Wig (2019) - full transcript
Wigstock was an annual drag festival which glamorously signaled the end of summer for the gay community in New York City for almost 20 years. Late one night in 1984, Lady Bunny and a few ...
I'm very happy for you, Rue.
You're about to start
a brand new chapter.
You've been clean for, like,
two weeks, right?
I've actually
been really happy.
♪ Still don't know my name ♪
Every time I feel good,
I think it'll last forever.
But it doesn't.
We're just reaching
for something...
to make it all seem meaningful.
The world
is sick with masculinity.
So, as much femininity
as this one body can have...
...that is what makes
a really good drag queen.
Drag, for me,
is an ancient, ancestral
performing art.
It's a way for
the gay community
to choose its icons.
We're the priests.
We are kind of like
the spiritual masters
of the gay community.
Ladies, and gentlemen
who would rather be ladies...
I wanna tell you something.
I moved to New York City
in 1984.
Since then, like
the other jaded scenesters,
and I'm guilty of it too,
I sit and bitch:
"There's a Duane Reade and a
Chase Bank on every corner.
The city's so slick and
sophisticated" and all that.
But you know what? After doin' that
and bitchin' for about 30 years,
I finally said,
"Well, listen here:
You're a lifer.
You ain't movin'.
So your choice
is to keep bitchin'
or put on a festival
like you used to do
to bring people together
and make something fun
about New York City!
Are you ready, Wigstock?
Yeah!
Maestro, hit it!
♪ Uh-huh, make me tonight ♪
♪ Tonight, tonight ♪
♪ Oh, your hair is beautiful ♪
♪ Oh, tonight ♪
♪ Atomic ♪
She worked her way up
to New York City,
to the Queen of Manhattan,
and now she's hearkening back
to her Chattanooga
white trash roots,
doin' one of her songs
of her own
in a style that she made famous.
Please welcome Lady Bunny!
♪ Tonight ♪
♪ Make me tonight ♪
I snuck into a club at 13,
in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
I'd never seen-- whoo!--
sequined gowns
and false eyelashes,
the giant wigs and whatever.
I lived in drag as a child.
The long t-shirts
and the short-shorts.
And I had long hair,
so, honey,
I was never in the closet,
let's put it that way.
♪ Atomic ♪
♪ Don't you know your queen ♪
♪ Whipped ♪
Who's that guy?
♪ Heaving ♪
♪ Flower bloom
at my feet... ♪
- We gotta go now. Bye.
- Bye.
Bye, Nelson!
The Pyramid Club,
when I arrived in about '83,
was a swinging club
that they billed as
"drag-owned and operated."
Wait a minute.
There we are.
That's my new pyramid heart.
- What's that?
- It's a pyramid.
Hello. Welcome to the Pyramid.
We were really ridiculous...
taking LSD...
you know, it was a magic time.
The Pyramid celebrities
were creating
their own persona.
They weren't doing Cher,
Joan Rivers, or whatever.
They were coming up
with their own persona
with its own look
and its own repertoire.
♪ When I sashay ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah
ah-ah-ah ♪
♪ Hey, hey ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah... ♪
Please welcome
Linda Simpson!
In the '70s and '80s,
the atmosphere at the gay bars
and clubs was macho.
People didn't want femininity,
really.
What did our studio audience think?
And the Pyramid,
drag became tongue-in-cheek,
was rebellious,
it was like punk rock.
No one was careerist about it.
People were just doing it
to have fun.
♪ No family is safe ♪
♪ When I sashay ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah ♪
Welcome Lahoma Van Zandt.
We were just
fucking down to just do our thing.
It was a form of expression,
and also discovery
of our feminine side.
It's the make-believe.
It's the make-believe
part of it.
And so we just created
our own world.
- The snow. The snow.
- Yeah.
- OK.
- Thank you.
RuPaul and I met in Atlanta,
and were immediate
whatever-we-were.
It was more than a friendship,
it was a sisterhood,
we were close.
What people don't know about Ru
is that his taste in music
is unbeatable.
I ain't sayin'
listen to his current records.
This next
performer's name is RuPaul.
Make no mistake about it,
this summer,
RuPaul is hot.
Yay! RuPaul!
I think right now
I'm gonna--
RuPaul is red hot!
I'm think right now
I'm gonna break out.
Here, let me get red hot.
Ru really didn't have an act,
so he needed to have
a few extra clowns.
And I was one of those clowns
that he brought up to New York
for a gig at the Pyramid
to go-go dance in drag.
I wanna break out tonight!
♪ Don't it
make my brown eyes ♪
♪ Don't it make
my brown eyes blue ♪
God, is Bunny
a terror, or what?
She was a terror.
She had this attitude after she came.
She said, "I can deal with workin',
and I work hard," she said,
"Every five minutes having to cue up
a record is gonna drive me crazy."
To the Pyramid.
You know he was dying
to be spanked.
Came up to me
saying it was his birthday
and was he too old
to warrant a spanking,
and asked me if there were
any alternative S&M clubs.
They're all
closed because of AIDS.
The club closed,
and we were all friends
with the bartenders,
and they drank too,
but then when they'd say,
"No, you have to shut,"
we would just grab six-packs
and head over
to Tompkins Square Park
where there was a band shell.
Bonsoir! Bonsoir!
♪ Don't you know your queen ♪
♪ Gleaming ♪
♪ Wrapped in golden leaf ♪
You know,
we were just blasted drunk,
had been drunk all night...
You bitch! I'll kill you!
♪ Rank ♪
♪ Ragged ♪
♪ Skin sewn on sheets ♪
We were just clowning on...
for angry homeless people
that wanted to sleep.
Someone said, "What if we do
some kind of festival here?"
Who knows who said, "Instead of
Woodstock, we'll call it Wigstock."
I have no idea.
♪ When I sashay ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-
ah-ah-ah ♪
♪ Hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, hey ♪
- Huh?
- Are you gonna be here next week too?
Yes, it's the anniversary.
The environment
that I grew up in,
in large clubs,
I think we could use
a dose of community.
When we had a common enemy,
like rampant,
unchecked discrimination,
inability to marry,
or serve in the military, or AIDS--
we did come together because
there was an enemy to fight.
Now I think we're
tending to fight each other more.
and I think that if we got in
each other's faces, we would say,
"Oh, yeah! You. I get it."
The whole idea of Wigstock
is that we wanted
to be considered freaks,
because it made it feel like
we had gotten
into some in-crowd
in New York City!
- Hello!
- Bunny!
- Waah! Mwah.
- Love you.
- Take care.
- Love you, hussy.
Let me get up the stairs.
- Bye, honey.
- Sweetie.
Yes. Oh, thank you so much!
- Got about five of 'em.
- Oh, OK. Wonderful.
One, two, three, four,
five, six--
I don't pick up my paychecks
very often
because I'm independently
wealthy.
Don't worry. I'm already...
in the Wesley Snipes...
category.
With taxes. Not talent.
Not talent or looks or physical
fitness or acting ability.
OK.
Bye!
Ooh, fog. Fog.
Oh, that fog!
First day!
Have a fun first day.
♪ Take me by the hand... ♪
So, I think that Wigstock
might have bitten the dust
if I hadn't really
seen something there.
But I had always been the brat that
pins up a sheet in between two trees
and invites the neighbors over
for a show.
Lady Bunny
and some other people
from the Pyramid came up
with this idea
to do this outdoor drag-fest
during the day.
But it was hysterical,
because drag
was usually confined to,
like, 3:00 a.m.,
in pure darkness
of a club.
Welcome to Wigstock!
Stop the pigs
and give 'em wigs!
All right! We got so much
incredible talent for you
lined up tonight,
and you're just
dying to see it, I can tell!
Gonna bring down the house,
and I'm so glad to see
each and every one of you.
Lots of wigs out there too,
and that's even better!
So it was probably
attended by just a few hundred people
at first, and a lot of them
were just wandering by.
I know that trick.
Tabboo!:
Alphabet City was dangerous.
The only people
that were on the streets
were junkies, drug dealers,
and there were no cops, so you
could do whatever you want.
We were very tentative
about getting our asses kicked.
"Halloween Q,
Take Back the Night."
An anti-violence march.
We're stopping in several places
along the route.
One's for police,
one's for violence against lesbians,
one's for violence
against people of color,
one's for AIDS-phobia/
homophobia.
Give me an orange one
that will stand out more.
Right back there.
"Drag queens are under attack."
They're already all over the street.
On their way to Wigstock.
♪ I finally feel like ♪
♪ I'm gonna be
feelin' this way... ♪
So right here,
we finally got our sound system,
and the show should be
going off real soon.
It was just for the artists
in the neighborhood, basically,
when it started.
But then it became,
like, a big thing
where the neighborhood
would come
and other people would come
and heterosexuals would come
and bring their kids.
We got a dynamite show for you.
The Pyramid put on this
every year,
just because there are so
many housewives and children
that can't always make it
to the nightclub.
Yeah!
I knew that I was a jester,
and I could bring people
together,
and I want this to represent
the New York scene!
I don't know every queen
from every scene,
but I want it
to be very inclusive,
because we all felt like we were putting
something special out there into New York.
Let there be peace on earth,
and let it begin...
with me!
God bless you!
God bless you.
Next up, we have a dose
of high fashion
with Mr. Fashion!
So all of you can wig out!
We wanted to
be more like Woodstock
in the beginning.
There were bands--
many bands.
Every Wigstock--
it was eight hours long.
- ♪ Everybody do the ♪
- ♪ Do what, baby? ♪
♪ Come on and do
the barracuda ♪
♪ Cuda ♪
Every year, we'd go,
"Wig's comin', it's comin',
Wigstock's comin'."
And you could do all the shows
you wanted in the nightclub,
but when Wigstock came,
everybody saw it.
Welcome to Wigstock '92!
It felt like every
year the festival doubled,
but I was too stupid
to even ask for help!
At that point,
Wigstock becomes so popular
it was attracting
thousands of people.
It's amazing, because it started
out as such a simple little thing,
and then became
this phenomenon.
♪ Barracuda ♪
The reason that
this festival stuck together
is that there is a sisterhood.
We are not in a competition.
We're coming together
to say, "Here's a gift
to make New York City better."
We're not just gonna
sock it to ya
here at Wigstock '94,
we're gonna
sock it right through ya!
♪ B-A ♪
♪ R-R... ♪
Welcome to Wigstock 1997!
This is our 15th fucking
anniversary.
There is no way in hell
that we are gonna cancel.
♪ Cuda ♪
There's a lot
that's changed about New York.
We talk about
this sense of community--
well, are we really
in each other's lives?
Oh, don't lick it,
don't lick it.
- Don't lick it...
- Mwah!
Bye. You're not
going with us?
I don't think so.
I think we're all scrolling
on Instagram,
and I don't like
that community.
And I don't need
to be a community
with somebody
whose profile picture is a cat.
- Good night, Bunny.
- Good night.
Here's the sad part.
New York City
is no longer affordable
for the wacky,
offbeat artists
that made Wigstock possible.
- Hmm.
- It's not.
If you're wacky
and you have a trust fund
and rich parents,
then you can come.
This is why
we treasure people like Bobbie
who did make it here
and who is one of us
and who doesn't do the obvious,
who is not cookie-cutter.
- Oh...
- Hey, Bobbie.
I'm gonna cry.
Particularly,
Wigstock was the big thing
that was like, OK,
"I need to move to New York,
I need to get it together."
And when I got here,
I thought it was still going on
so I was super-excited.
Honey,
we're bringing ' it back,
and we're draggin' you with us.
Even if it rains,
we're gonna bring
the spirit of Wigstock back
to New York City,
and maybe more.
So,
should we stand up, sit down?
What do you think?
'Cause we can bust out a pose.
Bouncing around
and posing's great.
OK. I'm new at this.
You can see I'm very young.
Amazing.
I like that. Yes.
Ohhh...
There is a
Broadway element to this
by adding Neil Patrick Harris,
and the funny thing to me
is that some people have said,
you know, "What are you doing
with Neil?"
And I think there's many
more of his friends asking,
"What are you doing with the
crazy old hag Lady Bunny?!"
So we are very
thrilled that you are covering it.
Thank you so much, honey.
Good to see you.
Thanks for poppin' out so late.
OK.
Just found out that RuPaul
will not be performing,
because we cannot fit
the amount of people
it takes to make her
look like a gorgeous woman
- on that rooftop. So...
- You're so mean.
You are so mean.
Oh, my God.
It was a total
pinch-me moment
to see the lineup that they
announced for Wigstock,
the fucking names
that I was mentioned with.
It's like definitely an honor
just to be nominated.
Like, I think
they did it alphabetically,
so I'm right after Candis.
It's just like,
who in the fuck am I to be mentioned
right after Candis Cayne?
Jesus Christ.
I wanna invite my trade
to Wigstock,
but I don't think he'd go for it.
Who is it?
Oh... you know.
Anyway, I don't
wanna talk about it.
Why can't he come
to Wigstock?
Well, because he lives
on the other spectrum
of, like, the world,
you know, he's orderly and has--
He's fucking you?
Well, who says that--
who says that I'm the one
getting fucked?
- Me.
- Just kidding.
I-- You know.
- Are you gonna go to Wigstock?
- Yeah!
- Are you?
- I wanna be a drag king.
Ooh.
What do you
know about drag queens?
That they're crazy
and they say bad words.
- Who uses bad words?
- Lady Bunny.
- Yeah, Lady Bunny's got a filthy--
- ♪ Loco ♪
She is loco.
She did say more
curse words than anyone that we've--
That we've ever
had over for dinner.
She didn't even know
she'd said it.
And we said,
"You just said the F-word."
"I did?
Oh, I'm so sorry.
I didn't even know
I said it."
"I just thought
they were short.
I didn't know
they were kids."
Oh, man,
the sugar's kicked in.
Excuse me!
- No more sugar.
- They act like crazy monster people.
That's what kids
are supposed to do.
- Is it?
- I was a nightmare.
I went to the ER,
like, every month.
But that's not
a good example.
Yeah, probably not.
Wigstock in the past
have been fun
because they were alt, right?
Now I feel like
drag is so embraced
that I wonder if
if it will still have
that pulse of necessity,
or is it gonna feel like...
