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Julie Newmaron May 5 at 7 p.m. Head toVultures Twitterto catch the live commentary.
Near the end ofTo Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!
I am a drag queen, Carol Ann intones.
Its both a rallying cry and a threat.
Carol Ann isnt just protecting Vida and her friends.
Its a show of allyship, acceptance, freedom a Hollywood happy ending.
Some drag queens remember the film as groundbreaking, while others point to lingering frustrations with it.
If the line nags when read now, its not just because Maslin needlessly conflates drag performance with transvestism.
IsTo Wong Fooa sanitized image of drag queens made palatable for straight audiences?
Or was it a queer romp that spoke to cultural anxieties about and within the LGBTQ+ community?
Did it capture the 90s drag boom at its zenith?
Or did it mark its (temporary) demise?
The answers, of course, lie somewhere in between.
Literally: Vida always looks ready to host a bridge club in Stepford.
Noxeema, like shes about to walk a 1970s New York City runway.
And Chi Chi, like shes earnestly riffing on a Rosie Perez character.
I remember first watchingTo Wong Fooand being gagged,RuPauls Drag Race All Starswinner Monet X Change tells me.
I mean, drag queens being in drag all the time?
They are the pioneers of I woke up like dis!
She says she enjoyed always staying in drag when she got started too.
For others, the characters operating more like cross-dressers than drag queens remains a sticking point.
Some point to the film as an example of Hollywoods disinterest in the drearier, day-to-day aspects of drag.
Her kind of drag was a far cry from the films.
I prefer drag to be subversive and kind of dangerous, she said.
She was of the conviction that drag isnt and never should be comfortable.
How could it be, when to beindrag is anything but?
To Wong Foos cuddly images of drag, like the hair-salon scene, willfeel familiar to a 21st-century audience.
Silly as the film is designed to be, its also a call to arms.
This America does not respond kindly to our sort of person, Noxeema says in the film.
Miss Coco Peru agrees and sees an irony in these restrictions.
That might seem naive in retrospect.
But toDrag Racecontestant BenDeLaCreme, a Golden Globewinning box-office hit embracing happiness for its drag queens still carries meaning.
There was really no big sense of tragedy around these characters, she says.
They were people who brought a positive influence to the world around them.
And it was fabulous.
To Wong Foowas never perfect, but its still fabulous too.
Join us on May 5 as we hop in a yellow convertible and hit the road together.
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!
Julie Newmaris currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and Tubi.
