WEBVTT - Drag 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:09.000 Ephemeralist production of High Heart, three d Ad A fulful Exposure. 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:15.120 Listen with that phones. You'll find it in New York City. 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:18.800 You'll find it in your closet. You'll find it downtown. 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.159 You'll find it at your neighbor's house, you'll find it 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.919 at the club, and you'll find it on TV. I'm 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:29.360 talking about drag, an art form which has garnered massive 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:33.040 popularity over the last decade, but has roots older than 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:37.360 modern religion. Drag has been traditionally defined as a form 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:41.160 of entertainment where men dresses women or women dresses men. 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.680 They might lip sync to a popular song, perform a 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:47.600 role on stage, or strut down a runway wearing the 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:51.640 trendiest clothes fashion has to offer. But in recent years, 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:54.920 drag has come to be understood as so much more. 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.440 It's a way of life, a path for people across 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:03.880 the world to express themselves and live their truth. Today, 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.200 producer Trevor Young is going to walk us from the 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:11.160 origins of drag to its most popular modern iteration. A 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:15.440 reality TV show which you've maybe heard of, Rue Balls 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:20.920 Drag Race is now on v H one. Girl, Let's 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:25.640 do this. Your edges are officially snatched the Queen is 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:30.320 here about bitches. Think you've seen fashion? I got it 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:38.919 going on. It's one of my main connections with young 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:43.120 people who are college age in the twenties. Like, we 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:44.919 don't have a lot of other stuff to talk about. 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.560 They're very different. They're always got their head in their phone. 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.520 But the one thing we can totally connect on is, 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:58.360 Oh my god, Candy News or Simone or got Nick, 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:01.240 you know, what do you think? Blah blah blah blah. 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:04.600 These are kids that are Ivy League colleges or there. 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.200 You know, they're straight kids, all gay kids or anything kids. 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.680 There's just this connection that RuPaul was created between people. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.720 My name is Simon Donan. I am an author, and 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:19.640 I think a lot of people know me from my 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.880 work at Barney's where I was creative director and design 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.520 windows and ads, and I've done a whole bunch of things. 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.640 I'm all hello. Simon and I had agreed we'd do 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.760 a one hour interview about Drag, but it became two 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.480 hours because we couldn't stop talking about RuPaul's drag race. 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:43.359 It turns out we're both huge fans, but the reality 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.480 is that drag is so much more than just drag. Race. 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.959 It's an art form, a means of expression that goes 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:54.000 back hundreds even thousands of years. It's a rich historical 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:58.360 counterculture turned pop culture phenomenon that connects people across lines 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:03.640 of age, race, gender, wealth, in time. For Simon who 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.120 grew up in the UK, it's always been a way 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.799 of life. Well, I can't ever remember not being wearing 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.120 a drag. I mean when I was a kid, drag 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.000 was always on the TV. Many of the popular comedians 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.480 in my childhood always to a drag. We had big 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.639 famous female in personators like Danny LaRue. May I call 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:29.000 you ladies India any time we're owing a four three 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.440 to eight. If mother answers don't hang up, you're still 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:37.800 on a good thing. Dick and Marie, excuse me, miss 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:40.080 tell me? Do you have a favorite way of spending 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.280 a bank holiday? Yes? I invite the man in from 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:46.520 next time you have a sound together, Stanley Baxter Tingers 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:53.160 will have the staff are quite unsuitable, but surely we 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:57.560 should spare Mrs Bridges. She's a treasure. If she's a treasure, 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:03.040 then I suggested better. I don't oh god, So I 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:08.640 think English people have a different relationship to drag than Americans, 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.440 at least definitely back then, because we don't have that 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:17.320 puritanical revulsion against it. In the nineteen fifties, it was 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:22.120 just considered to be amusing and entertaining. I have pictures 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:26.039 of me when I was like ten in our backyard 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.400 at home, taken by my mother, with my best friend Biddy, 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:31.839 who went on to become quite a famous drag queen 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.800 in London in the seventies, and we're both in drag. 