- 1 Cis-gender, as opposed to transgender, is a person whose gender identity matches the sex they were (...)
1Entering the mainstream world by storm in the last few years, especially through the TV franchise RuPaul’s Drag Race, the drag queen can be defined as a cis1 gay man performing an exaggerated form of femininity in front of an audience, through his clothes, make up, hairstyle, language and body language (Schacht & Underwood, 2004). While considerable research has been conducted on how drag queens play with the binary idea of gender, blurring the line between masculinity and femininity in their performances and through language (Barrett, 2017; Mann, 2011), little research has been carried out regarding their relationship with emotions in general, and pride in particular, even less so regarding the linguistic manifestations of this emotion.
2Yet, these manifestations seem to be particularly complex. On the one hand, the emotion of pride in the LGBTQ+ community is a major element in the gay rights movement, and is strongly linked to the notions of recognition and empowerment (Kates & Belk, 2001). It thus appears as a state of mind that drag queens need to embrace and celebrate, as illustrated by this quote from the show RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR): “Be proud, and loud, and let the world hear you” (Mercedes, RPDR, E4). On the other hand, this expression of pride is sometimes chastised by other queens inviting the proud contestant to humble herself, as suggested by: “The confidence was very high, but at some point, you gotta humble yourself and take some of it and grow from it” (Ra’Jah, RPDR, E7). These two contrasting utterances suggest different types of pride, or different ways of expressing it, some of which might be more acceptable than others.
3In psychology, pride is considered a “complex” or “self-conscious” emotion (Poggi & D’Errico, 2011: 435), and many studies have hypothesised on the multifaceted dimension of this emotion, creating distinctions between “arrogance”, “dignity” and “superiority” (Poggi & D’Errico, 2011) for instance. However, most of this research focuses on the non-verbal expression of pride, and little attention has been paid to the linguistic expression of this emotion.
- 2 See section 3.1 for a presentation of the corpus.
4Thus, the aim of this paper was to investigate the ways in which pride is linguistically expressed among drag queens through an exploratory study of a corpus extracted from the reality TV show Rupaul’s Drag Race2: what markers are most frequently used? What type – or types – of pride is/are especially expressed? In order to answer these questions, four markers were analysed: insults, violent lexical items, use of the third-person singular, and spatial deictics.
5The first part of this paper reviews the literature on the subject, and the second part presents the corpus and methodology of this study. The final section presents, analyses and discusses the results.
- 3 Quoted in Oostrik (2014).
6Since being in drag implies dressing as a member of the opposite gender, drag queens (and their drag king brothers) are often seen as challenging the established dichotomy between genders (Schacht & Underwood, 2004). According to McNeal (1999)3, the subversive nature of drag can also be found in the reappropriation of the stigmatised femininity associated with gay men, which is embraced in drag and becomes an assertive strength. Moreover, through interviews with drag queens, Oostrik (2014) highlighted the personal empowerment (defined by Oostrik [2014: 7] as “using one’s own qualities or resources to increase control of or power over one’s own situation”) that drag can bring to the performer by offering them control over their appearance and audience, or bringing visibility and recognition to them as individuals and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
7The drag queen holds a special place in the LGBTQ+ community, as she is often considered a pioneer of the Stonewall Riots, a series of risings in June and July 1969, when gay and lesbian patrons of the Stonewall Inn rebelled against the police. These events are often considered a turning point in LGBTQ+ politics and history, as they shifted the perspective from homosexuality being seen as something shameful that should be kept discreet or hidden, to a “new prescription in pride, defiance, and visibility” (Kates & Belk, 2001: 395). This fact is perfectly illustrated with the creation of pride parades in New York City the year following the riots as a commemoration of Stonewall (Kates & Belk, 2001). To this day, pride parades take place in many cities and are often considered the main social event of the LGBTQ+ community. They are a carnivalesque time, when queer becomes the norm, celebrating the unconventional, sexual freedom, as well as “something higher and finer in human nature: pride in self, concern for human beings, emotional, and acceptance of others” (Kates & Belk, 2001: 411). These celebrations are characterised by all sorts of excesses, especially in clothing, with people wearing colourful clothes, sporting leather harnesses or nudity, all this excess embodied in the “emblematic drag queens” wearing glitter dresses, big hair and extreme make-up (Kates & Belk, 2001: 405). This appropriation of the noun “pride” to refer to the main social event of the community therefore shows the major significance of this emotion for LGBTQ+ people.
- 4 “Self-image” is defined as “a set of evaluative and non-evaluative beliefs about ourselves”, while (...)
8In everyday language, pride refers either to a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction that you get because you or people connected with you have done or got something good, to a feeling of one’s own worth, or to a feeling of delusional superiority (Cambridge English Dictionary). This multifaceted definition shows the broad range of attitudes covered by this single word in English, while other languages, such as Russian, have several words referring to the different facets of the English “pride” (Gladkova, 2010). Nevertheless, studies have attempted to reduce this range by theorising and naming different types of pride. Poggi and D’Errico (2011) for instance, focusing on power relationships between individuals expressing pride, offer a ternary categorisation: arrogance pride, superiority pride, and dignity pride. All three share the same basic conditions for the person to feel proud: a person A evaluates an action, event or property as positive, referring to something linked to a positive self-image4 to A, and caused by her or linked to her; this then leads to the positive evaluation of the event causing a positive self-evaluation of A as a whole. However, they imply different power dynamics, with one person challenging the other’s power or refusing to submit to this power, and are manifested through different physical expressions. Arrogance is a type of pride expressed by someone challenging an individual or an institution that has more power or power over them. In arrogance, the proud individual does not recognise the other’s power and wants to assert their superiority. Superiority pride is another type of pride expressed among peers in situations when one of the peers not only thinks they are superior to the others, but also wants them to acknowledge this superiority. This type of pride is especially common in competitive contexts, since it focuses on victory. Finally, dignity pride is a type of pride expressed by someone whose human dignity is denied: this individual does not accept their inferiority in the power dynamics, and claims their right to be considered a peer, as well as their rights to autonomy and freedom. We will hypothesise in this paper that dignity pride is likely to be very present in drag queen communities, since they are a marginalised community whose sexual orientation and dressing habits are often associated with shame and are rejected by society (Duberman, 2019).
