Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know front of House, Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Uh, and this
Speaker 1: is stuff you should Know. Chucks Chant just a couple
Speaker 1: of drag queens hanging out and chop. We should say
Speaker 1: Chuck and I are both in full drag right now.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh, you did a nice job with the
Speaker 1: the hair, the wig. I like, thank you. You find
Speaker 1: it big. You know you can't get too big if
Speaker 1: you're a drag queen. I'm a little more fishy than glamour.
Speaker 1: The lashes are nice, and I noticed, keeping with the
Speaker 1: tradition set by Julian Eltinge, your hands are quite feminine.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I'm holding them in a very feminine manner.
Speaker 1: Well done. Thank you. There powdered just right. The knuckles
Speaker 1: aren't his hair easy usual? And I like your campy drag.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I had no idea that your forearms are
Speaker 1: so big and that you had an anchor tattoo. That's right.
Speaker 1: And if you notice my crotch, ah, you won't notice
Speaker 1: anything smooth as a ken doll. That's right. It's taped
Speaker 1: and tucked. You're wearing a gaff a, so that's really
Speaker 1: all you need to know. I went online and I
Speaker 1: looked up how to how to make a gaff or gaffs.
Speaker 1: I was like, I think I understand what this is,
Speaker 1: but I need to find out. And I saw a
Speaker 1: YouTube tutorial by a drag queen how to make one
Speaker 1: out of um, like an underwear waist band, like an
Speaker 1: elastic band and a tube sock cut on either end
Speaker 1: so it's open okay, and you just slide the tube
Speaker 1: sock or no, you slide the elastic band through the
Speaker 1: open tube sock and uh step into the elastic band,
Speaker 1: right because it makes two holes that way sure for
Speaker 1: your legs. And then I guess it's everything gets real compressed. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: that's great. I used duct tape. It's a little more uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: I'm going to use your method for them for that
Speaker 1: video too, But yeah, it looked like it looked cheap, easy, quick,
Speaker 1: and as comfortable as that kind of thing can be.
Speaker 1: So people, if you were not one that reads titles
Speaker 1: to podcasts and you just say, you know, I'm and
Speaker 1: just hear what's going on, we're talking about drag queens
Speaker 1: and it has an interesting history and it's an interesting culture,
Speaker 1: and we like to cover those things. So let's do it. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: this is a Conger article, Yes, Kristen Conger from stuff
Speaker 1: Mom Never told You. Yeah, and she did a really
Speaker 1: good job, like kind of tracing the history and like
Speaker 1: really getting into the culture of of drag queens. And um,
Speaker 1: it turns out that there is a considered father of
Speaker 1: drag queens, although he went to great pains to um
Speaker 1: suggests that he wasn't gay. That's because he was totally gay.
Speaker 1: I think so, Like I noticed she used the she
Speaker 1: pointed out that he's a bachelor. Yeah. I looked up
Speaker 1: more on that. It was often rumored that he were
Speaker 1: talking about who he mentioned earlier with the hands do
Speaker 1: Lean Eltinge Lteinge and uh born William Dalton. And this
Speaker 1: is early twentieth century. And he made a big, big
Speaker 1: name for himself dressing like a lady. Yeah, performing in vaudeville. Um.
Speaker 1: He started out, I guess as a Vouldville performer, but
Speaker 1: then he he was in a play called The Fascinating
Speaker 1: Widow in nineteen eleven. Apparently the ladies loved him, loved
Speaker 1: his drag because he was just really good at it.
Speaker 1: And um, from there he ended up with he ended
Speaker 1: up on screen in films, sponsorship deals. Yeah, he apparently
Speaker 1: was the highest salaried performer of his age. Um, there
Speaker 1: were fan magazines dedicated to him and like dressing up
Speaker 1: as women zines, multiple znes Yeah, at least three. Um
Speaker 1: and uh. He performed for King Edward the Seventh of
Speaker 1: the UK. He was delighted by his performance. So this
Speaker 1: guy Julian elt just like making quite a name for himself.
Speaker 1: And and again he he went to great links to
Speaker 1: be like, look at me, I'm a guy. See I'm
Speaker 1: smoking cigars and I'm fishing. Yeah, but i'd like, I said,
Speaker 1: I looked into it more. And apparently he would. Um,
Speaker 1: he would attack people in the audience sometimes when they
Speaker 1: would yell out derogatory terms about his masculinity, and he
Speaker 1: would challenge people to fights and things. And he was
Speaker 1: a lifelong batchelor. So I think that probably meant that
Speaker 1: he was gay, right, which is fine because as a
Speaker 1: cross dresser, you can be gay or straight, doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: You might transgender, doesn't matter. Yeah, they're all different stripes
Speaker 1: of people who like to put on the opposite clothes
Speaker 1: of whatever their gender is, because they are kings as
Speaker 1: well and perform on stage. It's just you know, it's fun.
Speaker 1: It's a lighthearted, fun thing, right. Well, that's the whole
Speaker 1: point of it. It's supposed to be lighthearted and fun.
Speaker 1: It wasn't always though, Um. There was a very long
Speaker 1: period where when men dressed up as women on stage.
