Legal Commentary

Given my interest in cross dressing?my scholarly interest, to be clear; one of my articles is even titled Cross Dressing and the Criminal?it perhaps comes as no surprise that I?m a fan of RuPaul?s Drag Race, the campy, loopy, and entirely addictive reality show on the Logo Network and VH-1 in which drag queens compete to see who will be America?s next top drag superstar.  What may come as a surprise is how much the show reminds me of being a law professor.

The thing about drag, after all, is it reminds us that so much of what we do, including gender, is performance.  This is one of Judith Butler's points in Gender Trouble, of course, but I actually prefer the way RuPaul puts it: "You're born naked, and the rest is drag."

What does this have to do with being a law professor?  It seems that so much of what we do, especially those of us pre-tenure, is performance.  Indeed, for many of us, the line between performance and impersonation is a fine one indeed.  Consider my post from last summer, Clothes Make the Man, which essentially asked, What should a law professor wear on the first day of class, especially a young professor who does not look ?naturally professorial??  On a certain level, I was really asking, What steps do we take to look real, i.e., like a real professor?  Just as the contestants on RuPaul?s drag race don clothes and makeup to perform gender, we too perform to a certain extent, donning tweed jackets with patches or professional pantsuits, hoping we can pass as the real thing: a real teacher, a real scholar.  (Some of us, in the process, are even subverting what it means to be a professor, just as many drag queens subvert the very notion of gender as a fixed identity, or as natural.)  Is it any wonder then that I like the parallels between the show, especially RuPaul?s infamous catchphrases, and what we do?  At the start of each class, I can almost hear RuPaul insisting: ?Charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent!? When I present papers at workshops, I can almost hear RuPaul warning, ?And remember: Don?t fuck it up!?  My students and colleagues may as well be the panel of judges on the show.  And each year, after student evaluations, and the unwritten but even more significant evaluations from my colleagues, I sigh, think about tenure, and can almost hear RuPaul?s intoning, ?Chante, you stay.  You are still in the running??

Perhaps I?m unique in thinking about RuPaul?s Drag Race as I teach.  But I can?t be the only law professor who thinks about the academy as a reality show, right?  So I?m curious.  What reality show do others think about when they think about the academy?