Dina’s Diner 3/17/14

EVEN BIGGER THE SECOND TIME AROUND

Have your RuPaul both ways.

The New York Times Sunday Styles section on February 23, 2014 had a long article headlined “In Drag, It Turns Out, There are Second Acts.” The subject of the profile was RuPaul, America’s — and probably the world’s — most popular and well-known drag personality.

RuPaul has now been a well-known celebrity for twenty years. He hit the really big time in the early ’90s with his Supermodel (You Better Work) hit record. He held some degree of celebrity through the ’90s and then faded away a bit. His second act — RuPaul’s Drag Race — has been on TV for six years and has been renewed for a seventh. Ru has other projects in the works as well and it is safe to say that he has burned a place in popular culture that will be lasting and remembered. He understands the dynamics of celebrity, especially after resurrecting a stalled career. “I’ve been doing this a long time and it’s important when you’re up, to hit it as hard as you can.” he told the Times.

The Times profile offered a business-like view of Ru with more than a few interesting observations by the subject. For starters, Ru is 53 years old now. He doesn’t look appreciably different than he did when he first became famous. He refers to his glamazon drag persona as “The Monster.” His show has helped many of the contestants to gain their own level of celebrity and he views that as his legacy, or “leg work” for short. Ru told the Times that many of the young contestants come on the show wanting to be exactly like Beyonce or Britney Spears but he says “No! Be yourself.” He notes that young people today haven’t grown up in a culture that promotes anti-establishment or anarchic thinking as he grew up with in the ’60s and ’70s.

A professional partner said “Ru’s always been a workhorse.” And the Times profile runs down Ru’s determination to make it in Atlanta, New York, and then Hollywood. His first paying drag job in Manhattan paid $18. It’s a story of perseverance, courage and confidence to keep banging away at a segment of the entertainment industry that is non-mainstream. “I go into everything thinking it’s going to be a huge hit. But usually, the rest of the world isn’t up to speed.”

When asked what he does for fun, Ru took the Times reporter to a strip bar in Hollywood. There he sat stageside and tipped the dancers with style and critiqued the ones who did not. The reporter realized it made sense in some strange way. RuPaul is “a world class arbiter of the female form.” About one dancer who had impressive moves he noted a turn-off: “She still can’t manage a smile. Sashay away.”

THE 1% SOLUTION

The pledges.

Angela Gardner recommended an item that appeared in the New York Times on February 18, 2014. The title of the article by Times reporter Kevin Roose was “One Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society.”

According to Mr. Roose’s article, Wall Street bigwigs and wannabe bigwigs have a fraternity called Kappa Beta Phi. The society holds an annual banquet and induction ceremony for new members each year. The new inductees are expected to put on the entertainment for the members. In this year’s event, Mr. Roose reports, that included having the incoming class dress in drag and perform a series of song parodies and comedy skits. It included tasteless political and homophobic jokes about Hillary Clinton and former Rep. Barney Frank along with wink-wink jokes about how rich they were and how important wealth is to them.

The thrust of the article was that the upper echelons of Wall Street culture is so out of touch with the rest of society that they can only open up about their particular world view among their own set. When Mr. Roose outed himself as a reporter, he was escorted out of the event and “bribed” to not report on what he saw and heard at the party. “I wasn’t going to be bribed off my story, but I understood their panic. Here, after all, was a group that included many of the executives whose firms had collectively wrecked the global economy in 2008 and 2009. And they were laughing off the entire disaster in private, as if it were a long-forgotten lark. (Or worse, singing about it — one of the last skits of the night was a self-congratulatory parody of ABBA’s Dancing Queen, called Bailout King.) These were activities that amounted to a gigantic middle finger to Main Street and that, if made public, could end careers and damage very public reputations.”

It was never explained why the new members dress in drag. But it reminds me of how many male organizations (the fraternity does have women members but a minority, to be sure) often employ dressing in drag as some rite of passage to membership. All these groups could dress as gladiators, football players, military members, colonial era gentlemen, or superheroes. But no, they always go to dressing in drag.

You try to figure it out. I gave up long ago.

THEY SHOULD KNOW EVERYTHING GOES BETTER WITH HONEY

Andrews as Selena

The HuffingtonPost news site has pages devoted to gay and transgender news. On March 13, 2014, they posted an article about a transgender performer being turned away by organizers of an annual tribute to Selena, the Latina singer who was tragically murdered by one of her staff members.

The HuffPost article said: “An annual tribute to slain Latina superstar Selena in Corpus Christi, Texas, is coming under fire after organizers allegedly told a woman that she is not allowed to perform because she is transgender. Honey Andrews has reportedly spent the last three years performing at the tribute to the late music icon, but organizers allegedly told Andrews that this year she would not be allowed to because “nobody wants to see a male person dress up like a girl.””

Ha. Tell that to RuPaul!

When Ms. Andrews told the LGBT community about the slight, they protested and the organizer who gave Honey the insulting dis-invitation reversed his position. But Honey Andrews decided not to accept because she felt that the organizers were only doing it because they were pressured. She plans to perform at another Selena tribute instead.

I don’t know much about Selena or her dedicated fan base that still remembers her through tributes 19 years and counting since her untimely death. I can say that Honey Andrews seems to be a pretty accurate impersonation of the singer (boy, girl, or whatever label you prefer) and it’s a shame she will have to change venues to pay respects to her idol.

ARE YOU WHAT YOU WEAR?

Coreseted for work?

The New York Times Style magazine supplement on February 16, 2014 had a brief article titled “Restrain Yourself.” It mentioned that many of the recent fashion offerings of big name designers include elements of bondage-y kink.

Times reporter Sarah Nicole Prickett begins her piece with this paragraph: “Woman is born free, and everywhere this spring she is in Versace chains, Givenchy harnesses and neoprene Pucci bras with strapping belts. Her ankles are buckled into Giuseppe Zanotti shoes that look like straitjackets. Metal bands by McQueen enclose her neck. To afford her trappings, she works 12 hour days. If the corner office has never felt more like a cell, it has also never looked more like a sex dungeon — and the dialectics of master (or is it mistress?) and servant has never been more elegantly twisted.”

Ms. Prickett follows with some further discussion of how SM or bondage elements come up in films or fashion or art. This is a recurring topic that I’ve seen many times over the years. I remember doing an item about leather harnesses appearing on runway models and the singer Rihanna just a couple years ago.

The article made an interesting point before ending however. The reporter notes that if she wears an army surplus jacket, no one assumes she is ex-Army. If she wears a baseball cap, no one looks at her as if she must be an ex-jock. “But in a black leather bustier or stilettos that buckle like cuffs, I am steeled for many proprietary gazes, because no matter how many times a trend re-simulates a lifestyle, the glisten of fetish still clings.” This rang true to me. I remember the time I saw a female co-worker wearing over-the-knee boots under her skirt and I wondered if they doubled as bedroom fetish toys as well. Maybe it’s just the way guys think. Maybe I’m just weird. Either are valid observations.

Tags: commentary, featured, Honey Andrews, Kappa Beta Phi, news, opinion, RuPaul

Category: Transgender Community News, Transgender Fun & Entertainment