Speaker 1: It was because women weren't allowed to perform on stage,
Speaker 1: so men were frequently like doing this, uh, straight, very
Speaker 1: seriously in dramas um in Greece. In ancient Greece, it
Speaker 1: was considered dangerous for women to be on stage, and
Speaker 1: they were not allowed to be in any of the
Speaker 1: Greek dramas, which kind of ironic because the Greek theater
Speaker 1: arose out of the Rites of Dionysus, which were performed
Speaker 1: almost exclusively by women. And then but once it was
Speaker 1: established a theater, the member like, thank you for bringing
Speaker 1: this to our attention. No go over there because it's
Speaker 1: too dangerous here right, very interesting, uh. And in the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, of course, um, the Christian Church chimed in
Speaker 1: and said, you know what, here's what theater is. It is, um,
Speaker 1: Bible stories on stage in church church pageants, basically, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you used to like the theater, We'll get a load
Speaker 1: of this because this is what it is now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and women were not allowed to take part in that.
Speaker 1: Of course, men would play the parts of women. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until the seventeenth century and read that
Speaker 1: women finally uh the stage opened up and they were
Speaker 1: allowed to tread the boards. Yeah if uh. In Shakespeare's era,
Speaker 1: um men played both roles. And I think what was
Speaker 1: it sixteen sixty that one of the kings in England,
Speaker 1: Charles two, Yeah, that sequel. He said, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's let the ladies back on stage. But even after that,
Speaker 1: this idea of men dressing up as women still continued on.
Speaker 1: And women are actually dressing as men and what they
Speaker 1: called breaches roles, but they were breaches. They's pretty straightforward terminology.
Speaker 1: But King Charles called the bluff of all the performers.
Speaker 1: He was like, you know what, you don't have to
Speaker 1: dress his women anymore. We'll just let women on stage.
Speaker 1: And the guys were like, but but but we fine,
Speaker 1: we really like this. Yeah, And well what happened to
Speaker 1: was men started to play women in a in a
Speaker 1: funnier way and it was more for comedy because they
Speaker 1: wouldn't try to look super feminine. They would try to
Speaker 1: look like a big burly man in address, which is
Speaker 1: sort of like in the Monty Python tradition, like although
Speaker 1: they were no, they weren't exactly they were not fishy
Speaker 1: at all. But uh, we'll get to that that's actually
Speaker 1: a thing. Yeah, fishy drag. Yeah, um, well you might
Speaker 1: as well tell him. Well, I already mentioned it earlier.
Speaker 1: I said I'm more fishy than yeah, but I don't
Speaker 1: think they understand. Fishy is going after like the like
Speaker 1: you want people to confuse you for a woman exactly,
Speaker 1: like as feminine, as like womanly as possible, as like
Speaker 1: dead on right. Yeah, and then campy is obviously more
Speaker 1: for comedy. You're more masculine looking. And then there's of
Speaker 1: course the glamour drag, which is huge hair and everyone's
Speaker 1: eyelashes and glittery dresses. So back to history though, interestingly,
Speaker 1: when the West was um loosening restrictions in Japan and
Speaker 1: the East, they were tightening them and making men once
Speaker 1: again play the uh onagatta roles. Female impersonators in kabuki productions.
Speaker 1: They're like the ladies cannot do kab any longer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that lasted through the nineteenth century in Japan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's weird. No, it was like, I guess, if
Speaker 1: you're a woman, you could have been in Japan, and
Speaker 1: then when they closed it down in Japan, you could
Speaker 1: have gone over to England. Bam, I guess, so you're
Speaker 1: all set traveling performer. Um so in in the West
Speaker 1: in England in particular, that whole uh King Charles, the
Speaker 1: second bluff that was called where that became eventually the
Speaker 1: idea that if you were dressing in drag on stage, um,
Speaker 1: it was for laughs. You weren't trying to pull off
Speaker 1: being a woman. You're trying to just make fun of
Speaker 1: the juxtaposition of you big burly dude wearing a dress
Speaker 1: and acting as a woman but not doing a very
Speaker 1: good job of it. That gave rise to a type
Speaker 1: of theater called pantomime, and it is the shortened term
Speaker 1: of it is panto, And I guess mime is the
Speaker 1: other half what came out of this. But panto theater
Speaker 1: is like a big burly dudes and drag playing the
Speaker 1: women and then a woman playing like a young male
Speaker 1: who's now being um inducted into the world of sex
Speaker 1: and the adults, you know. Yeah, yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: the first pano play was from see right. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: started out there and then spread over to the United
Speaker 1: States in the form of uh, you know, before movie
Speaker 1: theaters and things like that, America's favorite entertainment was when
Speaker 1: the vaudeville show came through. Sometimes that was your only
Speaker 1: entertainment that are, like shooting at things in your yard.
Speaker 1: So it was their favorite and also their most hated
Speaker 1: form of entertainment because that was it. So the Vaudefield
Speaker 1: Act would roll through town and there would uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll be all kinds of theater and weird performances and
Speaker 1: jugglers and ventriloquists and acrobats and things like that, ban
Speaker 1: Joe's and then actually drag performances to the delight of
Speaker 1: families and children, and it was all seen as just
Speaker 1: good fun. There was no um linked to homosexuality at
Speaker 1: the time. At the at the least, America wasn't putting
Speaker 1: its hang ups about homosexuality onto drag performances. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: then that really came about at the turn of the century.
Speaker 1: That's when people got a little more like, hey, what's
Speaker 1: going on here? As as gay people came out of
Speaker 1: the close a little bit more and into the forefront
Speaker 1: a little bit more, and we mean in very small steps. Obviously,
Speaker 1: back then people like, well, wait a minute, when when
Speaker 1: was this guy's dressing up like ladies all of a sudden, right,
Speaker 1: it was just fun? Or is this like wrong? Right?
