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| Dimitri Savage and Camille |
LD: 4/6/11 8:36pm
LD: How do you identify?
C: I identify as... I used to call myself... do you mean sexual orientation?
LD: Any kind of words you use to identify yourself.
C: Femme, gay, queer. I usually tag Femme in there.
LD: Could you tell me what drag means to you?
C: What drag means to me.. [sighs]... it means a slew of things.. I can tell you when I started doing it.. I kinda just started doing it as a joke, for fun. And it actually came to mean alot more than that. Cuz drag for me became very personal and because I was able to inhibit a chracter I figured was nothing like me in a lot of ways because the character I was creating was basically male--I’ve got some sidenotes on that-- someone who is very confidant. Someone who forced a presence around people. And normally I feel like I live more quietly than that. Um. But drag in a less personal sense I feel is something that is really damned necessary. Um.. for people to experience, attempt, and support. So.. what does drag mean to me? It’s kind of like asking “what did I do last summer?” It’s like a little essay... You’ll have to help keep me on topic.
LD: You’ll keep yourself on topic. How you define drag?
C: I would probably define drag as an individual personally bending gender identity and I used to htink that it meant that a female bodied person when the complete opposite way and did something as masculine as possible and vice versa. And now I think it could be anything. Just like that one performance we just had where one person basically spun and reconstructed that feminine image again--”actually this is who I am and it’s sexy and interesting.” So I guess something like that it has a lot to do with.. it’s supposed to be acting--that’s a personal viewpoint--it’s performance of the loudest kind. It’s a question that is puzzling me. I knew coming into this that I would have to figure this out.
LD: Don’t worry! I’m still figuring it out too.
C: I guess to put it in a really personal light, drag has been a way to explore some really hidden thoughts, foggy sexual identities that I have. When I first came into it I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that I wanted to dress more androgynous to ever ever appear to be a man in any way. And when I perform drag I still don’t.. I really don’t want to be seen in a way that I really, legitimately look like a boy. And I can look like a boy, but I don’t want to look like a man. Or it’s all over the place, that’s why it’s so much fun. Sometimes I want to look like a gay boy and be seen as that. Because there is something in me that doesn’t want a character I make to have a penis.So that’s something for me that’s been interesting to think about. Personally when I’m performing I think of myself as someone who could have a penis. It’s really... so it has a lot to do with being attracted to women in the first place. They’re... I guess you kind of feel this phantom, I guess a lot of queer women have. There is, I think the sense of a phantom penis sometimes. Because you’re so used to.. You’re either a man or a woman; and man fucks like this, and woman gets fucked like this. So there might be some hidden thing within me that says.. that I would want to fuck a woman the way a man would--which is totally huge for me to admit in the first place. Because I have alot of fears, a lot of violence connected with that kind of intercourse. And so to be on stage and to kind of have that present is kind of exciting because it’s not actually there.
LD: This is great! [pause for phone call] Ok. We were still talking about what drag means to you. Do you want me to move on to the next question?
