Provincial Drag in the Philippine Tropics: Towards a Decolonial Queer Tropical Aesthetics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.23.2.2024.4031Keywords:
provincial drag, decolonial aesthesis, tropical aesthetics, queer performance, decolonial queer, tropical queer, queer PhilippinesAbstract
Drag, in its neoliberal permutation, has become the most consumed queer art form everywhere in the world. The popularity of drag is often attributed to the bourgeoning empire of the Drag Race franchise. While the cultural phenomenon that is Drag Race has constructed a platform for drag to thrive in the mainstream scene, it has also created a limited and hegemonic understanding of drag as simply glamour and superstardom. This essay problematizes what has become “homonormative drag” and outlines the need to turn to pluriversal drag aesthetic praxes. It is argued that deploying a decolonial queer tropical lens, following Rolando Vazquez’s decolonial aesthesis and Samantha Nöel’s tropical aesthetics, opens our understanding of drag to situated local experiences in the tropics. This essay, unpacks the aesthetics of what I call “provincial drag,” found in the digital content produced by queer subjects in the Philippine provinces, to illustrate and re-locate the critical function of drag not simply for gender subversion, but also to laugh at neoliberal and colonial projects.
References
Alcedo, P. (2007). Sacred Camp: Transgendering Faith in a Philippine Festival. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 38(1), 107–132. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022463406000956 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022463406000956
Alexeyeff, K. (2000). Dragging Drag: The Performance of Gender and Sexuality in the Cook Islands. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 11(3), 297–307. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.2000.tb00045.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.2000.tb00215.x
Alexeyeff, K. (2008). Globalizing Drag in the Cook Islands: Friction, Repulsion, and Abjection. The Contemporary Pacific, 20(1), 143–161. https://doi.org/10.1353/cp.2008.0031 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/cp.2008.0031
Ancheta, M. R. (2015). In Stitches: Con/Refiguring the Language of Wit and Humour in Contemporary Filipino Poetry in English. Asiatic, 9(2), 74–89.
Bakshi, S. (2004). A Comparative Analysis of Hijras and Drag Queens: The Subversive Possibilities and Limits of Parading Effeminacy and Negotiating Masculinity. In L. Underwood (Ed.), The Drag Queen Anthology: The Absolutely Fabulous but Flawlessly Customary World of Female Impersonators (pp. 211–223). Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1300/J082v46n03_13
Bakshi, S. (2024). Theorising Decolonial Queerness: Connections, Definitions, Articulations. In B. Fletcher-Watson, L. McAra, & D. Osborne (Eds.), Essays on Decoloniality (Vol. 1, pp. 35–56). The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.
Baraan IV, F. (@MrFrankBaraan) (2020, November 16). BAKLANG KANAL IS TRENDING, B/C WE ARE SICK & TIRED OF THE DDS HOMOPHOBIA. If being Baklang Kanal means vigorously & doggedly fighting for a more socially progressive, egalitarian, liberal, and democratic Philippines, then, count me in. I am a Baklang Kanal—& DAMN PROUD TO BE 1. X. https://x.com/MrFrankBaraan/status/1327981150799683588
Barbato, R., Bailey, F., Campbell, T., Charles, R., Godinez-Lopez, A., Laurel, Y., Tamano, J., Santos, M.T., and Godinez, G. (Executive Producers). (2022-2023). Drag Race Philippines [Reality Competition]. Fullhouse Asia Production Studios Inc.; World of Wonder Productions Inc.
Benedicto, B. (2009). Shared Spaces of Transnational Transit: Filipino Gay Tourists, Labour Migrants, and the Borders of Class Difference. Asian Studies Review, 33(3), 289–301. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357820903153715 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10357820903153715
Brennan, N. (2017). Contradictions Between the Subversive and the Mainstream: Drag Cultures and RuPaul’s Drag Race. In N. Brennan & D. Gudelunas (Eds.), Rupaul’s Drag Race and the Shifting Visibility of Drag Culture: The Boundaries of Reality TV (pp. 29–43). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50618-0_3 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50618-0_3
Buenavista, I.L.B. (2020, August 1). ENTRY FROM SILAY CITY NEGROS OCCIDENTAL. [Facebook status update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/100012475429181/videos/962697907489381
Butler, J. (2006). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge.