Disney?
The kernel of what Bunny wants,
when she talked to us,
when I first approached her,
what she wants in this
is for everybody
just to have a laugh
and to have fun and smile,
and to get a relief,
have a release from
all this shit that's goin' on
in the world right now.
Tell us what you know
about Lady Bunny.
Lady Bunny? She is who
the working girls today
look towards
as Mother New York.
Also she's really old-school.
You've never seen her
out of drag. Ever.
Like, fucking ever. Ever.
For me, as a magician,
I really enjoy
the magic trick element of it.
For me, that's a part of it,
is going, "Wait a minute,
I wonder what this person
looks like as a boy.
How is that tuck happening?
And how--
I like the magic trick of it.
Do you feel like
you guys do the same work?
- Me and Bunny?
- Yeah.
No, we're not
of the same time.
My message is different
because I'm of a different time.
I'm coming into drag
in a time
that needs visible trans women
in trans bodies
transgressing
the drag stage.
They had trans women on their stages
then, absolutely.
Like, a thousand percent.
Like, they were all low-key trans women,
'cause drag queens are, like,
all low-key trans women.
Or they're no good.
I've never really done drag.
I've never really gotten...
- fully...
- Really?
- Ever. No.
- You should, so you know what we have to go through.
That's one of the reasons I
stopped drinking and went to shots.
Because mixers, they fill up your bladder.
Shots, you just get drunk.
You can't do mixers when you're in
drag because you have to pee too much.
New York is unique.
We are a community
who values performance first.
That is Bunny's
whole fucking soapbox,
is that everyone
in this post "Drag Race" era,
and it's all about face,
Bunny is the one who's like,
"It only matters
what you do onstage."
There's
this very explicit script
that I was expected to follow.
But I was, like,
a closeted church boy from Alabama.
I came out,
and my parents flipped out,
and within six months I look
around, and I don't have a family.
Basically, my worst fears
were confirmed
that the price of being myself
meant my entire life
as I knew it.
Convenient
thing about the Christian Church
is that it's one
of the only places
where flaming faggots
can hide in plain sight.
Most of my gay role models
growing up,
were closeted dads...
in church.
So I kind of,
in the back of my mind, knew...
that my whole life
was gonna be spent hiding.
And so I came to New York,
thinking that even
as a freshman at NYU,
I would be, like,
stepping out of a limo
to dozens of photographers
everywhere I went
within a few months.
But it didn't go like that,
because my problems
followed me to New York.
I was like, "I don't need a new
location, I need a new life."
What makes
a really good drag queen,
for me, it requires
an ascension.
I like my drag queens,
like, trans,
HIV-positive meth addicts,
like, recovering
from something.
People who lost their family,
we make better spokespeople
for the queer community
because we have lost
all semblance
of what it means to live
a normative, straight life.
There's that artist's credo
of, like, "I am an artist
because I share my trauma
with everyone,"
so I realized that I wanted
to start manipulating my body
as an extension of my art.
It made sense for me
to want to
start hormones,
or start my medical transition,
onstage,
which was at Bushwig
in 2015.
It's 2015.
We can be
whatever the fuck we want.
And I had my girlfriend
shoot me up
with my first estrogen shot,
that was not sanctioned
by Callen-Lorde or anything,
there was no doctor
who knew I was doing it.
There was an element
of proclamation to it,
and there was also an element
of me trying
to expose my community
to the trans experience.
Bushwig is a drag festival
that was started in Brooklyn
to fill the hole
that Wigstock left.
It is Lady Quesa'Dilla!
I was Miss Bushwig in 2017.
Thanks, girls!
It's been
the best Bushwig ever!
Here's to tits and a dick!
Love you! Mwah!
Ladies and gentlemen,
how are you doing tonight?
We've got a little rock and
roll anthem for you tonight.
This is the big finale
from our show--
"Hedwig and the Angry Inch."
This is called "Midnight Radio."
♪ That hits you so hard ♪
♪ Filling you up ♪
♪ Suddenly gone ♪
♪ And you're spinning ♪
♪ Like a 45 ♪
♪ Ballerina dancing ♪
♪ To your rock and roll ♪
♪ Lift up your hands ♪
♪ Lift up your hands ♪
♪ Hands ♪
Thank you.
Thank you.
When we were
first doing Wigstock
in Tompkins Square Park
and word came to me
that this legendary
pop star goddess
thought that my little event
was cool enough for her
to come down from the heavens
and grace us with her
chart-topping magnificence...
...I felt like
I had done did somethin'.
Please put your hands together
for the incredible...
Deborah Harry.
♪ Oh ♪
♪ Your hair is beautiful ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ Tonight ♪
♪ Atomic ♪
So, since it's about wigs,
I thought I should wear a wig.
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Atomic ♪
All right, fish stick!
Thank you!
The thing about Bunny
that really pissed me off,
though,
is that she flirts like crazy.
Debbie, it means so much
to me that you are here,
and as a measure of my thanks,
I'm prepared to fuck you.
Oh, Bunny, you say that every
year and I never get it!
I would get all turned on,
and then nothing would happen.
Just see, you
know, young men that on the street
you wouldn't think anything of,
but then they're transformed
into these beautiful,
beautiful, exotic creatures.
It's kind of wonderful.
♪ You've changed ♪
♪ That sparkle ♪
♪ In your eyes is gone ♪
♪ Your smile ♪
♪ Is just a careless yawn ♪
♪ You're breakin' my heart... ♪
What makes makeup female?
What makes anything female?
What characterizes this life's
particular starting point?
I mean, why are we--
what is this?
One thing I think is amazing
is that when I was in a band,
we went to dump little towns
and we played, and I was a boy,
that was one thing, but then I
started doing a girl in the band,
and I would go to these dump little
towns, in, like, Memphis, Tennessee.
We'd go into a club, and there'd be
nothing but rednecks drinking beers
waiting for the band to come on.
And I would think, "Oh, my God."
And I'd go out on the stage and I
could see hostile faces at first.
But within the course
of the show,
the fantasy,
when it got to work,
and by the end of the show they
were screaming and hollering
and having a great time,
and weren't afraid--
No matter what, we are
all the same thing.
And that's just
one more step closer to that,
which is great.
It's a wonderful flavor.
It is!
♪ Do not let me go blind
for I still want to learn ♪
♪ How to see what's in front
of my eyes without light ♪
♪ What's inside of me,
what's inside ♪
♪ What's inside ♪
♪ Inside of, inside of ♪
We have feminine ways,
but we're not actually
guys that are--
we look the way that we look, but
sometimes if people approach us, they think
that we're these over-the-top--
- Queens.
- Yeah.
It's an appearance, but
personally, my personality--
- Like, inside.
- Yeah.
Your exterior has nothing to do
with what you feel internally.
Everyone has a different mixture of
masculinity and femininity put together.
But even in the gay community,
I feel like you think
it's like a "land of the free," and
they even put you in boxes there.
"You're a femme, you're a masc."
It's really
a mixed pot of it all.
I grew up very on
the masculine side of life,
and I grew into my femininity.
The boundaries
of drag are being pushed
with it being mainstream now.
It's getting more pushed
to the forefront,
so I feel like the small,
little cracks for queens
that didn't have
as much exposure as others
are now getting that, and that's not
always in the essence of a woman.
That's not always in the essence of a
man, or neither.
It's bringing what you feel
inside to the forefront.
Whatever that looks like,
that's your drag.
♪ Captain of none,
captain of nothing ♪
♪ Captain of none ♪
Tabboo!: The big difference
between the queens of today
and the queens of yesteryear
is that the queens
of yesteryear
were beautiful.
Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!
This is tasty.
Yeah!
What is it, huh?
Shhh!
It's a surprise!
Pickle Surprise!
Pickle Surprise!
Wigstock lemonade,
come and get it!
Does anyone wanna buy
some Wigstock lemonade?
Buy some lemonade?
Tabboo!: You know, those
queens, those young queens,
they have no idea that they
climbed to where they are
on the shoulders and the backs
of the old queens
that came before them!
It's hard enough being gay,
never mind being a woman, honey,
never mind being a gay woman,
never mind being
a black gay woman.
Tabboo!: Back in the
day before cell phones
and bottled water,
before the robots took over.
When Wigstock first started,
it was only a few short years,
maybe 15 years after
Stonewall revolutionary,
that whole thing,
so if you walked around,
if you paraded around
on the streets in drag,
you'd get your ass kicked!
Out in public in drag?
Huh?! What?!
Huh-huh-huh-huh.
Shocking. Revolutionary.
They all love me.
The men love me.
The women love me.
Mahogany.
Tabboo!:
It kick-started the whole
"Come out, come out,
wherever you are" kinda thing.
Before that,
even Liberace and Freddie Mercury,
they were all in the closet,
believe it or not.
And Wigstock said,
"What closet, honey?
My drag is clogging the closet,
there's no room for me
in there, honey. Hello."
It's "in"
to be gay in the '90s,
did you know that?
It's "in" to be gay!
Who woulda thunk it, right?
But it's a new day.
We're being televised worldwide
again today.
The world is watching!
The world
is watching!
Honey,
I'm gonna tell you right now,
they said just by being there,
Wigstock is in-your-face.
If it was in-your-face to say
we're not ashamed of who we are,
so my focus was: Let me
show you what we could do.
Folks, you know,
you got your drag queens
and you got your drag kings.
Not only do I
already expect you to accept us,
watch this,
and if you don't like it,
hit it,
'cause you don't see me
carrying on
at your football games.
♪ Baby, baby ♪
♪ Baby, baby ♪
If I've said anything
to any of you
and if I stepped on your toes,
I have something to say:
Baby, I really don't
give a damn.
Lighten up,
it's just a drag show.
We all felt like we
were putting something special
out there into New York,
because this was
the time of AIDS...
sinking in.
A lot of you have
had a lot of fun,
like I have,
like Ru and Lahoma have had,
for a couple of years
at parties by Stephen Cohen.
If you haven't heard the news,
Stephen Cohen
passed away this week
of complications from AIDS.
I, personally, and Marge,
are giving money
to the Community
Research Initiative
to help find a cure,
I hope you do too.
And I know how
I would like to be remembered,
so we're gonna open
some champagne
and have a really nice time.
Think of Stephen while...
People were
dropping like flies.
Pop it, baby, pop it!
It was terrifying.
I didn't visit
one of my best friends,
I did not visit him in the
hospital as much as I should have
because I was too scared
to face the fact
that I might have it.
But unfortunately,
after performing,
shortly after performing
at Wigstock last year...
she passed away.
I would have loved to have her
perform again this year.
She was a queen among queens,
never bitchy,
never evil
like so many of these girls.
And I'm sure she's
very much missed by family
and friends.
And I hope we can
put all of our thoughts
up towards the sky
and think of Donna right now.
Come on out here,
let's send her a wig up to the heavens.
She might have been--
I don't know if her family
understood her properly
and buried her in her wig.
In case they didn't,
this goes out to you, Donna.
We're thinkin' of ya, honey.
Ladies and gentlemen,
she is a columnist
for "Time Out New York,"
She also hosted and created
the fantastic Club Night
at the Pyramid--
back when it was fun--
Ooh. Put your hands together
for Linda Simpson.
Thank you, Bunny.
Thank you so much for that.
Putting on drag
gives you a lot of confidence,
and all of a sudden,
you're "pizzazz," you know what I mean?
And you are strong,
you're bold.
I demand more lights!
I demand even more lights!
Yes! All right.
And then
once you take the drag out,
it can be sort of disorienting,
because you don't have
that armor
and people don't react to you
in the same way
and they sometimes
don't give you that bow-down,
worshipful atmosphere
that you've been getting.
Do you think one of the
drawbacks of doing drag, though,
is when you're in drag,
it's hard to get a gay guy
to be interested in you?
Who's gonna waste a shave
on a gay guy?
"Drag Race," which
dominates all things drag now,
created this incredible
renaissance for drag.
But the other side of the coin
would be
that drag certainly was fun
when it was underground
and I have a great fondness
for when it was just a fun,
avant-garde way
of expressing oneself.
It was very unique.
There wasn't anyplace else
in the world
that was like
the East Village drag scene.
Back then it was a smaller
group, it was an inside group.
Someone has to take my picture.
Stand right here, Linda.
Let the light
drink your face in.
Let's see...
Ooh, that face, girl.
You are fierce!
I feel so pretty that I feel like
I must have always looked this way.
OK, come over here some.
Yes, there it is.
There's the face.
Now, to me,
drag is all about
demystifying drag,
and so, you know,
it takes away
from the insider-y,
"We've got a secret"
kind of club feel
that we had before.
Mona, it's so nice
to have you here.
We just celebrated
our two-year anniversary,
I think you were reminiscing about the
first time that you performed here.
You were saying that your
makeup was a little off,
your hair was a little off--
what's changed?
Um...
There's no secrets anymore.
It's like,
"Here's how you do the makeup,
here's how you stuff the boobs,
here's how
you put the wigs on.
Here's the language we use."
It's very interesting now how
people have created stardom,
and many of them
are quite young.
And you know that expression
"High tide raises all ships"?
Even drag queens
that are not on "Drag Race"
are benefitting
from the popularity of the show
and in drag in general.
I wanna tell ya,
I've always had a dream
and I've always wanted
to do what I do,
and I want to tell each and every one
of you within the sound of my voice:
Hold onto your dreams,
hold onto your dreams!
'Cause if it can work for me,
it can work for you.
I love you.
Good night, everybody.
What would it mean to you to become
America's next drag superstar?
It would mean the world to me to
be America's next drag superstar.
Ru was very about
building an empire
of what you can build an empire,
honing in on
your natural gift.
I've been lucky enough
to have Ru pave the way for me,
but who the fuck
paved the way for Ru
to do what he's doing
right now?
He took over
the world of drag.
When it comes to career-wise,
I do view Ru almost as like
a father figure.
Is that weird to say?
I started drag when I was 18.
I was pretty much
in drag in high school,
like, for the most part,
six-inch heels to, like,
the first day of senior year,
with big Lady Gaga eyebrows.
