Chinoiserie Drag: Masquerading as the Oriental Other.

Chinoiserie Drag: Masquerading as the Oriental Other makes an important and innovative contribution to the understanding of the gender and racial performance of the oriental other. In order to develop an analysis of the subversive use of hegemonic representations of gender and race I formulate the idea of chinoiserie drag. A survey of the colonial project of chinoiserie provides a historical context and grounds my investigation, whilst queer theory helps frame my approach. I identify chinoiserie drag as a performance based on a ‘fanciful interpretation’ of East Asian people, creating drag acts that lampoon the oriental other. Throughout the chapter I demonstrate how, by performing a racialized gender, Zoe is able to employ chinoiserie drag to enact agency by authoring her own identity. The concept of chinoiserie drag creates new knowledge formation enabling an understanding of how hegemonic representations of race are usurped by the parodic performance of race.