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:40.239 After spending decades surrounded by drag, Simon wrote and published 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:44.520 a book in twenty nineteen called Drag The Complete Story. 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:47.000 So I had to think, well, why would I do 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:51.239 this book now? And then I thought, well, here's the deal. 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:55.880 You know, in the nineties, drag was basically losing its mojo. 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.600 People were speculating that now that it's would have lost 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.400 a lot of its marginal status, it was just gonna fizzle, 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.960 And people were making those kind of speculations, and I 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.640 quote people in my book saying that. But then fast 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:16.640 forward to the second decade of the century and there's 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:23.000 this huge explosive revolutionary interest in gender drag, not just 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:27.160 RuPaul's drag race, but the whole gender landscape became this 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:33.440 massively complex, massively focal part of the culture. As Simon 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:38.039 says saw, the doors burst open for gender expression, and 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.960 drag was the leader of this new revolution that made 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.880 it very appealing to a whole new generation of people. 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:48.520 It just seemed like a perfect art form that not 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.960 only like affirmed me in a queer and trans kind 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.400 of way, but also just like allowed me to showcase 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:59.080 all of my talents and didn't put any restrictions limitations 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:04.760 on it. This is Taylor Alexander in Atlanta based drag performer. 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:09.160 We'll be hearing from Taylor throughout this episode. Taylor began 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:14.240 their drag journey in I started identifying as like non 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.160 binary INN. When I had that kind of language, it 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.120 just made kind of more sense to me. It felt 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:23.400 more comfortable. Never really felt comfortable identifying with the label 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.120 of being a man. For some people, they do drag 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.000 because they don't have a space or a place to 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.880 explore gender, or they have an inkling that they might 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.360 not be the gender they were assigned at birth, and 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:41.120 so drag can sometimes be a way to explore that. 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:42.960 You know, I know plenty of people who come into drag, 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.279 you know, identifying as like cis gender men. And then 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.880 when they start doing drag and they started doing shows, 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:50.719 and eventually you know, they might come out as trans 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.680 or non binary, and I think that's beautiful. Well, that's 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.599 the reason to do this book, because there is this 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.640 gender revolution going on. When I started this book, there 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:06.479 was this iron firewall between drag and trans. It would 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.880 have been a huge mistake to call a trans person 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.640 a drag queen. There was this very different focus. And 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:15.800 then during the two years that I wrote on the book, 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:22.320 all the boundaries crumbled. Was truly revolutionary period where suddenly 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.000 you had straight women identifying as drag queens, you had 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:32.040 trans women identifying as drag queen identity. So it was 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.080 all changing to the point where now obviously you see 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:38.200 on Rupha's Drag Rays, we have got Mick who's a 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:42.600 trans man who has a drag queen alter ego, if 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.760 that's the right word for it. I thought, this is 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.200 a great time to revisit the history of drag and 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.680 bring it right up to day into this new revolutionary, 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:59.520 exploratory gender period that we're in now. Of course, it's 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.480 taken a time to get to this point, so let's 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.160 go back to some of the earliest iterations of what 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:10.760 we now call drag. Early Greek and Roman society was 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:17.240 very masculine and very chest beating and all about testosterone basically, 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:22.320 and then late Greek society became much more androgynous, and 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:24.760 the same with Rome, you know, towards the end of 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.440 the Roman Empire, when it began to crumble. Then you 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:33.520 saw a lot of bacchanalien madness emperors like Nero Caligula 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:38.000 wearing women's clothes. And you know, some people say they're exaggerated, 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.840 but I like to think that they're not because they're 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.679 so fun to read and and I thought, this is 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:45.960 a great way of getting young people interested in history 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.720 