Queens’ class in session
Constestants in ‘RuPaul’ offer insights at The New School
If reading is fundamental, then teaching is the natural next step.
Two of the three New York City-based queens selected to compete on Season 15 of the multi-Emmy-winning show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” were the featured guest speakers in a class at The New School last Thursday.
Luxx Noir London and Jax traded the RuPaul runway for The New School’s John L. Tishman Auditorium to speak about the far-reaching impact of the show on contemporary culture. They also discussed the seemingly unstoppable rise of drag as an art form — and the fierce backlash that has followed.
The two queens also shared some useful advice on how beginners can slay a lip sync — “In terms of makeup, always do more,” said Jax. “Know the song like the back of your hand,” added London.
At just 23 years old, East Orange, N.J.-native London is the season’s youngest contestant and a current front-runner.
Jax, who hails from Queens, is a former competitive cheerleader whose elimination at the end of Episode 8 sparked fury on social media.
On Thursday, the two “Drag Race scholars” were the guest speakers in a class that examines the evolution of the art of female impersonation and how the show has contributed to a shift in contemporary culture.
Led by renowned drag historian and author Joe E. Jeffreys, “RuPaul’s Drag Race and Its Impact” is a semester-long course that was added to The New School’s College of Liberal Arts in early 2019.
Drag performance is a “vital part of gay culture and something that we can learn from,” Jeffreys told the Daily News. “I consider it to be the indigenous queer performance of the people — for the people and by the people.”
Once seen as the essence of queer underground culture, drag has exploded into a worldwide pop culture phenomenon — and extremely lucrative business — over the past decade or so.
Performances featuring actors wearing clothes and adopting mannerisms of the opposite sex date back to ancient Greece. But it wasn’t until “RuPaul’s Drag Race” debuted in February 2009 that drag exploded into the mainstream — while serving as a catalyst to an ongoing culture war.
Until the second half of the last century, people across the U.S. could get arrested for not wearing at least three articles of gender-appropriate clothing. Today, drag performers wearing gender-expansive fashion are the featured guest speakers in a class at a prestigious New York university.
The overwhelming majority of students in the class of nearly two dozen are young heterosexual women, a reflection of the demographics of the “Drag Race” audience, according to Jeffreys.
They have “some remarkable perspectives on what drag is and where it’s going,” he said, noting their experiences as viewers who grew up watching the show.
The explosion of the mainstream popularity of “Drag Race” has come at a cost, however.
As the ancient form of cross-dressing as art gained more visibility, a pushback from conservative politicians soon followed. Powered by a false “grooming” narrative from members of the far right, who characterize LGBTQ people as predators, lawmakers in several states have introduced legislation to severely restrict drag performances.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill this month targeting drag performances — the first of its kind in the nation.
On Wednesday, RuPaul released a statement slamming lawmakers who back such bills. He praised the work of drag queens, calling them “the Marines of the queer movement.”
“I would say that drag queens and trans women — trans women of color specifically — are at the forefront of the queer liberation movement,” said London. “They were taking a lot of the blows, they were fighting for our spaces, so I definitely do think that for the most part, [they] are the ones who are definitely at the forefront of progress in our community.”