C: No, not really, cause I could keep rambling for a while. I have two directions I could go, and one of them and one of them, again, is highly personal. I don’t even have to go into how bizarre it could be in my brain--how bizarre it’s supposed to be a femme to elect on the occasion that she’s desperate enough to have something mechanical or physical in her body to masturbate look at pornography that’s actually between a heterosexual couple. I’ve been trying to think as to why I would watch that sort of thing because the male body doesn’t appeal to me at all I’m concentrating solely on the female form. There are times when I put myself in it, and I can see myself as the man, which is really interesting for me and hard to admit. And really there’s nothing to that other than that.. It doesn’t have to be this great big thing.. What I think is so great about drag in general is that we’re all young, our orientations are all over the fucking place, (pun intended) and it should be. The whole clawing for labels or some sort of consistency is becoming an old fashioned concept and I really like that. And so, for straight girls who identify as such to freak out about being attracted to women via pornography, but not really anywhere else in their lives, and for queer women to watch two men having sex and that way arouses them particularly. And it doesn’t really matter, just this... whole fluidity bubble that we’re all navigating through and everything. It can be personally perplexing, but I don’t think this anyone in this community would really judge anyone else for it. And so.. that in a way reminds me of drag. Cause how do you get through the layers of feminine, female bodied person dressed up as a masculine person--whether or not they’re trying to depict a male--you know who in the audience is being aroused by it? Who is thinking about it.. Who..? all of the layers of it. I that’s just completely joyous. I think that’s the best part of it. And for me I’ve take great pride--and I hope it’s not of the arrogant flavor-- pride in being what I call a “femme king.” Really most of the time I’ll be in drag and I’ll be in drag for a couple hours, and I kid you not, I want to get out of it pretty soon. Even if there’s a dance party afterward and I’ll stick around. Really, I get sick of the baggy pants, and Camille wants to put on some lace again. Some lace and some eyeshadow and whatnot. Just shake it off--cause that’s not really... no one would expect for me as a boy but it’s not really what I want my gender presentation to be. I think it should be played with, all the time. But it’s also a challenge for me because when I’m walking around like that, as Dimitri Savage, I don’t really feel all that attractive. Not body-wise anyway. I can take pictures in the mirror and still feel my feminine face in it. I love doing the transformation. Creating myself in that image and choosing a sexy little boy name to do it in, you know? And to bring out the confidence in that other self, not necessarily the boy self.
LD: I think you’ve already started to answer this. What has been your experience performing/presenting in Asheville?
C: Hm. It has been a hell of a lot of fun. Started off as a complete accident, in a really emotionally... wild time in my life I decided get on stage to do it. To see if I could, or because.. I’m so into musicals and drama in general, performing in front of a mirror, dancing alone in a room, who wouldn’t want to kind of try it? And I thought that maybe I would be able to pull it off in some sense-- at least in the entertaining aspect not in the convincing aspect. Because I was actually a femme role in a couple of drag performances, and I really enjoyed it. I always really wanted to be involved because I wanted to support the women who were doing it. And..
LD: Could you tell me more about that? I didn’t know you did any femme roles?
C: Yeah. Some students and I did Highschool Musical at the Warren Wilson Drag Show and at Ibeza. And it was just alot of fun.
LD: What character were you?
C: Oh, I was just all of the female characters’ lines within it. And it was the first time I cut my hair short too. The gayness... it was just leaking out. [chuckles]
LD: How did it feel with the short hair and the femme roles? Did that feel like drag for you?
C: It felt like.. I wondered if people would judge me because I wasn’t a boy in drag, like the opposite always had to be what was on stage. But I felt like I was still representing something within the queer community. I felt like was representing a femme figure in it.. And I see alot of that you know, with Tony Bravo’s femme bodied, beautiful woman on stage, strutting her stuff, I don’t think twice whether or not she should be up there because it’s “drag performance.” I’m really supportive of her and any connection she might have to the performer, whether it’s sexual or not. She’s doing something that’s part of a drag performance so.. I feel like she’s in it.. but my experience in Asheville, it’s been pretty nerve-wracking actually. I lack alot of confidence to begin with, and I put a lot of effort into it. Alot of times in clubs and such, things just don’t go as planned. Music might get screwed up or people may start the song too soon or something like that. But for the most part, people have been incredibly validating and supportive. And to still hear of this ghost fan club that I might have at UNCA somewhere.. It cracks me up.