Cabbuag, S., & Benitez, C. J. (2022). All hail, the baklang kanal!: Subversive frivolity in two FIlipino influencers. Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication, Media, and Society, 19(1), 55–90. https://doi.org/10.52518/2021-11cabben DOI: https://doi.org/10.52518/2021-11cabben
Cao, R. J. (2017). Unmasking the lolas: Production and signification of drag in Eat Bulaga’s kalye serye [Master’s Thesis, De La Salle University]. https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/5293
Carlos, L. (Director). (1969). Facifica Falayfay [Comedy].
Chen, M. (2012). Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect. Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822395447
Cohen, L. (1995). The pleasures of castration: The postoperative status of hijras, jankhas, and academics. In P. Abramson & S. Pinkerton (Eds.), Sexual Nature, Sexual Culture (pp. 276–304). University of Chicago Press.
Collins, C. (2017). Drag Race to the Bottom?: Updated Notes on the Aesthetic and Political Economy of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Transgender Studies Quarterly, 4(1), 128–134. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-3711589 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-3711589
De Los Reyes, M.J. (Director). (1994). Bala at Lipstick [Action, Comedy].
Deloso, J. (2023, July 5). Miss Kalibonan 2023. [Facebook Status Update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=search&v=1990600211302248&external_log_id=7a3bab5b-61dc-447a-b3e5-447457b181a4&q=deloso%20miss%20kalibonan
Deocampo, N. (Director). (1983). Oliver [Documentary].
Duggan, L. (2002). The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism. In R. Castronovo, D. Nelson, & D. Pease (Eds.), Materializing Democracy (pp. 175–194). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822383901 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv125jgrq.10
Feldman, Z., & Hakim, J. (2020). From Paris is Burning to #dragrace: Social media and the celebrification of drag culture. Celebrity Studies, 11(4), 386–401. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2020.1765080 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2020.1765080
Garcia, J. N. C. (2000). Performativity, the bakla and the orientalizing gaze. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 1(2), 265–281. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822383901 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649370050141140
Garcia, J. N. (2008). Philippine Gay Culture: The Last Thirty Years (2nd ed.). University of the Philippines Press.
Grana, R. (2022, September 5). Once upon a time, the Paper Dolls were Manila’s drag sensations. ABS-CBN News. https://news2.abs-cbn.com/ancx/culture/spotlight/09/05/22/before-drag-race-ph-there-were-the-paper-dolls
Halberstam, J. (1998). Female Masculinity. Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478002703
Inton, M. (2017). The bakla and the silver screen: queer cinema in the Philippines. [Doctor’s Thesis, Lingnan University]. Hong Kong. http://commons.ln.edu.hk/cs_etd/30/
Inton, M. (2018). Exploring the Dolphy Bakla: Queerness in Philippine Cinema. In A. H. J. Magnan-Park, G. Marchetti, & S. K. Tan (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema (pp. 583–605). Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95822-1_28
Jacobo, J. (2021, July 21). “Where Her Breast Wasn’t There”: Transfemininity and the Philippine Modern. Post: Notes on Art in a Global Context. https://post.moma.org/where-her-breast-wasnt-there-transfemininity-and-the-philippine-modern/
Khubchandani, K. (2023). Decolonize Drag. OR Books.
La Fountain-Stokes, L. (2021). Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance. University of Michigan Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11314788
Lacaba, J. F. (2014, May 4). Notes on Bakya. Spot. https://www.spot.ph/arts-culture/56291/notes-on-bakya
LeMaster, B. (2015). Discontents of Being and Becoming Fabulous on RuPaul’s Drag U: Queer Criticism in Neoliberal Times. Women’s Studies in Communication, 38, 167–186. https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2014.988776 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2014.988776
Lim, B. C. (2004). Cult Fiction: Himala and Bakya Temporality. Spectator, 24(2), 61–72.
Lopez, F. M. (2023). Wayward Informality, Queer Urbanism: Manila, the Dark and Decadent City. In M. Manalansan IV, R. Diaz, & R. Tolentino (Eds.), Beauty and Brutality: Manila and Its Global Discontents (pp. 78–105). Temple University Press.
