Evolution of Drag in Turkey, from Huysuz Virjin to Dudakların Cengi

"Huysuz Virjin wouldn’t be so glad to meet us", says Madır Öktiş, the organizer of the latest drag performance show in Istanbul, "but she is still our grand-drag-mother".

Indeed, Huysuz Virjin (Seyfi Dursunoğlu) would be so surprised to see the new dimensions of this performance art if she had the chance. In one of her interviews, she says, “So many artists will come and go, but no one will achieve what I did”.*

Today, drag surely has changed a lot in Turkey—particularly in Istanbulian nightlife, and there are much more drag performers than Huysuz could imagine, but she may have a point while saying that no one will achieve what she did.

Of course, her achievement cannot be considered independent from the achievement of her childhood friend Zeki Müren. Dursunoğlu mentions how empowering it was for them to have each other: two queers leading Turkish entertainment sector, one is leading music, the other is leading comedy and pioneering a new field of performance art.

Dursunoğlu was completely aware of how difficult a task he accomplished while pioneering drag in an Islamic culture. After all, drag has always been a performance art that critically violates the social norms.

Drag is a living entity

Huysuz Virjin’s 35-years long drag performance show never bored anyone thanks to its fluidity and adaptability. It seemed like she does the same show every night, but she actually adapted the show to changing conditions of eras, habits, actions and social moods.

Such dynamism requires an enhanced creativity. In Huysuz's account, it is known that it requires two glasses of whiskey for Dursunoğlu to embody the characteristics of Huysuz Virjin, to come out of his shell and to overcome his seriousness.

"Doing drag seals someone’s fate. The artist has to follow the path it takes”.*

However, embodying two (or more) characters in one body may be hard for the artist. They may have to sacrifice either from their off-stage personas or from their drag personas. The two different characteristic features may intertangle.

Drag is limitless

...Right?

Hell yes.

But it has some categories based on its approach towards gender roles and identities. For example, an assigned male at birth performing fish drag means imitation of socially assigned female gender identity and performativity.

Womana!

Likewise, an assigned female at birth performing drag king means imitation of socially assigned male gender identity and performativity.

Majic Dyke from DC.

...

Not Dudakların Cengi, the other DC.

Performing androgenous drag means variating gender identities through metaphoric and metonymic representation, increasing the diversity and fluidity of gender identities by selecting socially contrasted gender roles and juxtaposing them in one body.

C'mon moustache qween.

Last but not least...

Performing camp drag means condensating or exaggerating certain specific gender roles (for example, huge red lips).

Or maybe extremely long body hair...

These are essential Ts to get the context. A short drag 101 harms nobody!

So...

...with no further ado.

Huysuz Virjin (Seyfi Dursunoğlu)

The terminology of drag performance is just evolving into the performance art studies. Today, we can analyze past drag performances more efficiently. We can consider Huysuz Virjin as a fish drag queen even though it's unexpected for Dursunoğlu to consider himself as such. On the other hand, Dursunoğlu’s intro of Huysuz Virjin certainly hints us something:

“Huysuz Virjin isn’t a virtuous woman but she is always trustworthy. She is an unsatisfied, arrogant woman”.*

Huysuz Virjin is a character that we can easily meet in real life. She takes her characteristic features from the outside world and she looks exactly like a "stereotypical" womana.

Less exaggerated make-up, removal of body hair, or fake breast are all examples to the features of a fish drag queen.

In today’s Turkish drag scene, fish drag is considered to be less provocative than other styles of drag—i.e. androgenous and camp drag. Some consider fish drag to be easy, conservative, normative, or even as ‘cross-dressing’ and not drag at all.

They often require drag to be overtly provocative, with exaggeratively painted make-up and gigantic costumes and wigs. However, besides all the provocative, mocker or gender-bender aspects of drag, self-expression is the first and foremost.

And no one gets to define what is more valuable gurl.

Because every authentic self-expression is equally respected and represented in drag.

As a matter of fact, fishness for Huysuz Virjin had a completely different meaning. Huysuz Virjin, being a drag performer in 1960s, was already pushing the boundaries of social acceptance as a "cross-dresser". Fishness was the ultimate provocation during her time and any preference besides “looking exactly like a stereotypical woman” was out-of-consideration.