LD: They’re shy! They talk about you all of the time. They always ask when you’re performing next! [both laugh]
C: Always being asked to be part of events, getting a very small reputation for myself, is incredibly validating in doing that at least. Who wouldn’t like being validated as an entertainer, whatever form that takes? If I’m speaking to a younger crowd, with the pop music and the corniness--cause I don’t consider myself a straight up sexy performer--then that’s fabulous. But I don’t know. I guess my favorite experience had to be at Stonewall, I think simply because it was a stage, a real stage. And I have alot of snooty opinions about performances, drag queens and kings I’ve seen in the past. To me, what qualifies as a performance doesn’t necessarily mean spending over 30 seconds in a three minute song grinding up on people in the audience. You know, there’s the freedom to do that, you get money from it [laughs] for one which is fantastic. But maybe I’m what you’d call a conservative drag king, and maybe you can lump that in for me. I’m still growing up, I only came out as a feminist a couple of years ago. I’m branching out. I have alot views on modesty. And it’s funny to have views on modesty in performing drag, because whether or not you like it, you’re kind of a sexual figure. You’re sexualized up there. I think.. It doesn’t bother me to be sexualized, but I take my performance so seriously, that I don’t necessarily want to be forced away from it to do something else just because someone in the audience decides they want to be a part of it for half a second. Friends, everything else, it’s great. I love taking moments for them. Strangers who might cross boundaries, that’s not something I’m interested in. I don’t have any harassing moments or stories, the only thing I can even get close to was just a female approaching me with a dollar bill stuck in between her breasts. And, in hindsight, it’s amusing. It’s loud and gaudy and whatever, but the persona that I want to have as Dimitri Savage? Not really into that kind of thing. So I just plucked the dollar out, rather that biting with my teeth or whatever she wanted me to do. So those are my complaints for performing in club spaces when people are drunk.. it’s just going to happen for a performer. I don’t expect for everyone to sit down and be silent. I don’t expect people to be half as attentive as they are at the drag ball, but [sighs] when you work so hard, you do want people to pay attention. But to bring it back around, mainly, it’s been great. And people have been really supportive. I hope to do more with it actually. I really, especially because of financial restraints, I kinda want to just go out there and ask Hairspray if I can do something. Not just “do something” necessarily.. I don’t think I deserve it, but to try at more amateur nights. Why not? If I get seven dollars within a span of three minutes, you know that’s a little less than what I make in an hour. You know frying tortilla chips.. Is there anywhere else you want me to go with that?
LD: No. No, does drag inform or relate to gender identity? You’ve already touched on this a bit.
C: I think it’s informing constantly in ways I didn’t anticipate. And, it doesn’t have to be one way or the other--femme or androgynous or something--it can be whatever you want. It’s driven me to be a little less femme on days when I feel that pull to do it. And alot of that has to do with fashion for me. I spend alot of time on queer blogs, and there’s this entire revolution that’s happening of the “tomboy femme.”
LD: I haven’t heard about it, could you tell me more?
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| Dimitri as Artie |
C: There’s alot on tumblr and things like that. It just includes someone, just playing with gender in small, small ways that are exciting in the fashion world and have always existed in the fashion world, but are slowly creeping in to the mainstream. Especially in fashion, whether or not you’re queer. So you can still wear a lacy, frilly top but have suspenders on with it. It’s something really basic but, to me, if I do something with that then I feel like I’m attempting to proclaim my sexuality in some sense. Because in some sense, if you’re single and walking around, you might want to be a little visible, and I think it makes it easier in a lot of ways.. Anyway I think it’s informing me because up to the sixth grade I was wearing only nike t-shirts and big baggy pants, sneakers, and I was refusing to do alot of girly things. I’m not really sure when I got alot more feminine. Especially looking at pictures of myself when I was a kid, I wasn’t really.. I got kind of made fun of. People told me that I didn’t look like a girl. There was a natural androgyny to my face and my appearance at that point. I was kind of skinny. Still don’t really have large breasts. And, I don’t know if somewhere along the way, I tried to make up for that lack of femininity by being very feminine. And so, I don’t think it actually means I want to be an androgynous character. But as I was informed by my last longtime girlfriend, she said some part of my appeal, whether it made me comfortable or not, was that I was sort of androgynous to her. Which at the time kind of offended me. Because I didn’t want to be seen as trying to be anyone else. I wanted to be celebrated for being feminine. But now I think it’s informing me by letting me accept it more. And to play with it a little more. And giving me the power to be, attempting to quote something I just read, “a femme person who can still get down and dirty with the boys and not be scared and still speak up for herself.” And a lot of that shit comes out at work too. I only work with one other girl, pretty much at a given time. She’s a fellow queer, with a boyfriend, and I’ve also started to complain “Why do we never hire girls here?” And she said, “Most of the time, girls are bitches. And they can’t handle this shit.” And I trust her opinion. It sounds really stereotyped and awful but I kinda realized that she was right and that there are alot of emotional situations at work, she migh tnot be able to handle I guess. I don’t know if it’s something as stupid like getting food all over you or yelling loudly that you need something. I don’t know what I’m talking about really.There’s something in that. There’s a whole lotta guys and I’m the little girl cashier. I’m turning around to fry some chips and someone takes the register, I get pissed. Even if they’re helping out, I don’t want to be the only girl visible on the line that’s in the back where she doesn’t have to talk. I guess there’s something in that; if I happen to look more feminine that day, wearing red dangly earrings and workin at Moe’s, I don’t want to be the token “little girl.”