- 5 Since “affect” is often used in linguistics as the hyperonym for “emotions”, “moods”, “feelings” an (...)
9Studying pride from a linguistic point of view is much trickier, because of the broad meaning of “pride” and the difficulty of studying the expression of affects5 in language in general. Most of the studies in the psychological field focus on the non-verbal expression of pride (Tracy & Robins, 2004, 2007; Poggi & D’Errico, 2011, 2012). Nevertheless, this emphasis on non-verbal expression of pride actually helps to identify lexical items expressing pride through studies of metonymies of pride (Kövecses, 1986). Using the metonymic principle that the description of “behavioural reactions stands for the emotion” (Kövecses, 1986: 41), Kövecses establishes a list of metonymies expressing pride in speech such as erect posture, chest (unnaturally) out, or smiling (Kövecses, 1986: 41). Some studies endeavoured to go beyond lexical markers of pride to identify grammatical and syntactic markers as well. Among them, we can mention Ragab’s (2016) literary study of Marlowe’s Faust that aimed to identify features expressing Faust’s hubris, or Akstinaite et al.’s (2020) study focusing on markers of hubris in CEOs’ speeches. Yet these studies, however interesting they may be, focus on populations or situations that may be too specific and too different from our own to be of relevance for the present research.
- 6 Quoted in Elouni (2018).
10Studying the expression of affects is a delicate matter since we can express emotions we have, have feelings we do not express or express feelings we do not have (Caffi & Janney, 1994). This raises the question of the authenticity of emotions, and the difference, from a linguistic point of view, between the expression of emotions and the expression of ideas (Caffi & Janney, 1994). Studying the expression of affects in language involves focusing on the emotive function of language (Jakobson, 1960). This function of language focuses on the addressee, and aims at expressing the speaker’s attitude towards what they are talking about, and thus tends to produce the impression of a certain emotion, whether this emotion is truly felt by the speaker or not (Jakobson, 1960). More precisely, following Caffi and Janney’s (1994) distinction between emotive and emotional communication, the emotive function will be understood here to mean the intentional expression of affects in speech in order to influence an addressee’s interpretation of situations. The difficulty of focusing on the emotive function lies in its immense variety of possible linguistic features, since it can be manifested through lexical choices, intonations, exclamations, syntactic devices, etc. (Elouni, 2018). Bally (1909)6 even suggests that any utterance is potentially loaded with an emotive dimension, emphasising the inherent link between language and affect, and proposes the notion of expressivity as a proper tool to analyse the affective dimension of an utterance, even though no emotion seems to be explicitly described in the aforesaid utterance.
- 7 Quoted in Elouni (2018).
- 8 Quoted in Caffi and Janney (1994).
11The concept of expressivity can be understood as all the linguistic devices through which we can communicate our affects to others (Bally, 1909)7. Bally suggests that there are two main modes of communication in language operating along a continuum: the intellectual mode (mode pur), which is the logical and neutral mode of communication, and the affective mode (mode vécu) through which affects are communicated (Caffi & Janney, 1994). Within the affective mode, which is the mode we are interested in here, Bally (1909)8 distinguishes between two types of “formal expressive processes”: direct processes involving lexical choices that convey the affective dimension of the message, and indirect processes involving prosodic and syntactic choices (Caffi & Janney, 1994). An affect can therefore be conveyed directly, through lexical items taken from the lexical field of the specific emotion, or indirectly, through a deduction of the addressee from the linguistic or non-verbal clues in the context of the utterance (Elouni, 2018).
12Adopting Bally’s notion of expressivity, Legallois and François (2012) highlighted that more often than not, emotions are shown and not signified in discourse; they are an object of perception. Celle and Lansari (2017), taking the example of surprise, stressed that this emotion is rarely explicitly signified through statements like “I am surprised”, but is rather shown through expressivity devices such as exclamations. Guillaume (2019) even suggested that the more expressive an utterance is, the further it will be from the canonical form, whether it be through a simplification or complexification of the syntax (Legallois & François, 2012).
*
13This overview of the literature on the matter shows the difficult articulation between psychology and linguistics, and the absence of pre-established markers of pride in language. Therefore, the aim of the exploration of the corpus will be to identify and analyse some linguistic markers of pride, in order to test our primary hypothesis that in this marginalised community, the type of pride that is most commonly expressed is “dignity pride”, defined by Poggi and D’Errico as “the pride of human dignity” (Poggi & D’Errico, 2011: 439).
- 9 Although we will not discriminate between the main show and Untucked and will consider them as a wh (...)
14The corpus under study was extracted from the American competitive reality-TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race, and comprises the fourteen episodes of the eleventh season of the show, as well as the twelve episodes of the corresponding season of the companion show, RuPaul’s Drag Race Untucked9. In RPDR, the contestants are experienced drag queens competing in challenges demonstrating the various skills necessary in order to become “America’s Next Drag Superstar”. In Untucked, the queens chat in the “Untucked lounge” while the judges deliberate on their performances, and the eliminated queen is briefly interviewed before leaving the show. The first episode of the show aired in February 2009, and the show is currently airing its fourteenth season. It has today become a reference of drag culture in the mainstream landscape, imposing its visual and linguistic norms on the drag community at large. The eleventh season of the show, which was selected for the present study, was the most recent complete season aired when the corpus was created.
- 10 Amongst the famous catch phrases of the show, we can quote “Gentlemen, start your engines, and may (...)
