A Class Act: Ryan Landry and the Politics of Booger Drag

In “A Class Act,” Karen C. Krahulik returns to the scene of her community history of Provincetown, Massachusetts, but uses a different methodology to assess the relationship between gentrification and transgression. Remaining within, but not confined by, the fields of history and oral history, Krahulik turns also to queer theory and performance studies to examine how artistic expression can be disruptive of Provincetown’s seemingly facile slide toward homonormativity. In one section Krahulik assesses how the star of her essay, Ryan Landry, converted an underprivileged childhood into a successful form of “white trash” performance called, “booger drag.” In another section she analyzes not only the subversive content, but also the timing of Landry’s performances in a town that once was, but is no longer, necessarily queer. Analyzing Provincetown’s history in the context of Landry’s vexed iterations, allows Krahulik to provide a much more nuanced analysis of change over time in one of this country’s most renowned gay resort meccas.