| dc.description.abstract | In this paper, I analyze how drag queen Trixie Mattel utilizes fantasy themes to push the limits of drag performance based on overlapping performative principles of art, comedy, gender, and popular culture. I explore the deeper rhetorical implications of the eight-episode docuseries Trixie Motel in relation to how social understandings of artistic drag can be broadened according to the four performative dimensions. I start by examining the rhetorical and artistic composition of the Trixie persona for interconnecting relationships between art, comedy, gender, and popular culture to ultimately understand Trixie Mattel as a living mastery of comedic references to camp femininity. Next, I assess how this assumption unfolds throughout the documented creation of the Trixie Motel, a project that continues the Trixie rhetorical fantasy through spatial identity rather than the usual medium of bodily art. I then analyze the underlying implications of the project according to predecessors in RuPaul’s Drag Race challenges. I conclude with a discussion on what the Trixie Motel project means for drag at large. Trixie’s newest business venture into the motel renovation scene suggests two new ideas: first, she has exemplified a way in which drag can be performed without a presence of the body, and second, the definition of drag can now include a wider range of exaggerated performances. Before now, drag has typically been understood as a gendered performance of a persona. The Trixie Motel now broadens that definition to be any performance by any entity that uses fantasy themes to elevate the intersection of art, comedy, gender and culture. | |
