ABSTRACT
Sydney: 3 October 1998. Election night for the Australian Parliament. Pauline Pantsdown, candidate for the Federal Senate and drag persona of performance artist Simon Hunt, hobbles in high heels down a dark street in Marrickville – a working-class, multicultural, immigrant, inner suburb of Sydney – headed for the headquarters of Anthony Albanese, local Member of Parliament for the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Although ostensibly an Independent rival to the ALP, Pantsdown is the entertainment on this critical evening. Present are scores of the local electorate and several local leaders of the left faction of the ALP. Pantsdown is in her full campaign costume, a cartoon-drag version of far-right MP and founder of the One Nation Party, Pauline Hanson: a bright red frizzy wig, outrageous lopsided makeup, and an inexpensive bright red dress (the same brand that Hanson wears). Pantsdown is no traditional drag queen, but a radical, critical,1 candidate drag queen, who apes grotesque politics with mask and mimetic excess.
