'My favorite part of dressing in drag is getting out of it. Drag is my work clothes. I only put it on when someone pays me to.'
When I was growing up I was a scared of men with feminine qualities. I vividly remember being a kid and seeing a trans person in the mall and being frightened to death. I think in part it was because most trans people, drag queens or feminine men in the media were written as monsters or psycho killers. There were very few positive representations on television or in film and I didn't realize at the time how important that was.
Of course my own sexuality played a role. Deep into the closet until I was in my twenties, as a kid, I spent unlimited energy trying to suppress and hide any hint of my true self. I played sports, which I actually loved, concentrated on my 'masculine walk' and focused on ensuring my 'higher octaves didn't slip out when I was happy or excited. I thought I was pretty successful at the time, but no matter how much I tried to deepen my voice, I was always in the tenor section.
Grace Jones Birthday celebration
My feeling towards the issue, and my feelings about drag queens began to change when I got a bit older. It started when my father and some of his friends appeared in drag at our church talent show. It was done for laughs, but it was still impactful to see my father and his friends in make-up, wigs and dresses. It really changed however, after seeing Hairspray. The film came out in 1988 and I think I saw it a couple of years later when it was release on video. I was about thirteen or fourteen and it was my mother who chose the film that weekend. It was my first introduction to both John Waters and to Divine.
Multiple Maniacs (1970)
'Divine never dressed as a woman except when he was working. He had no desire to be a woman... He didn't want to pass as a woman; he wanted to pass as a monster. He was thought up to scare hippies. And that's what he wanted to do. He wanted to be Godzilla. Well, he wanted to be Elizabeth Taylor and Godzilla put together.'
Divine was not who Harris Glenn Milstead was or who he became, Divine was who he played, at least according to John Waters in the quote above. I'm guessing if Divine were alive today things might be different. At the time, Divine was said to be a persona, one invented for Milstead's music career. I'm guessing this line of thought made it easier to be accepted by the mainstream in the 70's and 80's. Given there were not really many drag performers doing work in mainstream television or movie productions, I can understand the logic looking back.
A suburban housewife's world falls apart when she finds that her pornographer husband is serially unfaithful to her, her daughter is pregnant, and her son is suspected of being the foot-fetishist who's been breaking local women's feet.
Pizza Delivery!
Milstead developed an early interest in drag while working as a hairdresser. By the mid-1960s he had embraced the city's countercultural scene and it was then he met John Waters. It was actually Waters who gave him the name Divine with the tagline, 'The most beautiful woman in the word...almost.'
Described by People magazine as the Drag Queen of the Century, Divine's movie career became interlocked with Waters. Their movie collaborations included: Hairspray, Mondo Trasho, Multiple Maniacs, Female Trouble, and Polyester.
Now that I've gotten older, I've seen most of Divine's movies and one of my favorites is 1981's Polyester. I'm guessing that Divine's character Francine Fishpaw didn't have many happy Mother's Days. Her cheating husband and two ungrateful children weren't exactly concerned about their mother's happiness. Nor was Francine's cocaine-snorting mother La Rue.
I cannot take another heartbreak. I just cannot take it! Do you think I'm made of steel.
Francine Fishpaw
It's not shocking that Francine turns to the bottle, and ends up having several fantasies while under the influence. One of the most memorable involves Francine fantasying, and masturbating to thoughts of the hot pizza delivery guy. (Paul Holland) Thankfully for Francine, by the time the film ends, her life is looking up, including finding a new romance with Todd Tomorrow, played by 50's teen idol Tab Hunter. Todd Tomorrow ends up being a nightmare, but the film still ends with a happy ending for Francine and her family.
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