...you better work...
“We all came into this world naked. The rest is all drag.”
-RuPaul-
Meet RuPaul. RuPaul is drag royalty, the queen of queens. She is the reigning empress of glittering drag dominion having created a mini media empire across decades in the entertainment industry. Sashaying across 33+ seasons of global drag contests, live shows, albums, books, and businesses her platform has helped generations of emerging drag queens share their art with the world and generated Ru a fortune somewhere over $60M. It is quite a body-ody-ody of work.
The drag that RuPaul performs is a subversion of masculine and feminine, celebrating gender as expression by combining multiple art forms into a variety of performances. Makeup meets get down in a soiree of dancing, comedy, pantomime, magic and impressionism smudged and smeared on a stage celebrating individuality through a diverse community. It’s a party and a parade and a confetti gun covered in shade. Drag is rebellion. Drag is punk rock. It is an exploration and confirmation of identity. And when I watch RuPaul’s Drag Race, her globally televised contest to crown the best drag queen, I find myself reflecting on who, if anyone, I might be.
“The amount of respect you have for others is in direct proportion to how much respect you have for yourself.”
-RuPaul-
On Drag Race, you can witness incredible transformations. Lithe skinny bald men become tall pink-haired stiletto vixens singing Tina Turner. Plus-sized queens “death drop” or “dip” into splits that make me wince at the thought of my barely stretchable frame simply touching a toe. The athletics, personality, and energy are worth a hundred seasons of NBA basketball [my other competitive vice] if judging on sheer entertainment value. But more so than entertainment, Drag Race provides a space where anyone can be anyone, and everyone can support them when they do so. I have seen hundreds of queens transform from folks you might barely notice buying coffee at Kmart, into haute couture spandex latex explosions. I mean, check out some of the looks this show puts on screen.1
“Life is about using the whole box of crayons.”
-RuPaul-
Now meet Nathan. Nathan can wear a suit and tie, direct a team full of product and project managers to manage, and project loudly about their products. Nathan can nod his head at meetings, pretend to get amped at bar graphs, and say “umm yeah” in a necktie while giving year-end reviews to kids fresh out of universities seeking to excel at Excel. Nathan is a real drag.
And meet me, CansaFis. I have been making music and art since I was a kid who got busted drawing nude pictures of the neighbor girls from next door. I dress like a ten-year-old boy. I like magic, comedy and rock and roll. I will eventually create an extremely short-form live-action-all-action Garfield opera starring baby pigs. I am not a drag.
“Remember, the best time to get a new job is when you already have one.”
-RuPaul-
Business was a real drag though. Art never provided me with any commerce and commerce never provided me with any art. With business, Nathan could pay his rent, go on vacation, and pretend that someday he might own a house and do “real people'' stuff like balance books. But business made Nathan feel like shit. He felt like he was being constantly lied to about what his value was. Most of all, he felt like he was being lied to by himself. CansaFis on the other hand, made comics and videos and played music that brought him love, hope, and a sense of true self. But a couple tin cans of quarters would be the financial high-side of that personal exploration.
Is CansaFis Nathan’s drag or is Nathan CansaFis’s drag? At the end of the day, either persona provided a tall hairy man with a way to be some version of themselves that they might otherwise not feel comfortable to be. Sometimes this meant CansaFis wore a suit and tie to talk about advanced analytics and deliverable timeline approvals with a CPO named Phil McPhilpherson. Sometimes this meant that Nathan would wear a thong and a bird mask to make loud squelching saxophone burps for a room full of bored nihilists at some abandoned warehouse in the cold brick district of Western Minneapolis.
Whether I am Nathan or CansaFis, the fact of the matter is I feel like I have been dressing in drag my entire life. I wake up and choose to put on my me suit in order to be my me or me me or a man maybe in a mumu. The way in which identity as possibility is represented by drag is an inspiration, even if, for me, that means wearing pajamas to a lunch meeting instead of spinning in splits and high heels down a runway.
The differences between my drag and RuPaul’s is not simply sloth vs. slay, glorp vs. glam, nonono vs. yasyasyasss queen. I can be whomever I am for the day, and no one might notice my transformation. But the drag queens practicing their art for the world have no such anonymity and now face political attacks for their very existence.
“Whatever people think of me is none of my business.”
-RuPaul-
Politicians in 14 different states have drafted or started passing bills that will ban drag performances from public spaces.2 Florida governor Ron DeSantis passed a “Don’t Say Gay” bill preventing teachers in that state from teaching or referring to sexuality in any way shape or form.3 It comes with a special irony that the man trying to stop men from wearing high heels is currently being belittled for doing the exact same thing.4
The panic that emanates from the men and women passing these laws criminalizing LGBTQ+ art, words, spaces and lives is rooted in one of humanity’s most common fears—the other. You can’t leave a Reddit forum or YouTube comment section talking about this topic without seeing someone moan that “THEY are trying to make our kids gay”. If only it were so easy. This section of society is afraid of kids being made gay, but news flash (or fake news flash if you prefer). You know what makes kids gay? Being gay.
