post-drag king show thoughts

What does it mean that boy bands seem to lend themselves so readily to drag king performances? I mean, obviously they are vulnerable to parody, but I don't think this is just due to poor musical quality or something. Seems to have more to do with the way masculinity is presented by boy bands than anything else. Judith Halberstam has contended that figures that work well for drag king performances usually have some kind of higher-than-normal degree of gender performativity, compared to an ideal version of masculinity that maintains an illusion of naturalness at all costs. Boy bands are so clearly tailored to their audience that their cuddly version of masculinity always carries a taint of suspicion--but that can't be all it is. (Interesting that they are so often singled out as fake, devised by svengalis and marketers, etc. when so much music is every bit as cynically constructed--it makes sense given the rich history of associating consumerism with women, especially teenage girls, and with homosexuality. Don't get me started on that. Suffice it to say I don't want to make the same association uncritically.) I think you could make the argument that boy bands are denigrated because of their girl-friendly form of masculinity and that their culturally abject status makes them available for parody while their attempts at alternative masculinities make them good candidates for the kind of gender play that occurs in drag king culture.

Speaking of boy bands and drag kings, another thing you shouldn't get me started about is how much Justin Timberlake looks like a woman in drag in that "dick in a box" video and what that means. Hint: I seriously think there is some dialogue happening between Mr. Timberlake and the drag king community.