Trouble Finding Heels in Your Size?
- Sydney McDonald
- Feb 7, 2020
- 4 min read
If you take a look back at the history
of the world, you will find countless
stories of people using makeup and
costumes to tell stories and entertain. It’s
present in all areas of life from plays and
musicals during the Shakespearean era
to parties held by the elite in the early
1800s. People, without a doubt, love to
entertain and to be entertained.
Drag is a now widely popular term
referring mainly to men dressing in
women’s clothes and using a persona
different than their own as a form of
entertainment. It started somewhere a
little differently, when only men were
allowed to perform in the theatre,
therefore all the women's roles were
played by men. According to a video
by them.us, the term “drag” originated
when the men would wear petticoats
to perform as women and they would
drag across the floor, coining the phrase
“putting on their drag.”
Now, drag has taken on a whole
new definition and is making its way
across the globe as a highly popular
form of entertainment, and for many, a
lifestyle. For the start of the 21st century,
it was mostly linked to the LGBTQ+
community, commonly thought to only
involve gay men. But, it has grown in
definition to include a wide variety of
people and communities.
Even Mobile has developed its own
drag scene in the last couple of decades.
One popular spot right here in
town is B-Bob’s Downtown, a popular
nightclub downtown that puts on drag
shows, contests and related events.
There, you will most likely run into
Jawakatema Davenport, a drag queen
that has been working in drag for over
15 years now.
Working since 2003 in different casts
across the area, she has made a name
for herself in the Mobile drag scene.
She talked a little about how her unique
name came to be early in her career, as a
drag queen’s name is a huge part of her
identity and persona.
“Before I ever stepped foot on stage,
I said that if I ever decided to do drag
my name would be Jawakatema, taken
from an episode of ‘Martin,’ and people
started calling me that before I ever put
on a high heel. So when I finally did hit
the stage, my name was supposed to be
Simone but Jawakatema was already
hooked to me,” Davenport said.
Davenport has worked for years in
Mobile and has experienced the highs
and the lows that have come with
working in drag in a more conservative
area.
“Although Mobile has been good
to me, it is still in the Bible Belt, and
you have some very rude people that
aren’t accepting. I just keep doing me
regardless of all the opposition,” she
said. “Mobile has helped me by showing
me I can create my own avenues. We
didn’t have talent shows and open stage
nights to ‘audition’ and practice doing
drag. YouTube definitely wasn’t what it is
today. So, I had to knock down walls and
build new doors to ‘get in.’”
The definition of drag has been ever-
evolving in the last few years, and Liam
Gann is a perfect example of this. Gann
is only 20 years old and just starting
out his career in drag in the peak of
mainstream drag culture, but still, his
opportunities are sometimes scarce.
“I haven’t had a lot of opportunities
to perform because of Alabama’s alcohol
laws,” Gann laughed. “I’m sure once I
turn 21 I can get myself a gig.”
With little stage experience, Gann is
still working on building his persona
under his stage name Anathema, which
has an interesting meaning; something
that someone vehemently dislikes, or a
curse by the Catholic church.
“I really take inspiration from the
more ‘club kid,’ or an androgynous style
of drag. I don’t try to present myself
to be very womanly,” Gann explained,
“Even with my music choices I find
myself leaning more towards alternative,
though I will dip into the mainstream...
everyone loves a good Beyoncé song
every now and then.”
Gann hasn’t faced many controversies
himself, but he has been here to
experience things like the backlash on
Drag Queen Story Hour when it was
brought to Mobile, though he said he
can never understand the negative
emotions related to drag, saying that
drag takes the best parts of him and
magnifies them.
“Drag has really taught me to
love myself; I’m a more introverted
person most of the time,” Gann said.
“I’m having to create this air of utter
confidence in myself...that I am the
one, the only, the last woman alive! It’s
a weird mix of being vulnerable and
coming out of your shell.”
Gann describes his stage persona
saying “she’s as witty as I could ever be,
she’s as funny as I could ever be and she’s
as pretty as I could ever be.”
As a younger queen, Gann is standing
at the brink of movements into a more
diverse and inclusive culture, even
within drag.
Gann spoke multiple times about
finding ways to make drag more
inclusive by not shutting the door on
trans men and trans women, stating that
some trans women were the pioneers of
drag, also shining a light on queens with
disabilities.
“I think as much as drag is getting
the spotlight right now, I feel like the
drag world has a ways to go,” Gann
explained. “Some transgender queens
aren’t recognized when it comes to
representation. Some queens are not
getting the spotlight they deserve
because they have a disability, they are
trans or because they aren’t skinny,
cis, white men. We still aren’t being as
inclusive as we should be.”
Mobile’s drag scene is steadily
growing along with mainstream drag.
As the world is working to be more
inclusive and diverse so are smaller
communities, like the drag community,
to make sure that anyone who wants to
be included has a place in their world.
Finding common ground among our
differences is what forms a community,
and for drag, that common ground is
unquestionably the false eyelashes.
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