15According to Lorenzo-Dus and Garcés-Conejos Blitvich (2013), reality TV, being both a form of public discourse (available to the public) and a form of private discourse (private interactions between ordinary people), allows a great linguistic understanding of both interpersonal interactions and media discourses. Nevertheless, as RPDR is a competitive or talent reality show, we need to keep in mind the limits inherent to this genre in a linguistic study, especially in a study of the expression of pride, since the nature of the show will surely affect this emotion, whether in its manifestations or causes. Related to this competitive dimension is the question of the authenticity of the interactions in a reality show: the interactions appearing on our screen are carefully selected, edited, or even staged by the producing team, especially those involving emotions (Lorenzo-Dus & Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2013), and the contestants themselves can alter their behaviour to have more screen time by displaying exaggerated emotions. Finally, we will leave out the unrepresentative elements belonging to the genre of TV games such as openings, slogans or catch phrases10 which will be over-represented in a corpus containing many episodes of the same show. In order to lessen the TV game dimension, we added the companion show Untucked.
16Lastly, technically speaking, this corpus was originally an oral corpus, transcribed through the extraction of Netflix subtitles. It is a general English, monolingual, closed and synchronic corpus (season 11 was aired from February to May 2019), focusing on one season only in order to provide representative and manageable data. The subtitles were extracted from the platform as XML files and converted to TXT files in SubtitlesEdit, creating plain text files that were readable as scripts.
17The aim of this study was to identify, from an onomasiological approach, some markers of pride in drag queens’ language, in order to analyse them. We will thus focus on a qualitative analysis in order to pave the way for further studies on this matter in the future. To do so, we first carried out a preliminary exploration of the corpus, using SketchEngine. The frequency lists did not reveal any markers but highlighted several elements: the strong intersubjective dimension of our corpus, with “I”, “you” and several proper names being the most frequent words; and the feminine dimension of drag language, with feminine terms of address such as “girl”, “ladies”, “bitch” and some typically feminine hedges mentioned in Lakoff’s (1973) study (“like”, “know”, “think”, “feel”, “well”, “right”).
18We then carried out a search for collocations linked to “pride”, “proud”, and “shame” (to capture any potential contrasts). These first results were not as revealing as we had hoped, with the noun “pride” appearing only 14 times, the adjective “proud” 65 times, and the noun “shame” appearing twice (in a corpus of over 230,000 tokens). Utterances of “pride” mostly occur when the judges (who are not necessarily drag queens) speak, especially when referring to Nina West (a contestant nicknamed “the pride of the season”). There is, however, a predominance of pride-related words compared to shame-related ones, as the noun “shame” appeared only in the idiom “it’s a shame”. As for the adjective “proud”, it is, most of the time, part of the collocations “make someone proud”, “to do someone proud”, “be proud of something/to do something”, and is often correlated with intensives such as “really”, “so”, “too”, and “extremely”. Judging by the correlations of pride with collocations involving a third party, these observations seem to confirm the fact that the explicit description of affects is preferably used to talk about other people in general, while affects felt by oneself or the addressee are rather shown in discourse.
19As the goal was to identify some markers of pride and analyse them in detail to understand how, in these particular contexts, they express pride, a study of the whole corpus appeared unnecessary. The approach adopted to identify the markers consisted in watching the show once more, while following the dialogues on the scripts extracted earlier, and empirically and manually selecting 400 utterances in which we judged that pride was expressed. This selection was made following the author’s judgement and knowledge of the show, taking into account the context of each utterance, as well as the contestants’ tones and body languages, which could hint at the expression of pride. Admittedly, this method presents a certain number of limits, the main one being the lack of selectors except for the present author, which leaves a lot of room to subjectivity and might lead to omissions or biases, despite our best effort to avoid it: future studies on this matter should include the perspective of other viewers to prevent this. Nevertheless, at this stage of the research, this subjective assessment was the best heuristic tool.
- 11 “[Ariel] I have almost like 80,000 followers on Instagram, but I think it’s really annoying when pe (...)
- 12 “[Soju] Not only can I look pretty, but I can also kick ass. I always love to bring Korean into my (...)
20A qualitative search was then carried out in the selected segments for common features which could participate in the expression of pride. In the making of the selection itself, several elements or devices already became prominent. For instance, it quickly became apparent that enumerations of one’s accomplishments or qualities11 were a frequent feature of this selection. However, they were particularly abundant in the first two episodes of the show, and were thus probably more linked to the presentation part of a reality show rather than authentic linguistic markers of pride. Another salient element in this sub-corpus was the queens’ insistence on their originality12. However, since this feature did not exhibit lexical or grammatical unity, it could not be considered as a linguistic marker that could be analysed. In order to be recognised and analysed, the selected markers needed to present a certain degree of unity or regularity, either lexical or grammatical, to be represented fairly equally in the various episodes, and to illustrate the expression of pride, not just state a motive of pride. Ultimately, four markers of pride were extracted.
21First, there is the use of lexical items linked to violence and fight in the expression of pride (63 utterances in the sub-corpus) which, as we will develop further in the paper, could be a consequence of the competitive nature of the show:
| [1] |
[Mercedes] If you want something, you have to fight and get it. [Soju] One thing I’m not is a quitter. [Mercedes] That’s what I’m talking about. [Soju] And I’m a fucking fighter. [Mercedes] You gotta fight. [Soju] I’m gonna fight with this fucking tulle, bitch. (Untucked, E1) |
22The second marker, which appeared in 37 utterances, is the use of derogatory words, insults or slurs by the queens to refer to themselves or their peers, in a process of reappropriation of initially stigmatising labels:
| [2] |
[RuPaul] Center yourself, find your rhythm and do you. Look, I’ve been the number one bitch in the game for 25 motherfucking years. [All cheering] Ain’t no other bitch came for me! Why? Because I found my own right rhythm. Let the church say, amen! (RPDR, E3) |
23The third marker worth mentioning is the self-referential use of the third-person feminine pronoun and other forms of self-referential third person by the speaker, which seems to appear especially in contexts where pride is expressed (appearing in 78 utterances):
- 13 Tiffany is a judge, while “the body” walking down the runway is A’Keria, the speaker.
| [3] |
[A’Keria] Did I hear Tiffany say I’m giving her Nicki Minaj? Yeah, girl! The body is there, and it is real. And she clacking down that runway. What’s that I hear? Girl, I thought that was the audience, it’s just her ass clapping. (RPDR, E4)13 |
24The final marker we retained is the use of the spatial deictics (“here”, “there” and various deictic words) and the way drag queens find pride in being visible in public, in opposition to the shame of having to hide. These markers appeared 80 times in the selected segments.
| [4] |
[Vanjie] Baby, it’s a new day in the workroom. Miss Vanjie is still here. I’m here to deliver, and I ain’t walking backwards no time soon. Catch that. (RPDR, E2) |
25Each of these markers will be analysed in detail in the following section. Obviously, this study does not claim to offer an exhaustive list of markers of pride, and the presence of one marker is not exclusive of the others, as they are, on the contrary, often used together in one utterance.
