From the runways to semiotics: the drag senses

• Grant number: 20/11242-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2021
• End date: June 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Mariana Luz Pessoa de Barros
• Grantee: Vinícius dos Santos Ribeiro
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project will have as central theme the construction of the styles and ethé of the drags queens. Thus, we will perform an analysis of 4 episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race program, produced by World of Wonder, considering its syncretism of languages, with the objective of understanding different ways of doing and being drags. Our aim is to contribute to the understanding of drag-identities and also with reflections, in the field of semiotics, about gender issues, something that is not yet so explored. Based on the semiotic theory proposed by Greimas and its current developments, we intend to analyze the episodes in order to describe the drags ethé and styles that are built in the program. The research will also dialogue with the concepts proposed by Butler (2003; 2007), from a perspective in which gender is seen as a performative production, in this sense, drag queens identities will be understood as a kind of staging of gender identities that are projected from their linguistic and discursive production, since our hypothesis is that drag does not correspond to a gender identity, but to its dramatization.