by Amie Phelps
Texas Triangle, June 14, 2002

The growing trend of drag kinging has finally made its way into the Austin scene, and boi, what a scene!

Last Thursday night at the Victory Grill, the kings of Austin, Kings N’ Things, put on a raucous exhibition of campy queer spectacle, complete with thrusting and gyrating pelvises, exaggerated cool, and butch machismo that is inherent to the nature of a drag king performance. Through song, dance, parody, poetry, and mime, the kings strutted their stuff for a packed house full of screaming, laughing, cheering spectators thrilled to be experiencing such a powerful performance.

Handful, a terribly loud but talented punk band, opened the extravaganza. They were followed by 1/5 Griffith’s dark, wonderful sound (a fusion of early Cure and Sonic Youth).

Then Kings N’ Things then took the stage. The show was emceed by Austin’s very own Johnny T, a Travoltaish-looking king whose gender-bending performances were the work of a master. Whether singing at the drive-in as Danny Zuko from Grease, or dancing with the group at the end of the show, Johnny kept the audience happily entertained and cheering for more.

Next there was a “cock fight” between two gun-touting kings, a show-tune song and dance performance, a mulleted king masturbating to a girl’s picture, several lip-syncing segments, and a few poem recitals. Some skits were serious, some cute, some swingy, some obnoxious, but all were a lot of fun while still managing to be thought-provoking and intriguing.

The flashing, lewd, and over-the-top dynamism of the drag kings make the performance an interactive and social experience, playing off the audience as it played off the performers. Audience members received praise, kisses, flowers, and even a few lap dances while the kings’ energy grew from each and every reaction the audience gave, filling the air with an almost tangible electricity that had the house on its feet before the show was even close to its end.

Pushing the boundaries of gender with their obviously feminine voices while carrying themselves with such butch demeanor, the drag kings juxtaposed the feminine and masculine in such a fluid way as to deconstruct the confines of gender. They break the rules, defiantly grabbing their crotches and swaggering across the stage with self confidence and sexy style.

With the parody, campy humor and embellished behavior that the drag kings embody, the audience began to unlearn, if only for a few hours, what is male and what is female in a fun-filled and charged atmosphere.

In My Gender Workbook, Kate Bornstein asks, “How do we scrape gender off our shoes once we’ve stepped in it?” Kings N’ Things makes a good start, playing with gender, crossing pre-established lines and braking down barriers.” These drag kings help blur the lines between what is traditionally masculine and feminine, what is obnoxious and what is sexy. By slipping into deviant identities and accentuating the extremes of “maleness,” Kings N Things challenge our learned gender behaviors.

Having begun in the late ‘80s in London, New York, and San Francisco, the nascent Austin drag king movement shows how far this phenomena has come, and what a powerful new dimension it adds to queer culture.

Providing a counterpart to the drag queen scene, the kings’ gender-bending dynamism helps to diversify the typically male-dominated art of drag performance.