To test out my makeup skills,
I would do my makeup,
and then I would
go on Chatroulette,
and if they didn't see
that I wasn't--
if they wouldn't "next" me,
thinking I was a dude,
then I was like, "My makeup
turned out well today."
When I was on "Drag Race,"
I broke a bunch of rules
and tried to get kicked off
because I knew getting kicked
off is iconic on reality shows.
Now no one else can have it.
It's one of those things
where any reality TV show,
it's a tool to a bigger career,
hopefully.
I think I've navigated my way through
that motherfucking beautifully.
I'm still working to this day,
seven years later,
and I'm in a movie
with fucking Lady Gaga,
so I'm doing
something right.
The fact that drag has gone from
whispering about drag queens
in the corner of a club
to standing in two-hour-line
meet-and-greets
just to shake their hand
blows my mind.
And I love that
it's being normalized.
Thanks!
And happy Groundhogs Day.
They're fuckin' rodents.
I'm just gonna put
my Taser away...
and shut the door.
'Cause there's bugs
and crackheads.
The best thing ever was, a crackhead
came through the back door once
late at night, and it was like
five minutes after
my camera guy had left,
so I was like, "He's just
coming back for something."
But the door opened
kind slow,
and I was right here
and I was still in drag
from filming,
and the first thing I did
was go like this
and then grab this knife
and do-- bam!-- and I said,
"I have a knife,
I will hurt you,"
and he starts--
he gets one foot in the door,
and he's like right here,
I say, "I have a knife,
I will hurt you,"
and he's like,
"Oh, my God, I'm sorry, ma'am!"
And then he fell right there
going back.
But he called me "ma'am!"
How cute, right? I passed.
I was so excited.
And I was ready
to fuckin' stab him, too.
You don't come in
my fuckin' back door.
Well, a lot of people come in my
fuckin' back door, but not like that.
That was different.
When I'm in Wigstock this year,
I think I'm gonna, um...
butt-chug on my hoverboard.
And my hoverboard's like a little Judy
Jetson little "vroom, vroom" thing,
and then butt-chugging is when you
stick alcohol in a disposable enema
and then put it up your butt.
Because it gets you
real fucked up, real fast,
and that's the best way to be
when you're a drag queen.
And then you don't
squirt it at the audience
because that's a whole
different kind of show.
That gets very combative.
Nobody wants to get wet
at a drag show, I think.
Especially with ass juice.
Who's ready for bingo?
Look at the crowd!
And this is the second show.
Look at that!
The crowd is 30-45% faggots,
the rest is straight women.
Straight, drunk
bachelorettes.
A lot of women grow up
playing with dolls,
and then when they get old, they still
want someone to dress up and hang out with,
so they get drag queens,
and then they pull our wigs.
Use your flash.
Yes.
♪ Love stands tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands
tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands
tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands
tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands ♪
♪ Tall and free! ♪
Oh! Oh! Oh!
Oh, my God!
Wigstock's first baby!
My little baby!
This is your first
time here at Wigstock, honey.
Have you got anything to say
to these rascals out here?
Hi! How are you?!
Enjoy your day, be safe,
and just let it it all out,
honey.
The first
year I performed at Wigstock,
I got to open it,
and I was like, "What?"
Bunny was like, "You're going
on now," and I was like, "What?"
And it was fun, it was fun.
But Flotilla wasn't born yet.
I did not get involved in drag
until 1991.
The people at Boy Bar,
they put me together.
I was groomed,
by Raven O and Matthew Kasten.
Hands down.
Hands down.
Boy Bar beauty forever.
There's too many people
right now
that want to be drag queens,
and some of 'em don't know
what that entails.
My thing is,
if it's all about money
and I don't have the passion,
what the fuck
am I doing this for?
When you find somebody
that really wants to do drag
and has a passion about it,
that's what drag, to me,
is about,
and performing is about.
Finding somebody
who just loves the art,
and when they're onstage,
you can see it.
Lady Quesa'Dilla right here,
who is a daughter
of Perfidia,
just a remarkable performer.
And studies the history,
no less.
See, a lot of people
don't study their history
of who was before them,
who's with them,
who's after them.
This is my drag daughter,
Miss Konima.
- Konima, this is--
- Konima? Hi. Flo, nice to meet you, sweetie.
- Mm-hmm.
- OK.
I would
see them nurtured at Pyramid,
you know, I had Linda Simpson,
I had Bobby Miller,
doing my hair, and my makeup,
when it looked rotten.
We took care of each other.
They're beginning
to have some of 'em now.
The girls in Bushwick
are taking care of each other.
Which is a good thing.
Which is a really good thing.
Everybody can do drag, yeah.
That's good, ya know.
But what kind of drag queen
do you want to be?
♪ Well, I don't
wanna talk about... ♪
Let me show you the lineup.
- This is the lineup for Wigstock?
- Yeah.
We just got it.
Let me try finding you...
Oh, my God.
So many people.
God, the legend lineup
is so real.
♪ Mary had a little lamb ♪
♪ Her fleece was white as snow ♪
♪ Everywhere that Mary went ♪
♪ The lamb was sure to go ♪
♪ He made the children laugh
and play ♪
♪ Laugh and play ♪
♪ Come on, boys and girls ♪
♪ Put your hands on up ♪
♪ If you're part
of the family ♪
♪ If you're part
of the children ♪
♪ Say yes, I am ♪
♪ Yes, I, yes, I, yes, I am ♪
♪ I am one of the children ♪
♪ From here to there ♪
♪ You've got to feel ♪
♪ Alive ♪
♪ You're dancing,
you're dancing ♪
Early '90s, I met Kevin,
and he was my source
into New York.
Kevin's name was so hot
that our group was just, like,
they wanted us everywhere.
♪ So alive ♪
There were
all these things happening,
and Kevin's career
was exploding.
♪ The lights are spinning ♪
♪ In my head ♪
♪ Getting brighter
as we go higher ♪
♪ I'm feeling free for me ♪
♪ Only the mirror ball
really matters at all ♪
♪ The joy I found like a child
on a merry-go-round ♪
♪ DJ playin' records
spinnin' round and round ♪
♪ I'll be dancing
all night long ♪
♪ I'm at peace with my soul ♪
♪ I feel love,
I am so, so alive ♪
♪ Loving the feeling,
learning the meaning ♪
♪ On top of the world
and I'm hot, so alive ♪
♪ It's closer than ever ♪
♪ Get me so high ♪
♪ Dance it, shake it, move it ♪
And at the
same time in New York City,
Mayor Giuliani
became in charge,
and his whole thing
was law and order.
So he really cracked down hard
on the nightlife.
All of a sudden, the club scene
began shrinking dramatically.
And of course,
that affected drag a lot,
because the freedom
and the jobs
and the whole sociability of it
shrunk, ya know?
Everybody was under siege.
I think he should
close 'em today,
the video stores,
Show World,
all the dancing places--
I think every one of 'em
should be shut down.
They're an absolute disgrace
to the neighborhood,
they attract nothing
but garbage and sleaze.
Personally,
I'm a dancer myself,
so, I mean, it hurts me
just as well as everybody else.
I don't think there's no need.
It's not really
affecting anybody.
There are some kind
of alarming changes coming up,
and actually affect
Wigstock's future.
Giuliani tryin' to kill
the whole nightlife in New York,
so you gotta represent.
♪ Fuck off, fuck off ♪
Mayor
Giuliani can kiss my ass.
Mayor Giuliani can kiss my ass,
'cause we're not gonna stop doing
what we gotta do, right, faggots?
We're gonna run this fuckin'
world we call New York,
not Mickey Mouse,
right, children?
So when you go out tonight,
children,
I want you to prance,
prance, prance on,
and let them know who the
faggot is in the house, OK?
Now the rally for recording
artist Kevin Aviance,
beaten up by a group of thugs.
Today, hundreds of people
marched from one side
of Manhattan to the other...
Kevin is here right now.
Kevin, we are here to show you
the love and the support.
It's been kind of hard,
but you know what, you can't
keep a good queen down.
Something was not right, OK?
I've walked out in thongs
and high heels,
and ain't never had a problem.
Nothing. Think nothing of it.
Morning, daylight,
don't think nothing of it.
And there was something about
this that was just different.
And when I stepped off the curb
to walk into the street,
"We're gonna get you, faggot."
OK. Whatever.
So I'm walking backwards
and they're coming towards me.
You could feel the hate from
them, you could feel the heat.
I have never in my whole life
felt that hatred
on someone I didn't know,
like that on someone.
I just... got hit. Bam!
And as I'm going down,
they're hitting me in the head, kicks.
After about 80 times
of these kicks,
this is "gugga-gong,
gong-gong-gong-gong-gong.
That's all I could hear,
was gong-gong-gong,
gong-gong-gong-gong-gong-gong-
gong-gong-gong.
And every time it was getting
louder and louder,
and I'm just like, "gong" --
and it stopped.
I woke up in the hospital room,
and all my sisters, all my
friends, they were all there,
sitting around,
waiting for me to wake up.
I had come out of it,
but something's not right.
My jaw's not right,
it's not right.
Come to find out I had four
hairline fractures in my jaw.
But it was like-- it was basically
broken, but it was hairline fractures,
and so they had to go in,
put me under,
fix my mouth,
straighten it back up again,
and they prosecuted the guys
and they went to jail.
By the time I went to testify,
no one wanted me there.
I wanted to at one point,
but they were like,
"That'd be the worst thing
you could ever do."
I understand that now,
why you just don't meet your attacker,
why you don't do that.
But there's this
bitter part of me
that always thinks
that I could, like...
you know, I make people happy,
that's what I do, you know?
And just, to know
I couldn't do that...
and people thought
I was on the way out.
I'm running into people like Hector
Xtravaganza or someone like that,
grabbing me, and they just cry
and say, "Girl, you know,
you are such
an inspiration for us.
Girls don't come out
the hospital. You come out.
You came out,
and you're better."
You don't realize that
girls went into the hospital in
New York and did not come out,
so that hospital was the end of
all ends for a girl, you know?
For one of the New York girls, you know?
That was just the way it was, you know?
And here I am going in and out.
Drag is the silver lining
in that cloud.
That's what drag is to me,
'cause I know,
at the end of the day,
I got a frock in my bag
right now, girl,
and a pair of pumps
right in there, girl.
I'll give you a show
at the drop of a hat.
I'll give you a show
right then and there, girl.
I will do it. Damn right I will.
And you'll get your life,
and you'll gag...
...period.
- ...his way.
- Yeah. I was just--
You hit play for me,
I'll hit play for you.
I would like to know
that my tracks are correct.
You're good
with that mic?
Scoot it back. As back as you
can get it without--
There's a speaker right there.
Be careful.
I got everyone working.
Harajuku,
Two Sterlings, Belle,
Serena Dariani,
Orlando, Lucas and Patty,
Dusty, Rose and Ryan,
and the Salami Sisters.
This is the bitch that I used
to go around the Lower East Side
chasing Lady Gaga with,
so we didn't know anything
about the landscape of nightlife
or any sort of grasp
on the scene or anything.
We were just, like, faggots,
closeted, in my case,
and basically tried to track
down Lady Gaga, and we did it.
We did.
We literally did.
Gaga walks in the room
and everyone just gasps,
and there's all the faggots
screaming, "Aaaaah!!!"
- But it was us. We were the faggots screaming.
- I know!
Oh, yikes.
Once upon a time I was a business
student, an NYU-ster,
can you believe it?
Oh, my God.
I'm so embarrassed.
Lots of boys. Lots of boys.
- Lots of boys.
- Lots of boys.
But that's not one.
The proportioning
of drag is an aggression,
is a heightened femininity,
because femininity
is the aggression.
So the bigger the lip,
the bigger the sin.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
your lovely ladies!
Stop!
"To Robert."
So crazy.
Right.
I hadn't even then become Bobbie yet.
Yeah.
Wow.
I know her. I know her.
I know her.
Linda! Stop!
Linda Simpson looks
the literal exact same.
Thought it'll be fun
getting people to sign this,
and I go and figure out where,
like, Bunny was DJing that night
and then having to
sneak into the Monster
'cause you're only
19 years old
and the doorman's upset at you,
and you're like,
"You don't understand, sir,
I have this Wigstock flyer that
I need to get Bunny to sign.
What if she dies tomorrow?
I'm freaking out."
Ya know?
My God. Fuck.
These girls
look like us.
When'd you come to New York?
I came to New York in 2011,
- I was 16, and...
- Damn, girl.
I really, really,
really resonated with Wigstock
when I was 14--
I got AIDS,
you know what I mean?
From the get-go,
I was like--
- I needed Wigstock...
- Yeah.
to find, like, people
in this world
that are fighting
a similar fight to me,
- and alive.
- Yeah.
Flotilla and Lypsinka,
and Lady Bunny,
they saw, within me,
a way to almost help me out,
because this city
tears you down.
I mean, I could be
just like all the other people
I knew who disappear.
Tabboo! gave me
the name Bobbie,
and Myka pretty much I'd wear
all of her hand-me-downs, and...
You were parented
by the legends.
I was parented...
by the legends,
but just because they're
the greatest people ever.
I mean, they're really
the best people ever.
I'm excited to end
this summer out
and get to Wigstock
and see what it's all about.
Me too.
Something
happened that was interesting
that made me know that there's
something still unique about New York.
I was late for a gig,
wearing a long dress,
jumped in a cab, slammed the
door, the dress was hangin' out.
All of a sudden,
there's a commotion outside.
Two young kids, 10, 12,
an old couple, 70, 80,
they were all trying
to get my attention.
They did not look at me
and think...
"That's a punk-ass faggot."
These people said,
"Help that fool!"
"Help that fool.
It's in me to want
to help that fool."
Without any judgements.
This is what I want to prove
by bringing this festival back:
that we are a community
and that we're not fighting
among each other so much
to where we can't even
get together.
It's humanizing
to be this close together.
And that's the thing that
still's great about New York.
- Hey! Mwah!
- How are you?
- Huh?
- Is this your spot?
Yeah! Why?
Do you not think
it's good enough, either?
We did it, Bunny.
♪ Sometimes I still
breathe in ♪
♪ What I don't believe ♪
- Aaaaah!
