Wrestling just like Drag is all about emotion, without it we would just be watching mainly white men flipping around and slapping their thighs. Drag would just be people dressing up and looking pretty. In other words, it would be hollow. You wouldn’t really care unless you wanted to take part in it, it would be like watching someone just standing reading a menu on stage in a monotone voice. It would be boring and downright awful.
Words, emotions and relatable characters have power, we see ourselves in them, we feel for them and we live and die with the words they speak. No matter how good a wrestler or a drag queen performs, it will get them no more than marginal attention if they are not able to move people, to bring them in, make them feel something whether it be anger, hate, love or injustice.
Wrestling and Drag may be an amplified version of the real world, but in reality, it is an expression of humanity. Which means each and every performer needs to know their character, knowing who they are, what they would do in any situation and how they respond and react to the world around them. The best in these businesses know this, they study it, they put their heart and soul into it and they end up with the most diehard fans.
Without the backstories, storytelling and promos in both Wrestling and Drag it would be a completely terrible place, a place where random people smack each other just because and other people just dress in an outfit and mime a song.
So the next time you watch a show, whether it be wrestling or drag, have a look at just how much detail has been put into the performance, the little reactions, the nuanced parts of the dialect and you will see the character that someone has spent years building.
So that’s all for this piece, the next one will be my final on this series about Drag and Wrestling because I think you should always leave on a high note. But until that time comes…