Speaker 1: You like this to right? And because of prohibition, uh,
Speaker 1: people needed their little speakeasies, their little secret places to
Speaker 1: go drink. It also birthed secret places for gay dudes
Speaker 1: to go hang out. Yeah, they we created the first
Speaker 1: gay bars initially, right, which ultimately, in turn about forty
Speaker 1: years later started to give rise to the first discos.
Speaker 1: Remember that they grew out a gay bars um and
Speaker 1: there the New York, Chicago, big towns, probably Kansas City
Speaker 1: at the time. San Francisco went through what was called
Speaker 1: a pansy craze not our term um and where basically
Speaker 1: it became like the era of the gay man coming
Speaker 1: out of the closet, Like, there are lots of bars
Speaker 1: to go to, there are lots of nightclubs. There was
Speaker 1: like the first gay culture in the United States really
Speaker 1: started to come about. Yeah, and I remember I've read
Speaker 1: somewhere that um, cocaine used to be a gay drug. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they called it um. I'm sorry to say that they
Speaker 1: used to call cocaine fairy dust because it was so
Speaker 1: favored by gay guys around this time. Um, because I
Speaker 1: guess you could get it legally. When was this in
Speaker 1: like the fifties or the twenties, maybe the thirties got
Speaker 1: yeah interesting. Uh So by the nineteen fifties, this is when, uh,
Speaker 1: there were actual laws against being gay and laws against
Speaker 1: dressing as a woman, and in fact, in New York City,
Speaker 1: which you would think would be super forward thinking. Uh,
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, they had a cross dressing law,
Speaker 1: or I guess anti cross dressing law that said that you,
Speaker 1: as a man, were legally bound to where no fewer
Speaker 1: than three pieces of male clothing in order to not
Speaker 1: be arrested for being in drag. Right, And this is
Speaker 1: a problem for these gay bars because they frequently had
Speaker 1: drag shows. Um, so I guess I was thinking, like
Speaker 1: you just maybe do like a like a full on
Speaker 1: full circle cross dress where you dress as a woman,
Speaker 1: dressing as a man as as a woman. Victor Victoria,
Speaker 1: he just blew my mind that was Victor of Victoria.
Speaker 1: That was the movie, right, and with Julie Andrews, it
Speaker 1: was a woman impersonating a man impersonating a woman. I
Speaker 1: thought that was Burt Reynolds's Julie Andrews. She did a
Speaker 1: really good job. You're thinking of deliverance, Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: went way different. So. Um, by the time the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties mid sixties rolled around, there's a congress sites a
Speaker 1: book called mother Camp where they estimated about five hundred
Speaker 1: regularly performing drag queens by the by nine. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty pretty high number for back then. Yeah, I would imagine,
Speaker 1: although I'm sure it's quite a lot more than that now.
Speaker 1: But we're talking the sixties and this is a time
Speaker 1: when if you were at a gay bar just being
Speaker 1: dressed in drag like, there was a pretty high likelihood
Speaker 1: the cops are gonna come busting down the door and
Speaker 1: take you to jail and probably beat you up for
Speaker 1: being gay. Um. So, yeah, five hundred performing out in
Speaker 1: the open is I would imagine that's a pretty good number.
Speaker 1: But at the time there were newer performance that like
Speaker 1: Eltnge wanted this. This one guy Bailey, Jim Bailey, who
Speaker 1: apparently did a spot on Judy Garland, and he was
Speaker 1: very adamant about saying, no, I'm not a cross stressor
Speaker 1: I'm not a drag queen. I am a female impersonator.
Speaker 1: And he, you know, had a long run in the
Speaker 1: business as such. It was a big distinction for him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he yeah, he wanted to be called an illusionist. And
Speaker 1: that makes the point that I think he said earlier.
Speaker 1: Not everyone who does drag is gay, and not everyone
Speaker 1: who does drag cross dresses in um their off stage life.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, if you're gonna put money
Speaker 1: on whether or not a drag queen is is gay,
Speaker 1: you can probably bet that they probably are under normal circumstances. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think we even mentioned the drag queen where
Speaker 1: that came from? The term, Oh no, we did. That
Speaker 1: would have been good in the intro. It would have
Speaker 1: been let's do it here, well, when we were talking
Speaker 1: about theater, it would have been a good one. All right.
Speaker 1: So the term drag what was the original parlance for
Speaker 1: men dressing in women's clothing? And I didn't see the
Speaker 1: theater term. Yeah, theater term, But I don't know where
Speaker 1: that came from, though I don't either okay, and then queen,
Speaker 1: of course is a is a you know, slur, a
Speaker 1: slur for an effeminate gay man, a drag queen put together.
Speaker 1: You just got the term drag queen. That's right, So
Speaker 1: it's underground. Oh and also we should say transvestite, transsexual
Speaker 1: not really favored terms in the gay community, especially these
Speaker 1: days because uh, you know, up until not that long
Speaker 1: ago in the d s M and possibly still listed
Speaker 1: in the d s M, those are mental disorders. People
Speaker 1: who do that are mentally ill according to psychology, which
Speaker 1: is fairly ridiculous. We should encourage people to go listen
Speaker 1: to our what do we call that one? Gender reassignment,
Speaker 1: gender reassignment. How's a good one. That's a really good one. Um. So,
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties things start coming out, people start
Speaker 1: coming out, drag queens start becoming more visible. And then
Speaker 1: of course in ninety nine, I know, we've promised this
Speaker 1: podcast will do it at some point. The famous Stonewall
Speaker 1: riots took place where in June New York City police
Speaker 1: rated the stone Wall in which was run by the
Speaker 1: mafia at the time, and it was New York's only
Speaker 1: gay bar run by the mafia. Yeah. Interesting, um, and
Speaker 1: they fought back, and there was a six day basically
Speaker 1: riot fight going on between cops and these gay guys.
