1

I am not sure if it is somebody’s quote but people say this phrase very often: “Life is a play” or another variant is “Life is a game”, not actually realizing the real meaning of this phrase. Not even knowing about it, people apply one of the sociological theories on practice. Here we are talking about Erving Goffman's "Dramaturgical Model". The main idea of it is that people being the part of society are playing particular roles during all their lives, like actors being part of a play are performing on the stage. There are specific rules made by society that vary depending on time and place of their application and that members of society have to follow. Therefore, people’s behavior and appearance is different as they are changing their roles. Erving called this concept “front/back stage behavior”. This means that people in a particular situation instead of being themselves have to act in order not to break those specific rules that are associated with the role people are performing. For example, coming to school I have to perform a role of a good student, to talk to professors in a different way than I talk to my friends, to dress not like I am going to the beach, etc; this is my front stage behavior. After that, going to work, I change my role to a responsible worker, and only coming home I almost can be myself.
Why almost? Because even home I have to perform a role of a girlfriend and a housewife. That is my back stage behavior. I guess only in our dreams when we are free from a social pressure we can find our “I”. Another part of “Dramaturgical model” is a concept of “Impression Management” that is very close to “front/back stage behavior”.
The main idea is the same; people have to follow specific rules made up by society. This means to dress and behave in a proper way depending on the situation. In this paper we will try to see the application of the “Dramaturgical model” in society in the terms of
2

race, gender and sexuality, because they represent the most important sociological issues.
And the perfect example of how this model works in the society is the movie “Paris is
Burning”, which “many consider … to be an invaluable documentary of the end of the
"Golden Age" of New York City drag balls, as well as a thoughtful exploration of race, class, and gender in America”
1
.
The whole movie is dedicated to the life of black gay people and Drag Queens, and hardships they have to face being who they are. The movie demonstrates how gay people have found a great way to express themselves at Drag Ball festivals, which are considered to be high quality performances. In comparison with a real “rich white world”, where they have to hide their personality in order to survive, at Drag Ball they can impress themselves fluently. These temporary “actors” show that the whole idea of how people percept you is ruled by the theory of impression management. For example, men in the military can not be gays, because it was socially constructed that military is associated with power; and man have to be strong to represent the standard of masculinity. On the other hand gay men are considered to be week and very feminine, so they have no right to go to the army, gays will not be able to handle that. In the movie we see how gay guy, dressed in the military uniform perform a perfect march. He is trying to show that there is no difference between him, a gay guy and a real soldier. If you put them together and try to compare, you will not be able to tell who is a real one and who is gay, just pretending to be a soldier. They are dressed the same, they march the same. It is all about the impression they make on public.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_is_Burning_(film)
3

Now let’s try to picture a portrait of Executive. What do we see? It will probably be a White man in a suite for at least 500 hundred dollars, right? Can it be a black man?
Yes, maybe in some cases. Can it be a woman, black woman? It is very hard to imagine, but miracles happen sometimes. Maybe it will be a gay guy, black gay guy? Everything is possible, but I guess not in this world, because the society that we live in will make sure that gay guy will never become an Executive. But here it is important to specify what kind of gay people we are talking about. If this gay guy is dressed in a proper way: nice suite, which is not too tight; his voice is pretty low; his gestures are “masculine”; and he is trying very hard to make sure that nobody will never find out that he is gay, he has some chances to succeed, even if he is not white. But if his sexuality is not a secret, and besides that, God forbid, he is black, than we have a problem. His look does not fit in that standard look of Executive, and in this case he can be ten times smarter than a white heterosexual man, but he will never reach the same social status, he will not even be given an opportunity to do that. In the movie, black gay guy, following the rules of impression management, demonstrates that he can be an Executive. And he looks very real in his “executive suite”, that nobody will ever think he could be gay.
If talking about the theory of Front/back stage behavior than it is probably very hard to find a better example than lives of gay people or Drag Queens, that are described in details in the movie. Who are Drag Queens? It is guys that are getting dressed like woman. Are they gays? Some of them yes, but not necessarily. Changing their appearance, therefore, becoming woman for some particular period of time, they become actors. It is not part of their life style it is just a performance. But it is a professional
4

performance, because they do not just look like woman, they behave like woman. That is their front stage behavior. They have to make sure that everything looks real. They “buy” or steal (borrow) from high fashion boutiques expensive clothes, their make-up is perfect, they are very good actors. However, taking off feminine clothes and make-up, they are going back to masculine appearance, therefore, their behavior transforms to back stage.
They are not acting anymore.
The movie talks about so-called Houses, community of gays and Drag Queens.
This is the place where people, rejected by the whole society because of their sexual orientation or transgender identity, can really feel themselves like home. The “Mama” of one of such houses was talking about black gay teenagers that were coming to “her” because they had no other place to go. Their own parents would beat them up, when they found woman’s clothes in the closet or some other signs that their children were homosexual. It was hard for poor kids to pretend being straight all the time in front of their parent. They just could not handle their front stage behavior 24/7. Coming to the
“House” they did not have any need to hide their real identity. They could be themselves there. However, even those Houses have their own rules. Only a particular group of people can be the members: not heterosexual and not white. So, for a white transsexual man, presented in the movie as a sex-worker, it was very hard to enter that community.
“She” had to follow particular rules, behave in a certain way to be accepter by the member of the House. And do you remember how one of the performers at the Ball was disgraced by the judges because the buttons on his coat were sewed to the wrong (man’s) side? Judges became indignant in a second because of such a small detail, but which from
5

their point of view was insult for their community and ruined he whole image, that the man was presenting. For you it is probably not a big deal, on what side the buttons are sewed, especially nowadays with unisex trends in fashion, but judges are very strict and nothing will escape from their attention. You are a gay, a Drag Queens or whoever, that does not matter. But if you want to be the part of our community you have to be perfect.
All these demonstrates that even inside the gay community people had to perform all the time and make sure that their appearance and behavior were not against the norms.
After I have watched the movie and trying to analyze everything that was said before, I can admit that from one side I really feel sorry for not heterosexual and at the same time not white people, but from the other side I am proud of them. There are a lot of talented personalities among them, beautiful outside as well as inside, who unfortunately are deprived of any opportunity to realize themselves in the society. There is just one question: “WHY?” The answer is very simple – because it was socially constructed this way. The society does not care, that it was not up to you to choose what race gender and sexuality to be. It consider it to be totally your fault if you are not “normal”; and, therefore, you are outsider that has all life to act, pretend and hide in order to survive.
However, we have to give a credit to those people, who despite of all hardships keep on fighting, trying to open others’ eyes that everything that is going on around is no more than a social construct. Those people with a strong spirit are getting killed by homophobic racists everyday. It is sad. Hopefully the society will finally change. And we all will be equal and free and these models such as front/stage behavior and impression management will go to history. Sounds like utopia, doesn’t it? You never know!
6