- ♪ As if superstition ♪
- ♪ Could keep you away from me ♪
- We made it!
♪ Well, it's the same
as it never ♪
♪ Forever was ♪
♪ Haunted by who can I be now ♪
♪ Same as forever ♪
♪ I never was ♪
♪ Excuse me
while I kiss the sky ♪
♪ Ay-ay-ay ♪
♪ I always knew
you would come back ♪
♪ I always knew
you would come back to me ♪
Brace yourself.
You have eight hours of this.
♪ I always knew
you would come back ♪
♪ I always knew you would come
back, come back to me ♪
I'm a princess!
Who's got the drugs?
Drugs over in this corner,
please!
♪ Ay-ay-ay ♪
Are we supposed to act like
the camera's not there?
Well, the camera's a little low
for someone with
my fuckin' neck.
I'm doing psychic readings.
People are Venmo'ing me $10,
and I say, "You're gonna die."
Come on, it's funny.
It's dark.
♪ What you do, what you do,
what you do ♪
♪ What you do to me ♪
♪ What you do to me ♪
♪ What you
do to me ♪
♪ What you do to me ♪
♪ Hey, what you do to me ♪
♪ Energy's gettin'
through to me ♪
♪ And I got my eyes forward ♪
♪ And that's how
they ought to be ♪
♪ Baby, baby, I'm here ♪
♪ Where I need to be ♪
♪ Feelin' fear,
but no need to be ♪
♪ And I've been
caught dead in my tracks ♪
♪ But that's no way to be ♪
It's quite
exciting to be here at Wigstock,
and I know that there's several
old people that are up here
that are gonna tell you about their
memories and relive their moments
and flip through their purse
and find Polaroids
of their dreams
and aspirations,
but you realize, we all end up
at this shitty event,
and that's the magic
of gay life.
It doesn't get better,
it gets awkward.
♪ Moments late at night ♪
♪ But I ain't feelin' right ♪
Ladies and
gentlemen, boys as girls,
are you ready for excitement,
glamor, and sophistication?
Then you have come
to the wrong place, honey.
This is Wigstock 2.0!
Hi, Wigstock!
How y'all doin', honeys?
New York City!
Get out here
and tear this stage up!
♪ Burn down, take me on ♪
♪ Bend down, move along ♪
♪ I need a hot shot ♪
♪ Burn down with the proud... ♪
Wig cannon! Get a wig! Go!
♪ And the music's loud ♪
♪ I need a hot shot ♪
I just realized
that this documentary
was being shot in HD.
Which at my age
means "haggard dog."
Anyway, we're back!
♪ Ooh, baby, baby, baby, baby ♪
♪ I wanna feel it in my soul,
come on and move it ♪
♪ You know you never, never,
never gonna lose control ♪
♪ My fire's burning ♪
♪ It's getting real hot... ♪
Let's hear it for Javier Ninja!
Ladies and
gentlemen, Perfidia!
Was that bitch dynamite,
or what?
Give her some more love!
You can never stop
the spirit of Wigstock!
Whoo!
How we doing, Wigstock!
If you're having a good time,
make some noise!
Thank you, Wigstock!
Thank you, Bunny!
♪ That brought me
out of my seat ♪
♪ I need a hot shot ♪
I need to crank this music
like it was a nightclub
in 1993!
Can you hear it out there?
Can you hear it out there?
OK.
Everyone is always saying,
"Bunny,
you and Ru
are such good friends,
why don't you get on
that fuckin' show?"
And I said, "Honey,
by not wanting to be on that show,
I can read all their asses
to filth."
Is Wigstock 2.0 audience
ready to...
...spill some tea?
♪ Makes no difference
if you're butch or a femme ♪
♪ Or even look like a girl ♪
♪ Takes no talent
to impress 'em today ♪
♪ You're on "Drag Race"
till you sashay away ♪
- ♪ Come on and contour your nose ♪
- ♪ Nose ♪
♪ Lip sync for your life
to the music ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
- ♪ Contour your nose ♪
- ♪ Nose ♪
♪ Find a catchphrase
and overuse it ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Pose ♪
♪ I said pose ♪
♪ Pose ♪
♪ Hi ♪
What do Neal Patrick Harris
and an ambulance have in common?
Both take it in the back
and go, "Whoop! Whoop!"
What's the difference between
Bianca Del Rio and a bag of trash?
Trash gets picked up
every once in a while.
Thank you!
The Ladies of Lips!
Clap for those bitches!
'Cause if you've ever been to Lips,
they're never that entertaining.
What fuckin' useless cunts!
Get back to your shift, cunts!
All right, here we are!
This is so funny, because I'm
wearing Formika's dress from '94.
- Really?
- Yeah, yeah.
Have my morning
cup of coffee,
and I'm all ready
for a drag show.
Happy Wigstock '94, everybody.
Hello, New York,
how's everybody doin'?
You all look so fuckin' good!
I was born in '94, so it's like
a full circle moment for me.
Wigstock is
not about hate or fighting,
it's about love.
It's time for us
to have some rights!
It's time for us
to take charge!
Take it away, baby.
I know that a lot of us are
down in the dumps these days,
things are pretty crazy
in this country,
and I just wanna say
when you get real depressed
and you find yourself
in a deep, dark valley,
it's really, really important
to remember
that I am coming out
with a new album...
and I would like to sing a track from that right now.
The name of the album is "Dina
Martina: Mysteries of the Thyroid."
Thank you. Hit it!
♪ Some say love ♪
♪ Becomes the rose ♪
Thank you. Off the charts.
Wait. Can every drag queen
from "Drag Race" take note?
That's how you do an album,
bitch!
That's how you do
a fuckin' album!
The bitch started and left!
Girl, I was standing backstage
going, "She finished?"
I thought, "That's good."
And there are six people
in a fuckin' high tower over there
going, "Liza looks horrible!"
Oh, no!
The g-- ha ha ha!
Look at you.
You look...
consistently relic-like.
I know, I know.
Usually the balls are on my chins.
To cover the hair.
Yeah, it looks good.
You know,
we joke around a lot,
but when I call her and say,
"Your plane's gonna crash,"
I'm only kidding.
We're good friends,
it's a joke.
When Bianca leaves here,
she will arrive...
- safely and on time...
- Thank you.
- in Syria.
- Ha ha ha ha!
'Cause I'll work anywhere!
I'm here!
Take it away, cunt!
Here we go!
Ladies and gentlemen,
a New York City
nightlife legend--
Kevin Aviance!
♪ I believe,
I believe, I believe ♪
♪ I believe, I believe ♪
♪ I believe, believe,
believe, believe ♪
♪ Believe, believe,
believe, believe ♪
♪ Believe, aaaaah! ♪
♪ I
believe, I believe, I believe ♪
♪ I believe, I believe ♪
♪ I believe ♪
♪ I believe ♪
Welcome the most
famous transsexual in the world,
Amanda Lepore!
The incredible Raven O!
♪ What is love
if you got in between it ♪
♪ No one cares if you're ever
gonna achieve it ♪
♪ And nobody knows ♪
♪ Nobody knows ♪
♪ And what do we care
if they always walk with us ♪
♪ They want us to break,
but who cares, they don't know us ♪
♪ And still we don't know ♪
♪ So I say
whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh ♪
♪ Oh-oh-oh-oh ♪
♪ Can you let us go ♪
Ladies and gentlemen,
boys and girls,
those undecided
and those in between,
I just want you guys to know
how much of an honor it is
for me to be here.
♪ This is my
hair, I don't wear wigs ♪
- ♪ Everybody, this is my hair ♪
- Crowd: ♪ I don't wear wigs ♪
♪ This is my hair ♪
Ladies and gentlemen,
give it up for
Alaska Thunderfuck!
I love your vagina! Mwah!
Our next performer
taught me how to walk
and how to cock a hip
when I was Hedwig
in "The Angry Inch."
Please welcome the disgusting
and the sexy Willam!
♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪
Oh, the bubbles are tickling my rectum!
I love it! Oh!
Wait, hold on,
hold on one second. One second.
Ohh, ohh! Spin me around,
I wanna do spin art.
Make me spin art.
Ohh. Oh, yeah. Uhh.
Show 'em my shart, please.
Put a big "B" on it
for Bunny and me!
Yay! Look at me.
That's what I did
with my pussy. You're welcome.
Does anybody want a Coors?
They're not a sponsor.
Here, girl.
I'm here representing
the girls of Stonewall.
This piece was written
by Mr. Jimmy Camicia.
"Spare Change
for a Dying Queen."
Can you spare some change
for a dying queen, darling?
Oh, I am dying.
I know you don't believe me.
But us queens know what we're
talkin' about, yes, we do!
We're from the liberation!
Yes, we are.
Sometimes when I pass
those gay bars
and I see my gay sisters and
brothers havin' a good time
and turning it out
in all their liberated glory,
and I see that sign
over that bar that says,
"No drunks, no dogs, no drags."
Could you imagine
comparing me to a dog?
- No!
- I just want to break down and--
But that's OK, darlin',
because I pay it no mind.
Because when they 86 me,
I tip,
and when I tip,
I stay tipped.
Because I got my friends,
that's right,
and I know who my friends are!
My friends are people
who got change to spare.
My friends are people
who smile at me
and understand when I say, "Can you spare
some change for a dying queen, darlin'?"
So if you're in
one of those bars
and you see that sign,
"No drunks, no dogs, no drags,"
and you see them turning out on
my of gay brothers and sisters,
I want you to dig
real deep down in your pocket
and pull out
some of that change
that you're saving for your
cold beer and your hot dogs,
and get over yourself and spare
some change for a dying queen...
...darling.
Ladies and gentlemen,
whether you like it or not...
Hedwig!
♪ Last time I saw you ♪
♪ We'd just split in two ♪
♪ You were lookin' at me ♪
♪ I was looking at you ♪
♪ You had a way so familiar ♪
♪ I could not recognize ♪
♪ 'Cause you had blood
on your face ♪
♪ I had blood in my eyes ♪
♪ But I could swear
by your expression ♪
♪ That the pain
down in your soul ♪
♪ Was the same
as the one down in mine ♪
♪ Oh, that's the pain ♪
♪ That cuts a straight line
down through the heart ♪
♪ We call it love ♪
♪ The origin of love ♪
♪ Oh, yeah ♪
♪ The origin of love ♪
♪ Oh, oh, the origin of love ♪
♪ Love, love, love, love ♪
♪ The origin of ♪
♪ Six inches forward
and five inches back ♪
♪ I got,
I got an angry inch ♪
♪ Six inches forward
and five inches back ♪
♪ I got a,
I got an angry inch ♪
♪ Six inches forward,
five inches back ♪
♪ Stay under cover till
the night turns to black ♪
♪ I got my inch,
I'm set to attack ♪
♪ I got an angry inch,
an angry inch ♪
Ladies and
gentlemen, comin' up next we have
one of
the Bushwig favorites.
I want you
to put your hands together
for the wild,
the uncontrollable,
the unpredictable,
Charlene Incarnate!
Her Wigstock debut!
♪ You're struttin' into town
like you're slingin' a gun ♪
♪ Just a small town dude
with a big city attitude ♪
♪ Honey, are you looking for
some trouble tonight? ♪
♪ Well, all right ♪
♪ You think you'll
knock me off my feet ♪
♪ Till I'm flat on the floor ♪
♪ Till my heart is crying Indian
and I'm begging for more ♪
♪ So come on, baby,
come on, baby ♪
♪ Come on, baby, show me
what that loaded gun is for ♪
♪ If you're so tough,
come on and prove it ♪
♪ Your heart
is down for the count ♪
♪ And you know
you're gonna lose it ♪
♪ Tonight, you're gonna
go down in flames ♪
♪ Just like Jesse James ♪
♪ Well, you've had your way
with love ♪
♪ But it's the end of the day ♪
♪ Now a team of wild horses ♪
♪ Couldn't drag
your heart away ♪
♪ So come on, baby,
come on, baby, come on, baby ♪
♪ You know there ain't nothin'
left to say ♪
♪ If you're so tough,
come on and prove it ♪
♪ Your heart is down
for the count ♪
♪ And you know
you're gonna lose it ♪
♪ Tonight you're gonna
go down in flames ♪
♪ Just like Jesse James ♪
♪ Tonight you're gonna
go down in flames
♪ Just like Jesse James ♪
♪ I'm gonna shoot you down ♪
♪ Jesse James ♪
Let's hear it
for Charlene Incarnate!
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
♪ Goodbyes sound better ♪
♪ I wish you a good goodbye ♪
'Cause you're part of history.
This is gonna be one of those
things years and years from now
when it's long gone
and the era has passed
that people are trying to relive
and capture and hold onto.
So feel yourself special
to be a part of it.
♪ In all of the hours and times
that I tried to be..."
I've been to the deserts,
I've been to the seas,
honey.
And there's no other
drag community
like New York City, darling.
Give it up for these queens,
darling.
Up, up, up, up, up, up, up!
These girls now are watching
us and they're admiring us.
Girls, I want to tell you, there's
room for all of us. This is for you.
Thank you so much.
I live the life I love,
and I love the life I live,
and I love sharing it
with all of you here.
It's the audience.
It's you that is Wigstock,
and I lift my wigs
to you all.
♪ Goodbye-ay-ay-ay-ay ♪
♪ Sweet summer ♪
♪ I finally feel like
I'm gonna be feeling this way ♪
♪ For a long time, baby ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Set me down
and tell me you love me ♪
♪ Take me by the hand ♪
♪ In the cover of the trees ♪
♪ As we drive on this road ♪ ♪
♪ I can see you must know ♪
♪ How much, how much
you mean to me ♪
♪ Come run and tell me
you love me ♪
♪ Come on and hold my hand ♪
♪ Come run and take me
for a long time ♪
♪ Until you leave this land ♪
♪ Tell me that
we're going to be ♪
♪ Together forever, baby ♪
♪ Forever ♪
♪ I finally feel like ♪
♪ I'm gonna be feeling
this way ♪
♪ For a long time, baby ♪
♪ I finally feel like ♪
♪ I'm gonna be
feeling this way ♪
♪ For a long time, baby ♪
♪ I finally feel like
I'm gonna be feeling this way ♪
♪ For a long time, baby ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
You're about to start
a brand new chapter.
