6:47 a.m. - 2023-10-03
wig-hat (pt. two)
As I was saying:
It's because of the f*cking drag show bans, man...
~ ~ ~
If you live somewhere where you're spared the amphibian deluge of American politics, I'd like to first congratulate you on your luck, and then ask for your hand in marriage, on the off chance a green card will deliver me from our excruciating descent into madness. But while we're waiting for the paperwork to clear I'll make an attempt, for your edification, to explain how we got here re: the war on drag queens.There's a cynical, predictable, playbook deployed to escalate a non-issue into a politically exploitable moral crisis. One that takes its cues from tabloid journalism. A sensationalist approach, exacerbated by the advent of both our 24-hour news cycle and by, of course, social media. The epitome of the tabloid's (d)evolution is the click-bait article, an attention-grabbing headline that links to a lazy lede followed by a page of “relevant” tweets. A “news story” where the premise stands solely on the merits of a curated opinion-chorus. What a perfect strategy for politicos, no? Particularly ones trying to manipulate a bigoted and naïve voter base...
The sensationalist headline in this case involved “Drag Queen Story Hour”, readings from children's classics by men in women's costume. I don't know exactly where the scant handful of libraries that hosted these events were located, but one can guess: Brooklyn, Portland, San Francisco... I can totally picture the liberal parents who would appreciate that kind of thing, and I can appreciate the entertainment value campy renditions of these works would provide from a child's perspective. So yeah, there's your outré headline, but we still need to manufacture some outrage. No problem: just insert the lunatic fringe's new catch-all mantra, “we have to protect the children”.
If this premise for indignation was informed by reason or common-sense, its advocates might give pause to consider the slippery slope they've set out to summit. But it isn't and they won't; it's just a ploy to bring the hysteric conflation between homosexuality and pedophilia out of Reagan-era retirement. And it's pretty neat trick really, speaking as a de-facto member of the patriarchy, to distract from the fact that it's always men, regardless of sexual orientation, who commit sexual assault and predate on the young and weak. So yeah, given that we heteros significantly outnumber our gay brothers, the chance of your kid being molested by some gent w/lipstick reading Beatrix Potter in a bad wig and size-13 pumps is pretty f*cking slight. But by all means, look over there...
Because if a woman volunteered to read at children's story hour in a fake mustache, chaps and a cowboy hat we wouldn't hear a thing...and if we're “protecting the children” from costumed predators, shouldn't we outlaw clowns as well? I mean, how many Drag Queen Story Hours will it take to match the body-count beneath John Gacy's house? And oh yeah, did they allow children to attend Shakespeare's plays? Where female roles were cast in drag? Would that make Shakespeare an Edwardian “groomer”? There are other glaring gaps in the premise: the assumption that every crossdresser is homosexual, the fact that some of the parents in attendance may well have been legally married gay couples...but it doesn't matter. Because for a certain type of dad, the idea of having his son “turn gay” represents an existential threat. Well my dudes, I hate to break it to you...but banning Drag Queen Story Hour ain't gonna make a difference. You can send em' all to military school, take them deer hunting and limit their media exposure to John Wayne and Clint Eastwood flicks...but there's still gonna be one boy on every block who prefers his sister's Barbies and parading around in his mamma's heels. Deal with it.
The slipperiest part of this slope though, is that you're telling other people how to raise their kids. Do you want to know how the sermons and Sunday schools and bible-camps you expose your children to strike me, from an atheist’s perspective? Do you want to hear about how, the more fundamental your practice of indoctrination becomes, the better a case I could make for child-abuse? Well you won't. In part because it's none of my business, and in part because I know that the kids will figure it out on their own...that at some point they'll smell the bullshit and hate you for it. That's how families work, dummies.
Anyway, the reactionary-conservative response to an isolated Drag Queen Story Hour in some liberal, big-city library was, of course, to introduce legislation demanding statewide bans on all drag shows. This has already become law in Tennessee I believe, and I'm not sure if it's come up for a vote on the senate floor yet in Texas (should it become a matter of public-referendum, I'm totally wearing a dress to the polling booth). This fake hysteria has also inspired a very-real mass shooting at a drag revue in Colorado that left five people dead. Because it's America you know, and we have to protect the children...
~ ~ ~
My dismay over these headlines stemmed in part from the fact that I consider this attack on a quirky (borderline quaint) entertainment tradition to be an attack on the arts in general; and hence on freedom of expression. And also because my shock over the abject stupidity of it all was a painful reminder of that tiny, tiny sliver of hope I still hold out for humanity. Perhaps it was because the absurdity involved was so transparent then, that I didn't see any counterpoints come across my news-feed? That no one deigned to respond? Regardless--this perceived silence by any voices-of-note to defend these harmless eccentrics, these earnest fellows having their “moment” lip-synching to Cher in sequined ballgowns, made me think of Ru. Surely his publicist had the clout to get a statement in circulation? Couldn't RuPaul, now a household name, step into the political fray and advocate for tolerance? Maybe throw some celebrity weight around...maybe like Oprah? Like Oprah with a dick?An idea that, immediately after it occurred to me, gave me pause to ask, “Why would anyone want to, really?”
