What would it be like to be a man for a day? To walk like a man, dress
like a man, talk like a man - to be treated like a man?
Diane Torr's experiments with transformation into a man in her early
1980s performances were so enjoyable and entertaining that she has been
unable to stop. In the beginning of the current decade she began offering
Drag King workshops in New York. These classes are intended for women only
and they teach how to impersonate a man. According to Torr, the way men
use space, the way they grab objects, and the way "they assume a self-important
attitude as their birthright" can be taught on the level of gestures
and physical behaviour. The participants bring a set of men's clothing to
the class, and in choosing them they must carefully consider what kind of
man each one wants to impersonate. The materials for a fake penis must also
be brought along - don't make it too big!! warns the brochure.
The reasons for dressing up as a man are very pragmatic. The male drag
can be useful when buying a car, for instance, or for getting enough sitting
space on the bus. Female to male impersonation also functions as a mask
and camouflage in dangerous environments.
To actually pass for a man requires observation, research and practice.
(Diane Torr herself is equally convincing at impersonating a man, a woman,
or a male to female cross-dresser.) Torr notes that the intention of the
workshop is not necessarily the construction of a complete male role, which
would be difficult in such a short time in any case. The purpose of the
workshop has already been fulfilled if it helps women to question their
own behaviour, which is determined by their "assumed" female role.
Gestures indicating confidence and self-worth can be useful even as borrowed
"quotations", for example in tough situations on the job.
Diane Torr has said that her performances and workshops represent a certain
physicalisation of theory. She mentions philosopher Judith Butler as a significant
theoretician. Butler is perhaps the most central and controversial figure
in the identity and gender debates of the 1990s. She is the most visible
representative of post-modern identity politics, questioning naïve
liberation politics as well as the Lacanian defeatism, in which gender is
a prisoner of the symbolic order to such an extent that a change is impossible.
Torr's workshops teach how to impersonate, how to act like a man. Gender
becomes the performance. Also Judith Butler sees gender as a performance.
Does this mean that gender is an act subject to the will, and can be chosen
like a piece of clothing that one decides to wear in the morning? Butler
was accused of this kind of voluntarism for her book "Gender Trouble"
(1990). However, in this book (too), Butler makes it clear that gender performance
does not signify "freedom", rather, the acts of performance through
which gender is continually created are normative and determined by external
requirements. The first significant act of speaking that defines a human
being is the defining of his gender: "It's a girl!" or "It's
a boy!". The performative establishment of gender is repeated continually
through things like addressing someone, providing a name, sets of objects,
dressing, rules of behaviour, objects of identification, the space within
which one moves and the models for movement. These factors create characteristics
that are typical of the gender. In other words, Judith Butler emphasises
that gender is performed through performative acts, and thus a number of
gender related attributes is produced. There is no gender identity behind
these expressions of gender.
If the gender performance is a presentation that is carried out as a
result of external expectations, how can it be changed? Butler's answer
is based on the character of performance, which is essentially based on
repetition. Performance acts derive their authoritative power and importance
through repeating and quoting previously influential practices. However,
quoting is never perfect, because changing situations make exact replication
impossible. The tension between stasis and innovation is continuous. Butler's
conception of gender as a dynamic performance is based precisely on this.
Repetition contains the possibility of change, of incorrect and altered
repetition, and therefore the possibility of breaking conventions. Butler
emphasises in particular the diversity of a performance resulting from this
possibility, which shakes up rigid ideal models and weakens their compelling
power over the individual.
Diane Torr's workshops and performances repeat the action of cross-dressing
itself but deviate from its typical conventions. The general context and
model of action of cross-dressing has to do with stage entertainment, with
men dressing up as women. Not everyone sees these performances as liberating
the concept of gender dichotomy. Alicia Solomon, among others, has proposed
that the meaning of drag changes according to who is wearing it. Cabaret
shows make one laugh. A man impersonating a woman is humorous, but it's
closer to a gender parody than a gender performance.
Another typical link with cross-dressing has to do with presenting transsexual
behaviour. In this context, cross-dressing is more or less related to the
painful process of covering up the "incorrect" anatomy and bringing
forth the "correct" one. The social victim is part of this performance
tradition.
In Diane Torr's workshops, cross-dressing gets another dimension. Drag
is rendered mundane. Torr recommends cross-dressing in the sense that a
male alter ego could be a part of every woman's life, both for useful and
entertainment reasons, and make everyday things easier to manage.
Torr tries to coax the participants to not simply ape her model for impersonating
a man, and encourages each one to seriously consider what kind of man she
wants to be. Even before attending the class, participants are asked to
give some thought to this choice. The issue is not merely cross-dressing
but also cross-identification. The workshop gives permission to assume ways
of male behaviour and thus to identify with men.
Traditional, authorised gender performance is based on a rigid male-female
division. This convention, widely spread among humans, is based on regulating
and stabilising the relationship between identity, identification, and desire.
One identifies with one's own gender and feels desire for the opposite gender.
Desire and identification are mutually exclusive. A boy/man identifies with
his father/males and desires his mother/females. The surrounding world monitors
and controls the direction of identification, prepared to correct and stigmatise
any deviation.
Diane Torr's Drag King workshops try to extend the repertoire of an individual's
gender performance. Identity politics has generally been the domain of certain
well-defined groups such as lesbians and gay men. This is of course important,
but also projects and ghettoises the diversity of gender in the general
consciousness into something queer/perverted. By encouraging one to question
one's own gender performance and to identify with the "opposite"
gender (through mild utilitarianism), the Drag King workshop normalises
and renders mundane the diverse and polymorphous presentation of the gender
performance. As the 70s women's movement already knew, a presentation that
delves into everyday practices has the most fundamental political implications.
Helena Erkkilä
The writer is a graduate of Social Sciences from the University of Tampere.
She is presently working on her Art History dissertation on the Finnish
performance arts. | 
