Queen

The term queen denotes a gender and/or sexual category that is notable for its simultaneous ambiguity and concreteness: It creates a specific image while subtly eliding what, exactly, that image refers to. Its grammatical function mirrors its social one. It is most often used in conjunction with another word, but it is unclear which word is the noun and which is the modifier. Examples are drag queen, drama queen, and scream queen. Its similarity to the word queer is not coincidental, and when queen is used by itself (in description of a nonroyal personage), it almost always denotes homosexuality. This can take the form of false titles, such as when Michael Holroyd dubbed the British artist and personality Quentin Crisp "the Queen of Queer Street," or it may be used as a solo adjective, such as in the 1982 film Victor/Victoria, in which Robert Preston says of himself "there's nothing worse than an old queen with a head cold."

Queen as a gender position denotes flamboyance and extravagance, but also falseness and impersonation. The person in question is not actually a sovereign. The term is sometimes used affectionately or even in admiration in reference to a revered member of a community or one who has persevered through tribulation. In this sense, it does evoke the regal sense of an actual queen, but it always encompasses the metaphorical nature of the title. It may also be used as a term of derision, relating directly to the feminine nature of the title. Gender positions vary widely within the gay community, and the excessively effeminate are often a focus of ridicule, much as is true in the world at large. As with other terms of disrespect, such as faggot and queer, the word queen has been at least partially reclaimed by the gay community and used as a label proudly. It differs from the other terms, however, in that it is mostly used within the gay community, whereas the other terms are used both within the gay community as well as by outsiders when speaking of members of that community.

The most well-known use of the word queen is in the term drag queen. These are men who dress in exaggerated female garb to mock the obvious gap between their biological sex and their gender expression. In the sense of being overdone, larger-than-life approximations of women who could not actually exist, they are like actual queens wearing formal coronation robes that have never been common fashion. They also encompass the contradictory nature of queenness, in that they are so exaggerated that they clearly are not attempting actual female impersonation, yet they are, at least temporarily, eschewing their maleness, creating instead an undefined space outside normative sex and gender.

As Julian Fleisher notes, the term queen also "connotes someone with a defining attraction to a particular type of person or thing. For example, someone who enjoys, say, Latin lovers is called a 'Salsa Queen'" (1996, p. 5). Because the nature of this usage is to call attention to an attraction or desire or to make public that which is usually private, it is often coupled with a term that would otherwise be potentially offensive. For example, a person who is attracted to African American men can be called a chocolate queen, and a person attracted to Asian men can be called a rice queen. Queens can be attracted to certain activities (e.g., gym queens, people who spend a great deal of time on physical fitness, and circuit queens, gay men who frequently attend massive circuit parties). The term also applies to attitudes or a predilection for certain objects: For example, drama queens cultivate chaos in their life and others'; shoe queens take an unusual degree of pleasure in shoes (this is not the same as a shoe fetishist, but merely implies someone who enjoys owning and wearing shoes and probably has quite a collection). The term queen employed in this manner is commonly used in the heterosexual community as well as in the gay community and can be applied to heterosexual men as well as women.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bergling, Tim. 2001. Sissyphobia: Gay Men and Effeminate Behavior. New York: Harrington Park Press.

Fleisher, Julian. 1996. The Drag Queens of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide. New York: Riverhead Books.

Holroyd, Michael. 1977. Preface to The Naked Civil Servant, by Quentin Crisp. New York: Penguin. (Orig. pub. 1968.)

Levine, Martin P. 1998. Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone. New York: New York University Press.

Nardi, Peter, ed. 2000. Gay Masculinities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Victor/Victoria. 1982. Directed by Blake Edwards. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

                                           Brian D. Holcomb