So what is it like stepping into Rusty?
"It's a safer place to be expressing the amount of masculinity that I have in my..." she pauses, "female masculinity. And instead of getting patronized, it's a place where somebody can go and be safe, number one, and a little bit appreciated." As Sue completes her transformation into Rusty, "he" straightens his cowboy hat, smoothes his whiskers and absentmindedly adjusts the crotch of his Wranglers. If you don't listen to what is being said, it is hard to believe that Rusty is not always a man.
Anthony Camera
Dude looks like a lady: Members of the Southtown Kingz get ready to take the stage at 60 South.
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The politics are often in the interpretation of various drag kings' chosen music. As Rusty, Sue takes every opportunity to "queer" a song by turning its masculine posturing inside out -- for example, by casting a homosexual inflection on the number, which is particularly amusing when the song is straitlaced country. As a member of the Kingz, Rusty admits to being the "big fag; kind of the joker of the group."
Unlike drag queens, kings don't necessarily aim to impersonate another gender. Most kings' primary aim is to create a textured male persona who is believable -- at least for the three minutes the performer is on stage -- and not to impersonate a particular star. Though the Southtown Kingz and their guests periodically "do" specific singers and personalities (Counting Crows' Adam Duritz, Scott Stapp from Creed, Moby), literal authenticity is less the goal than the more subtle achievement of relaying the physical behaviors of a character-driven masculinity. It is the walk, the talk, the eye contact, the movements that matter.
Drag kings serve as a reminder that gender itself is always a performance. That is, we learn to be masculine or feminine; it is not the biology itself that determines our essence. We all grow up performing at least some of the behaviors that signal us as girls or boys -- wearing dresses, playing with trucks -- and some of us are more successful at these performances than others. When we rebel and cross into the realm of the other, we not only attract attention, but we often risk disapproval, rejection or even violence for breaking the rules. Most gay people already know this.
Such tension is personified by Hunter Downs (girl name: Cody), a Southtown King who, in "real life," is a shy, sensitive, rule-abiding social worker, but whose stage persona is a balls-out, sex-driven "whore" with the mentality of a Chippendales stripper. What is liberating for Cody is that Hunter gets to act out what she doesn't in her day-to-day life. What is disconcerting is that fans may have trouble differentiating between the personas, sometimes mistaking her for a person she isn't. This is a risk of adopting the trappings of masculinity, even temporarily. Nevertheless, the benefits of feeling the performance seem to outweigh the danger of being pigeonholed in unattractive ways.
While bucking conventional norms of femininity, drag kings also teasingly play with the excesses of manhood -- as exemplified, say, by Doc and Rico's version of familiar football anthems. The combination is particularly liberating for those kings who struggled through adolescence as tomboys and for the out lesbians who don't try to look like straight girls. But drag-king performance might be just as liberating for those "normal" females who want to try masculinity on for size and "whip it out" for a change. A visiting troupe from Albuquerque recently made just this point: Six of the performers in their boy-band dance troupe are straight. Hetero kings in Denver are surely not far away.
For now, however, the drag-king world in Denver remains the province of gals like Karen, women who obviously appreciate the freedom and fluidity of gender performance. From cheerleader to country King, s/he excels at it. Straightening his bolo tie backstage, Doc Holliday winks, ready for his second number.