to tell all these super body crazy stories about Nero, 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:52.800 who also murdered his mother. You know, it's good to 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.400 keep that in mind. Um. I don't think they were 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.839 particularly nice people, by the sound of it. And the 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:04.280 was another ancient culture to test out gender ambiguity Egypt, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:10.280 which is just the most marvelous, beautiful androgyny. If you 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.120 look at to some common and you know that was 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:19.640 a boy, but how beautiful, how extraordinary, how how mesmerizing 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:24.280 and timeless, like so amazing even today It so takes 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.839 your breath away to look at Egyptian art and the 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:32.800 use of androgynous images, the androgynous clothing and the shifts. 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:39.600 That was a pretty amazingly rich culture. To the east, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.720 Japan used a form of drag with its kabuki theater, 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:48.000 developed in the Edo period. Kabuki featured men, often performing 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:58.440 as women on stage. The men would wear kimonas done 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.960 heavy pale white makeup, angle fans, and assume the role 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:06.080 of a geisha. The reasons for kabuky being male only 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:10.360 are vast and complicated, not limited to rampant sexism and 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:15.719 a history of violence towards female performers. Like kabuki, Shakespearean 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:20.200 drama in England also featured male actors playing female characters roles, 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.320 and like kabuki, it was not always for great reasons. 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:29.640 In Shakespeare, the female roles were played by men because 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.480 women weren't allowed to get it on the stage physically. 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:38.120 Oh no, even so quickly may one catch the plague. Methink, 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.640 so I feel this youth's perfections with an invisible and 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.880 subtle stealth to creep in out mine eyes. And then 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:51.200 the boys who played female roles lady Macbeth, Cleopatra. I 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:53.839 don't think they were treated really great. They didn't become 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.959 superstars or anything. They're often forgotten, whereas the male actors 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.960 are still remembered and the always who played women's roles. 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:05.280 One minute they might be in a pair of tites 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:07.360 having a sword fight, and then they would have to 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.880 put on some gown for their female role, of which 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.960 there are many. Shakespeare place with this all the time 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.480 because he does a lot of swapping. Gender swapping. You know, 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.520 as you like it, you're accellent is something finer than 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.000 you could purchase, and sort of moved the dwelling. I 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.280 have been total many but indeed the lord really just 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.360 uncle of mine, told me to speak. I've heard him 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.600 read many lectures against it, and I thank god, I'm 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:35.439 not a woman to be touched with so many gideal offenses. 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:40.079 That's actually apparently where the word drag comes from, because 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:44.200 there were these laws in Elizabethan, England that unless you 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:49.199 were an aristocrat, you couldn't wear velvet pearls. Course it's 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.679 all the all the finery of the aristocracy. It was illegal. 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.560 So when the aristocracy wanted to dump off their all clothes, 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:02.319 they would sell them to the Globe Theater where Shakespeare 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.959 producing his place. They would refer to it as their drags, 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:08.040 not going to wear my little jerk in and my 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.960 tides have to get my drags on. That's one theory 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:15.080 about the origin of the word drag. Drag might have 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.920 been most prevalent in the performing arts, but that wasn't 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:22.600 its only purpose. Often the stakes were much higher. There's 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:28.280 instances of people cross dressing to evade danger. That's a 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:33.200 common theme throughout history. Women have worn men's clothes in 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:38.560 order to survive, to get a job. Even in Victorian England, 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.880 you couldn't become a law clerk unless you were a boy, 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:44.560 so a lot of girls would dress up in boys clothes, 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.920 sort of like a gentle stories. What would you do 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.640 with all you have? Want the life was to study 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:54.720 and it was forbidden. But if it were that would 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.760 be difficult, wouldn't it always hiding afraid of being discovered? Yes, 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:04.840 what's your secret? So women across just throughout history, but 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:10.000 often with the goal being just pure survival, either physical, financial, 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:14.000 or whatever. The technical term for a woman who