Throughout the 20th century, drag performance was a poorly paid — and often poorly regarded — niche within gay nightlife, while also a practice linked to radical liberation politics and subversive drag collectives, immortalised in arthouse documentaries like The Cockettes (2002). In this talk, Dr Zeena Feldman examines the current professionalisation and mainstreaming of drag culture in the UK, US and other Global North geographies, and asks ‘How did we get here?’. How did drag move from the fringes to transform into the lucrative, global industry it is today?

Dr Feldman argues that social media platforms and other digital 'technologies of the self', along with the international success of RuPaul’s Drag Race (now on its 17th season), have brought drag culture unprecedented levels of visibility, celebrity and commercial success. But in mainstreaming, destigmatising and commercialising this corner of queer life, what happens to drag’s power to subvert? This talk homes in on the ethics of drag’s celebrification – specifically the ways it supports homonormative narratives of the ‘good queer’ (Duggan 2003), and delimits the sorts of queer bodies and politics that are acceptable in the mainstream.

Dr Zeena Feldman is Director of Queer@King’s Research Centre and Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Digital Culture in the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London. Her research examines how digital technologies impact understandings and performances of traditionally analogue concepts – for instance, belonging, identity and wellbeing. She has published widely, including anthologies with Routledge and IB Tauris/Bloomsbury and in Information, Communication & Society; European Journal of Cultural Studies; Feminist Media Studies; Sexualities; Celebrity Studies; The Independent, OpenDemocracy, and The Conversation. Zeena currently runs the Quitting Social Media project, which explores digital detox and digital overload.

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