NYC’s Lady Bunny offered her thoughts.  Now one of San Francisco’s queen bee queens, Heklina, impresario of the now dead (or deeply sleeping) Trannyshack, gives us hers.  Heklina, much like us, believes that nothing’s really changed over the last few decades of drag in the big cities except that drag’s brief mainstream moment–with Rupaul as its most visible icon–has flamed out.  It’s now up to the young gays to seek out the boundary-pushing drag that has always been around in the darker, sweatier corners of SF and NY.

We’ll say no more, and here’s Heklina’s State of Drag Address, unedited:

I’ve heard this same “Drag Is Dead” line for years, ever since RuPaul began to fade from the cultural landscape. Speaking for myself, although I did begin doing drag during the cross-dressing boom of the early 90s, very little of what I saw around me at the time inspired or influenced me, whether it was RuPaul herself or any of the safe, yawn-inducing “gender-bending” films that popped up (yes, I mean you PRISCILLA and TO WONG FOO). I’ve always been turned off by mainstream gay culture, and always felt like an alien when I tried to fit into it, and the same goes for the mainstream drag images that got shoved down my throat… please take your feather boa and fuck off.  No disrespect to the author, but is it really surprising that you found no novelty in “watching a man dressed as a woman lip-syncing to the theme song from Titanic.”?

I also don’t mean this as a slam against RuPaul.  What she achieved was extraordinary; she had a fantastic look, and a great product to sell. The ripple effect of her success was that the drag queen became the cultural touchstone of the moment–we were hot until we were not.  In one year in the late 90s I was on the Ricki Lake show 3 times, until I got the message from the producers that “Ricki is done with drag queens.”  Well!

This poses the all important question… Who cares?  In my personal opinion, the worst thing to happen to the Gay Movement has been mainstream acceptance, but acceptance only if you play by the rules and fit in. Who really relates to any of the gay images they see in today’s culture? Twenty years ago gays were seen by society at large as outcasts, dangerous, freaks… those were the good old days!  And don’t even get me started on fellow fags who trumpet diversity but play it safe. One friend of mine who was leading the Prop 8 street protests got a nasty email from some queen, telling her she was holding back the cause by marching in drag. Ahem.  Research your Stonewall history please.

In America, when you talk drag and big cities, you’re really talking about New York and San Francisco. We in the Bay Area are incredibly lucky to have a thriving drag scene. Whether it’s the Imperial Court, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Peaches Christ’s Midnight Mass, or any of the multitude of drag shows that have sprung up in the aftermath of Trannyshack’s closing, there really is something for everyone.

So, things have simply gone back to the way they were, pre-Rupaul. Generally speaking, drag performance in big cities will continue to push boundaries, while the Cher, Bette Midler, and Celine impersonations will go on and on elsewhere. It was ever thus.

True, it is highly unlikely that another drag queen will reach the level of fame that RuPaul did. Oh well. I know I can forget about it. There are too many videos out there of me rimming boy’s onstage at Trannyshack. Can you imagine the headlines?  It wouldn’t go over well on The View.

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