dresses 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:17.400 as a man is a drag king. While the practice 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.400 was used for survival reasons. It was also incredibly popular 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:27.240 in the entertainment industry. You know, there's drag kings who 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.880 became very famous, Hetty King and those women at the 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.960 turn of the twentieth century, they were making a lot 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:38.640 of money. They were like huge Broadway stars. People love 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:43.800 to watch a woman grab that male man, splaining power 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:48.320 and and satirize it. We'll hear more about drag kings 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:51.160 in a minute for now. We Land in the early 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:57.280 twentieth century where drag exploded. Between the wars was a 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:02.199 very fertile time for drag. That the Harlem Renaissance. There 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.920 was people like Gladys Bentley. There was this thing called 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.079 the pansy Craze in Harlem. There was a time of 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:15.600 sort of loosening morals, more creative freedom and freedom of 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.640 expression between the wars, and you saw that in London, 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:24.840 Germany obviously the Weimar period. And you know, if you've 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:29.800 seen the movie Cabaret, what good is sitting alone in 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:36.640 your room? Come here the music play. Someone like Gladys Bentley, 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.960 you know, she thrived during the panty craze, became a 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:45.000 big superstar. She had a big apartment on Park Avenue 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:56.760 and a limo driver, and she was doing great. She 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:00.320 would wear a tucks and she would flirt with women 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:04.720 in the audience, and she was a secretly charismatic woman 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:07.720 who I think somebody should make a film about her life. 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.120 Then after the Wars, particularly in America, there was this 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.640 new emphas on respectability and being conventional, and you know, 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:21.080 they started threatening her. It's illegal for women to wear 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:26.240 men's clothes. And she wrote a terrible article in I 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.120 think it was Ebony magazine. The headline was something like, 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.880 I become a woman again, And she took female hormone 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:36.000 and had married a guy and had to retreat from 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.240 this freedoms of being a drag queen. And it's quite 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.040 a sad story that was very much a mirror of 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:47.520 the times. Sadly, drag and trans performers continued to struggle 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:51.560 for rights and for survival throughout the twentieth century. In 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:55.400 New York City, being queer was illegal, as was selling 0:15:55.440 --> 0:16:01.840 alcohol at openly lgbt Q establishments. Then in nineteen one 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:07.200 event changed everything. On June, police rated a gay bar 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.200 called the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Cops broke into 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:15.280 the building, arresting and assaulting the patrons. The local queer 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:19.600 community was over it, and they were furious. Riots erupted 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.680 in the neighborhood that would go on for days. Headed 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.040 up by movement icons Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:29.880 the Stonewall riots were some of the most significant displays 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:34.880 of resistance and courage in the face of oppression. You know, 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:39.760 when I was a kid, obviously for gay people of 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.920 color and trans people of color, it's infinitely worse, but 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:47.480 even for me in my little factory town, gay bashing 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.520 was a weekend hobby for the local skinnets. Homophobia was 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:55.760 just part of the lingo, as was racism, as was 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.760 stuff that's completely unacceptable these days. It was just normal. 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.360 And I remember my dad saying to me when he sensed, 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:07.800 you know, I was starting to manifest. We never discussed 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:11.560 it during our entire life, but he was getting sense 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.120 probably that I was gay, and he said to me, 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:18.280 you know, those homosexuals, they get beaten up, they get blackmailed, 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:20.800 most of them end up in prison or in the 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:25.000 mental hospital. And the horrible thing is he was actually correct. 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.280 It was illegal to be homosexual until nineteen sixty seven 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.040 in England, and then even when that was overturned. The 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:36.520 actual policing of gay people continued way into the seventies, 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:41.439 and the gay bashing in many someplaces never stopped. My 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.600 family is from Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland was very slow 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:48.560 to make any changes. My sister's gay and my mom 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.040 was terrified that the police would find out we were 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.280 gay because it was illegal, was on the books, you know, 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.720 like unless is into the eighties, into the nineties, I 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:02.800 think still gay marriage isn't eagle and so imagine that. 