- 14 As an example, we can mention our third marker, the self-referential use of the third person: while (...)
26Lastly, while acknowledging the limitations of this method, as the identification of most markers was strongly linked to the context in which they were uttered, informed human judgement was the best and only tool of research at this stage of the study14. Moreover, while, as will be hypothesised further in this paper, some of these markers of pride may be “drag-specific”, the present study as it stands only draws conclusions about the linguistic expression of pride by drag queens in the context of the show RuPaul’s Drag Race, as the neoliberal values underpinning the show can have an impact on the expression of pride. Comparative studies with other talent shows and drag queens’ interactions outside the show would be necessary to validate or invalidate this hypothesis.
27The first apparent marker of pride in the corpus was the overwhelming presence of lexical items referring to violence and fighting. This violence can firstly be understood as a historical fight for existence, as drag queens and LGBTQ+ people have had to fight for their rights to live freely, for their civil rights, and for recognition since Stonewall, as recalled in [5] by RuPaul herself. This idea of literally having to fight for your rights still lives on today in the community, especially since homophobia is still a pressing issue, with LGBTQ+ people facing assaults, harassment and intimidation (Dworkin & Yi, 2003).
| [5] |
[RuPaul in voice-over] Did you know that in the 1960s congregating at a gay bar was illegal? You could go to jail, lose your job or worse. But all that started to change. 50 years ago on June 28th, 1969, in New York City, the police once again raided the Stonewall Inn. But this time, the queers at the bar fought back. That night, the first brick was thrown. And a revolution was born. Through the decades, in the face of hatred, activists raised their voices and spilled their blood. So that you could live with pride, love who you love, and yes, even watch RuPaul’s Drag Race at your favorite gay bar. (RPDR, E14) |
28Thus, in our corpus, there is a relatively large number of metaphors dealing with violence, death or battle as in [6].
| [6] |
[Nina] I decided to really be inspired by the mane of a lion and show the judges that I am this fiery competitor. As a lion, I’ve killed before, and I will kill again. (RPDR, E2) |
29The striking images of danger convey the queen’s pride and confidence in her ability more expressively than through plain utterances such as “I am proud of being myself, and I’m going to win”, in accordance with Foolen (2012) and Legallois and François (2012), who both highlighted the expressive power of figurative speech and of metaphors in particular. Nina’s metaphor of the lion is based on two similarities between herself and the animal: first, her costume for this runway is inspired by her Zodiac sign, which is Leo. But most importantly, it is the character of the animal, its ferocity, the fact that lions have to fight and kill the others to become and remain the head of the pride of lions (making them fiery competitors) that motivates the comparison.
30Nevertheless, violence permeates many aspects of the lexicon of the expression of pride, not just metaphors. The link between pride and violence can be explained from a psychological point of view by the fact that pride is strongly linked with the goals of self-sufficiency (the fact of being materially and mentally autonomous) and self-regulation (the fact of being free to make your own choices and decisions) (Poggi & D’Errico, 2012). Thus, it is not surprising to find many violent lexical items, especially referring to fighting, since individuals may have to fight to preserve their autonomy and their pride.
| [7] |
[Brooke] Good luck, boo. [Vanjie] I don’t need luck. I’m about to slay this thing. (RPDR, E12) |
| [8] |
[Scarlet] How do I use this stage without hitting these bitches in the face? If I gotta cut a bitch off, a bitch is getting cut right here, that Tonya Harding moment. (RPDR, E3) |
- 15 Tonya Harding is a former figure skater and boxer, who was involved in a controversy in 1994 when h (...)
31In [7] for instance, Vanjie refuses Brooke’s encouraging words before going to the studio because she has a positive self-image of herself as a capable queen, and, most importantly, because she embodies the concept of self-sufficiency; luck has nothing to do with her success, her abilities are all that matters, and she is proud of that. This pride is expressed through the archaic violent verb “slay” which originally means “to kill someone or something in a violent way”, but here means “to do very well”. In [8], Scarlet has to lip sync for her life against five queens, instead of the usual duel. Her surprise at this plot twist appears through the rhetorical interrogative, which expresses her discontent. The second sentence expresses her desire to appear as superior to the other “bitches” (even though this taboo word can be used in a positive sense and even express pride, as we will see later, here, it is clearly used as an insult expressing Scarlet’s contempt for her competitors). This desire to appear as superior to other queens, typical of superiority pride, even goes as far as her thinking about getting literally violent, as suggested by the mention of Tonya Harding15. Scarlet’s pride and the initial desire to fight for existence and recognition are here re-directed against her fellow drag queens, which could be a consequence of the competitive nature of the show, as we will develop in the discussion.
32In the corpus, fighting is a motive of pride strongly connected to the concepts of self-help and personal control in the American culture as identified by Kohls (1984).
| [9] |
[Vanjie] We definitely are a group of fighters. I know that for a fact. (RPDR, E12) |
33For instance, in [9], the noun “fighters” is used as a synonym for winners to refer to the last five queens still in the competition. Epistemic markers of certainty emphasise how positive this statement is, and that “being a fighter” is something to take pride in, in itself, no matter what the results of the competition.
- 16 It is worth noting that this pattern of fighting as a motive of pride is not specific to American c (...)
