celebrating
drag queens
by Douglas Messerli
Chris Housman (performer
and composer), Ford Fairchild (director) Drag Queen / 2024 [3 minutes] [music video]
For his Blueneck album,
country-western singer Chris Housman did an extremely brave thing by
celebrating the very notion of a drag queen after Tennessee had adopted its
Adult Entertainment Act, and other states were delimiting the appearance of
drag queens, particularly those who might read appropriate books to young
people in libraries.
The very idea that some men might dress up
and perform as women suddenly became an issue in a nation in which, as I have
established, had a true theater and cinematic tradition going back to at least
to the 18th century, played out in early performances of Fatty Arbuckle,
Charlie Chaplin, and dozens of other major film and theater figures. What had
suddenly happened to so terrify conservative Americans?
There is, quite obviously, no sane
answer. Suddenly the society, particularly the Trump MAGA world, became so
terrified of any differences in behavior that they could no longer accept in
their tiny narrative framework of experience anyone who didn’t behave as
absurdly as they did. The US suddenly seemed to have lost all comprehension of
those who didn’t fit within the strictures of religious and political values
into which frightened US residents had retreated, fearful of any further loses
of their ignorant and hateful identities. When someone as “down home” as
Housman sings of and praises their joyful presence, accordingly, it truly does
mean something, even if it won’t change the minds of a single unthinking MAGA
individual.
His lyrics, and the presence of several
Nashville drag queens, Arsyn, Perplexity, Sasha Dereon, Ivy St. James, Vanity,
Deception, and Obsinity, however, truly questions through popular music the
legitimacy of these narrow-minded people’s viewpoint. The song’s lyrics say it
all:
He's teacher of the year
And royalty as well
'Cause every now and
then
Michael becomes Michelle
A little red wine
To wind down his day
With a lot of eye shadow
But he never throws
shade
He reaps what he sows
And sews his own dresses
The wig glue of the
family
Always cleaning up
messes
Puts on a face
And one hell of a show
And everybody round here
knows
She's a drag queen but
she ain't no drag
Lace-up front with a
pony in the back
People try and knock her
down all the time
But in her high heels
she's still 6'5
She wouldn't hurt a soul
or kill a fly
But she murders on the
stage every Saturday night
The kind of woman lotta
men wish they could be
Los Angeles, March 21,
2025
Reprinted from My
Queer Cinema blog (March 2025).
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