Jack Halberstam comments on RuPaul’s Drag Race in The New York Times Magazine

CSSD Project Director Jack Halberstam spoke with New York Times staff writer Jenna Wortham for  “Is RuPaul’s Drag Race the Most Radical Show on TV?”, published in the January 28th, 2018 edition of The New York Times Magazine.

Halberstam spoke about issues of gender, representation, and power dynamics in RuPaul’s Drag Race, pointing out that “there’s no ‘RuPaul’s Drag Kings...we still have this idea that femininity is malleable, and masculinity is a protected domain of real power and privilege. It is not transferable or attainable. The public has no appetite for artificial masculinity.”

Halberstam is the Project Director of CSSD’s Queer Theory: Here, Now, and Everywhere, a working group created to “discuss, debate and investigate the politics of sexuality and gender in a global frame.” Halberstam is also Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.