You've been clean for, like,
two weeks, right?
I've actually
been really happy.
♪ Still don't know my name ♪
Every time I feel good,
I think it'll last forever.
But it doesn't.
We're just reaching
for something...
to make it all seem meaningful.
The world
is sick with masculinity.
So, as much femininity
as this one body can have...
...that is what makes
a really good drag queen.
Drag, for me,
is an ancient, ancestral
performing art.
It's a way for
the gay community
to choose its icons.
We're the priests.
We are kind of like
the spiritual masters
of the gay community.
Ladies, and gentlemen
who would rather be ladies...
I wanna tell you something.
I moved to New York City
in 1984.
Since then, like
the other jaded scenesters,
and I'm guilty of it too,
I sit and bitch:
"There's a Duane Reade and a
Chase Bank on every corner.
The city's so slick and
sophisticated" and all that.
But you know what? After doin' that
and bitchin' for about 30 years,
I finally said,
"Well, listen here:
You're a lifer.
You ain't movin'.
So your choice
is to keep bitchin'
or put on a festival
like you used to do
to bring people together
and make something fun
about New York City!
Are you ready, Wigstock?
Yeah!
Maestro, hit it!
♪ Uh-huh, make me tonight ♪
♪ Tonight, tonight ♪
♪ Oh, your hair is beautiful ♪
♪ Oh, tonight ♪
♪ Atomic ♪
She worked her way up
to New York City,
to the Queen of Manhattan,
and now she's hearkening back
to her Chattanooga
white trash roots,
doin' one of her songs
of her own
in a style that she made famous.
Please welcome Lady Bunny!
♪ Tonight ♪
♪ Make me tonight ♪
I snuck into a club at 13,
in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
I'd never seen-- whoo!--
sequined gowns
and false eyelashes,
the giant wigs and whatever.
I lived in drag as a child.
The long t-shirts
and the short-shorts.
And I had long hair,
so, honey,
I was never in the closet,
let's put it that way.
♪ Atomic ♪
♪ Don't you know your queen ♪
♪ Whipped ♪
Who's that guy?
♪ Heaving ♪
♪ Flower bloom
at my feet... ♪
- We gotta go now. Bye.
- Bye.
Bye, Nelson!
The Pyramid Club,
when I arrived in about '83,
was a swinging club
that they billed as
"drag-owned and operated."
Wait a minute.
There we are.
That's my new pyramid heart.
- What's that?
- It's a pyramid.
Hello. Welcome to the Pyramid.
We were really ridiculous...
taking LSD...
you know, it was a magic time.
The Pyramid celebrities
were creating
their own persona.
They weren't doing Cher,
Joan Rivers, or whatever.
They were coming up
with their own persona
with its own look
and its own repertoire.
♪ When I sashay ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah
ah-ah-ah ♪
♪ Hey, hey ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah... ♪
Please welcome
Linda Simpson!
In the '70s and '80s,
the atmosphere at the gay bars
and clubs was macho.
People didn't want femininity,
really.
What did our studio audience think?
And the Pyramid,
drag became tongue-in-cheek,
was rebellious,
it was like punk rock.
No one was careerist about it.
People were just doing it
to have fun.
♪ No family is safe ♪
♪ When I sashay ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah ♪
Welcome Lahoma Van Zandt.
We were just
fucking down to just do our thing.
It was a form of expression,
and also discovery
of our feminine side.
It's the make-believe.
It's the make-believe
part of it.
And so we just created
our own world.
- The snow. The snow.
- Yeah.
- OK.
- Thank you.
RuPaul and I met in Atlanta,
and were immediate
whatever-we-were.
It was more than a friendship,
it was a sisterhood,
we were close.
What people don't know about Ru
is that his taste in music
is unbeatable.
I ain't sayin'
listen to his current records.
This next
performer's name is RuPaul.
Make no mistake about it,
this summer,
RuPaul is hot.
Yay! RuPaul!
I think right now
I'm gonna--
RuPaul is red hot!
I'm think right now
I'm gonna break out.
Here, let me get red hot.
Ru really didn't have an act,
so he needed to have
a few extra clowns.
And I was one of those clowns
that he brought up to New York
for a gig at the Pyramid
to go-go dance in drag.
I wanna break out tonight!
♪ Don't it
make my brown eyes ♪
♪ Don't it make
my brown eyes blue ♪
God, is Bunny
a terror, or what?
She was a terror.
She had this attitude after she came.
She said, "I can deal with workin',
and I work hard," she said,
"Every five minutes having to cue up
a record is gonna drive me crazy."
To the Pyramid.
You know he was dying
to be spanked.
Came up to me
saying it was his birthday
and was he too old
to warrant a spanking,
and asked me if there were
any alternative S&M clubs.
They're all
closed because of AIDS.
The club closed,
and we were all friends
with the bartenders,
and they drank too,
but then when they'd say,
"No, you have to shut,"
we would just grab six-packs
and head over
to Tompkins Square Park
where there was a band shell.
Bonsoir! Bonsoir!
♪ Don't you know your queen ♪
♪ Gleaming ♪
♪ Wrapped in golden leaf ♪
You know,
we were just blasted drunk,
had been drunk all night...
You bitch! I'll kill you!
♪ Rank ♪
♪ Ragged ♪
♪ Skin sewn on sheets ♪
We were just clowning on...
for angry homeless people
that wanted to sleep.
Someone said, "What if we do
some kind of festival here?"
Who knows who said, "Instead of
Woodstock, we'll call it Wigstock."
I have no idea.
♪ When I sashay ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah ♪
♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah-
ah-ah-ah ♪
♪ Hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, hey ♪
- Huh?
- Are you gonna be here next week too?
Yes, it's the anniversary.
The environment
that I grew up in,
in large clubs,
I think we could use
a dose of community.
When we had a common enemy,
like rampant,
unchecked discrimination,
inability to marry,
or serve in the military, or AIDS--
we did come together because
there was an enemy to fight.
Now I think we're
tending to fight each other more.
and I think that if we got in
each other's faces, we would say,
"Oh, yeah! You. I get it."
The whole idea of Wigstock
is that we wanted
to be considered freaks,
because it made it feel like
we had gotten
into some in-crowd
in New York City!
- Hello!
- Bunny!
- Waah! Mwah.
- Love you.
- Take care.
- Love you, hussy.
Let me get up the stairs.
- Bye, honey.
- Sweetie.
Yes. Oh, thank you so much!
- Got about five of 'em.
- Oh, OK. Wonderful.
One, two, three, four,
five, six--
I don't pick up my paychecks
very often
because I'm independently
wealthy.
Don't worry. I'm already...
in the Wesley Snipes...
category.
With taxes. Not talent.
Not talent or looks or physical
fitness or acting ability.
OK.
Bye!
Ooh, fog. Fog.
Oh, that fog!
First day!
Have a fun first day.
♪ Take me by the hand... ♪
So, I think that Wigstock
might have bitten the dust
if I hadn't really
seen something there.
But I had always been the brat that
pins up a sheet in between two trees
and invites the neighbors over
for a show.
Lady Bunny
and some other people
from the Pyramid came up
with this idea
to do this outdoor drag-fest
during the day.
But it was hysterical,
because drag
was usually confined to,
like, 3:00 a.m.,
in pure darkness
of a club.
Welcome to Wigstock!
Stop the pigs
and give 'em wigs!
All right! We got so much
incredible talent for you
lined up tonight,
and you're just
dying to see it, I can tell!
Gonna bring down the house,
and I'm so glad to see
each and every one of you.
Lots of wigs out there too,
and that's even better!
So it was probably
attended by just a few hundred people
at first, and a lot of them
were just wandering by.
I know that trick.
Tabboo!:
Alphabet City was dangerous.
The only people
that were on the streets
were junkies, drug dealers,
and there were no cops, so you
could do whatever you want.
We were very tentative
about getting our asses kicked.
"Halloween Q,
Take Back the Night."
An anti-violence march.
We're stopping in several places
along the route.
One's for police,
one's for violence against lesbians,
one's for violence
against people of color,
one's for AIDS-phobia/
homophobia.
Give me an orange one
that will stand out more.
Right back there.
"Drag queens are under attack."
They're already all over the street.
On their way to Wigstock.
♪ I finally feel like ♪
♪ I'm gonna be
feelin' this way... ♪
So right here,
we finally got our sound system,
and the show should be
going off real soon.
It was just for the artists
in the neighborhood, basically,
when it started.
But then it became,
like, a big thing
where the neighborhood
would come
and other people would come
and heterosexuals would come
and bring their kids.
We got a dynamite show for you.
The Pyramid put on this
every year,
just because there are so
many housewives and children
that can't always make it
to the nightclub.
Yeah!
I knew that I was a jester,
and I could bring people
together,
and I want this to represent
the New York scene!
I don't know every queen
from every scene,
but I want it
to be very inclusive,
because we all felt like we were putting
something special out there into New York.
Let there be peace on earth,
and let it begin...
with me!
God bless you!
God bless you.
Next up, we have a dose
of high fashion
with Mr. Fashion!
So all of you can wig out!
We wanted to
be more like Woodstock
in the beginning.
There were bands--
many bands.
Every Wigstock--
it was eight hours long.
- ♪ Everybody do the ♪
- ♪ Do what, baby? ♪
♪ Come on and do
the barracuda ♪
♪ Cuda ♪
Every year, we'd go,
"Wig's comin', it's comin',
Wigstock's comin'."
And you could do all the shows
you wanted in the nightclub,
but when Wigstock came,
everybody saw it.
Welcome to Wigstock '92!
It felt like every
year the festival doubled,
but I was too stupid
to even ask for help!
At that point,
Wigstock becomes so popular
it was attracting
thousands of people.
It's amazing, because it started
out as such a simple little thing,
and then became
this phenomenon.
♪ Barracuda ♪
The reason that
this festival stuck together
is that there is a sisterhood.
We are not in a competition.
We're coming together
to say, "Here's a gift
to make New York City better."
We're not just gonna
sock it to ya
here at Wigstock '94,
we're gonna
sock it right through ya!
♪ B-A ♪
♪ R-R... ♪
Welcome to Wigstock 1997!
This is our 15th fucking
anniversary.
There is no way in hell
that we are gonna cancel.
♪ Cuda ♪
There's a lot
that's changed about New York.
We talk about
this sense of community--
well, are we really
in each other's lives?
Oh, don't lick it,
don't lick it.
- Don't lick it...
- Mwah!
Bye. You're not
going with us?
I don't think so.
I think we're all scrolling
on Instagram,
and I don't like
that community.
And I don't need
to be a community
with somebody
whose profile picture is a cat.
- Good night, Bunny.
- Good night.
Here's the sad part.
New York City
is no longer affordable
for the wacky,
offbeat artists
that made Wigstock possible.
- Hmm.
- It's not.
If you're wacky
and you have a trust fund
and rich parents,
then you can come.
This is why
we treasure people like Bobbie
who did make it here
and who is one of us
and who doesn't do the obvious,
who is not cookie-cutter.
- Oh...
- Hey, Bobbie.
I'm gonna cry.
Particularly,
Wigstock was the big thing
that was like, OK,
"I need to move to New York,
I need to get it together."
And when I got here,
I thought it was still going on
so I was super-excited.
Honey,
we're bringing ' it back,
and we're draggin' you with us.
Even if it rains,
we're gonna bring
the spirit of Wigstock back
to New York City,
and maybe more.
So,
should we stand up, sit down?
What do you think?
'Cause we can bust out a pose.
Bouncing around
and posing's great.
OK. I'm new at this.
You can see I'm very young.
Amazing.
I like that. Yes.
Ohhh...
There is a
Broadway element to this
by adding Neil Patrick Harris,
and the funny thing to me
is that some people have said,
you know, "What are you doing
with Neil?"
And I think there's many
more of his friends asking,
"What are you doing with the
crazy old hag Lady Bunny?!"
So we are very
thrilled that you are covering it.
Thank you so much, honey.
Good to see you.
Thanks for poppin' out so late.
OK.
Just found out that RuPaul
will not be performing,
because we cannot fit
the amount of people
it takes to make her
look like a gorgeous woman
- on that rooftop. So...
- You're so mean.
You are so mean.
Oh, my God.
It was a total
pinch-me moment
to see the lineup that they
announced for Wigstock,
the fucking names
that I was mentioned with.
It's like definitely an honor
just to be nominated.
Like, I think
they did it alphabetically,
so I'm right after Candis.
It's just like,
who in the fuck am I to be mentioned
right after Candis Cayne?
Jesus Christ.
I wanna invite my trade
to Wigstock,
but I don't think he'd go for it.
Who is it?
Oh... you know.
Anyway, I don't
wanna talk about it.
Why can't he come
to Wigstock?
Well, because he lives
on the other spectrum
of, like, the world,
you know, he's orderly and has--
He's fucking you?
Well, who says that--
who says that I'm the one
getting fucked?
- Me.
- Just kidding.
I-- You know.
- Are you gonna go to Wigstock?
- Yeah!
- Are you?
- I wanna be a drag king.
Ooh.
What do you
know about drag queens?
That they're crazy
and they say bad words.
- Who uses bad words?
- Lady Bunny.
- Yeah, Lady Bunny's got a filthy--
- ♪ Loco ♪
She is loco.
She did say more
curse words than anyone that we've--
That we've ever
had over for dinner.
She didn't even know
she'd said it.
And we said,
"You just said the F-word."
"I did?
Oh, I'm so sorry.
I didn't even know
I said it."
"I just thought
they were short.
I didn't know
they were kids."
Oh, man,
the sugar's kicked in.
Excuse me!
- No more sugar.
- They act like crazy monster people.
That's what kids
are supposed to do.
- Is it?
- I was a nightmare.
I went to the ER,
like, every month.
But that's not
a good example.
Yeah, probably not.
Wigstock in the past
have been fun
because they were alt, right?
Now I feel like
drag is so embraced
that I wonder if
if it will still have
that pulse of necessity,
or is it gonna feel like...
Disney?