In other words, looking more androgynous or camp was rather unthinkable, and maybe even not needed.

Some consider Dursunoğlu to be a rather conservative person, constantly denying his queer identity; however, I think we shouldn't disregard the temporality. What he achieved with Huysuz Virjin is, in itself, a big success for queer community.

But why he didn't struggle to be more openly queer? He answers this question by saying that, “Turkey is not there yet”. And social approval mattered for him.

“I always do the things that the public would like. People accepted me not because I was a cross-dresser man; rather because they found my actions and speeches interesting. Acting a homosexual or a travesty in a movie is quite different from what I achieved”.*

As a matter of definition, Seyfi Dursunoğlu was the first ever widely accepted drag queen. Performing canto, live singing, dance, mocking, shade throwing, comedy... Expecting him to be more than what he is, and considering his art to be not-political-enough are disrespectful.

And after all, he wouldn't be censored by RTUK if it wasn't political.

Huysuz Virjin not only performed in the most prestigious nightclubs of the country, but also the mainstream TV channels. Her audience widened from small circles of intellectual, middle-class viewers to the whole country.

Azize Musallat (Fehmi Dalsaldı)

After Huysuz Virgin, many impersonators emerged. But they couldn't be as successful because of the increasing censorship against drag by the conservative government. One of Huysuz’s impersonators was Fehmi Dalsaldı, mostly performing as Azize Musallat in Cahide Music Hall or online comedy series Gullüm Show.

She also performed several times on the mainstream radio and TV channels (Show TV’s “Saba Tümer’le Bugün”), and she was also banned multiple times.

Dalsaldı, by participating in and presenting “8. Hormonlu Domates Ödül Töreni” organized annually by Istanbul Pride Week Organization Committee, demonstrates his political standing.

Gullüm Show reinstates the role of satire and social criticism in Turkish drag. She looks like a random comedian running around, but she makes political comments while talking with the public.

“I started being intimate with the audience,” says Huysuz, “Is it cocky to talk this way? But it's true. They'd think being distant from the audience is cool. No, it's not. I'm more appreciated when I'm intimate with the audience”.*

And with Gullüm Show, Azize successfully continues the cult of Huysuz Virjin.

Cahide Music Hall, X-Large Club, Love Club

With the increasing conservative inclinations of the government, drag is pushed underground. E.g. Love Club is a gay club in which men are so pressed close to each other that “it is almost impossible to move, and throbbing bass shudders through the entire building. People are kissing next to stage, and above it all sways Cake Mosque (Onur Gokcek) dressed in gold sequins. She throws her head back, dancing to the music”.**

In such clubs, there are usually regular performers and they share a small sliver of the stage with a DJ booth. There is hardly any room for them to move, but they still twist and turn to the music. In between sets they mingle, talking to clubbers and working the crowd.

X-Large Club, on the other hand, is a lavish mega-club inside a building the size of a warehouse. Its stage is huge, it has two levels, a curtain, lights, and rigging for acrobatics. Backstage at X-Large, the rooms are overflowing with feathers and sequins; dancers wander in-out as they prepare for the show.

One of the regular drag performers, LouLou Androgen (Ercan Topcu) has back-up dancers, choreography, and matching costumes. There is voguing, fire, hoop, fabric dancing, laser shows, cabaret, and many more!

Yes, it's interesting to witness these shows in the rising conservatist regime. Drag falls into a strange place in this atmosphere.

On the one hand, it is one of the most visible expressions of queer art in Turkey. On the other hand, because of its fantastic and theatrical nature, it appeals even to conservatives who would never openly support the LGBTQ community.

Cahide Music Hall is another famous place for its drag shows and for catering to the upper crust with its rich decorations, huge chandeliers, ornate columns, red carpets, a restaurant aesthetic that mixes classic cabaret with postmodern touches. Huysuz’s “dinner and watch the show” cult is best continued in this restaurant.

The performances in Cahide stick with the choreography, costume changes, fire-dancers, trapeze artists, and at one point, a live snake. Cake Mosque, performing both in Love Club and Cahide Music Hall, argues that at Love, gay men audience watching her show with desire; however, in the restaurant, the audience sees the queens as exotic oddities.