I can and have done a lot of gay things in my life, but I’m not gay. The first celebrity I remember masturbating to was RuPaul. The song Supermodel (You Better Work) came on the late-night screen in the basement of my buddy’s home, and a few minutes later, I came on my hand in his bathroom. I wore dresses with my sisters and friends, and blasted a cassette single of “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” like I was never going to go go to sleep again. I stared at my own body in the mirror and believed I was sexy. I was a man ogling a man (or even more scary, a boy ogling a boy). I spent an entire childhood doing the things Ron DeSantis probably has his wife watch him do in the basement of his Floridian McMansion, and no matter how gay I got, I just never turned gay. Because I’m not.
“Some people are so poor, all they have is money.”
-RuPaul-
The audacity of someone being so afraid of someone else’s truth that they would draft legislation to “protect” against their existence is terrifying and traumatizing. If we want to play that game, how about we pass a law against law dweebs from Yale (DeSantis’s alma mater) that force them to never wear high heels again. Let’s see you butt heads with Donald Trump in some sandals, Ron.
And just as wearing high heels doesn't make you gay, words are also never going to convert someone into being something they are not. No matter how many times you say into the mirror that you want to be the president Mr. DeSantis, you are never going to be that. All you are doing by “not saying gay, Bill” is saying “fuck you Willy” to folks who already have a hard enough time just being themselves.
The law is supposed to protect our freedoms, not divide us by catering to the fear flecked whims of secret heel-wearing derps in gator country. The argument against drag is that it is exposing children to content that is “harmful to minors”. If we are really worried about the effects of art on children’s minds, I suggest we start working on a bill that limits Barney, Dora and Caillou to no more than a season’s worth of episodes. As a man who worked professionally in children’s entertainment, I can confirm there is no greater mental perversion than a multiple episode watchthrough of Barbie Mermaidia, PawPatrol and Blippi.
“My drag is less about looking like a woman and more about saying F.U. to the cult of systematic masculinity I was bombarded with as a little boy.”
-RuPaul-
Fear is its own kind of drag. It dresses us up in emotions and ideas that limit the infinite possibility of reality. A fear of crime prevents you from walking down certain streets. A fear of change keeps you stuck working at a job you hate. Fear is the makeup you are given to wear by others for their idealized vision of you. It is your parents, teachers and neighbors saying you can’t do that and you should do this. And when I wear that makeup no one notices. I look just as they expect me to look. Status quo says my drag is acceptable. And that is unacceptable.
For RuPaul and the many beautiful queens around the world, drag brings out far more interesting emotions than just simple fear. When I watch drag race I can see laughter and joy, tears and pain. I get to hear stories of belonging and abandonment, and watch artists paint themselves and share styles I could not see anywhere else. There are glamour queens, comedy queens, pageant queens and camp queens. Bearded queens, horror queens, androgynous and full fish queens.5
Drag is not about what you should do, so much as it is about what you can do, and who you can do it with. It is about building fearless rejection free communities.
“Inside of us all is great power, creativity, and beauty.”
-RuPaul-
Drag is our ability to be the best looking, most interesting, funniest and most unique version of ourselves. For some that drag might be a full suit and a job at Goldman Sachs. For others it might be lip syncing to Donna Summer in a sparkling mini gown at the back of a diner in Nebraska.
And this is why I love RuPaul and her Drag Races. The endless possibility of us is what I want to see in myself. I am ok being Nathan, or CansaFis, or Bill, Willy or Ron. What matters most is that whomever I am, and whyever I am, I am ok with that. If you are never yourself, have you ever really lived? I know that I am not here living today without the RuPaul’s of the world and their radical individuality encouraging me to embrace myself(s).
“And If I fly or if I fall, at least I can say I gave it all.”
-RuPaul-
RuPaul has a quote that says “when you become the image of your own imagination, it's the most powerful thing you could ever do.” That endless infinite youniverse is the gift of our existence. Not only should we take advantage and let every day give us a new stage to strut upon, but so too should we sit back and enjoy the show as others catwalk around us.
A world with only Nathan’s and CansaFis’s would be a drag. But a world that includes them alongside everyone else being whoever the hell they want to be? That is a drag race. So start your engines. Let’s go.
“If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”
-RuPaul-
FOOTENOTES
https://www.vulture.com/2018/06/rupauls-drag-race-100-best-looks.html
https://time.com/6260421/tennessee-limiting-drag-shows-status-of-anti-drag-bills-u-s
https://time.com/6155905/florida-dont-say-gay-passed
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/31/desantis-boots-shoemakers-00121044
https://variety.com/lists/rupauls-drag-race-most-iconic-moments/
This is such a beautiful read, CansaFis! I hope RuPaul and everyone else reads this ❤️
"A world with only Nathan’s and CansaFis’s would be a drag. But a world that includes them alongside everyone else being whoever the hell they want to be? That is a drag race. So start your engines. Let’s go."
Damn, this IS beautiful. It's also like a politicized pep talk?? I love it.
Also, it scares me how good you are at LinkedIn. 500+ connections?