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Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

Abstract

Throughout Japan’s history, performance has played a significant role in the construction and expression of gender and identity; drag culture in 21st-century Tokyo represents a contemporary subcultural form of this tradition. As drag publics become increasingly visible in urban Japan, it raises the question of how subcultures, competing identities, and social rebellions relate to dominant understandings of national identity. This paper explores the idea that Tokyo’s drag culture functions as a counterpublic of imagined communities that negotiate belonging through performance. While Japanese national identity is frequently defined as homogeneous and ethnocentric, an examination of gender expression in kabuki, onnagata, and the Takarazuka Revue suggests that Japanese drag communities function as elective publics that redefine belonging. This paper examines national contributions of Tokyo's drag culture through shared aesthetic practices, which integrate transnational queer influences while still articulating local forms of “Japaneseness.” This paper argues that the twenty-first-century drag scene in Tokyo unravels essentialist narratives of national homogeneity, a destabilization of ethno-nationalism that constitutes the formation of subcultural national identities in post-Shōwa Japan.

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