Speaker 1: They just said, you know what, we made dress like ladies,
Speaker 1: but we fight like dudes. That's right, We're not gonna
Speaker 1: take it. So pretty much from there, the gay rights
Speaker 1: movement in the US was born. And not even pretty
Speaker 1: much like, yeah, it happened right there, but Conger kind
Speaker 1: of describes the scene that, um, it was a six
Speaker 1: days skirmish with high heel wearing drag queens. Um. But
Speaker 1: you can imagine that that probably was quite a scene,
Speaker 1: quite a tableau. Yeah, they should do a movie about that.
Speaker 1: They did, so they did. I can't remember what's called
Speaker 1: the documentary documentary. I'm sure there's a bunch of there's
Speaker 1: one before stone Wall or after stone Wall, maybe the
Speaker 1: stone Wall during Stonewall, Perry Stonewall. Um. So, in the
Speaker 1: mid nineteen sixties when all this is blossoming, guy named
Speaker 1: Jose Julio Saudia Uh in San Francisco. He was Harvey
Speaker 1: Milk was not the first openly gay political candidate in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. It was actually sorry and he founded something
Speaker 1: called the Imperial Court System. UH and it was basically
Speaker 1: a drag community organization to help people out and throw
Speaker 1: drag balls. And you know now is philanthropic with HIV
Speaker 1: and AIDS organizations. So they're still around. Yeah, they're bigger
Speaker 1: than ever. Chapters all over the place, all over the place,
Speaker 1: different countries, Canada, Mexico. Yeah, but the the Imperial Court
Speaker 1: System was a really big step. Um. This was in
Speaker 1: the mid sixties. I think it was before stone Wall, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. Um. And this is in the face
Speaker 1: of like crackdowns, getting arrested, getting beat up, really being mistreated,
Speaker 1: um and and not having any civil rights. This guy
Speaker 1: forms the Imperial Court System and it's like one of
Speaker 1: the first big steps that unifying not just the drag
Speaker 1: community but the gay community and really kind of provided
Speaker 1: this this basis of this template for you know, integration
Speaker 1: and support with among gays around the country. And I
Speaker 1: guess a way to say, hey, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: other people over here that feel the same way you
Speaker 1: do and think the same way you do. And it's
Speaker 1: not just here in San Francisco, is not just here
Speaker 1: in New York. They're all over the place. And this
Speaker 1: was one of the first cohesions of that mentality right,
Speaker 1: which is a big, big deal. It was, and the
Speaker 1: drag balls that they UM initiated and started became very
Speaker 1: popular within the African American drag community and these days.
Speaker 1: Um Conger described it as like a fraternity system where
Speaker 1: if you're an up and comer and you're a drag queen,
Speaker 1: you can get sort of like a sponsor. Am they
Speaker 1: were a father to help you out, show you the ropes.
Speaker 1: Maybe if you were kicked out of your house by
Speaker 1: your parents because you're not accepted or out of your hometown,
Speaker 1: they'll put you up and find you a place to live.
Speaker 1: And you know who else does that? Cindy law her
Speaker 1: does she really? Yeah? She? Uh, I think founded and
Speaker 1: definitely funds like some sort of rescue system at Halfway House. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for teens who are kicked out for being gay. Nice,
Speaker 1: isn't that? Yeah? She's awesome. I think I told you
Speaker 1: to her Halloween party one year in New York. You
Speaker 1: did not tell me that? Yeah, my friend was. Um
Speaker 1: is a huge fan and like on the inside as
Speaker 1: far as fandom, you know, like she knows who he
Speaker 1: is and uh, he got an invitation to her Halloween
Speaker 1: party at her loft in New York and I went
Speaker 1: and it was awesome and I met her and got
Speaker 1: a picture made and that was cool. She was as
Speaker 1: sweet as she could be. Yeah. Yeah, she seems like
Speaker 1: she's like living the personality. Yeah, and boy what a
Speaker 1: party man, I can imagine. Yeah. A couple of years
Speaker 1: ago and Dr John opened for so we were there
Speaker 1: for you know, the Dr John Show too, And when
Speaker 1: Dr John ended, like everyone got up and left and
Speaker 1: then new people came in and sat down for the
Speaker 1: Cyndy Lawbers Show. Yeah, it was a weird mix, but
Speaker 1: that didn't end up mixing. That's like, uh, it was
Speaker 1: cool see both of them, Uh, like Zach Brown opening
Speaker 1: for Dolly Parton, Yeah, something like that. Maybe even maybe
Speaker 1: even weird, like they're both country quote unquote right. All right,
Speaker 1: So if you're interested in seeing more about the African
Speaker 1: American drag balls, there's a great documentary, uh called Paris
Speaker 1: Is Burning. Have you seen it? Yeah, I've not seen
Speaker 1: a super entertaining, really good We mentioned drag kings earlier.