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:08.680 But your trans and you're you're breaking these other sacred 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:13.800 taboos about gender is a million times worse. So I 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.919 only signed my gaye experience as a sort of, you know, 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.439 the tip of the iceberg for what what the trans 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:23.320 person might face. Simon knew a number of trans and 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:27.000 drag performers throughout the seventies and eighties. I asked him 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:30.120 how they got by? You have a good left hook. 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:35.359 When I lived in Manchester in the early seventies and 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.480 it was a fantastic town with a very vibrant drag scene, 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.520 but the dragon queens was so tough. I remember being 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:46.720 in at some horrible calf with these two drag queens. 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.520 I knew called Aver and Charis, and some woman said 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.320 something to Ava that ticked her off. And Ava was 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.320 big and she picked up her tray with her food 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.000 on just threw it right out this woman and then 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:05.159 poors Cherise later on was murdered by you know, skinhead gang. 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.640 And I think that that kind of stuff continues in 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:11.200 other parts of the world. I mean these countries where 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.680 it's still illegal to be gay. There's countries in Africa, 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:17.840 whether it's just you wonder when are they going to 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:20.800 make some progress on this issue. Brazil, I think it 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.880 seems very liberated and very gay positive, but then trans 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:30.040 people are murdered in record numbers in Brazil. So brave 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.760 to throw on a frock and get out there and 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.080 it's empowering and it's creative and it's brilliant, but it's 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:43.280 also hugely courageous. For some younger drag queens today, that 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.560 history might get lost the Internet and media portraying much 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:51.080 more glamorized version of drag than the one of generations past. 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:57.160 But for Taylor Alexander, that history is everything. It's really 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.400 informed how I got into drag. Who was the porting 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.560 me when I started doing drag? So knowing my history 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:06.880 and knowing what had to happen before I came along 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:09.919 to make the world what it is for queer and 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:13.679 trance people is extremely important. I think that there are 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:17.520 some people who just don't think about that, who don't 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.360 take that into consideration. You know. On top of being 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:22.720 like a performer, I'm also like a community organizer, and 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:25.680 so as much as like you know, I love throwing parties, 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.119 I'm always thinking about, like how can I reflect different 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.679 communities in this drag show? How can I tie this 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.320 into like queer history, how can I tie this into 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:36.560 like movements that are happening right now, which is like 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.320 standing up for black trance lives and whatnot. It's like 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:41.879 an ongoing process, and I think it's unfortunate that some 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:45.880 performers just completely toss it to the side. I definitely agree. 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:47.439 I don't want to go to every single bar and 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:49.920 have like a sit down conversation about like stone Wall 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:52.960 in Marsha P. Johnson, But every single person that comes 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:54.879 to a show of mine, it comes to a uh 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.480 an event that I'm producing. I would love to leave 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:00.480 with like a certain kind of inspiration and to learn 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.720 more and to to know more and to grow, and 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:08.560 so history and representation and just learning about who came 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:10.800 before me and what's going to happen, you know, after me. 