Before I ended up at the library, I had my heart set on the art world (as you might have already gathered from reading some of my previous posts). Now, why is this relevant in the month of June, the month of all things rainbow, glitter, and Pride? Well, to answer that question, we have to take a stroll down memory lane.

You see, in my attempts to get my foot in the door of the monolith that is the modern arts industry, I spent a lot of my time volunteering, and I do mean a lot. There were art fairs, book fairs, a full week spent tying up tiny pieces of dried glue fingerprints to basically invisible pieces of fish wire for Nuit Blanche, and, somehow, lending a helping hand to the admin of Luminato. Which meant that, during the summertime theatre-fest, I was able to treat myself to a handful of shows as thanks for volunteering, and that also meant I had more options than I knew what to do with. So, as is the case with too many things and not enough time, I waited until some tickets were essentially thrown into my lap. Tickets for something called RIOT. As is the way with a lot of things that are thrown into your lap, and in the spirit of not looking a gift horse in the mouth, I didn’t read the description of the show, shrugged my shoulders, and went into it completely blind. That, my friends, is how I accidentally took myself to my first drag show.

Though “drag show” doesn’t do RIOT any justice. Yes, there’s a fabulous and sassy MC all dolled up (who just happens to be one of Ireland’s most famous currently working queens), and other suitably raunchy things sprinkled throughout the show but the blend of circus, cabaret, pop, and Irish culture (did I mention that this is a Very Irish troupe?) makes the whole thing more than the sum of its parts. There were the Lords of Strut, of Britain’s Got Talent fame (thankfully replacing the creepy clowns of circuses past), making the best of 80s movie-esque dance comedy. There was river dancing with jump ropes set to the tune of Britney Spears top hits. There was a spitfire, spoken word poet bringing a powerhouse performance about feminism and its state in the current cultural landscape, and, of course, what would any drag performance be without an uplifting final speech about being proudly who you are without fear, delivered by the dazzling MC? All my rambling to say, you should probably go to a drag show. If not this month, put it on your calendar. They’re not simply lip-sync battles and a pile of glitter, but a cross-section mash-up of different cultures that probably won’t happen anywhere else.

While we’re on the topic, though, and in the spirit of Pride Month, I thought we could take a little tour and have a homage to all things fabulously drag with the help of some resources that you can find on our library shelves. Because, as it turns out, most of the world’s favorite things are drag.

Let’s start with theatre, and by that, I mean of the Greek and Shakespearean kind. As it turns out, if you’re looking to make a production extremely historically accurate, you’re going to have to turn to drag, as back in the day, there were no actresses. Any part written for a woman was played by, you guessed it, a boy in a woman’s costume. Who knew the most true-to-form version of Romeo and Juliet was actually extremely LGBTQ+ friendly? In fact, many people believe that the term “drag” itself was coined after the way the bottoms of these costumes would drag across the floors of the theatre. The long history of drag doesn’t end there, but if I delved into my historical rant any further than I already have, we’d be here all day, and I probably wouldn’t do it as well as Ms. Sasha Velour. If you can’t make it to her newest one-Queen show Travesty, you can get a taste of her lip-syncing camp-meets-history stylings in The Big Reveal. It’s drag of the past, present, and future, presented as a picture book for adults and filled with all the fun of a pop art-inspired comic book. After finishing it, you’ll probably agree that more history deserves to come with a dash of sparkle (and be told by drag queens).

While still on the topic of history and sparkle, though, and while Ms. Velour probably has all my bases covered, I can’t move past the earlier years of drag without mentioning Madonna. More specifically, Vogue, the 1990’s pop hit and Devil Wears Prada theme song (which has been on the mind of a bunch of our staff here, so I’d be remiss not to mention it too). That’s right, without drag, your favorite 90’s bop wouldn’t have existed. The song is a homage to one of the biggest influences on drag culture today (and once you find out why, you should probably take a look at the lyrics again). If you haven’t heard of Ballroom, you can get the scoop on all the must-know things (even though its author, Ricky Tucker, will tell you otherwise) on balls, vogueing, and the art of drag in And The Category Is….

Finding its home in the underground scene of Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ communities of 1960s Harlem (though the events themselves date back to the 1800s with William Dorsey Swann’s secret balls), the one part dance competition, one part fashion show, and all parts identity reconstruction galas gathered everyone who lived on the peripheries of society and gave them a place to fit in and show off who they truly were. In between the history lessons, art critiques, and fascinating interviews with the icons of today’s drag scene, Tucker also shares small vignettes of his life as he recalls how he slowly fell into the world of drag and Ballroom, where he found love, acceptance, and endless creativity. While he doesn’t pat himself on the back for being wholly and all-encompassingly accurate (as he’s no historian), he does call the book a work of love and adoration, which you can be 100% confident about.   

If you wanted a visual aid to go along with And the Category Is…, you can’t go wrong with the cornerstone documentary, Paris is Burning. You also can’t pick anything up that’s drag and history-related without it being mentioned. It combines footage of the Ballroom floors with interviews from its most prominent contestants, including Pepper LaBeija and Angie Xtranvaganza, as they recall the joys and hardships of being part of the LGBTQ+ community in the 1980s. If you’d like to make your Vogue and Ballroom experience more worldly, you can also check out Deep in Vogue, which explores how the scene has changed in northern UK in the modern day (well, post-2000s modern day, I mean).

To those who are reality TV aficionados, all this talk of Ballroom and Vogueing might sound familiar if you’ve spent even a few minutes checking out RuPaul’s Drag Race. While there is something to be said for its accuracy in portraying the LGBTQ+ underground (but not so underground now) culture and how diluted the original concepts of Ballroom and Vogue become, the show remains a cornerstone of mainstream drag media, and for good reason. If you wanted to delve into the why behind it, or you just wanted to see the reality show giant stripped down to its core bone(ing)s, you can access RuPaul’s Drag Race & the Shifting Visibility of Drag Culture immediately through your library card. In it, Niall Brennan and David Gudelnas bring the scrutiny of academia to the drag star’s stage. Now the show itself is asked to lipsync for its life as they pull apart the global phenomenon and ask important questions about representation, its mantras, and how it centralizes North American drag on the global stage. Plus, why it’s so dang popular. In any case, more reality shows should probably be looked at with an academic lens, if not just for the fun of pure curiosity.

Now, before I sashay away from this blog post, I can’t end it without having some Honorable Mentions and fun facts that I came across while delving into all things drag. So, to conclude, a short, comprehensive list of Other Things That Would Not Exist Without Drag:
★The Little Mermaid’s Ursula (heavily inspired by drag queen Divine)
★Hundreds of Bugs Bunny gaffs and goofs
★Arguably one of the most popular Robin Williams’ films, Mrs. Doubtfire
★Hairspray as you know it (whose role of Edna Turnblad was also originated by Divine and ensured that the role stayed exclusively drag until today)
★Makeup contouring, cut creases, and lip outlining/overlining
★Slang including shade, mother, snatched, giving, gagged, work it, and spilling tea

All that to say, drag is everywhere these days, whether you know it or not, and probably even more so than it was back in 2018 when I stumbled into my very first drag show. But if you can’t make it out to a drag show in the city this month, or you’d just like some family-friendly drag fun, you can join the library as we host our favorite fabulous storytellers, Fay and Fluffy, this weekend (June 14^th) while they share books, laughs, and reading joy. And that, my friends, is the tea. Until next time!