Drag's boot-scootin' Barbie: a queer critical rhetoric of Trixie Mattel's campy drag music

In this thesis, I examine rising drag super star, Trixie Mattel’s, use of camp in two of her popular music videos: “Mama Don’t Make Me Put on the Dress Again” and “Yellow Cloud.” Through a queer critical rhetorical approach, I discern Trixie’s uses of camp in both the country/folk and new wave genres, the visuals of her music videos, and her lyricism, and how she then used these to construct iconic representations of queerness and home. In doing so, I seek to further understand her own conceptions of home, and how those conceptions represent common queer experiences. Ultimately, I argue that she utilizes the frivolity of camp to show the impermanence of home, and the elements of reconstructing new homes—but this strategy is limited by the reliance on her audience’s understanding of camp strategies.