34This link between pride and fighting can also be reversed, with contestants fighting because they are proud, because they have to maintain their goal of autonomy. This connection is especially linked to the American value of action-orientation, since doing things, especially hard and physical labour, is a way of gaining or maintaining one’s positive image, and is integrated in one’s positive self-image16. Example [10] illustrates this connection:
| [10] |
[Brooke] I know I’m in the bottom. There’s nothing I can do about it, and if I’m going out, I’m going out with a fucking bang. I am giving you every flip, split, flop, climbing on walls, I’m doing every fucking thing I can. (Untucked, E12) |
35Instead of feeling ashamed of being in the bottom and giving up, Brooke actually intends to take all the actions she can (as shown by her use of the enumeration and of the quantifier “every” twice), to prove she deserves to stay because her self-image is that she is a winner. The repeated swearing highlights the emotional intensity conveyed in the utterance (Hirsch, 1985).
36This marker is particularly interesting in that it is not clearly linked to a particular type of pride, as it can express both dignity pride in a fight for existence, or superiority pride in a fight for victory.
37As mentioned in the previous section, LGBTQ+ people still face homophobic attacks and insults to this day, and have inherited a political and sometimes vehement feeling of pride from Stonewall. One empowering technique from the movement was the reclaiming of homophobic slurs such as “queer” or “fag”: LGBTQ+ people managed to claim those slurs as their own, erase (to a certain extent) their insulting meaning and use them among the community as elements of pride.
38According to Galinsky et al. (2013), many strategies of empowerment used by marginalised communities are characterised by this process of reappropriating insulting labels used by dominant groups against a stigmatised one. Their study showed that this reclaiming of slurs by a marginalised group actually raised their self-perception and perception of the group (or self-image and image, in Poggi and D’Errico’s terms) as more powerful, and attenuated the stigma associated to the slur (Galinsky et al., 2013). They found that the reclaimed label must be a stigmatising derogatory term, and cannot be a descriptive term (like “woman”, or “Christian”) or a majority term (“straight”).
| [11] |
[Silky] I got called a roach tonight, bitch. A roach. But there’s one thing about roaches, we don’t die, we multiply, bitch. So, get used to me, honey, I ain’t dyin’ in this competition. (RPDR, E10) |
39Quote [11] is interesting because even though it does not fit the rules mentioned by Galinsky et al. (2013) (since “roach” is not a slur targeting a group), it still shows the mechanism through which an insult can be reclaimed as an element of pride. Indeed, while Silky’s image was attacked on the runway by the judges saying she looked like a roach, Silky’s positive self-image transforms this criticism into a positive trait she can take pride in, her tenacity.
40Among the slurs reclaimed by drag queens to express pride, we can start with the word “queen” itself. “Queen” in slang indicates an effeminate gay man, but was reclaimed very early on by the LGBTQ+ as a power term. Figure 1 shows the words most frequently (size of circle) and typically (distance from the centre) used around the noun “queen”, which occurs 252 times in our corpus. If we focus on the modifiers of the noun, we can note that most of them are either purely descriptive (“pageant”, “dancing”, “comedy”, or “look queen” describe types of drag queens) or positive degree modifiers (“pretty”, “amazing”, “super”, “legendary”), which suggests that “queen” has totally lost its derogatory meaning in the community and, to a certain extent, beyond.
Figure 1 – Collocates of queen (noun)
41Another insult particularly well represented in our corpus (607 occurrences in the main corpus) and appearing often in contexts expressing pride, is the word “bitch”. Even though it is also used as an insult, in quote [8] for instance, or as a mere taboo word punctuating the sentence as in [11], it also has positive and self-referential uses, as illustrated in [12] and [13].
| [12] |
[Rajah] Yvie’s one of those girls that likes to verbally get under your skin. She thinks she’s that bitch, but I really am that bitch. (Untucked, E2) |
| [13] |
[Silky] Just like I call you “skinny bitches”, I call myself “fat ass”. It’s a way of empowerment, like, “Come on, you big bitch…”. (Untucked, E2) |
- 17 Defined by Legallois and François (2012) as a form of expressivity dealing with the presentificatio (...)
42In [12], Rajah criticises Yvie’s attitude of giving her opinion about other queens as if she was better than them. Rajah refuses Yvie’s superiority, which she deems delusional, as indicated by the contrast between the opinion verb used for Yvie, and the essential verb used with the intensive adverb “really” to characterise Rajah. The demonstrative determiner “that” could refer to the first sentence (“I really am the bitch that likes to verbally get under your skin”), but we hypothesise that it is actually a manifestation of “mimesic” expressivity17. Indeed, according to Epstein (2002), the demonstrative determiner does not only have a referential function (when the referent has already been introduced in speech), but can also have an expressive function by showing “discourse prominence”, thus conveying the great importance of the referent in the speaker’s eyes. With this in mind, “that bitch” could thus project a superior image. Finally, in [13] Silky defends herself against accusations of putting down “skinny bitches” to contrast herself as a “big bitch”. In this quote, she makes the empowering dimension of calling oneself by a derogatory name explicit, so that this insult loses power when directed to her by someone who wants to hurt her. The fact that this term is used in a self-referential manner suggests that it has lost its negative connotation for this community (Bruun, 2018). Nevertheless, this loss does not seem to be complete since it is also used as an insult, and can still convey misogynistic ideas outside the community, despite the speaker’s intentions when using the word (Bruun, 2018).
43We can conclude, on the reappropriation of derogatory terms, that even though insults themselves are not markers of pride, a group can reclaim a slur as its own, thus divesting it of its negative connotations and refusing to be defined by an oppressor by giving new meaning to the words. Consequently, it can clearly be seen as an expression of dignity pride.
- 18 Quoted in Caffi and Janney (1994: 366).
44Our third marker, the self-referential use of the third person, or illeism, is particularly interesting in that it challenges the traditional person deixis and reveals the speaker’s emotions towards the object which is talked about (Caffi & Janney, 1994). More specifically, non-ego choices, i.e. not using the first-person pronoun to refer to oneself, are “systematically interpreted as signs of distance, non-immediacy, or nonidentity: in other words, as signs of some type of withdrawal or separation of the self from the attitudinal object of communication” (Wiener & Mehrabian, 1968)18.