Speaker 1: That is a thing when they can also dress his men, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is not a stretch. Once drag queens were established,
Speaker 1: a guy named Johnny science about what about drag kings
Speaker 1: and bam, there they are. That's right, So let's talk
Speaker 1: about what you need to do, what kind of transformation
Speaker 1: needs to take place. I know we kind of hinted
Speaker 1: at it earlier with our jokes about tucking and plucking,
Speaker 1: but that's where it starts. And we remarked about your hands. Um,
Speaker 1: Julian Eltinge was, um, you'd think, you know, all the
Speaker 1: work goes on the face, but he said, the most
Speaker 1: important thing is the hands. Well that was the one
Speaker 1: that he worried about the most. Well you remember that
Speaker 1: seinfeld Man hands. Yeah, well, I mean that makes I
Speaker 1: can imagine it's very distracting if you have a couple
Speaker 1: of chunks of ham. Yeah, you know, and you're acting
Speaker 1: very feminine or whatever. That's weird. Yeah. They went so
Speaker 1: over the top in that episode. How big is like
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was like the key grip or something,
Speaker 1: breaking the bread and stuff in your face. Yeah, so good. Um,
Speaker 1: so all right, so what do you do? You gotta
Speaker 1: get the hands powdered, and he said there's certain ways
Speaker 1: of holding them to make them appear to be more dainty.
Speaker 1: Well he did. I got the impression that he was
Speaker 1: particularly obsessed about this, but he might have big hands.
Speaker 1: Spend like an hour and a half just working on
Speaker 1: the hands. That's just the hands. So you can you
Speaker 1: can guess how long it takes to like do makeup,
Speaker 1: because not only are you doing makeup, you have to
Speaker 1: do it right, but you have to do it to
Speaker 1: cover up the fact that you're a man. So you
Speaker 1: have to like cover up the fact that you're a
Speaker 1: man and then do the makeup as a woman. I imagine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think things really picked up in the seventies
Speaker 1: with this as far as really going all out. After
Speaker 1: um San Francisco UH drag show collective called the Cockettes.
Speaker 1: Apparently they put on a not so great show, and
Speaker 1: gore Vidal himself said famously in his review, no talent
Speaker 1: is not enough. So he's like, great, you're drag queens,
Speaker 1: but this is awful. Basically you still gotta like give
Speaker 1: the audience something. Well. They were also not necessarily like
Speaker 1: real drag queens. They were a bunch of hippies on
Speaker 1: acid and they basically did their own pretty much improv
Speaker 1: musical that sucked, but the fact that they were doing
Speaker 1: it in drag made real the real drag community and
Speaker 1: I may be wrong, but I have the impression they
Speaker 1: weren't like representative the real dragon. Whoa this can like
Speaker 1: people are paying attention and people want like a good show,
Speaker 1: So let's give it to him. Give some talent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that So that show, that Cockette show was like
Speaker 1: kind of a turning point as far as like, let's
Speaker 1: do this right. If you're gonna dress up like a woman,
Speaker 1: do it right. Yeah. And if you've ever been you
Speaker 1: ever been to a drag show, I've seen him before you.
Speaker 1: I've been to a few, and I've been to someones
Speaker 1: that were great, and I've been to someone's that sucked.
Speaker 1: And it's like any other theatrical experience. It's it's like
Speaker 1: it makes a huge difference. If it's bad, it's real bad,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I mean it's the same. It's like
Speaker 1: it's the same like watching improv or whatever. Like if
Speaker 1: you see people who are really good at improv and
Speaker 1: then you see people who are just trying improv, you
Speaker 1: can't even put in the same thing. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like Dolly Partners at Brown all right. So in order
Speaker 1: to kick it up a notch, they had to start
Speaker 1: taking more care with their appearance. And the first step
Speaker 1: if you're interested in giving this a shot and you're dude,
Speaker 1: is to shave. That's a pretty good first step if
Speaker 1: you're going yeah, yeah, as close as you can get.
Speaker 1: If you're doing camping, you might not necessarily have to shave. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. Like I could get up there with my
Speaker 1: beard and be thoroughly disgusting as a woman, just kind
Speaker 1: of hump there without moving your arms. Um. The next
Speaker 1: thing you need to do is you need to apply
Speaker 1: lots and lots of makeup and a traditionally a tradition
Speaker 1: called beating your face or beating your mug, and that's
Speaker 1: what they call it in the in the drag community.
Speaker 1: That's really like a lot of cosmetics you want to hide,
Speaker 1: like heavy jawlines and stuff like that, and just slather
Speaker 1: it on. Basically, the more the better, depending on what
Speaker 1: you're going for, of course. Well yeah, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're going like real feminine, you gotta be careful. You
Speaker 1: can just take it on, you have to take some skill.
Speaker 1: I would think that's right. Um. And then the tuck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the tuck. We talked about the gaff. You can also
Speaker 1: use tape. Um, I guess you could also talk if
Speaker 1: you're just gonna walk like a penguin or whatever all night, yeah,
Speaker 1: or like Buffalo Bill right yeah, or um I think
Speaker 1: a scary movie too. When one of the Wayne's brothers, like,
Speaker 1: there's a shot of like the waist up, he's like,
Speaker 1: he has his arms out like he's showing off a short.
Speaker 1: He's like, what do you guys think, tucked or untucked?
Speaker 1: And then they pan out tucked. That's just likes pressingge ey.
Speaker 1: But it's like, um on tucked. I didn't see those movies.
Speaker 1: That sounds funny though, Oh those were surprisingly funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like the Spoop movie. I just sort of grew
Speaker 1: out of him after Airplane and and uh, the Naked
Speaker 1: Gun movies. I didn't really see a whole lot of
Speaker 1: them after that. They're good, um, at least the first four.