Lundberg, A., Chao, S., Benedito Ferrão, R., Sinamai, A., Okpadah, S. O., Regis, H., & Chwala, G. L. (2023). Decolonizing the Tropics: Part One. eTropic: electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 22(1), 1–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.25120/etropic.22.1.2023.3998 DOI: https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.22.1.2023.3998
Manalansan IV, M. (2006). Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora (Philippine Edition). Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Martin Manalansan IV. (2013). Queer Worldings: The Messy Art of Being Global in Manila and New York. Antipode, 47(3), 566–579. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12061 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12061
Mignolo, W., & Vázquez, R. (2013, July 15). Decolonial AestheSis: Colonial Wounds/Decolonial Healings. Social Text. https://socialtextjournal.org/periscope_article/decolonial-aesthesis-colonial-woundsdecolonial-healings/
Muñoz, J. E. (1999). Disidentifications. University of Minnesota Press.
Nanda, S. (1999). The Hijras of India: Neither Man nor Woman (2nd ed.). Wadsworth.
Noël, S. (2021). Tropical Aesthetics of Black Modernism. Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478012894
Ochoa, M. (2014). Queen for a Day: Transformistas, Beauty Queens, and the Performance of Femininity in Venezuela. Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11smj08
Pereira, P. P. G. (2019). Reflecting on Decolonial Queer. A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 25(3), 403–429. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-7551112 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-7551112
Portes, G. (Director). (2000). Markova: Comfort Gay.
Puar, J. (2001). Global Circuits: Transnational Sexualities and Trinidad. Globalization and Gender, 26(4), 1039–1065. https://doi.org/10.1086/495647 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/495647
Reyes, A. (2017). Ontology of Fake: Discerning the Philippine Elite. Signs and Society, 5(S1), S100–S127. https://doi.org/10.1086/690067 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/690067
Santana, M. M. L. (2022). Transformista, Travesti, Transgénero: Performing Sexual Subjectivity in Cuba. Small Axe, 68, 46–59. https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-9901597 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-9901597
Singh, R. (@iamrodafrog) (2020, November 16). Triggered lang ako with how we praise the baklang kanals now but we tend to forget the real baklang kanals outside our echo chambers na most likely mabubunot sa twitter for political correctness and problematic posts. Baklang kanal is not a brand and personality. X. https://x.com/iamrodafrog/status/1327989445308530688
Stokoe, K. (2019). Reframing Drag: Beyond Subversion and the Status Quo. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429458446
Tablazon, C. (2015). The Jejemon as Symptom and Slippage: Notes on Issues of Power and Identity in Media Literacy and (Mass) Communication. In A. Torres, L. Samson, & M. Diaz (Eds.), Filipino Generations in a Changing Landscape (pp. 271–276). Philippine Social Science Council.
Tadiar, N. X. M. (2003). In the Face of Whiteness as Value: Fall-Outs of Metropolitan Humanness. Qui Parle, 13(2), 143–182. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20686155 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/quiparle.13.2.143
Tan, M. (2001). Survival Through Pluralism: Emerging Gay Communities in the Philippines. 40(3–4), 117–142. https://doi.org/10.1300/J082v40n03_07 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1300/J082v40n03_07
Thompson, K. (2006). An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography, and Framing the Caribbean Picturesque. Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822388562
Tolentino, R.B. (2009). Macho Dancing, the Feminization of Labor, and Neoliberalism in the Philippines. TDR: The Drama Review, 53(2), 77-89. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/263640 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.77
Topacio, S. (Director). (2009). Ded Na Si Lolo [Comedy].
Torres, F. L. (2022). Locating the Asog: A Historical Account of Philippine Gay Identity in the Spanish Colonial Period. Humanities Diliman, 19(1), 1–29.
Torres, M. S. (Director). (1954). Jack & Jill.
Vázquez, R. (2020). Vistas of Modernity: Decolonial Aesthesis and the End of the Contemporary. Jap Sam Books.
Vilog, D. (2022). Actually, “baklang kanal” is deeper than a personality trait. Scout Mag. https://www.scoutmag.ph/65440/baklang-kanal-twitter-bn-2020/
WOWPresents. (2023, July 11). Meet the Queens ☀️ Drag Race Philippines Season 2. (Video). Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqWbpv8l9To&t=883s
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 CC-BY
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who submit articles to this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors are responsible for ensuring that any material that has influenced the research or writing has been properly cited and credited both in the text and in the Reference List (Bibliography). Contributors are responsible for gaining copyright clearance on figures, photographs or lengthy quotes used in their manuscript that have been published elsewhere.
2. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository, or publish it in a book), with proper acknowledgement of the work's initial publication in this journal.
4. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access or The Open Access Citation Advantage). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (i.e., a copy of a work which has been published in eTropic, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the eTropic publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.
5. Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.