Huysuz says about the audience, “We lost the audience’s respect towards the artist. In my time, we were mutually respectful. The audience was coming for the art, to enjoy, not to objectify the performers”.*

However, this situation doesn't bother Ahsen Gonulce, a queen who has been working at Cahide Music Hall for 12 years and is the grand dame of the restaurant. He takes a perverse pleasure in making his living off people who in other settings might profess to hate him for his sexuality.

On the other hand, the club culture does harbor some discrimination. Not every performer may be bothered by this situation, but gay-centricism of the club culture surely discriminates other gender identities.

Clubs are owned by rich gays and they have a tiny little disregard of class struggle and LGBTI+ discrimination happening behind their ornamental doors. They serve the middle-upper class audience (especially their birthday or bachelorette parties) and expect the performers to obey strict rules and put on a professional show for dah rich.

But drag is about freedom and self-expression. Rather than objectifying authentic identities, drag should be about celebrating them.

Dudakların Cengi

Dudakların Cengi provided an alternative drag scene to meet those needs. Being a quite politic performance show, Cenk (referred as such by the participants) represents and includes every class and the whole spectrum of gender identities and sexual orientations.

Dudakların Cengi is a drag persona in itself, embodying the practices of both the performers and the viewers.

I already said that the drag persona is a living entity constructed out of ‘the creative’ and ‘the individual’. Similarly, Dudakların Cengi is a living entity that is being constructed out of its collective creativities and individualities.

Inclusivity of Dudakların Cengi made it quite popular among Istanbulian queer nighlife at short notice. Starting as an underground show, it reached large numbers of viewers and fans.

Almost all of its professional drag performers were viewers at first. They experienced drag performance on Cenk's open stage for the first time. Dudakların Cengi became both a school of drag performance art and a stage to earn from it.

This led young queers to freely discover and express themselves. Participants built a friendship relationships rather than employer/employee.

Madır Öktiş, an LGBTI+ rights activist and the creator of Dudakların Cengi, is another self-taught drag performer.

Theatre, drama, lip-sync, musical, dance, comedy, impersonation... Dudakların Cengi became the most versatile stage you can ever see.

No restrictions to self-expression

Androgenous, gothic, clowny, campy, non-binary and limitless appearances and performances dominate the show. The costumes, make-ups, shows and props are all done by the performers themselves.

Huysuz says, “You should know how to sew, how to dance, how to iron, how to sing, you should know everything and you should do by yourself”.*

The cult of versatility in drag is a must, and it used to be perfectly executed by Huysuz Virjin. But it was lost with dah glamorous club culture. Cenk reinstated the cult.

It definitely is hard for the performers to prepare everything. But the new drag scene can't finance performers to buy posh clothes. The wages and the tips are much less than, for example, the offers of Cahide Music Hall, or any other club.

And with the pandemic, it is much harder for the performers to continue their art. Government disregards the well-being of artists, and it is in a radical war against nightlife.

But this is the discussion of another post...

Show must go on!

Considering Huysuz’s fish drag as the starting point of drag performance art in Turkey, today’s extremely non-binary, provocative and grotesque styles of drag demonstrate how much it has developed.

After all, drag is mainly about deconstructing gender stereotypes and roles.

What could be a stronger starting point than a man, looking exactly like a stereotypical woman performing on the stage?

Huysuz raised questions about gender roles and narrowed the gap between socially contrasted binarism by demonstrating how possible it was to imitate or mock them.

Progress had to be made, and what Huysuz has started is being continued by many other drag performers.

Today, drag is better serving for self-expression, discovery and reconciliation. But the socio-political status quo of the country isn't not worse.

Then Turkish president, Turgut Özel was appearing as a guest at Huysuz’s Istanbul show. Huysuz said, “Will all presidents be short and stocky? Are there any thinner and leaner ones?”, drew laughter from the politician and the audience, but it is hard to imagine any entertainer mocking President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today.

Socio-political situation pushed the newly and excitingly emerging performance field from mainstream to the underground. However, the violation of the common morale is progressively increased.

It is an inevitable progression of drag performance art—violating the common morale step-by-step to get closer to a truly liberated self-expression!

*Atay, Korhan, and Figen Kumru Akşit. Katina'nın Elinde Makası: Seyfi Dursunoğlu Kitabı: Söyleşi. Alfa Yayınları, 2004.

**The interviews of intomore.com are italicized. Accessed 18 Sep 2020.