45This distancing can firstly be seen as a way to distinguish between the out-of-drag speaker and her drag persona, as if the speaker were describing someone else entirely, especially in confessional interviews when they are out of drag and rewatching their runway. Consequently, there is a real temporal distance as well as a gender difference between the two: the drag persona on the runway and the out-of-drag commentator.
| [14] |
[Scarlet] My concept is a Fire Island witch. She is beachy, she’s kind of swampy, and she’s giving you pants on the runway and feeling magical. (RPDR, E5) |
| [15] |
[Ariel] I didn’t really do, like, a classic fringe, ‘cause, you know, I’m not like that classic drag kinda girl. So, this is Ariel’s version of fringe and I love it. (RPDR, E3) |
- 19 As shown in Livingston’s (1990) canonical documentary Paris Is Burning, each ball’s category was an (...)
46The entity described by the speaker can be the drag persona, as in [15], or it can be an entirely new character created especially to fit a runway theme, as in [14]. Indeed, while it is not uncommon for drag artists to create new characters for a particular performance (Greco, 2018), each drag persona has her own personality, aesthetic and tastes, as shown in the genitive form “Ariel’s version of fringe” in [15]. The use of the genitive instead of a first-person possessive in contrast with the first-person pronoun (“I love it”) really presents the look as a choice of the drag persona that is assessed positively by the out-of-drag speaker. In [14], the speaker does not describe her drag persona’s look, but a new character created for the “Witch, Please” runway. This character is clearly new and different from Scarlet, as it is introduced by the singular indefinite article “a”, with a generic value referring to a type of witch. The second sentence attempts to describe her, physically and mentally. We hypothesise that this linguistic trait of using illeisms could be quite typical of drag queens, and inherited from the ballroom scene of the 80s, either from the ball host’s comments19, or as a way to proclaim one’s feminine gender expression to the rest of the world.
47Another hypothesis that could explain this distancing in the expression of pride is the Christian heritage of the United States, and more specifically the fact that in the Christian religion, Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. According to Van Cappellen (2012), a positive pride is expressed in Hebraic psalms by the believers through the use of the third person, to convey gratitude for God’s help, while non-believers expressed a negative pride, rooted in their own accomplishments, through the use of the first person. The use of the third person among drag queens could be inherited from this Christian expression of pride, creating a distance that allows the speaker to express her pride freely without fearing hubris.
48Even without considering the Christian heritage, the distancing created by the non-ego choice allows the speaker to express her pride freely and in an exaggerated manner, without sounding too arrogant. According to Caffi and Janney (1994), a non-ego choice often leads to “self de-responsibilisation” since it distances the speaker from the drag persona they are talking about, but also from the content of the utterance.
| [16] |
[A’Keria] Body of a goddess face of Aphrodite / She’s a new bitch Miss Ass Almighty / Davenport Diamonds just can’t be stopped / She twerked her way straight to the top / I’m the Diahann Carroll of Ru’s Dynasty / You’ll get read so please don’t try me / Yes, she struck it but don’t distress / Say, hey, Miss A’Keria when you see her / Where is the body? / Bitch, she’s the body / Check out this body / Miss A’Keria is the body (RPDR, E12) |
49The use of the third person to boast while maintaining negative arrogance at bay can be seen in A’Keria’s rap verse. Rather than retelling her journey in the competition through the first person (except for two lines), she uses a third-person narrator, laying emphasis on her positive qualities, and answering a third party’s questions.
50Finally, we can mention how, according to Nistea and Anghel (2018), the use of illeisms reveals a magnified perception of the self on the speaker’s part. The self-referential third person can be compared with the “royal we”, putting the speaker outside and above the exchange and allowing her to affirm her superiority as in [17].
| [17] |
[Silky] Munch, munch, crunch, crunch. Silky Ganache is here to eat the lunch. Introducing to some, reacquainting to others. She is the creamy, the dreamy, the Southern belle herself, and she goes by the delicious name of Silky Nutmeg Ganache. Silky can do anything. I have jumped on a U.S. Postal truck in the middle of my show and drove off. I’ve done it all. (RPDR, E1) |
51Silky’s introduction when entering the room immediately presents her confidence in winning the competition through a food-related metaphor; winning is for her as easy as simply eating. Her introduction to the audience is full of illeisms and is dramatised by the delayed appearance of her full name at the end of the sentence. Her pride and positive self-image are visible through the abundance of meliorative adjectives introduced by the definite article which highlights her uniqueness. She also takes pride in her abilities to put on a show and her versatility, as suggested by the modal “can” and the scanning operator “anything”.
52In conclusion, this self-referential use of the third person is often used to brag without consequences, by creating distance, while claiming one’s superiority. Consequently, it can clearly be seen as an expression of superiority pride.
53The last marker of pride we need to focus on is the use of spatial deictics. In our corpus, spatial deictics often refer to the show itself – the Werkroom, or the main stage – and are often used to express an individual pride in one’s skills. The mere fact of being selected to participate in this show, often nicknamed “the Olympics of drag”, is a motive of pride, as shown in [18]:
| [18] |
[RuPaul] One hundred and twenty-six legendary queens have sashayed through that door before you. So from this moment on, you belong to a sisterhood of badass bitches. (RPDR, E1) |
54RuPaul, introducing the Werkroom to the contestants, points to the door of the room using the distal deictic “that”, even though the door is in the contestants’ sight and quite close to them. The determiner “that” can be justified by the fact that it does not introduce any new information but refers to common knowledge (all the queens entered through that door). Even though the deictic refers to a physical space (the door of the Werkroom), it also refers to an immaterial place: by entering the room and the competition, the queens also enter “a sisterhood of badass bitches”, joining the previous “legendary queens” who passed that door, and becoming part of a select club of sorts. In this regard, crossing this threshold is a motive of pride in itself.
