Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies explores historically neglected plays and performances that challenged early 20th-century notions of the stratification of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. In the 1920s and early '30s African American performers on Broadway stages, in Harlem nightclubs and dance halls, and in private homes hosting rent parties challenged white middle-class morality. Blues-singing butch lesbians, popularly known as "bulldaggers," performed bawdy songs, and cross-dressing men vied for prizes in lavish drag balls, while black and white women flaunted their sexuality in scandalous melodramas and musical revues. Race leaders, preachers, and theater critics spoke out against these performances to no avail---mainstream audiences couldn't get enough of this riotous entertainment.
James F. Wilson has based his rich cultural history on a wide range of documents from the period, including eyewitness accounts, newspaper reports, songs, and play scripts, combining archival research with an analysis grounded in a cultural studies framework that incorporates both queer theory and critical race theory. Throughout, he argues against the widely held belief that the stereotypical forms of black, lesbian, and gay show business of the 1920s prohibited the emergence of distinctive new voices. Figuring prominently in the book are African American performers including Gladys Bentley, Ethel Waters, and Florence Mills; and prominent writers, artists, and leaders of the era, including Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, Zora Neale Hurston, and W. E. B. DuBois.
James F. Wilson is Professor of English and Theatre at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York.
