Hungarian Political Posters, Clinton, and the (Im)possibility of Political Drag

In her article, "Hungarian Political Posters, Clinton, and the (Impossibility of Political Drag," Erzsébet Barát explores the contested relationship between entertainment and politics, challenging the unproductive denunciation of the coupling of politics with popular culture. Barát argues that politics and popular culture share the same logic of communication. In her analysis, Barát focuses on the (impossibilities of political drag through an analysis of the response to the "lesbian billboard" allegedly meant to promote diversity and participation of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) collectives in the 2002 Hungarian election campaigns and the controversy around Hillary Clinton's "femininity" as a key issue in the media reception of her 2008 presidential campaign. Barát argues for the importance of gender studies for challenging the hostile frame of intelligibility that positions woman and political leadership as a contentious collocation and draws upon Judith Halberstam's concept of "kinging" to destabilize the ideological link between a naturalized assumption of (normative hetero)sexuality and the corresponding identity of political figures.