While drag humor is definitely not new to movies, queer drag may only be relatively new to mainstream film. Whether or not you care to differentiate between straight and gay men playing women, and straight and gay men playing gay men playing women, it’s all about interpretation. It’s all about spin. Breeder or queer, they’re making a statement about the excesses of feminine behavior, and what sort of comportment society expects of its’ women. Of course now, while Patrick Swayze may be copying gay men in a movie like, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar or doing his best to tap into his own homoerotic energy, that can be very different from Charles Busch doing a (relatively subtle) caricature of the whiskey-voiced matriarch in Die Mommie Die! Queer drag always carries the implication that gay men can trump self-identified, biologically designated females when wielding bitchy attitude.
It is, without a doubt, a step forward that major studios are willing to pick up films like: Boys Don’t Cry, Die Mommie Die! and Girls Will Be Girls where alternate gender expression is a thematic component, especially in comedies where we understand the illusion of gender is used to mock society’s expectations and assumptions. It’s obsessive need to identify and limit gender as if it could be reduced to list of gestures and clothes. It may be the need for major studios to refine and advance Queer Drag Humor that’s throwing off the chemistry.
As anyone who has visited the Rose Room (or any other Queer Drag Venue) will tell you, often the best drag is evolved from traditional burlesque with its’ over-the-top affectations and raunchy, iconoclastic gags. I would not (in this case) presume to suggest a formula, but for some reason the humor in movies like Girls Will Be Girls isn’t connecting. The three main characters: Evie, the salty, aging, degenerate movie diva, Varla, the sweet-natured ingenue, and Coco, Evie’s long-suffering housekeeper and companion are anything but demure. Hence the irony that informs 90% of the jokes.
Gay men playing women without restrictions. Who in a sense are as “free” as men. Free to ***, free to fart, free to puke on camera. In the best tradition of camp comedy we see them at their worst moments or casually revealing the most unsavory details of their personal lives. Coco seduces every guy she meets, desperate for another visit to her dreamy abortion doctor. Varla devours a can of spray cheese without bothering to use crackers. Evie reveals she’s had more “babies pulled out of me than a burning orphanage.”
Early in his career, John Waters showed us movies didn’t have to be tasteful, big budget or subtle to be funny. Or to work. Movies like Desperate Living, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, starring the legendary Divine, were trashy, grotesque, worse than amateurish and funny as hell. Waters reveled in his lack of polish. And perhaps that’s what is missing from Girls Will Be Girls. You don’t have to be familiar with early silent films to know that “talkies” required a different kind of acting technique. Delivery with finesse and understatement. But queer drag may conceivably turn that on its head. The content of Girls Will Be Girls feels right. It’s nasty and perverse and unapologetic but the performances, which may have been subdued for the screen, don’t facilitate it. Writer/director Richard Day is walking a tightrope and the retorts (sometimes badly timed) haven’t got any bounce. Mostly they plummet.
I love the retro-look, the goofs on television’s desire to empower female characters while still knuckling under to glitz, fashion and allure. They can dress Milton Berle or Flip Wilson or Boys in the Hall in “female attire” but give Sheila Kuehl and Meg Foster the boot because they’re too dykey. I love the sets with that tacky trendy bourgeois charm that was so prevalent a few decades ago. I love the three leads: Jack Plotnick, Clinton Leupp and Jeffery Roberson. Plotnick gets particular credit for the first naked drag I’ve ever seen. While they may not have gotten the tone right (Day’s responsibility) there’s no question of their considerable talent.
Though seriously flawed, Girls Will Be Girls is noteworthy for testing uncharted waters. Queer Drag is a unique genre and it could take awhile to find how it best translates to film. Ironically, movies that treat gender-shift as drama, so far seem to be more successful. To borrow wisdom from David Henry Hwang, the successful illusion of gender comes less from emulating women than creating what men want them to be. By using queer grasp of the feminine, Richard Day spoofs this illusion, rather than the men who cross-dress to cultivate female energy. He may be pioneering new cinematic territory.