Degree in drag given critics’ dressing down
‘Queer performance’ course branded another ‘Mickey Mouse’ qualification that will lead to student debt
‘The benefits are unevenly distributed. Some performers earn lots of money and lots of others don’t’
A REMOTE course in queer performance that teaches students how to be a drag queen has been ridiculed as a “Mickey Mouse” degree by critics.
Rose Bruford College has opened applications for a Queer Performance master’s, due to start in September.
Queer theatre, cabaret and drag are included in “interdisciplinary performance practice” offered on the course, said to be the first of its kind in the UK.
The degree will “examine how performance art, drag, theatre, street performance and cabaret has played a central role in the development of trans, lesbian, bisexual and gay lives”, according to the Rose Bruford website.
One of the course leaders is Prof Stephen Farrier, whom the school refers to as an “acclaimed scholar of drag”.
Most of the 15-month course is taught remotely apart from four short residencies, meaning they will also have to pay out for “travel, sustenance and accommodation”. It costs £11,000 for graduates in the UK and Ireland, rising to £18,000 for international students.
Critics fear that it will leave young people with limited employment opportunities and high levels of unpayable student loans – leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill. Others believe that becoming a drag queen is a viable career after the success of shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race, although some performers have to work extra jobs to top up their income.
Actor David Cann said: “If you’re being trained to do a particular style of work, which will go out of fashion as it always does in a short period of time, then you’re going to be spending a lot of time out of work.”
In total, higher education students are loaned around £20billion every year, but only one in five of them is expected to pay them back in full. Outstanding loans reached £182billion at the end of March last year.
According to job website Adzuna, the average salary five years after graduating from Rose Bruford is £22,203, although it stressed this was based on a small data sample. The average salary five years after graduating from an acting or drama course is £25,422.
Mark McCormack, a professor at the University of Roehampton, said there was “money to be made from drag”, but that this varied with the performer.
He said: “The benefits of this are unevenly distributed. Some performers earn lots of money and lots of others don’t. There is a DIY culture to drag in that there are lots of performers working two or three jobs.”
He added there was concern among some drag queens about what would happen if the current drag enthusiasm died down.
“What happens post-Drag Race is an interesting question,” he said.
Conor Holohan, campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, suggested that the degree would fail to provide young people with useful skills and leave them with a mountain of unpayable debt. “Far too many are taking up Mickey Mouse courses like these with few economic prospects,” he said. “These dodgy degrees saddle students with unpayable debts that will inevitably be paid for by hard-working households. The Government should reform student loans to ensure that taxpayers aren’t forced to pick up the tab for wasted time and money.” Rose Bruford said in a statement: “Every applicant will be considered equally on their suitability for the course and their interest in queer performance methodologies as an area of practice. Queer Performance is a research-led course that combines training in interdisciplinary performance with other modes of learning and teaching, appropriate to master’s level education.”
‘These dodgy degrees saddle students with unpayable debts that will inevitably be paid for by hardworking households’