Kings challenge gender with drag show

The B-Town Kings show started 20 minutes late Friday night with a crowd packed in Collins' Coffeehouse. Bloomington's only drag king troupe lip-syncs to masculine songs while acting out the song.\n"These guys are hysterical!" said senior Ben Kincannon, vice president of OUT, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender student union. \nNearly everyone has heard of drag queens, but drag kings, or women who perform as men, are becoming popular, said Summer Hall of Indianapolis. Hall works with the National Women's Music Festival, which encourages drag kings. She found out about the show through a friend of a friend in Bloomington.\nDrag kings are becoming increasingly popular, Hall explained.\n"It's an up-and-coming thing," she said. "They're all the rage. (Drag kings) were around back in the '70s and '80s and now there's a new comeback. It started in places like Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York, and now it's starting to come to the Midwest."\nKincannon said although people believe drag kings are all lesbians, in truth, some are not.\n"Although drag queens are predominately gay men," he said, "kings are not so much about sexual orientation. It's more about exploring boundaries and playing with gender."\nLocally, the B-Town Kings have been in existence for approximately two years. They have performed numerous shows around Bloomington, including the Miss Gay IU pageant, Kincannon said.\n"They get a wonderful response," Kincannon said. "It's just a shame that there are so few shows." Freshman Abby Wagner attended the show for a class.\n"It's interesting," she said. "I like it a lot. I thought I was going to be uncomfortable, but I'm not."\nKeale Brinton, a friend of Wagner's from Granger, Ind., also attended the show. \n"It's great! I'm totally into it," she said. "Right on."\nHall, who has been to many drag king shows, enjoyed the B-town Kings as well.\n"I think it's fresh and sincere, and that's what really made it enjoyable."\nThe B-Town Kings will perform again at Collins Living-Learning Center in January, and will also appear at the Miss Gay IU pageant in April.\n-- Contact staff writer Jenny Kobiela at jkobiela@indiana.edu.