Drag and the Political Economy of Queer Nightlife

• In Event: 50465 - Sexualities and the Sociology of Nightlife

Abstract

In recent decades, rising costs of commercial real estate, lower patronage, and integration of queer and heterosexual audiences have forced hundreds of gay and lesbian bars across the U.S. to close, while others still struggle to remain open. Hiring drag hosts and performers has become a popular strategy among both LGBTQ+ and integrated restaurants, bars, and clubs to attract patrons by capitalizing on the rapid popularization of drag, especially through RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009–). In this Boston-based study, I show why drag is increasingly integral to queer nightlife: not just because drag performers attract clientele and produce events, but also because drag performers compose a significant clientele base for queer nightlife establishments. These transformations to the cultural, commercial, and social scaffolding of queer nightlife invite new and signal earlier convergences of queer communities, providing an opportunity to challenge gender and sexual essentialism, and center a spatial and political-economic analysis of drag which has primarily been treated as analytically relevant to inquiry on culture and identity.

Author

• Blaine Smith, Boston University