The kernel of what Bunny wants,
when she talked to us,
when I first approached her,
what she wants in this
is for everybody
just to have a laugh
and to have fun and smile,
and to get a relief,
have a release from
all this shit that's goin' on
in the world right now.
Tell us what you know
about Lady Bunny.
Lady Bunny? She is who
the working girls today
look towards
as Mother New York.
Also she's really old-school.
You've never seen her
out of drag. Ever.
Like, fucking ever. Ever.
For me, as a magician,
I really enjoy
the magic trick element of it.
For me, that's a part of it,
is going, "Wait a minute,
I wonder what this person
looks like as a boy.
How is that tuck happening?
And how--
I like the magic trick of it.
Do you feel like
you guys do the same work?
- Me and Bunny?
- Yeah.
No, we're not
of the same time.
My message is different
because I'm of a different time.
I'm coming into drag
in a time
that needs visible trans women
in trans bodies
transgressing
the drag stage.
They had trans women on their stages
then, absolutely.
Like, a thousand percent.
Like, they were all low-key trans women,
'cause drag queens are, like,
all low-key trans women.
Or they're no good.
I've never really done drag.
I've never really gotten...
- fully...
- Really?
- Ever. No.
- You should, so you know what we have to go through.
That's one of the reasons I
stopped drinking and went to shots.
Because mixers, they fill up your bladder.
Shots, you just get drunk.
You can't do mixers when you're in
drag because you have to pee too much.
New York is unique.
We are a community
who values performance first.
That is Bunny's
whole fucking soapbox,
is that everyone
in this post "Drag Race" era,
and it's all about face,
Bunny is the one who's like,
"It only matters
what you do onstage."
There's
this very explicit script
that I was expected to follow.
But I was, like,
a closeted church boy from Alabama.
I came out,
and my parents flipped out,
and within six months I look
around, and I don't have a family.
Basically, my worst fears
were confirmed
that the price of being myself
meant my entire life
as I knew it.
Convenient
thing about the Christian Church
is that it's one
of the only places
where flaming faggots
can hide in plain sight.
Most of my gay role models
growing up,
were closeted dads...
in church.
So I kind of,
in the back of my mind, knew...
that my whole life
was gonna be spent hiding.
And so I came to New York,
thinking that even
as a freshman at NYU,
I would be, like,
stepping out of a limo
to dozens of photographers
everywhere I went
within a few months.
But it didn't go like that,
because my problems
followed me to New York.
I was like, "I don't need a new
location, I need a new life."
What makes
a really good drag queen,
for me, it requires
an ascension.
I like my drag queens,
like, trans,
HIV-positive meth addicts,
like, recovering
from something.
People who lost their family,
we make better spokespeople
for the queer community
because we have lost
all semblance
of what it means to live
a normative, straight life.
There's that artist's credo
of, like, "I am an artist
because I share my trauma
with everyone,"
so I realized that I wanted
to start manipulating my body
as an extension of my art.
It made sense for me
to want to
start hormones,
or start my medical transition,
onstage,
which was at Bushwig
in 2015.
It's 2015.
We can be
whatever the fuck we want.
And I had my girlfriend
shoot me up
with my first estrogen shot,
that was not sanctioned
by Callen-Lorde or anything,
there was no doctor
who knew I was doing it.
There was an element
of proclamation to it,
and there was also an element
of me trying
to expose my community
to the trans experience.
Bushwig is a drag festival
that was started in Brooklyn
to fill the hole
that Wigstock left.
It is Lady Quesa'Dilla!
I was Miss Bushwig in 2017.
Thanks, girls!
It's been
the best Bushwig ever!
Here's to tits and a dick!
Love you! Mwah!
Ladies and gentlemen,
how are you doing tonight?
We've got a little rock and
roll anthem for you tonight.
This is the big finale
from our show--
"Hedwig and the Angry Inch."
This is called "Midnight Radio."
♪ That hits you so hard ♪
♪ Filling you up ♪
♪ Suddenly gone ♪
♪ And you're spinning ♪
♪ Like a 45 ♪
♪ Ballerina dancing ♪
♪ To your rock and roll ♪
♪ Lift up your hands ♪
♪ Lift up your hands ♪
♪ Hands ♪
Thank you.
Thank you.
When we were
first doing Wigstock
in Tompkins Square Park
and word came to me
that this legendary
pop star goddess
thought that my little event
was cool enough for her
to come down from the heavens
and grace us with her
chart-topping magnificence...
...I felt like
I had done did somethin'.
Please put your hands together
for the incredible...
Deborah Harry.
♪ Oh ♪
♪ Your hair is beautiful ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ Tonight ♪
♪ Atomic ♪
So, since it's about wigs,
I thought I should wear a wig.
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Atomic ♪
All right, fish stick!
Thank you!
The thing about Bunny
that really pissed me off,
though,
is that she flirts like crazy.
Debbie, it means so much
to me that you are here,
and as a measure of my thanks,
I'm prepared to fuck you.
Oh, Bunny, you say that every
year and I never get it!
I would get all turned on,
and then nothing would happen.
Just see, you
know, young men that on the street
you wouldn't think anything of,
but then they're transformed
into these beautiful,
beautiful, exotic creatures.
It's kind of wonderful.
♪ You've changed ♪
♪ That sparkle ♪
♪ In your eyes is gone ♪
♪ Your smile ♪
♪ Is just a careless yawn ♪
♪ You're breakin' my heart... ♪
What makes makeup female?
What makes anything female?
What characterizes this life's
particular starting point?
I mean, why are we--
what is this?
One thing I think is amazing
is that when I was in a band,
we went to dump little towns
and we played, and I was a boy,
that was one thing, but then I
started doing a girl in the band,
and I would go to these dump little
towns, in, like, Memphis, Tennessee.
We'd go into a club, and there'd be
nothing but rednecks drinking beers
waiting for the band to come on.
And I would think, "Oh, my God."
And I'd go out on the stage and I
could see hostile faces at first.
But within the course
of the show,
the fantasy,
when it got to work,
and by the end of the show they
were screaming and hollering
and having a great time,
and weren't afraid--
No matter what, we are
all the same thing.
And that's just
one more step closer to that,
which is great.
It's a wonderful flavor.
It is!
♪ Do not let me go blind
for I still want to learn ♪
♪ How to see what's in front
of my eyes without light ♪
♪ What's inside of me,
what's inside ♪
♪ What's inside ♪
♪ Inside of, inside of ♪
We have feminine ways,
but we're not actually
guys that are--
we look the way that we look, but
sometimes if people approach us, they think
that we're these over-the-top--
- Queens.
- Yeah.
It's an appearance, but
personally, my personality--
- Like, inside.
- Yeah.
Your exterior has nothing to do
with what you feel internally.
Everyone has a different mixture of
masculinity and femininity put together.
But even in the gay community,
I feel like you think
it's like a "land of the free," and
they even put you in boxes there.
"You're a femme, you're a masc."
It's really
a mixed pot of it all.
I grew up very on
the masculine side of life,
and I grew into my femininity.
The boundaries
of drag are being pushed
with it being mainstream now.
It's getting more pushed
to the forefront,
so I feel like the small,
little cracks for queens
that didn't have
as much exposure as others
are now getting that, and that's not
always in the essence of a woman.
That's not always in the essence of a
man, or neither.
It's bringing what you feel
inside to the forefront.
Whatever that looks like,
that's your drag.
♪ Captain of none,
captain of nothing ♪
♪ Captain of none ♪
Tabboo!: The big difference
between the queens of today
and the queens of yesteryear
is that the queens
of yesteryear
were beautiful.
Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!
This is tasty.
Yeah!
What is it, huh?
Shhh!
It's a surprise!
Pickle Surprise!
Pickle Surprise!
Wigstock lemonade,
come and get it!
Does anyone wanna buy
some Wigstock lemonade?
Buy some lemonade?
Tabboo!: You know, those
queens, those young queens,
they have no idea that they
climbed to where they are
on the shoulders and the backs
of the old queens
that came before them!
It's hard enough being gay,
never mind being a woman, honey,
never mind being a gay woman,
never mind being
a black gay woman.
Tabboo!: Back in the
day before cell phones
and bottled water,
before the robots took over.
When Wigstock first started,
it was only a few short years,
maybe 15 years after
Stonewall revolutionary,
that whole thing,
so if you walked around,
if you paraded around
on the streets in drag,
you'd get your ass kicked!
Out in public in drag?
Huh?! What?!
Huh-huh-huh-huh.
Shocking. Revolutionary.
They all love me.
The men love me.
The women love me.
Mahogany.
Tabboo!:
It kick-started the whole
"Come out, come out,
wherever you are" kinda thing.
Before that,
even Liberace and Freddie Mercury,
they were all in the closet,
believe it or not.
And Wigstock said,
"What closet, honey?
My drag is clogging the closet,
there's no room for me
in there, honey. Hello."
It's "in"
to be gay in the '90s,
did you know that?
It's "in" to be gay!
Who woulda thunk it, right?
But it's a new day.
We're being televised worldwide
again today.
The world is watching!
The world
is watching!
Honey,
I'm gonna tell you right now,
they said just by being there,
Wigstock is in-your-face.
If it was in-your-face to say
we're not ashamed of who we are,
so my focus was: Let me
show you what we could do.
Folks, you know,
you got your drag queens
and you got your drag kings.
Not only do I
already expect you to accept us,
watch this,
and if you don't like it,
hit it,
'cause you don't see me
carrying on
at your football games.
♪ Baby, baby ♪
♪ Baby, baby ♪
If I've said anything
to any of you
and if I stepped on your toes,
I have something to say:
Baby, I really don't
give a damn.
Lighten up,
it's just a drag show.
We all felt like we
were putting something special
out there into New York,
because this was
the time of AIDS...
sinking in.
A lot of you have
had a lot of fun,
like I have,
like Ru and Lahoma have had,
for a couple of years
at parties by Stephen Cohen.
If you haven't heard the news,
Stephen Cohen
passed away this week
of complications from AIDS.
I, personally, and Marge,
are giving money
to the Community
Research Initiative
to help find a cure,
I hope you do too.
And I know how
I would like to be remembered,
so we're gonna open
some champagne
and have a really nice time.
Think of Stephen while...
People were
dropping like flies.
Pop it, baby, pop it!
It was terrifying.
I didn't visit
one of my best friends,
I did not visit him in the
hospital as much as I should have
because I was too scared
to face the fact
that I might have it.
But unfortunately,
after performing,
shortly after performing
at Wigstock last year...
she passed away.
I would have loved to have her
perform again this year.
She was a queen among queens,
never bitchy,
never evil
like so many of these girls.
And I'm sure she's
very much missed by family
and friends.
And I hope we can
put all of our thoughts
up towards the sky
and think of Donna right now.
Come on out here,
let's send her a wig up to the heavens.
She might have been--
I don't know if her family
understood her properly
and buried her in her wig.
In case they didn't,
this goes out to you, Donna.
We're thinkin' of ya, honey.
Ladies and gentlemen,
she is a columnist
for "Time Out New York,"
She also hosted and created
the fantastic Club Night
at the Pyramid--
back when it was fun--
Ooh. Put your hands together
for Linda Simpson.
Thank you, Bunny.
Thank you so much for that.
Putting on drag
gives you a lot of confidence,
and all of a sudden,
you're "pizzazz," you know what I mean?
And you are strong,
you're bold.
I demand more lights!
I demand even more lights!
Yes! All right.
And then
once you take the drag out,
it can be sort of disorienting,
because you don't have
that armor
and people don't react to you
in the same way
and they sometimes
don't give you that bow-down,
worshipful atmosphere
that you've been getting.
Do you think one of the
drawbacks of doing drag, though,
is when you're in drag,
it's hard to get a gay guy
to be interested in you?
Who's gonna waste a shave
on a gay guy?
"Drag Race," which
dominates all things drag now,
created this incredible
renaissance for drag.
But the other side of the coin
would be
that drag certainly was fun
when it was underground
and I have a great fondness
for when it was just a fun,
avant-garde way
of expressing oneself.
It was very unique.
There wasn't anyplace else
in the world
that was like
the East Village drag scene.
Back then it was a smaller
group, it was an inside group.
Someone has to take my picture.
Stand right here, Linda.
Let the light
drink your face in.
Let's see...
Ooh, that face, girl.
You are fierce!
I feel so pretty that I feel like
I must have always looked this way.
OK, come over here some.
Yes, there it is.
There's the face.
Now, to me,
drag is all about
demystifying drag,
and so, you know,
it takes away
from the insider-y,
"We've got a secret"
kind of club feel
that we had before.
Mona, it's so nice
to have you here.
We just celebrated
our two-year anniversary,
I think you were reminiscing about the
first time that you performed here.
You were saying that your
makeup was a little off,
your hair was a little off--
what's changed?
Um...
There's no secrets anymore.
It's like,
"Here's how you do the makeup,
here's how you stuff the boobs,
here's how
you put the wigs on.
Here's the language we use."
It's very interesting now how
people have created stardom,
and many of them
are quite young.
And you know that expression
"High tide raises all ships"?
Even drag queens
that are not on "Drag Race"
are benefitting
from the popularity of the show
and in drag in general.
I wanna tell ya,
I've always had a dream
and I've always wanted
to do what I do,
and I want to tell each and every one
of you within the sound of my voice:
Hold onto your dreams,
hold onto your dreams!
'Cause if it can work for me,
it can work for you.
I love you.
Good night, everybody.
What would it mean to you to become
America's next drag superstar?
It would mean the world to me to
be America's next drag superstar.
Ru was very about
building an empire
of what you can build an empire,
honing in on
your natural gift.
I've been lucky enough
to have Ru pave the way for me,
but who the fuck
paved the way for Ru
to do what he's doing
right now?
He took over
the world of drag.
When it comes to career-wise,
I do view Ru almost as like
a father figure.
Is that weird to say?
I started drag when I was 18.
I was pretty much
in drag in high school,
like, for the most part,
six-inch heels to, like,
the first day of senior year,
with big Lady Gaga eyebrows.
To test out my makeup skills,
I would do my makeup,
and then I would
go on Chatroulette,
and if they didn't see
that I wasn't--
if they wouldn't "next" me,
thinking I was a dude,
then I was like, "My makeup
turned out well today."