Speaker 1: So after you've done your tucking and you're taping and
Speaker 1: you're all fit down there, um, you might want to
Speaker 1: add some breasts. It's probably a pretty good idea. You
Speaker 1: can add silicone all those they can be expensive. And
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about implants, talking about a silicone implant
Speaker 1: that you would like put in a brazier, right, or
Speaker 1: there's ones that adhere to your body and like like
Speaker 1: your body temperature adheres them to your body and they're
Speaker 1: really well that's what this article says. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's not like I'm in the fake breasts. I didn't
Speaker 1: notice that part that sounds gross. Yeah, she's saying. Congress
Speaker 1: says that, like these things are like a couple of
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for like the really good ones that are
Speaker 1: really realistic. So I imagine again, if you're going fishy,
Speaker 1: it probably just it takes a lot more time, a
Speaker 1: lot more effort, and a lot more money to to
Speaker 1: be a fishy drag queen, I would say, So it's
Speaker 1: a lot easier just to you know, be campy and
Speaker 1: look funny and uh. And then of course the name
Speaker 1: is a big, big part of the culture. Um generally
Speaker 1: the names are it's sort of like Art Simpson's prank calls,
Speaker 1: you know, like uh, Amanda hugging kiss. Yeah, exactly. Most
Speaker 1: of the names are like that. Um let us yea
Speaker 1: head to let us. I looked up some some of
Speaker 1: my favorites Madam Ovary, good one, uh, Jean Pool, and
Speaker 1: a lot of obviously a lot of times too it's
Speaker 1: toying with the fact of the gender and stuff like that. Uh,
Speaker 1: Wilma balls Drop, good Lord tests tossedone and uh then
Speaker 1: a nice clean one for everyone out there, Della Coateessen.
Speaker 1: That's nice. Those are just a few of the funny ones.
Speaker 1: That's like a throwback to the vaudeville and drag drag
Speaker 1: shows were family friendly. That's right, good clean point um
Speaker 1: still get clean fun delicates Wilma balls Drop. But the
Speaker 1: name is a big part of it. You know, coming
Speaker 1: up with a great name can really like that just
Speaker 1: kicks it off, right, because when you're announced, if it's
Speaker 1: a great name, the audiences tickled from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: If it's a bad name, they're like, oh God, what's
Speaker 1: this gonna be? Right? Yeah, so what are you doing
Speaker 1: this for? Chuck? Well, there's all different kinds of things. Um,
Speaker 1: A regular drag performance that I've been to is either
Speaker 1: lip sinking or actually performing like karaoke style on stage,
Speaker 1: one after another, and there's usually an m C and
Speaker 1: drag handling the whole show, right, and it's basically like
Speaker 1: just you know, stage performance singing. But they can also
Speaker 1: like get real gigs well yeah, or um being I
Speaker 1: guess kind of a party promoter, just kind of circulating
Speaker 1: around a party, like keeping everything light. What's more fun
Speaker 1: than hiring a drag queen to come to your party
Speaker 1: and just kind of lighting things up. I think that's
Speaker 1: a great idea, you know. Yeah, As Rue Paul said,
Speaker 1: the whole point is to not take life too seriously exactly.
Speaker 1: So when you have somebody dress as a woman not
Speaker 1: taking life too seriously, your guests are probably going to
Speaker 1: lighten up a little bit too. If you have like
Speaker 1: somebody wandering around saying I'm head a lettuce, right, you know? Yeah? Yeah, um.
Speaker 1: And then we can't not mention Australia because for some reason,
Speaker 1: even though Australia is the center of masculinity on the planet,
Speaker 1: it's rife with drag queens thanks to a particular movie.
Speaker 1: Is it because of that or was that already a
Speaker 1: thing and they just highlighted that. I wonder I took
Speaker 1: it that it was the that the movie was its
Speaker 1: own thing, just created this huge cult following that has
Speaker 1: basically put Australia on the map. Priscilla Queen of the Desert,
Speaker 1: of course, is the movie. Yeah but you've seen right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good movie. Yeah, very good movie. And I
Speaker 1: can't I've seen parts of like too Wong food, Thanks
Speaker 1: for everything to I never saw that one. Something about Swayzy.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't get sway Wesley Snipes. Yeah, like Guy Piers,
Speaker 1: perfect swazy, Holy cow. Guy Pierce is one of the
Speaker 1: ones in Psilic Queen of the Desert. I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Who was anybody else that is the star? Now? Well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was definitely Guy Piers and Hugo Weaving from The Matrix,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah wow Mr Anderson, Yeah, actually he was a
Speaker 1: Mr Anderson, he was whatever his name was. And then
Speaker 1: Terence Stamp of course, a legendary Terence Stamp. And it
Speaker 1: was the Adventures of Priscilla, Queen in the Desert. So
Speaker 1: if you're looking for it on Netflix or whatever, you
Speaker 1: should watch it. It's a fun movie. And Terence Stamp
Speaker 1: and dragons like that's something else. He's the LIMI you know, right.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, what you're trying to do is get a
Speaker 1: job in a movie about drag queens or to become RuPaul.
