The corporeality of sound

Drag performance, lip-synching and the popular critique of gendered theatrics in Australian film and television

Bibliographic Data

ID5715775
AuthorsR Cover (0000-0002-8815-2126, RMIT University, corresponding author), Rosslyn Prosser (0000-0002-9638-3717, The University of Adelaide), Duc Dau (0000-0002-5259-1020, The University of Western Australia)
Year2022
Volume182
Issue1
Pages81-94
Publication date2022-02-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedia International Australia (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1329-878X • E-ISSN: 2200-467X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1329878x211031582
OpenAlexW3184006222
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited25

This article investigates the representation of male and trans drag performance in Australian film to interrogate drag's continuing potential for gender subversion. We argue that while drag has become mundane through repetition and recognisability, attention to the disjuncture between the visual and the sound (or lip-synching's non-sound) in drag opens new possibilities for film depictions to disrupt gender norms. We begin with an account of how lip-synching provides new critical ways to think about drag, identity and gender performativity, and then analyse how three Australian films represent drag performance in the context of sound. By showing how drag frames performance through layers of sound emanating from different corporeal sources (the body, the recording), we argue that contemporary drag subverts the cultural demand for the seamlessness of vocal sound and visual embodiment for authentic gender identity, thereby pointing to the precarity of gender normativity

Acoustics · Aesthetics · Art · Drag · Performativity · Political science · Politics · Queer · Sociology · Subversion · Cinema and Media Studies · Engineering · Gender Studies · History · Law · Music History and Culture · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism

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Open DOIOpen Access