When I was on "Drag Race,"
I broke a bunch of rules
and tried to get kicked off
because I knew getting kicked
off is iconic on reality shows.
Now no one else can have it.
It's one of those things
where any reality TV show,
it's a tool to a bigger career,
hopefully.
I think I've navigated my way through
that motherfucking beautifully.
I'm still working to this day,
seven years later,
and I'm in a movie
with fucking Lady Gaga,
so I'm doing
something right.
The fact that drag has gone from
whispering about drag queens
in the corner of a club
to standing in two-hour-line
meet-and-greets
just to shake their hand
blows my mind.
And I love that
it's being normalized.
Thanks!
And happy Groundhogs Day.
They're fuckin' rodents.
I'm just gonna put
my Taser away...
and shut the door.
'Cause there's bugs
and crackheads.
The best thing ever was, a crackhead
came through the back door once
late at night, and it was like
five minutes after
my camera guy had left,
so I was like, "He's just
coming back for something."
But the door opened
kind slow,
and I was right here
and I was still in drag
from filming,
and the first thing I did
was go like this
and then grab this knife
and do-- bam!-- and I said,
"I have a knife,
I will hurt you,"
and he starts--
he gets one foot in the door,
and he's like right here,
I say, "I have a knife,
I will hurt you,"
and he's like,
"Oh, my God, I'm sorry, ma'am!"
And then he fell right there
going back.
But he called me "ma'am!"
How cute, right? I passed.
I was so excited.
And I was ready
to fuckin' stab him, too.
You don't come in
my fuckin' back door.
Well, a lot of people come in my
fuckin' back door, but not like that.
That was different.
When I'm in Wigstock this year,
I think I'm gonna, um...
butt-chug on my hoverboard.
And my hoverboard's like a little Judy
Jetson little "vroom, vroom" thing,
and then butt-chugging is when you
stick alcohol in a disposable enema
and then put it up your butt.
Because it gets you
real fucked up, real fast,
and that's the best way to be
when you're a drag queen.
And then you don't
squirt it at the audience
because that's a whole
different kind of show.
That gets very combative.
Nobody wants to get wet
at a drag show, I think.
Especially with ass juice.
Who's ready for bingo?
Look at the crowd!
And this is the second show.
Look at that!
The crowd is 30-45% faggots,
the rest is straight women.
Straight, drunk
bachelorettes.
A lot of women grow up
playing with dolls,
and then when they get old, they still
want someone to dress up and hang out with,
so they get drag queens,
and then they pull our wigs.
Use your flash.
Yes.
♪ Love stands tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands
tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands
tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands
tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands tall and free ♪
♪ Love stands ♪
♪ Tall and free! ♪
Oh! Oh! Oh!
Oh, my God!
Wigstock's first baby!
My little baby!
This is your first
time here at Wigstock, honey.
Have you got anything to say
to these rascals out here?
Hi! How are you?!
Enjoy your day, be safe,
and just let it it all out,
honey.
The first
year I performed at Wigstock,
I got to open it,
and I was like, "What?"
Bunny was like, "You're going
on now," and I was like, "What?"
And it was fun, it was fun.
But Flotilla wasn't born yet.
I did not get involved in drag
until 1991.
The people at Boy Bar,
they put me together.
I was groomed,
by Raven O and Matthew Kasten.
Hands down.
Hands down.
Boy Bar beauty forever.
There's too many people
right now
that want to be drag queens,
and some of 'em don't know
what that entails.
My thing is,
if it's all about money
and I don't have the passion,
what the fuck
am I doing this for?
When you find somebody
that really wants to do drag
and has a passion about it,
that's what drag, to me,
is about,
and performing is about.
Finding somebody
who just loves the art,
and when they're onstage,
you can see it.
Lady Quesa'Dilla right here,
who is a daughter
of Perfidia,
just a remarkable performer.
And studies the history,
no less.
See, a lot of people
don't study their history
of who was before them,
who's with them,
who's after them.
This is my drag daughter,
Miss Konima.
- Konima, this is--
- Konima? Hi. Flo, nice to meet you, sweetie.
- Mm-hmm.
- OK.
I would
see them nurtured at Pyramid,
you know, I had Linda Simpson,
I had Bobby Miller,
doing my hair, and my makeup,
when it looked rotten.
We took care of each other.
They're beginning
to have some of 'em now.
The girls in Bushwick
are taking care of each other.
Which is a good thing.
Which is a really good thing.
Everybody can do drag, yeah.
That's good, ya know.
But what kind of drag queen
do you want to be?
♪ Well, I don't
wanna talk about... ♪
Let me show you the lineup.
- This is the lineup for Wigstock?
- Yeah.
We just got it.
Let me try finding you...
Oh, my God.
So many people.
God, the legend lineup
is so real.
♪ Mary had a little lamb ♪
♪ Her fleece was white as snow ♪
♪ Everywhere that Mary went ♪
♪ The lamb was sure to go ♪
♪ He made the children laugh
and play ♪
♪ Laugh and play ♪
♪ Come on, boys and girls ♪
♪ Put your hands on up ♪
♪ If you're part
of the family ♪
♪ If you're part
of the children ♪
♪ Say yes, I am ♪
♪ Yes, I, yes, I, yes, I am ♪
♪ I am one of the children ♪
♪ From here to there ♪
♪ You've got to feel ♪
♪ Alive ♪
♪ You're dancing,
you're dancing ♪
Early '90s, I met Kevin,
and he was my source
into New York.
Kevin's name was so hot
that our group was just, like,
they wanted us everywhere.
♪ So alive ♪
There were
all these things happening,
and Kevin's career
was exploding.
♪ The lights are spinning ♪
♪ In my head ♪
♪ Getting brighter
as we go higher ♪
♪ I'm feeling free for me ♪
♪ Only the mirror ball
really matters at all ♪
♪ The joy I found like a child
on a merry-go-round ♪
♪ DJ playin' records
spinnin' round and round ♪
♪ I'll be dancing
all night long ♪
♪ I'm at peace with my soul ♪
♪ I feel love,
I am so, so alive ♪
♪ Loving the feeling,
learning the meaning ♪
♪ On top of the world
and I'm hot, so alive ♪
♪ It's closer than ever ♪
♪ Get me so high ♪
♪ Dance it, shake it, move it ♪
And at the
same time in New York City,
Mayor Giuliani
became in charge,
and his whole thing
was law and order.
So he really cracked down hard
on the nightlife.
All of a sudden, the club scene
began shrinking dramatically.
And of course,
that affected drag a lot,
because the freedom
and the jobs
and the whole sociability of it
shrunk, ya know?
Everybody was under siege.
I think he should
close 'em today,
the video stores,
Show World,
all the dancing places--
I think every one of 'em
should be shut down.
They're an absolute disgrace
to the neighborhood,
they attract nothing
but garbage and sleaze.
Personally,
I'm a dancer myself,
so, I mean, it hurts me
just as well as everybody else.
I don't think there's no need.
It's not really
affecting anybody.
There are some kind
of alarming changes coming up,
and actually affect
Wigstock's future.
Giuliani tryin' to kill
the whole nightlife in New York,
so you gotta represent.
♪ Fuck off, fuck off ♪
Mayor
Giuliani can kiss my ass.
Mayor Giuliani can kiss my ass,
'cause we're not gonna stop doing
what we gotta do, right, faggots?
We're gonna run this fuckin'
world we call New York,
not Mickey Mouse,
right, children?
So when you go out tonight,
children,
I want you to prance,
prance, prance on,
and let them know who the
faggot is in the house, OK?
Now the rally for recording
artist Kevin Aviance,
beaten up by a group of thugs.
Today, hundreds of people
marched from one side
of Manhattan to the other...
Kevin is here right now.
Kevin, we are here to show you
the love and the support.
It's been kind of hard,
but you know what, you can't
keep a good queen down.
Something was not right, OK?
I've walked out in thongs
and high heels,
and ain't never had a problem.
Nothing. Think nothing of it.
Morning, daylight,
don't think nothing of it.
And there was something about
this that was just different.
And when I stepped off the curb
to walk into the street,
"We're gonna get you, faggot."
OK. Whatever.
So I'm walking backwards
and they're coming towards me.
You could feel the hate from
them, you could feel the heat.
I have never in my whole life
felt that hatred
on someone I didn't know,
like that on someone.
I just... got hit. Bam!
And as I'm going down,
they're hitting me in the head, kicks.
After about 80 times
of these kicks,
this is "gugga-gong,
gong-gong-gong-gong-gong.
That's all I could hear,
was gong-gong-gong,
gong-gong-gong-gong-gong-gong-
gong-gong-gong.
And every time it was getting
louder and louder,
and I'm just like, "gong" --
and it stopped.
I woke up in the hospital room,
and all my sisters, all my
friends, they were all there,
sitting around,
waiting for me to wake up.
I had come out of it,
but something's not right.
My jaw's not right,
it's not right.
Come to find out I had four
hairline fractures in my jaw.
But it was like-- it was basically
broken, but it was hairline fractures,
and so they had to go in,
put me under,
fix my mouth,
straighten it back up again,
and they prosecuted the guys
and they went to jail.
By the time I went to testify,
no one wanted me there.
I wanted to at one point,
but they were like,
"That'd be the worst thing
you could ever do."
I understand that now,
why you just don't meet your attacker,
why you don't do that.
But there's this
bitter part of me
that always thinks
that I could, like...
you know, I make people happy,
that's what I do, you know?
And just, to know
I couldn't do that...
and people thought
I was on the way out.
I'm running into people like Hector
Xtravaganza or someone like that,
grabbing me, and they just cry
and say, "Girl, you know,
you are such
an inspiration for us.
Girls don't come out
the hospital. You come out.
You came out,
and you're better."
You don't realize that
girls went into the hospital in
New York and did not come out,
so that hospital was the end of
all ends for a girl, you know?
For one of the New York girls, you know?
That was just the way it was, you know?
And here I am going in and out.
Drag is the silver lining
in that cloud.
That's what drag is to me,
'cause I know,
at the end of the day,
I got a frock in my bag
right now, girl,
and a pair of pumps
right in there, girl.
I'll give you a show
at the drop of a hat.
I'll give you a show
right then and there, girl.
I will do it. Damn right I will.
And you'll get your life,
and you'll gag...
...period.
- ...his way.
- Yeah. I was just--
You hit play for me,
I'll hit play for you.
I would like to know
that my tracks are correct.
You're good
with that mic?
Scoot it back. As back as you
can get it without--
There's a speaker right there.
Be careful.
I got everyone working.
Harajuku,
Two Sterlings, Belle,
Serena Dariani,
Orlando, Lucas and Patty,
Dusty, Rose and Ryan,
and the Salami Sisters.
This is the bitch that I used
to go around the Lower East Side
chasing Lady Gaga with,
so we didn't know anything
about the landscape of nightlife
or any sort of grasp
on the scene or anything.
We were just, like, faggots,
closeted, in my case,
and basically tried to track
down Lady Gaga, and we did it.
We did.
We literally did.
Gaga walks in the room
and everyone just gasps,
and there's all the faggots
screaming, "Aaaaah!!!"
- But it was us. We were the faggots screaming.
- I know!
Oh, yikes.
Once upon a time I was a business
student, an NYU-ster,
can you believe it?
Oh, my God.
I'm so embarrassed.
Lots of boys. Lots of boys.
- Lots of boys.
- Lots of boys.
But that's not one.
The proportioning
of drag is an aggression,
is a heightened femininity,
because femininity
is the aggression.
So the bigger the lip,
the bigger the sin.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
your lovely ladies!
Stop!
"To Robert."
So crazy.
Right.
I hadn't even then become Bobbie yet.
Yeah.
Wow.
I know her. I know her.
I know her.
Linda! Stop!
Linda Simpson looks
the literal exact same.
Thought it'll be fun
getting people to sign this,
and I go and figure out where,
like, Bunny was DJing that night
and then having to
sneak into the Monster
'cause you're only
19 years old
and the doorman's upset at you,
and you're like,
"You don't understand, sir,
I have this Wigstock flyer that
I need to get Bunny to sign.
What if she dies tomorrow?
I'm freaking out."
Ya know?
My God. Fuck.
These girls
look like us.
When'd you come to New York?
I came to New York in 2011,
- I was 16, and...
- Damn, girl.
I really, really,
really resonated with Wigstock
when I was 14--
I got AIDS,
you know what I mean?
From the get-go,
I was like--
- I needed Wigstock...
- Yeah.
to find, like, people
in this world
that are fighting
a similar fight to me,
- and alive.
- Yeah.
Flotilla and Lypsinka,
and Lady Bunny,
they saw, within me,
a way to almost help me out,
because this city
tears you down.
I mean, I could be
just like all the other people
I knew who disappear.
Tabboo! gave me
the name Bobbie,
and Myka pretty much I'd wear
all of her hand-me-downs, and...
You were parented
by the legends.
I was parented...
by the legends,
but just because they're
the greatest people ever.
I mean, they're really
the best people ever.
I'm excited to end
this summer out
and get to Wigstock
and see what it's all about.
Me too.
Something
happened that was interesting
that made me know that there's
something still unique about New York.
I was late for a gig,
wearing a long dress,
jumped in a cab, slammed the
door, the dress was hangin' out.
All of a sudden,
there's a commotion outside.
Two young kids, 10, 12,
an old couple, 70, 80,
they were all trying
to get my attention.
They did not look at me
and think...
"That's a punk-ass faggot."
These people said,
"Help that fool!"
"Help that fool.
It's in me to want
to help that fool."
Without any judgements.
This is what I want to prove
by bringing this festival back:
that we are a community
and that we're not fighting
among each other so much
to where we can't even
get together.
It's humanizing
to be this close together.
And that's the thing that
still's great about New York.
- Hey! Mwah!
- How are you?
- Huh?
- Is this your spot?
Yeah! Why?
Do you not think
it's good enough, either?
We did it, Bunny.
♪ Sometimes I still
breathe in ♪
♪ What I don't believe ♪
- Aaaaah!
- ♪ As if superstition ♪
- ♪ Could keep you away from me ♪
- We made it!
