We're All Born Naked, The Rest Is Drag

RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 3 premiered last night week and I got my LIFE. I've been a huge fan of Chichi Devayne for many reasons and if you have followed her journey, then you know why. So glad she stayed last night and that other one went home! Oh and bringing back Bebe Zahara Bennet was everything!!

A few years ago, I stumbled upon a reality show that was bleeding neon colors from the TV. Pink! Pink! Pink! Glitter! Pink Galore! That pink color reached its fabulous hand out of the TV, grabbed me by the shoulders and sucked me right in. I was suddenly complicit to a movement that I had no idea existed. I was watching a competition/reality show, but there was something very REAL about it.

I have always thought of myself as liberal free-thinking progressive person and I had been to a couple drag shows in college...omg that is such a cliche thing to say. Even though I went to a performing arts high school-was in the theatre department- and then went on to major in Theatre Arts in college, I  never quite understood drag culture or gay culture for that matter. To say that I knew gay people would be the equivalent of the "well I have black friends" comment. I had gay friends, the discussion of them being gay never came up in a serious, heart-to-heart way.

Miss Chichi Devayne

So here I am engulfed in the fiery and fierce world of Rupaul and I have not looked back ever since. And it has nothing to do with the personalities you encounter on Drag Race. I came to love and adore the Queens and their many talents and challenges too. I saw myself in so many of them. The stories that each of them shared about their journey to find and ultimately trust themselves moved me to tears. Their vulnerability was inspiring and I wished to be that open and accepting of myself. I struggled by letting words hurt me. The "sticks and stones" quote did not work for me. In RuPaul's song, "Sissy That Walk" he says "If they ain't paying your bills, pay them bitches no mind". He says his mother used to tell him that. I think every mother should tell their kids that. Those words gave me freedom to feel how I want, to live how I want, and not give two craps about what people think of me. Sissy That Walk has become a personal anthem. I am still a work in progress, but I used to be the "Yes, girl": Yes, I'll pick you up; Yes, I will watch your kids even though I have other plans; Yes, I will drive you places knowing you won't put gas; YES YES YES! I said and agreed to everything people asked of me. I was not living my life and I was miserable. Now, whenever I struggle with  saying  NO to someone I turn on Sissy That Walk and "Sashay Chante."

Drag Race is not just a reality competition show for Drag Queens, its an examination of  the human need to feel accepted and still keep strutting when you aren't accepted. Rupaul  says, in almost every interview since 1995, that WE ARE ALL BORN NAKED and we put on costumes to navigate life. When I was in college studying theater, I realized that I was not only playing characters on stage, but I was playing several characters in my walking life. With each character, I found a piece of myself. For an assignment in my play-writing class, we were asked to write why we wanted to be an actor. I went on a two page rant that I became an actor because I have several different characters inside me: a freak, sex fiend, upper middle class white woman, a man, a doctor, Hamlet. I am all of these things and when I am in different situations, they come out. Similar to  black people turning on their "safe" voice for white people, but can quickly  turn on their "urban" vernacular when they get around other black people. Or the way you are with different kinds of friends. ITS ALL DRAG. I am grateful for Drag Races and all the Queens that have graced its stage and who Sissy
that Walk!

Anyway, here is to LOVE!

And as Mama Ru always says "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell  you gon' love somebody else."

AMEN