Speaker 1: That's true. And they have apparently a show last year
Speaker 1: in Australia reality show where they're drag queens are taking
Speaker 1: that same journey that they did in the movie, and
Speaker 1: it's on TV now apparently, though there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of money. I think you do it for the love,
Speaker 1: for the adoration. Of course, there was a study of
Speaker 1: drag queens down in Key West, which is like drag
Speaker 1: Queens Central. If you've ever watched CNN's New Year's Eve broadcast,
Speaker 1: it's like all drag queens down there. It's crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then they dropped like a drag queen in a
Speaker 1: giant high heel, I think is what they do really
Speaker 1: instead of like that they um. But they did a
Speaker 1: study of drag queen's down in Key West and they
Speaker 1: they averaged about two hundred bucks a week. So they're
Speaker 1: doing it for the love. People tip them. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think probably every drag queen out there spends way
Speaker 1: more money than they're making, you know, hosting and doing
Speaker 1: gigs like that. So we mentioned Rue Paul, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: did not mention May West. No, Well, she apparently took
Speaker 1: a She based her character or her persona on a
Speaker 1: drag queen named Bert Savoy Okay born Everett Mackenzie. So
Speaker 1: that's weird. Here's drag queen, but he changed his name
Speaker 1: to another male name. Anyway. Um, he had a very
Speaker 1: familiar catchphrase, you must come over, and she took that
Speaker 1: and turned it into come up some time and see
Speaker 1: me and people out there going no jokes, just noted
Speaker 1: it's why don't you come up and see me sometime? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're wrong. Yeah, that's a misquote. Yeah. And similarly, Eastwood
Speaker 1: based his throaty voice on Marilyn Monroe. Shut up, swear
Speaker 1: to god, what do you mean his throaty voice? He
Speaker 1: based it on her. He didn't really talk like that.
Speaker 1: He that's like he talked like the generic teenage cash
Speaker 1: here from the Simpsons. No, he he said, as far
Speaker 1: as Uncle John's bathroom reader, his voice on Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 1: Yeah that he said that crazy. All right, Should we
Speaker 1: mention a few of these famous drag queens. Yes, Danny LaRue.
Speaker 1: If you're in England and you're not into Eddie Wizard,
Speaker 1: then Danny LaRue is probably your guy, or at least
Speaker 1: until two thousand nine when he sadly passed away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he was big back in the day and like
Speaker 1: the fifties, sixties, seventies, Yeah, Yeah, earned a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Doris Fish neither Australian huh um, who moved to San
Speaker 1: Francisco and wrote and starred in the film Vegas and Space.
Speaker 1: Have you seen that of you? Cult film? Apparently not
Speaker 1: about cults. It's just like has a cult following. Uh
Speaker 1: and sadly he died of aids in Divine of Course.
Speaker 1: Anyone who's a John Waters fan, or should we say
Speaker 1: a Harris Millstead fan? I didn't know that wasn't his
Speaker 1: real name, Harris Glenn Milstead. I didn't either, Um. Divine
Speaker 1: was John Waters one of his favorite people to put
Speaker 1: in his films and did some kind of gross things
Speaker 1: in earlier movies like Pink Flamingos. What what did she
Speaker 1: do with dog poop? I ate it? I believe I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken. But Divine of course made her biggest role
Speaker 1: in Hair Spray as Edna Turnball turned Blad and that's
Speaker 1: who Chon Travolta played in the musical version. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. Did you ever see it? No? It's an abomination?
Speaker 1: Is it? Really? It's pretty bad? Where did you see it?
Speaker 1: It's a movie, you know? Oh? Yeah? They did Hair
Speaker 1: Spray on Broadway and then they turned the Broadway show
Speaker 1: into a musical and bold to start in the movie
Speaker 1: version of the musical. Okay, but wait where did Divine
Speaker 1: star in the movie? Right? Hairspray the original Hairspray before
Speaker 1: it was a Broadway music So they did a movie,
Speaker 1: turned it into a musical, and then turned the musical
Speaker 1: into a movie. Yes, and his mind bending very much.
Speaker 1: There's Dame Edna. Not a fan? Oh no, now are
Speaker 1: you thought she was pleasant? Uh? Yeah, I'm not a
Speaker 1: big fan, but that is definitely one of the more
Speaker 1: famous and I think who played him, Barry Humphreys, another Australian. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but wasn't he also keen to say like I'm not
Speaker 1: a drag queen. Yeah, she was a character that he
Speaker 1: played and he didn't consider it like drag um. And
Speaker 1: she's retired wolf all right, I just showed Josh a
Speaker 1: pig Church revolta in that movie. She's uh, why had
Speaker 1: stopped that? She's she's retired As of two twelve, there's
Speaker 1: Dame Edna has moved off to Florida. I guess, all right,
Speaker 1: anyone else Lady Bunny, who's Lady Bunny? Lady Bunny is
Speaker 1: uh Jill of all trades Congress, says a multi talented comedian,
Speaker 1: DJ and actress. She um founded Wigstock. Oh I've heard
Speaker 1: a wig Stock. See here's a picture of Lady Bunny
Speaker 1: and she's got a huge wig, which is awesome. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: no Wigstock's and Wigstock is no longer either. That ran
Speaker 1: for about a decade I'm sorry, two decades. Five Yeah,
Speaker 1: right on the nose. So that's drag queens. Go see
Speaker 1: a drag show if you've never done. If you're visiting
Speaker 1: New York in the big city, you've never been, and
Speaker 1: you're from oh, I don't know, Kansas. You don't even
Speaker 1: know you're going to New York. Man, Like, sure, the
Speaker 1: drag show I went to is in Savannah. That's a
Speaker 1: huge dragtown. Yeah yeah, yeah, but I'm just staying. If
Speaker 1: you're busy, if you're visiting the big city for the
Speaker 1: first time, go check out a drag show. Be open minded,
Speaker 1: have some fun, have a drink, and it's it's a
Speaker 1: good time. Yeah. I mean, that's why we didn't really
Speaker 1: describe them much, because you kind of got to see
Speaker 1: him for yourself. Well, and you never know what you're
Speaker 1: gonna get. It could be terrible or it could be
Speaker 1: great exactly. Yeah. Uh. If you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about drag queens, you can type those words into the
Speaker 1: search bar at how stuff works dot com. And uh,
Speaker 1: since I said drag queens, that means it's time for
Speaker 1: a message break. Now it's time for listening. Now good,
Speaker 1: because we're actually going to give advice to this kid. Okay,
Speaker 1: it should be good good advice or I don't know,
Speaker 1: we'll see. I think we should just wing it. Hey,
Speaker 1: guys and Jerry. First off, I'm a huge fan and
Speaker 1: um about to graduate after five long years at the
Speaker 1: University of Washington in Seattle. Go Huskers, Huskies. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: Instead of getting a degree in something practical that would
Speaker 1: set me up for a great job like business or engineering,
Speaker 1: I follow my interest, which I think is great by
Speaker 1: the way, and I will be getting a b A
Speaker 1: in Spanish and a b s. In astronomy and physics.
