Editorial
| "Looking at a drag queen," Holly Brubach remarks, "we instantly grasp the distinction between male (a biological category) and masculine (a cultural category), between female and feminine; they are obviously not one and the same." Brubach, the former style editor of the New York Times Magazine, has traveled to the drag capitals of the world--New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Bangkok, Tokyo, and Rio--to observe people who deconstruct traditional notions of gender every time they get dressed. Whereas a less sensitive author might present this material as a revue of freaks, her combination of fashion savvy and sympathetic objectivity makes Girlfriend a captivating travelogue filled with interesting people we want to know better, including J. Alexander, an six-foot-three African American expatriate in Paris who gives femininity lessons to runway models; and Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who recounts fleeing from the Nazi police in wartime Berlin. Some of her subjects choose to live as women; others merely want to perform the feminine on special occasions. Brubach is to be especially commended for getting the pronouns right, i.e., referring to each of her subjects with the gender that he or she has selected. The text is accompanied by 79 photographs by Michael James O'Brien--one only wishes that there were some pictures from Brubach's own excursion into transvestitism, a "drag king" seminar where she became "a self-styled downtown kind of guy, in an Armani suit on loan from a friend and a dark silk shirt buttoned at the collar; no tie." --Ron Hogan |
Top Customer Reviews
 Best analysis & pictorial of the art & life of drag
Masterfully done by a man (photographer Michael James O'Brien) & a woman (Holly Brubach), who share a real appreciation of the fine art of cross- dressing & its trials & triumphs, this is the best, most caring analysis of drag & its artists I've ever read & the empathy & depth of perception caught by the photos (some color, some b/w) is alone more than worth the full price of admission (which I was glad to pay in the bookstore!)
The best photographs of drag that I've ever seen
As the proprietor of a drag performance club in New York, I eagerly awaited the release of this book, which had been rumoured about for almost a decade on the scene. Well, this book was worth the wait!Brubach does a workmanlike treatment of the material, including some outstanding documentation of Parisian icon J. Alexander, but it's O'Brien's photos that make this book a must for anyone interested in transvestism, drag or late 20th century glamour. This former student of Walker Evans certainly carries on the documentary tradition brilliantly here, with this non-cliched, deeply sensitive portraiture.
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