Wig

Despite the title this isn't a blog about how I've bought a new wig but this is about a documentary I saw earlier this week that I very much enjoyed.

Wig is a documentary made in 2019 and directed by Chris Moukarbel regarding the Wigstock festival regularly held in New York by drag queens. It was a fascinating watch and a delve into the flip side of the culture which has now become somewhat mainstream thanks to Ru Paul's Drag Race. The festival started out in 1986 as a one off performance by some of the regulars at New York's Pyramid club and was so popular it returned every year until 2001 when, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, it was decided to stop as the mood of the city had changed. That is until 2018 when drag legend The Lady Bunny, one of the driving forces behind the original shows, decided to bring it back. The documentary follows her as she does and looks at the history of the festival and the comeback show itself. 

As any Drag Race viewer knows, queens come from a variety of backgrounds from the primped and perfect pageant queens to the more edgy club kids and this is more a celebration of the latter with some very edgy performances reminding us how pioneering drag performers are. It's not just about putting on a dress and a pair of false breasts but pushing the envelope in not just performance terms but in gender barriers as well. 

While Ru Paul only appears in archive footage, Drag Race does loom large over the documentary (some familiar faces from the show also appear) as it has catapulted drag to the mainstream like never before and some argue that it's not necessarily for the better. In some ways Ru Paul and Lady Bunny represent both ends of the spectrum of drag with Ru taking it mainstream and Bunny preferring the more edgy, envelope pushing, performers. It's a nice exploration of the different generations of drag artists too.

If you have an interest in drag then this is definitely worth a look. Here in the UK I saw it on Now TV as it was originally shown on Sky Documentaries. I'm not sure about other streaming services but I think it's also available via HBO. I'm also intending to check out Wigstock: The Movie, an earlier documentary on the festival made in 1995. It's also inspired me to check out some of the drag based films I've never seen such as Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Kinky Boots, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (which surely has one of the most bizarre titles in the history of cinema). 

I sometimes wonder if, in another life, I could have been a drag performer and films like this are certainly inspiring. I know I certainly wouldn't have the courage to do a lot of what these girls have.