♪ Well, it's the same
as it never ♪
♪ Forever was ♪
♪ Haunted by who can I be now ♪
♪ Same as forever ♪
♪ I never was ♪
♪ Excuse me
while I kiss the sky ♪
♪ Ay-ay-ay ♪
♪ I always knew
you would come back ♪
♪ I always knew
you would come back to me ♪
Brace yourself.
You have eight hours of this.
♪ I always knew
you would come back ♪
♪ I always knew you would come
back, come back to me ♪
I'm a princess!
Who's got the drugs?
Drugs over in this corner,
please!
♪ Ay-ay-ay ♪
Are we supposed to act like
the camera's not there?
Well, the camera's a little low
for someone with
my fuckin' neck.
I'm doing psychic readings.
People are Venmo'ing me $10,
and I say, "You're gonna die."
Come on, it's funny.
It's dark.
♪ What you do, what you do,
what you do ♪
♪ What you do to me ♪
♪ What you do to me ♪
♪ What you
do to me ♪
♪ What you do to me ♪
♪ Hey, what you do to me ♪
♪ Energy's gettin'
through to me ♪
♪ And I got my eyes forward ♪
♪ And that's how
they ought to be ♪
♪ Baby, baby, I'm here ♪
♪ Where I need to be ♪
♪ Feelin' fear,
but no need to be ♪
♪ And I've been
caught dead in my tracks ♪
♪ But that's no way to be ♪
It's quite
exciting to be here at Wigstock,
and I know that there's several
old people that are up here
that are gonna tell you about their
memories and relive their moments
and flip through their purse
and find Polaroids
of their dreams
and aspirations,
but you realize, we all end up
at this shitty event,
and that's the magic
of gay life.
It doesn't get better,
it gets awkward.
♪ Moments late at night ♪
♪ But I ain't feelin' right ♪
Ladies and
gentlemen, boys as girls,
are you ready for excitement,
glamor, and sophistication?
Then you have come
to the wrong place, honey.
This is Wigstock 2.0!
Hi, Wigstock!
How y'all doin', honeys?
New York City!
Get out here
and tear this stage up!
♪ Burn down, take me on ♪
♪ Bend down, move along ♪
♪ I need a hot shot ♪
♪ Burn down with the proud... ♪
Wig cannon! Get a wig! Go!
♪ And the music's loud ♪
♪ I need a hot shot ♪
I just realized
that this documentary
was being shot in HD.
Which at my age
means "haggard dog."
Anyway, we're back!
♪ Ooh, baby, baby, baby, baby ♪
♪ I wanna feel it in my soul,
come on and move it ♪
♪ You know you never, never,
never gonna lose control ♪
♪ My fire's burning ♪
♪ It's getting real hot... ♪
Let's hear it for Javier Ninja!
Ladies and
gentlemen, Perfidia!
Was that bitch dynamite,
or what?
Give her some more love!
You can never stop
the spirit of Wigstock!
Whoo!
How we doing, Wigstock!
If you're having a good time,
make some noise!
Thank you, Wigstock!
Thank you, Bunny!
♪ That brought me
out of my seat ♪
♪ I need a hot shot ♪
I need to crank this music
like it was a nightclub
in 1993!
Can you hear it out there?
Can you hear it out there?
OK.
Everyone is always saying,
"Bunny,
you and Ru
are such good friends,
why don't you get on
that fuckin' show?"
And I said, "Honey,
by not wanting to be on that show,
I can read all their asses
to filth."
Is Wigstock 2.0 audience
ready to...
...spill some tea?
♪ Makes no difference
if you're butch or a femme ♪
♪ Or even look like a girl ♪
♪ Takes no talent
to impress 'em today ♪
♪ You're on "Drag Race"
till you sashay away ♪
- ♪ Come on and contour your nose ♪
- ♪ Nose ♪
♪ Lip sync for your life
to the music ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
- ♪ Contour your nose ♪
- ♪ Nose ♪
♪ Find a catchphrase
and overuse it ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Pose ♪
♪ I said pose ♪
♪ Pose ♪
♪ Hi ♪
What do Neal Patrick Harris
and an ambulance have in common?
Both take it in the back
and go, "Whoop! Whoop!"
What's the difference between
Bianca Del Rio and a bag of trash?
Trash gets picked up
every once in a while.
Thank you!
The Ladies of Lips!
Clap for those bitches!
'Cause if you've ever been to Lips,
they're never that entertaining.
What fuckin' useless cunts!
Get back to your shift, cunts!
All right, here we are!
This is so funny, because I'm
wearing Formika's dress from '94.
- Really?
- Yeah, yeah.
Have my morning
cup of coffee,
and I'm all ready
for a drag show.
Happy Wigstock '94, everybody.
Hello, New York,
how's everybody doin'?
You all look so fuckin' good!
I was born in '94, so it's like
a full circle moment for me.
Wigstock is
not about hate or fighting,
it's about love.
It's time for us
to have some rights!
It's time for us
to take charge!
Take it away, baby.
I know that a lot of us are
down in the dumps these days,
things are pretty crazy
in this country,
and I just wanna say
when you get real depressed
and you find yourself
in a deep, dark valley,
it's really, really important
to remember
that I am coming out
with a new album...
and I would like to sing a track from that right now.
The name of the album is "Dina
Martina: Mysteries of the Thyroid."
Thank you. Hit it!
♪ Some say love ♪
♪ Becomes the rose ♪
Thank you. Off the charts.
Wait. Can every drag queen
from "Drag Race" take note?
That's how you do an album,
bitch!
That's how you do
a fuckin' album!
The bitch started and left!
Girl, I was standing backstage
going, "She finished?"
I thought, "That's good."
And there are six people
in a fuckin' high tower over there
going, "Liza looks horrible!"
Oh, no!
The g-- ha ha ha!
Look at you.
You look...
consistently relic-like.
I know, I know.
Usually the balls are on my chins.
To cover the hair.
Yeah, it looks good.
You know,
we joke around a lot,
but when I call her and say,
"Your plane's gonna crash,"
I'm only kidding.
We're good friends,
it's a joke.
When Bianca leaves here,
she will arrive...
- safely and on time...
- Thank you.
- in Syria.
- Ha ha ha ha!
'Cause I'll work anywhere!
I'm here!
Take it away, cunt!
Here we go!
Ladies and gentlemen,
a New York City
nightlife legend--
Kevin Aviance!
♪ I believe,
I believe, I believe ♪
♪ I believe, I believe ♪
♪ I believe, believe,
believe, believe ♪
♪ Believe, believe,
believe, believe ♪
♪ Believe, aaaaah! ♪
♪ I
believe, I believe, I believe ♪
♪ I believe, I believe ♪
♪ I believe ♪
♪ I believe ♪
Welcome the most
famous transsexual in the world,
Amanda Lepore!
The incredible Raven O!
♪ What is love
if you got in between it ♪
♪ No one cares if you're ever
gonna achieve it ♪
♪ And nobody knows ♪
♪ Nobody knows ♪
♪ And what do we care
if they always walk with us ♪
♪ They want us to break,
but who cares, they don't know us ♪
♪ And still we don't know ♪
♪ So I say
whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh ♪
♪ Oh-oh-oh-oh ♪
♪ Can you let us go ♪
Ladies and gentlemen,
boys and girls,
those undecided
and those in between,
I just want you guys to know
how much of an honor it is
for me to be here.
♪ This is my
hair, I don't wear wigs ♪
- ♪ Everybody, this is my hair ♪
- Crowd: ♪ I don't wear wigs ♪
♪ This is my hair ♪
Ladies and gentlemen,
give it up for
Alaska Thunderfuck!
I love your vagina! Mwah!
Our next performer
taught me how to walk
and how to cock a hip
when I was Hedwig
in "The Angry Inch."
Please welcome the disgusting
and the sexy Willam!
♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪
Oh, the bubbles are tickling my rectum!
I love it! Oh!
Wait, hold on,
hold on one second. One second.
Ohh, ohh! Spin me around,
I wanna do spin art.
Make me spin art.
Ohh. Oh, yeah. Uhh.
Show 'em my shart, please.
Put a big "B" on it
for Bunny and me!
Yay! Look at me.
That's what I did
with my pussy. You're welcome.
Does anybody want a Coors?
They're not a sponsor.
Here, girl.
I'm here representing
the girls of Stonewall.
This piece was written
by Mr. Jimmy Camicia.
"Spare Change
for a Dying Queen."
Can you spare some change
for a dying queen, darling?
Oh, I am dying.
I know you don't believe me.
But us queens know what we're
talkin' about, yes, we do!
We're from the liberation!
Yes, we are.
Sometimes when I pass
those gay bars
and I see my gay sisters and
brothers havin' a good time
and turning it out
in all their liberated glory,
and I see that sign
over that bar that says,
"No drunks, no dogs, no drags."
Could you imagine
comparing me to a dog?
- No!
- I just want to break down and--
But that's OK, darlin',
because I pay it no mind.
Because when they 86 me,
I tip,
and when I tip,
I stay tipped.
Because I got my friends,
that's right,
and I know who my friends are!
My friends are people
who got change to spare.
My friends are people
who smile at me
and understand when I say, "Can you spare
some change for a dying queen, darlin'?"
So if you're in
one of those bars
and you see that sign,
"No drunks, no dogs, no drags,"
and you see them turning out on
my of gay brothers and sisters,
I want you to dig
real deep down in your pocket
and pull out
some of that change
that you're saving for your
cold beer and your hot dogs,
and get over yourself and spare
some change for a dying queen...
...darling.
Ladies and gentlemen,
whether you like it or not...
Hedwig!
♪ Last time I saw you ♪
♪ We'd just split in two ♪
♪ You were lookin' at me ♪
♪ I was looking at you ♪
♪ You had a way so familiar ♪
♪ I could not recognize ♪
♪ 'Cause you had blood
on your face ♪
♪ I had blood in my eyes ♪
♪ But I could swear
by your expression ♪
♪ That the pain
down in your soul ♪
♪ Was the same
as the one down in mine ♪
♪ Oh, that's the pain ♪
♪ That cuts a straight line
down through the heart ♪
♪ We call it love ♪
♪ The origin of love ♪
♪ Oh, yeah ♪
♪ The origin of love ♪
♪ Oh, oh, the origin of love ♪
♪ Love, love, love, love ♪
♪ The origin of ♪
♪ Six inches forward
and five inches back ♪
♪ I got,
I got an angry inch ♪
♪ Six inches forward
and five inches back ♪
♪ I got a,
I got an angry inch ♪
♪ Six inches forward,
five inches back ♪
♪ Stay under cover till
the night turns to black ♪
♪ I got my inch,
I'm set to attack ♪
♪ I got an angry inch,
an angry inch ♪
Ladies and
gentlemen, comin' up next we have
one of
the Bushwig favorites.
I want you
to put your hands together
for the wild,
the uncontrollable,
the unpredictable,
Charlene Incarnate!
Her Wigstock debut!
♪ You're struttin' into town
like you're slingin' a gun ♪
♪ Just a small town dude
with a big city attitude ♪
♪ Honey, are you looking for
some trouble tonight? ♪
♪ Well, all right ♪
♪ You think you'll
knock me off my feet ♪
♪ Till I'm flat on the floor ♪
♪ Till my heart is crying Indian
and I'm begging for more ♪
♪ So come on, baby,
come on, baby ♪
♪ Come on, baby, show me
what that loaded gun is for ♪
♪ If you're so tough,
come on and prove it ♪
♪ Your heart
is down for the count ♪
♪ And you know
you're gonna lose it ♪
♪ Tonight, you're gonna
go down in flames ♪
♪ Just like Jesse James ♪
♪ Well, you've had your way
with love ♪
♪ But it's the end of the day ♪
♪ Now a team of wild horses ♪
♪ Couldn't drag
your heart away ♪
♪ So come on, baby,
come on, baby, come on, baby ♪
♪ You know there ain't nothin'
left to say ♪
♪ If you're so tough,
come on and prove it ♪
♪ Your heart is down
for the count ♪
♪ And you know
you're gonna lose it ♪
♪ Tonight you're gonna
go down in flames ♪
♪ Just like Jesse James ♪
♪ Tonight you're gonna
go down in flames
♪ Just like Jesse James ♪
♪ I'm gonna shoot you down ♪
♪ Jesse James ♪
Let's hear it
for Charlene Incarnate!
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
♪ Goodbyes sound better ♪
♪ I wish you a good goodbye ♪
'Cause you're part of history.
This is gonna be one of those
things years and years from now
when it's long gone
and the era has passed
that people are trying to relive
and capture and hold onto.
So feel yourself special
to be a part of it.
♪ In all of the hours and times
that I tried to be..."
I've been to the deserts,
I've been to the seas,
honey.
And there's no other
drag community
like New York City, darling.
Give it up for these queens,
darling.
Up, up, up, up, up, up, up!
These girls now are watching
us and they're admiring us.
Girls, I want to tell you, there's
room for all of us. This is for you.
Thank you so much.
I live the life I love,
and I love the life I live,
and I love sharing it
with all of you here.
It's the audience.
It's you that is Wigstock,
and I lift my wigs
to you all.
♪ Goodbye-ay-ay-ay-ay ♪
♪ Sweet summer ♪
♪ I finally feel like
I'm gonna be feeling this way ♪
♪ For a long time, baby ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Set me down
and tell me you love me ♪
♪ Take me by the hand ♪
♪ In the cover of the trees ♪
♪ As we drive on this road ♪ ♪
♪ I can see you must know ♪
♪ How much, how much
you mean to me ♪
♪ Come run and tell me
you love me ♪
♪ Come on and hold my hand ♪
♪ Come run and take me
for a long time ♪
♪ Until you leave this land ♪
♪ Tell me that
we're going to be ♪
♪ Together forever, baby ♪
♪ Forever ♪
♪ I finally feel like ♪
♪ I'm gonna be feeling
this way ♪
♪ For a long time, baby ♪
♪ I finally feel like ♪
♪ I'm gonna be
feeling this way ♪
♪ For a long time, baby ♪
♪ I finally feel like
I'm gonna be feeling this way ♪
♪ For a long time, baby ♪
♪ Yeah ♪