Performance excellence destabilizes norms in Butler’s model but consolidates them in piety practice

Evidence

What is signifi here is that as the drag queen becomes more successful in her approximation of heterosexual norms of femininity, the challenge her performance poses to the stability of these norms also increases. The excellence of her performance, in other words, exposes the vulnerability of heterosexual norms and puts their naturalized stability at risk. For the mosque participants, on the other hand, excellence at piety does not put the structure that govern its normativity at risk but rather consolidates it. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1115

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Butler’s performativity model in gender theory; also resonates with the reader’s work on ritual practice and social norms. — connects to: Research funding subordinates truth to the goal of performativity — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 342
• DEFINE: Clarifies the distinct models of performativity — subversion-through-excellence (Butler) vs. consolidation-through-excellence (piety movement).