55While the queens take pride in being invited to the competition in the first place, this pride obviously becomes stronger with each week passing without them being eliminated. The queens often express their pride of still being in the competition at some points in time, or of their progression in the race, which is often presented through journey-related metaphors.
| [19] |
[Scarlet] It’s a new day, same me. It’s amazing to have made it this far. I am ready for more queens to go. (RPDR, E4) |
56In [19], the adverb “this”, which indicates a degree, and the adjective “far”, which indicates a point of progress, especially in space, express Scarlet’s pride in still being part of the competition in episode 4. The use of spatial deictics referring to the show itself is particularly linked to the idea of being seen and acknowledged as a “fierce” drag queen and competitor by the other contestants, the judges and the audience.
- 20 Since 2017 the show has been aired on VH1 and Netflix, and has gained recognition from mainstream i (...)
57However, it is worth mentioning that since its debut in 2009 on LogoTV, a channel specialised in LGBTQ+ contents and audience, RPDR as a show and a franchise has grown to gain a wider and more mainstream audience20. Thus, the pride felt and expressed by the contestants is no longer only a form of superiority pride of being seen and acknowledged for their skills among their own community, but can become a more general feeling of dignity pride, similar to that of the Pride Parades. Being visible is no longer an egotistical desire of being seen as an individual, but an existential refusal to remain hidden and a claim for the right to exist in the public space and public eye unapologetically. In his study of the Belgian drag king community, Greco (2018) stresses that:
The fact of claiming a stigmatised identity and entering a public space with make-up on allowed someone to “come out of the closet” and perform a transition from the “inside”, marked by fear and shame, to the pride of the “outside”. (Greco, 2018: 19)
58This is exemplified in [20] and [21]:
| [20] |
[Mercedes] I’m ready to show the world that Muslim is not a terrorist. I feel like I was hurting myself by hiding. But I’ve learned a lot about myself, and I wanna make sure the world hears that being Muslim is not a bad thing. Be proud, and loud, and let the world hear you. This is the beginning for Mercedes Iman Diamond, African princess. (RPDR, E4) |
| [21] |
[Silky] I’m gonna let y’all bitches know, I’m gonna be here, I’m gonna be loud as hell. Fuck you hoes. (RPDR, E2) |
59The queens are proud of who they are as a whole, and refuse to tone themselves down, both literally and figuratively. In the case of Mercedes, in [20], her new-found pride in her religion is definitely demonstrative and turned outwards for the whole world to take. She creates a strong contrast between her past, when she hid herself and her religion, and her unapologetic present. In addition to the visual demonstration of her pride, she also wants to be heard, to be loud, to reclaim her own religious identity, to be able to publicly define it according to her experience and not to other people’s definition. This is typically an expression of dignity pride, with the speaker wanting to be recognised as an equal of the rest of society. This quote, through the contrast between past and present, as well as through the adjective “ready” and the verb “learned”, illustrates how this expression of dignity pride might be acquired through various intersubjective processes (confiding, confrontations, dialogues). In [21], Silky uses the same rhetorical elements as Mercedes; she refuses to hide or silence herself. The deictic “here” does not refer to any physical or mental place in particular. Rather, it refers to any place where Silky might be, even those where she might not be wanted or appreciated: she will not leave or hide until she has been acknowledged, or her point has been heard. However, even if Silky uses the same elements as Mercedes did when expressing dignity pride, here, because the utterance is directed to the other queens who have complained about Silky being loud and obnoxious, Silky’s expression of pride loses the subversive and political dimension that surfaced in Mercedes’ utterance.
60To summarise, spatial deictics can refer to the physical space of the show RPDR, and thus express an individual pride, but can also refer to a broader, more abstract space, that of the public space, as opposed to the closet. In those instances, it can clearly be seen as an expression of dignity pride.
- 21 Quote by Buchanan (2011) in Hodes and Sandoval (2018: 155).
61This study has highlighted a surprising prevalence of violence in the expression of pride, and a remarkable primacy of superiority pride over dignity pride, which was expected, to a certain extent, given the competitive nature of the show. Consequently, we suggest that the specific context of a competitive reality show focused on finding “Someone who can be hired by a company to represent their product, someone who can put together a sentence on television and present themselves in the most incredible way”, in RuPaul’s own words21, leads to a policing of drag queens as well as a policing of the gay political heritage. In our opinion, this depoliticisation of drag through the commodification of the show and its contestants actually leads to more superiority pride being expressed over dignity pride. Not only is the show itself a competition, it is also permeated by neoliberal values, among which we can mention competition, entrepreneurship and individualism (Hodes & Sandoval, 2018). With this double emphasis on competition, from the format of the show to its neoliberal values, this emphasis in language and emotions is not surprising. As a whole, it seems that the competitive setting of the show encourages the queens to consider themselves as individuals set against one another, and not just as a marginalised group claiming its right to exist. Therefore, the expression of superiority pride dominates that of dignity pride, and the violence associated with it is often directed towards the other queens, towards their peers, rather than against homophobic people and politics only, as illustrated in example [21] in the previous section, and [22] below:
| [22] |
[RuPaul] How do you plan to come out on top tonight? [Brooke] Do you mean besides the loose pearls and razor blades? [RuPaul] Yes, besides all of that, yes. (RPDR, E14) |
62In [22], Brooke Lynn’s statement about using physical violence to hurt her competitors (either by having them fall over because of “loose pearls” on the floor, or by cutting them or their clothes with “razor blades”) to win the show is obviously a joke, and is understood as such by RuPaul in her reply. However, the introduction of those elements after the adverb “besides”, which implies an addition to what is said, actually presents violence as the default.
