: Isn't it just getting BORING that the Voguing-style Doll Icons are always so cookie-cutter repetitive! Er: hullo, Stonewall was 31 years ago, Pat Califia has been a MAN for [actually I don't know how long, but two or three years], and why are the WOMEN YOU CLAIM AS INSPIRATION so distant from ACTUAL GRRRLS IN THE WORLD?!?

(Gee, I'm turning into Julie Burchill by mistake.)

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and she's the furthest from a woman it'as fucking possible to get.

What's a "voguing-style doll icon"? The ideal form of the drag diva?

Er, yes, exactly that. Sorry: I was having trouble steering last night, and I kinda lost it on that particular lingo-bend.

Well, except "ideal" has to actually stretch to NAMES and FACES (ie Diana Ross zzz) which I also could not conjure up last night.

But who wants to be a Real Girl when you can be a fake one?? Although - one year for Halloween I put on drag for the 1st time in my life and I was determined to not go cheesy frat-boy style w/hairy legs, poorly done makeup, etc. I wore wide silk slacks, tight embroidered shirt, blonde bob wig and just a touch of makeup. Normal Girl, total class. Everyone assumed my friend Matt had brought a date. But female icons for gay men seem to need a hint of the outrageous, a bauble-ish decadence, they have to be "fabulous". I think: maybe because these things are extra, that they're the external artifice of femininity -- so the diva image is accessible in a way that the Real Girl is not. Which points to a lack of initiative on the part of Real Girls everywhere: hey Real Girls! Give us some signifiers to work with here!!! FUN ones!

That's just it though, drag tirelessly trying to resisitate camp (which is dead, or at worse, coopted into the mainstream) is becoming more of a burlesque thing of the past. Feminity takes more representational codes and drag queens are making surreal/hyperreal spectacles, not trying to emulate the grrls (would a grrl be running around spray painted green in platforms looking like Godzilla-meets- Gaultier?) True - some stragglers are still trying to perform the diva-numbers, but the real inspirations are coming from art and culture at the margins... In fact, some of the most daring and original drag queens are now hosting local indie-shows and providing between set entertainment that are more avant-guarde than most performance art i've seen. Search people like Leigh Bowerey (sp?) for an idea...

Indie drag....?? I dunno, Jason. I'm not an expert but it just seems like... NOT the point. I'm trying to imagine someone dragging up as one of my grrl friends.... dirty jeans, baseball jersey. Hmm. I mean I like it, but... The thrill and power is a Man Putting on Women's Things, and the more obviously womanish the better I'd think - high hair, over the top. You're right - in the last few years there's been an interest in the class-girl plain jane look, but it's still hyper-stylized femininity. The trappings of the double-standard seem essential, tho I'm clueless as to why...

Uhh, Tracer Hand - you lost me... but that's ok, it's all just fabulous genderblur in the new millenium.