LD: How does drag relate to your experience with gender norms and stereotypes, especially masculinity?
C:..Depends on what I’ve witnessed.. unfortunately it’s the negative that’s popping into my head right now.
LD: Do you want to skip the question?
C: I think I need to break it down into two questions.
LD: Whatever you need. How does drag relate to your experience with gender norms?
C: I was already rambling about, the really dolled up version of either, the hyper masculine and hyper feminine. I think what’s driving me crazy is that I don’t know how to answer it specifically. Drag, as it’s supposed to, blows it all out of the water. And puts it all like little specks on the wall and you can never put it together into one thing. You can never put gender norms back together like one big puzzle. It’s just a.. I guess that’s where it comes from--fluid? It’s just like a mass of something and you can throw off a piece “That means something.” Take off another piece and it means something different... I have no idea what to say except that doing drag and being a part of it, it does what it’s supposed to, and then it obliterates it and redefines it..
LD: Awesome. I know the answer to this one, but.. Do you have a drag persona? If so, how do you come up with your characters?
C: [laughs] Accidentally named Savage, from Savage Garden, decided to take one of my favorite male names, Dimitri, which I think encompasses the gentleman of my character. Dimitri is a little bit dark, a bit foreign, poetic, gentlemanlike, otherwordly, and probably have amazing diction if I had my choice, but to put Savage with it is the other part. Savage is supposed to be the.. not “rip my shirt off” but “unbutton my shirt” [LD laughs] thing. My hair, grab it a bit. Bring out some part of myself that’s not seen sexually or socially at all. That’s what that’s supposed to be that’s why I like those two names together so much. And to just say the word “savage” makes you grit your teeth. Your thighs might sweat a little bit. Who doesn’t want to bring that out in people too? I guess I kinda want to be that. I want to be Mr. Darcy. Because Mr. Darcy is fuckin sexy [both laugh], but he’s also a gentleman. [both laughs] So the character I create is supposed to be a good mix of all of that. And even in my feminine self, it’s all there. Especially sexually, because I want courtship, but I also want to be pressed to a wall. That’s still not something I’ve gotten close to because I’m still growing up and learning how to be comfortable with myself, let alone other people. Also my persona is really purposefully corny in alot of ways. For fuck’s sake I did a Glee number. I always want to do something that’s a little poppy and a little happy. Something really catchy. Because in my musical love, that’s something that’s always been there. So you probably won’t ever catch Dimitri Savage doing a super dirty rap song. I want to pursue something a little more light-hearted--that’s important to me too. I also want to be in a boy band. That’s totally what that is.
LD: Where else do you do drag? Is it limited to the stage?
