Performing drag in a pandemic: affect in theory, practice and (potential) political mobilization

ABSTRACT This article first traces how affect theory has reconfigured critical theory by challenging its epistemologies and by seeking out cross-disciplinary possibilities in conceptualizing happiness. The article then looks at how affect is both expressed and curtailed by drag performance in the reality/competition series RuPaul’s Drag Race, particularly for the series’ transgender competitors. It then examines how Drag Race’s transgender queens currently perform in social media space to reveal how their transgender self-identification and physical isolation have reconfigured queer politics espoused in the series. This study reveals several dimensions of affectively performing identity for drag queens negotiating cisgender, homonormative codes while sustaining careers in the confines of a pandemic. It argues that while transgender identity can be affectively expressed through alignment with political issues, consuming the body can become a site of political action. Moreover, Drag Race reveals limits over the potential for political action by transgender performers, even if social media further complicates realizing the affect of happiness through political mobilization.