Mugs

pretend(ers) George Michael & Andrew Ridgely; Rudolph Guiliani; Nicholas Fairhurst; Andy Warhol; just a few of the men who have “done drag” for social, commercial or recreational (or political) purposes. We turn up in novels, and plays, too, usually as cameos. And there are even more men who have taken us on for dramatic purposes – Sean Bean; Tim Healy; John Travolta; Jack Lemmon; Simon Callow; Cillian Murphy; Guy Pearce. Good luck to them all, and in some cases many thanks, - you’ve offered a point of discovery for some gender-recluses out there,- but it’s not what we mean, is it? For all of us, it’s an act, sure, but for us the act is transition, transformation. For them it’s to be recognizable, with the safety of just pretending, no risk involved. The casual adoption of cross-dressing. Some look beautiful, but they already have fame on their side. For us it’s always a risk, the fear of just pretending, the anxiety about claiming status and not achieving it. What we now call Imposter Syndrome. Status? Where do I start? Whether we dress up (for majesty), or cross-dress, or dress down for some adventure, we are claiming status, and the fear is that we might get it wrong and be seen to fail. How to get the act right, how to make it a real action? The answer is to do what you want to be, take on the appearance of the dream. They say that John Gielgud built character from the inside, and Laurence Olivier applied from the outside. We need to do both. This is not a mask we are putting on, - we are adopting ourselves. The status is who we actually are, and what we mean. For the others it’s a caper, a seriously unserious game.