Speaker 1: That being said, guys, I'm about to graduate in five
Speaker 1: weeks and I really have nothing lined up for When
Speaker 1: I entered the quote real world, can you send me
Speaker 1: some money. I know I want to go back to
Speaker 1: school eventually for something involving education, but I was curious
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions or advice of what I
Speaker 1: should do in the meantime, I'm a little stressed about it,
Speaker 1: to be honest, So I thought I would turn to
Speaker 1: the duo that never leads me astray. And this is
Speaker 1: owen Ah and he says it's pronounced something like capus.
Speaker 1: I want to say, owen capis, but it just felt
Speaker 1: this has got a lot of consonants in it. Let
Speaker 1: me see. Jeez, Yeah, so that's kepis apparently, so owen
Speaker 1: um advice. Of course. The first thing I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: is travel, and probably Josh too, because it's always good
Speaker 1: after you finish college to get out there and see
Speaker 1: a little bit of the world, because it might inform
Speaker 1: your decisions in life. You might open you up to
Speaker 1: something you might want to do. I have some job advice, okay,
Speaker 1: I would say, just like college, follow you or passions.
Speaker 1: So if you find if you think about it, like wow,
Speaker 1: I really really am hardcore into Spanish, figure out something
Speaker 1: to use that, some way to use that. Or astronomy.
Speaker 1: It's pretty narrow use of that, but you never know,
Speaker 1: like if you, uh, there could be a company out
Speaker 1: there that loves employing astronomers. Just has him sit around
Speaker 1: all day in about astronomy. If he's into education, eventually
Speaker 1: you could go get a job at a science center. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh work with a big telescope and a planetarium
Speaker 1: and to like and entertain school children. But if you're
Speaker 1: studying Spain, dude, and you have some time Spanish, I
Speaker 1: would say, go to Spain. Sure, get a ticket, go
Speaker 1: to Spain. Check things out. Falling love might decide on
Speaker 1: a job. You might just eat some good pie and
Speaker 1: have a good time and go home and be broke.
Speaker 1: I say, get a job, hippie, but make sure it's
Speaker 1: a job you love. Yeah. I mean that's the point
Speaker 1: to me. It's like that's what we both did. We
Speaker 1: figured out what we loved and wed hard laid them
Speaker 1: into jobs. You know, yeah later in life as well.
Speaker 1: So kids, you don't have to um, you don't have
Speaker 1: to have it all locked down right after graduation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also Owen. One thing that I've learned is that
Speaker 1: you don't you almost never use the actual degree that
Speaker 1: you major the like, it's almost never applied to the
Speaker 1: actual job you get. I don't know, I'll think about this.
Speaker 1: I'm an English major, right, I was a history major.
Speaker 1: That's nothing to do with my job at the time,
Speaker 1: hired as writers. Right, yeah, okay, I see your point.
Speaker 1: But so like, there was a guy I can't remember
Speaker 1: who was the NBC chief that Seinfeld used to like mock.
Speaker 1: He actually um became like a character when they were
Speaker 1: trying to sell the TV fell in love with Elane.
Speaker 1: That's a real guy. And he actually was like the
Speaker 1: head of NBC for a while. Yeah, and like NBC's
Speaker 1: hey day, he did a beautiful job of like picking
Speaker 1: shows and stick him with them and steering him. And
Speaker 1: that was when NBC was dominating. He had a degree
Speaker 1: in psychology that had nothing to do with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but don't you think psychology helped him with dealing with
Speaker 1: you know, high powered people And no, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: What did it? He was doing what he loved and
Speaker 1: hence what he was good at. And if you do
Speaker 1: that you will always succeed. Well, you know what, unless
Speaker 1: you're a philosophy major. You sold me all right, So
Speaker 1: that was from Owen. Thanks for that. You're awesome. Let
Speaker 1: us know what you do. Like follow up, I'd like
Speaker 1: to know, Owen. Yeah, if you go to Spain, they'd
Speaker 1: like to hear about it. Or if you get a job,
Speaker 1: I want to hear about it. All right, how old
Speaker 1: is he? H? Five years so it's probably like three yeah,
Speaker 1: probably somewhere in there. Whatever you do, Owen, good luck.
Speaker 1: But if he's like he didn't be failed to mention
Speaker 1: that I got a late start. I worked in a
Speaker 1: factory for twenty years. You don't go travels Spain. Yes, uh,
Speaker 1: if you want some advice for me and Chuck Man,
Speaker 1: it's gonna open a floodgate, I think, Chuck Sure. You
Speaker 1: can tweet short questions to us s y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know, You can send us an email to
Speaker 1: stuff podcasts to discovery dot com, and you can always
Speaker 1: go check out our website for answers and has all
Speaker 1: of them. That's Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit House
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