63Nevertheless, these findings could also be explained from a psychological point of view: pride is expressed in different contexts, depending on whether it is sparked by a boost or an attack to our self-image or image. This boost or attack can be real or perceived by the subject expressing pride. As a whole, we can note two patterns or scenarios of pride: a personal pattern, based on the gap or harmony between one’s expectations and reality, as in [23], and an interpersonal pattern, based on the gap or harmony between our own self-image and the image others have of us, often implying a comparison between the self and others as in [24] or [25].
| [23] |
[Ariel] Even though I struggled a little bit during rehearsals, I feel like I was really able to turn it out in the final product, so, I am just so happy to still be safe at this point. (Untucked, E4) |
| [24] |
[Scarlet] I feel like we all shined, and I got the validation I needed with Ru’s comment to me about, like, how well it was casted. And I feel totally fine with that. Ru made it a point to let me know I did a good job. So, yes, as the casting director, I’m going to bask in the glory that is that sunshine. (RPDR, E5) |
| [25] |
[Silky] I do my eyebrows with a sharpie. [Soju] Are you going to do my eyebrows with a sharpie? [Silky] Yeah, sure. Family resemblance, ho. [Soju] You know, not every family look the same. [Silky] Miss Soju, bitch, now you ain’t been here to know. I done won a few challenges and I got a lot of compliments about my makeup. So that’s one thing that you ain’t got to worry about. (RPDR, E11) |
64Quote [23] is an example of a gap-based personal pride scenario: Ariel, a contestant who comes from social media and not from the stage like most other queens, encountered many difficulties picking up the choreography. Even though she did not win the challenge (“being safe” meaning that she was neither in the top nor in the bottom), she still feels happy and proud. Here, pride is expressed implicitly, and appears from the positive contrast between her original self-image (her not being able to dance) and her self-image after the challenge (“really able to turn it out in the final product”), especially from her improvement. This gap between Ariel’s expectations and her real accomplishments is quite typical of surprise (Celle & Lansari, 2017), so we can say that this utterance expresses Ariel’s surprise and pride in outperforming herself. In [24], Scarlet’s pride comes from the judges’ compliment about her role distribution as casting director. More precisely, it stems from an external boost to her image, creating a balance between her positive self-image and her image: it is an example of a harmony-based interpersonal pride scenario. In [25], on the contrary, Silky’s pride comes from a need to reaffirm a positive image that could match her own positive self-image, after her image has been attacked. In this challenge, Silky has to make over Soju, who was the first queen eliminated, using her own make-up techniques, but Soju is sceptical of those techniques and indirectly expresses her concerns to avoid them. Silky, feeling her image attacked, feels the need to reaffirm a positive image matching her positive self-image by belittling Soju (insulting her and reminding her that she was the first to be eliminated) and referring to her own successes, her wins and the praise she received. This type of gap-based interpersonal scenario is an environment particularly conducive to violence in the expression of pride.
- 22 According to Corey in Paris Is Burning (1990), “Shade is, ‘I don’t tell you you’re ugly, but I don’ (...)
65Finally, another way to explain this predominance of violence and superiority pride could be the specificities of the population under study. The tradition of “reading” or “throwing shade”, defined as “the art of insults”22, is not only a key element of drag culture, it is also a skill valued in the community, something to take pride in, and a way to establish one’s status in the community (Moore, 2013). This tradition can account for part of the violence perceptible in the expression of pride. Obviously, further comparative studies, with other competitive talent shows or with real-life interactions with drag queens, would be necessary to confirm or reject this hypothesis.
*
66In this section, following the previous analyses of the four markers, we attempted to understand and explain the violent expressions of pride: firstly, we noted how the commodification of drag and the competitive aspect of the show tend to favour a violent expression of pride; secondly, we highlighted how the expression of pride often appears in two types of scenarios, a personal and an interpersonal scenario, each one being either harmony-based or gap-based, and how gap-based interpersonal scenarios particularly favour an aggressive and violent expression of pride.
67In this paper, we sought to identify what type – or types – of pride are expressed among drag communities, as well as how they are expressed. To answer these questions and test our hypothesis that “dignity pride” – the “pride of human dignity” (Poggi & D’Errico, 2011: 439) – was the type of pride most frequently expressed in drag communities, we carried out the analysis of four markers, namely the use of insults, violent lexical items, the self-referential use of the third person, and spatial deictics. The corpus was extracted from season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
68The study highlighted the violence permeating the expression of pride of the drag contestants, especially through our selected lexical markers. The violent lexical items and metaphors often expressed superiority pride, while the reappropriation of insults and slurs as empowering labels for marginalised communities tended to express dignity pride.
69Secondly, non-lexical markers based on expressivity and the dramatisation of the self could be seen as drag-specific markers. Illeisms allow the speaker to create distance from the object of the utterance as well as from the content itself. As such, they help distinguish between the drag persona and the out-of-drag speaker, and also allow this speaker to boast more freely because of the de-responsibilisation created by this distance. This distancing can also convey a feeling of superiority on the speaker’s part. The use of spatial deictics expressing a refusal to remain in the shameful space of the “closet” to enter the public space and a claim for the right to be seen and heard, on the other hand, is typical of dignity pride.
70Finally, we noted that pride was often expressed in conflictual contexts of real or perceived aggression to one’s pride, suggesting two pride scenarios: a personal scenario, where pride emerges from a gap or harmony between the speaker’s expectations and reality, and an interpersonal scenario, where the gap or harmony is between the speaker’s image and her self-image. Even though the violence expressed with pride is not specific to drag queens’ communities, the history and heritage of the drag culture strengthen this link between violence and the expression of pride. Moreover, the commodified context of the show under study exacerbates the competitive dimension of pride, and leads to a promotion of superiority pride at the cost of dignity pride.
71Although offering a promising first glance at the expression of pride among drag queens, this study is obviously not exhaustive: as noted in the “Methodology” section, this study selected four markers, but other elements deserve to be analysed as well (accumulation phenomena or repetitions for instance). Moreover, the strong subjective dimension of the study, in the selection of the utterances and of the markers, might have led to biases or omissions despite our best efforts. Further studies should refine the methodology to try to erase the author’s subjectivity which was, in this case, the best methodological tool available to us. Finally, this study focused only on the expression of pride by drag contestants of the show RuPaul’s Drag Race season 11, and comparative studies with other talent shows or club-interactions with drag queens would be needed to study the expression of pride in the drag community as a whole.
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