C:.. Yes, it has been limited to the stage, but--like I said--it has been informing me and changing my fashion a bit. I think on the dance floor--even though I’m wearing feminine clothing--that masculine dance that I have comes out. And maybe the way I was dancing before wasn’t “feminine” anyway. I think that is happening a bit. A current, potential partner of mine spun me around, and I was in front of her. It made me a bit uncomfortable. In that case I would prefer to be the “aggressor.” That’s a really interesting thing for me to admit. I do drag in my head a bit. Sometimes when I’m in front of a bunch of dudes or in public. I don’t think this is some weird insecurity thing, or some queer blindness that I could have but I really do forget that men could be attracted to me. Unless it’s a gay guy, “I love you! You’re so sexy.” [LD laughs] I forget about it until I’m in a situation.. I try to bring out that personality more. And that happens when I’m cashiering too. We get alot of construction workers and stuff like that, and I’ll have on a sideways cap. I try to talk to people on that masculine level to give off that indication this is not flirtation. This is a buddiness that I’m trying to achieve. I feel that if I was in drag that would come off too.
LD: So do you do drag at work?
C: Sometimes, yeah. A little bit. I lose track of what I appear like to people all the time but.. Sometimes I do feel like I’m one of the dudes. Hangin out with the dudes breaks that. For instance a manager made a comment, jokingly, that he’s a man who enjoys large butts or something and he mentioned mine at one point. Which is totally borderline sexual harassment, but this guy is a goof. But that shattered the world around me for a while. Because, once again, I had forgotten that that could happen. And I thought that I never gave off “that...”
LD: You’ve answered all of my questions. Is there anything else you’d like to share about your experiences with drag?
C: .. All I can say is that it’s so bloody fun. It’s given all of those teenage years doing the “drama hand.” Performing stuff already.. it’s given me the opportunity.. [laughs] I don’t know. I’m not necessarily a singer. I’m not a dancer. This gives me the opportunity to do something that is, so I hear, still pretty entertaining to watch. It’s highly entertaining to do. I like trying to figure out how to make these performances into something that.. and maybe I can only say this for the last performance... had chapters and movement. I portrayed three very different male characters.
LD: COuld you tell me a bit more about that performance, from conception to performance?
C: Those three different characters are really important, well maybe only two. But I felt that it was really interesting to drag acting within drag. I was Dimitri, but I was also a disabled heterosexual feller. And then stand up, twirl around, and then I’m a homosexual, flamboyant character--which was actually the hardest. And then the third doesn’t really count--just a sexy teacher. But to me the sexy teacher was the most confident of all, and that’s why I chose it as an ending piece. So I kinda swirled though those different chapters--costume changes help of course. But being three different guys, as a guy, as Dimitri: that was really.. that was fun to do. I kid you not doing Kurt was so hard!
LD: Tell me what was so hard.
C: It was.. I didn’t know how.. It was interesting to be a girl in drag; I didn’t feel like I could be “pretty” enough. I already had sideburns and a clean face; I didn’t have the swoop of hair he has, but that was the most aware of my body not matching. I can be kindof a guy and force that out by wearing baggy pants to hide curves and other things, but to portray a gay man was really hard. He’s my favorite character, so I really wanted to do it. And I tried to kind of mimic his mouth and to really launch into that thing that he does... But I didn’t quite get there. Of course there were those other reasons.. using the song as a vehicle to talk about my actual hatred of my father right now. I wish I could do that with Dimitri too. I wish I could portray the gay boy.
LD: Do you think Dimitri has that possibility?
C: I don’t because of my body.. I think, and I know this is a total stereotype, that the Kurt form of the gay boy--which is stereotypical in many ways: well-dressed, skinny, tightly clothed kind of way. I really don’t think so. I don’t think I can convince people. I think I’m better off spreadin my legs a little and like doing something a little more Mac Daddyish. It’s more of a challenge but I might think of it more in the future. Like Adam Lambert or something.
LD: Oh my gosh! That would be wonderful [both laugh].
C: It started off as an accident and an experiment, but now I’m completely in love with it. I hope I do it for as long as possible.
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