And bear with me, for I speak less as an embittered cynic here than as a battle-weary pragmatist. There's never been anything gained by punching down. And the adage that “you can't fight stupid” has taken on new meaning since the advent of social media...because “stupid” never sleeps. It's up all night; sweaty, mouth-breathing, hen-pecking away on a keyboard somewhere, and it thrives on conflict. Plus there's something so pathetically unenforceable about these laws...you wanna know the best way to sell-out a drag show, dipshits? Make it illegal.
(You can cut the flowers, but you can't stop the spring.)
~ ~ ~
In light of the progress we've made over the last twenty years, it's easy to forget what growing up gay was like for Ru's generation. When bullying a “faggot” in school was essentially condoned, and when the stigma of gay sex left young men vulnerable to abuse and predation. He would have been a teen in the seventies, when drag expanded from cabaret kitsch into an expression of political defiance; and no doubt lost friends to the AIDS epidemic...ashes swept now under the rug of American history. Men who wasted into corpses while we watched The Cosby Show.All of it has to wear on you, no? The hate-fatigue, the idiot fatigue...and I'm just talking about the right-wing and conservative establishment. Because when you weigh in on anything politically “controversial” now, when you expose yourself to public critique, the knives come out from both sides, and a tattoo of angry keyboard-clicks will sound from the left as well...
We can be unsparing in our criticism, us online liberals, and, as a point of pride that differentiates us from our right-wing peers, every bit as much-so with our “own”. “But why would a leftist pundit come after Ru?” you may ask...to which I would reply (in Chris Rock comedy-special voice), “Have you been on Twitter?”. Because if you fail some random user's subjective ideological purity test, and their criticism gains traction, you'll suddenly find yourself “trending”, and buried beneath a dogpile of self-righteous comments.
Lost in this hypothetical hysteria, no doubt, would be the irony of all...of the expectation that a drag queen be “politically correct”. But here we find ourselves.
The “Queer” landscape too has changed. A lotta new stripes on the ol' rainbow flag since Ru got started, and the goals of the movement have expanded beyond traditional human rights to include the individual, existential, concept of “identity”. Which is progress, obviously; tolerance advocated in the pursuit of happiness. But I wonder how this earnest generation of gender-fluids views drag as camp entertainment? As spectacle? Because long before the pronoun police patrolled the information super-highway, Ru's dichotomy was simple: you went from “hey buddy” to “Miss Thing” with a touch of eyeliner and a latex bustier...
These lines of speculation are drawn from my own exposure to social media; and from having found the chirping of my “allies” online more distracting than the vitriol of my adversaries. Which, if we're talking about right-wing conservatives, is a nonstop given; the “room-tone” of American political discourse, basically. They've also given me pause to consider what a PR headache Ru's raunchy, off-color blog might represent now; 23 years removed from a less-codified, more freewheelin' internet era (back when we were all gettin' our feet wet here...back when Andrew was still alive).
But enough about “why” I thought of Ru recently, let's get back to what I remember, and rewind to one afternoon in particular...
~ ~ ~
He'd been leveling up in Pro-Tools and was itchin' to tackle his first project, so Ru suggested we make this our lesson for the day. As a task-based learner myself, this struck me as a splendid idea and we set to work. His goal, and our assignment, was a disco remix (oh hey, a Donna Summer tune, what a surprise)...and a few hours later we'd nailed it.There's this moment in music when shit comes together, when the beat tightens up and the hook synchs w/the pulse of the rhythm, that always serves as a transcendent reminder of why you put all the work in to begin with. We'd found that sweet spot with this remix...where your head starts bobbing in time and you grin involuntarily. “Oh yeah...yeah that's it!”, Ru beamed and gave me a high five.
That's when the weirdness of it all struck me... As I mentioned before, you get inured to celebrity encounters if you live in Hollywood long enough; and when they're co-workers, friends, or in my case clients, even more so. This was especially true w/Ru, owing no-doubt to the dual nature of his public persona. But in that moment, high-fiving some goateed bald guy in sweatpants, I caught a flash of RuPaul, Supermodel of the World.
“Hey...if you tell any of my punk-rock friends I spent all afternoon working on a Donna Summer remix, I'm gonna have to kick your ass.”
“It's a deal. So you're in a band?”
“Yeah, and we just recorded our demo, actually” I replied, already reaching into my backpack for one of the copies I carried with me at all times, because I was that guy...“You wanna hear a track?” (Rhetorical question, I was already queuing it up.)
“Oh wow, very high energy, and your voice sounds so...urgent? It's fun, I like it!”
Dear reader, having never heard the recording in question, it's impossible for you to appreciate the kindness and generosity of spirit exhibited by that comment. Because I can assure you, with the painful objectivity of age, we sounded like dogshit. But it didn't stop there...because we'd been talkin' music that afternoon, and in return for a copy of my demo (which promptly went in the trash I'm sure), he burned me an advance copy of the new Peaches record; which he somehow possessed, and which to this day reminds me of that house on Cahuenga Pass.