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:24.359 It's really important. Until the late eighties, drag culture had 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.920 very little visibility outside of its few subversive pockets around 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:31.600 the world. But then one movie changed all of that, 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:42.560 Jenny Livingstone documentary Paris Is Burning Law Learned and learned 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:48.720 it well. That movie is sort of like the Citizen 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:53.000 Kane of drag. I was working years ago in the 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:56.119 mid eighties when all of my friends were dying. It 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.280 was a terrible period, the Eights epidemic. And Susanne bart 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:01.679 Is a very clear was friend of mine. She's a 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.800 club queen in New York, and back then we were 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:08.760 like so overwhelmed with death. You know, we're still young 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:11.560 people and dealing with all this death. And she said, 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:14.760 I'm going to do a charity event, but like one 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.760 of these voguing balls. And I said, what you're talking about, 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.360 And she dragged me up to Harlem and we went 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:22.760 to a bunch of these voguing balls, and then we 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:25.960 started having committee meetings for this event she wanted to 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:30.520 do call a love Ball, and one week Chi Valente, 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:32.960 who has been very involved in this work. She said, 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:36.879 I'm bringing this girl who's doing a documentary on the 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:40.879 voguing scene in New York killed Jenny Livingston, And she 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:43.600 came and she showed us a little fragment, a preliminary 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:47.640 fragment of this film, Paris Is Burning. It's a very 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.359 intimate look at what was called ball culture in the 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.879 late eighties. It was often less than wealthy, gay and 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:56.600 trans people of color who put on their own pageant 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:00.760 shows using whatever clothes and props they had. Jay people 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:06.199 men gathered together under one roof and decide to have 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:16.000 competition amongst themselves. Balls. I worked to a ball. I've 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:19.000 got a trophy, and now everybody wants to know me. 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:22.600 In the film, you see the underground ball culture of 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:26.560 New York City centered around Harlem, and there we meet 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:29.840 a number of drag families such as the Lobejas and 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:34.840 the Extravaganzas. The House Extravaganza has a lot. It's made 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:37.840 me feel like I have a families and we're always together. 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:40.479 We always if we're not together, we always speak on 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:44.680 the phone. These adoptive families and these balls were often 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:48.760 these individuals only source of belonging and safety. It's like 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:52.040 crossing into the looking glass in Wonderland. We're going there 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:57.880 and you feel, you feel a hundred rights being gay, 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:00.520 and then that's what it's like. That what it's like 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:05.080 in the world. The Boys, the Extravagances, lab Asia dupri 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:08.200 they were all over Manhattan. But there's one person had 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:12.919 the imagination to pick up a camera and create that movie. 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:16.920 And so hats off to her that she saw that, 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:21.320 because the impact of that movie is is enduring and 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:24.679 enduring and enduring, and I think it's given drag to 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:32.479 a global language. Shante Shante Shante Shante Shante Chante. You know, 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:37.359 throwing shade shad is I don't tell you're ugly, but 0:24:38.000 --> 0:24:40.600 I don't have to tell you because you know you're ugly, 0:24:41.400 --> 0:24:45.880 and that's shade. All the lingo that's in there, mopping, mopping, 0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:52.040 you go into a store and just look mapping, stealing. 0:24:53.119 --> 0:24:55.840 A lot of people would recognize the expressions that were 0:24:55.960 --> 0:24:59.240 used in Charaspanic because you hear them on CNN. Please 0:24:59.280 --> 0:25:02.320 don't don't trying to throw shade just because I'm making 0:25:02.320 --> 0:25:07.200 sure that shade. I'm just trying to you know, people 0:25:07.200 --> 0:25:11.800 will say, getting shady with me and throwing shade and bloody, 0:25:11.840 --> 0:25:15.600 bloody blood. That's the magic of this film. And then 0:25:16.040 --> 0:25:21.240 you hear it every time you watch Rupules, drag Rays, Girl, shade, Shade, 0:25:22.440 --> 0:25:26.480 constant references to that movie. Now in the great tradition 0:25:26.640 --> 0:25:31.080 of Paris is Burnie the library is about to be outfit. 0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:38.920 You know, that period is very poorly documented. Not many 0:25:38.920 --> 0:25:43.480 people photographed those balls, but we have that film which 0:25:43.560 --> 0:25:46.920 is very very touching. You know, a lot of those 0:25:46.960 --> 0:25:49.040 kids are in the balls. They don't have two of nothing. 0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:52.080 Some of them don't even eat. They come to ball 0:25:52.160 --> 0:25:56.760 starting and they sleep on the pier or wherever. They 0:25:56.800 --> 0:25:58.800 don't have a home to go to. But they'll make 0:25:58.920 --> 0:26:00.680 they'll go out and they'll still or something and get 0:26:00.720 --> 0:26:02.280 dressed up and come to a war for that one 0:26:02.400 --> 0:26:05.800 night and lived a fantasy. One of the things I 0:26:05.960 --> 0:26:10.720 find so amazing about it is when you look back 0:26:10.720 --> 0:26:14.280 at it, Jenny Livingston said, I realized I'd entered the 0:26:14.359 --> 0:26:18.680 world where these people knew exactly how to be themselves. 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:23.399 Mistakes were so low for those people in that film. 0:26:23.520 --> 0:26:27.600 They were so marginalized on so many levels that they 0:26:27.600 --> 0:26:31.320 had nothing to lose. What you see when you look 0:26:31.359 --> 0:26:34.040 at those people like Pepper up Asia and Dorr and 0:26:34.119 --> 0:26:38.199 Corey and the legendary children and all of it is 0:26:38.280 --> 0:26:41.639 people who know how to be themselves without any filter, 0:26:42.280 --> 0:26:47.800 and they all seem strangely happy. You know, obviously they're 0:26:47.880 --> 0:26:50.480 on for the camera, but that's the thing that always 0:26:50.520 --> 0:26:53.760