Pink pictures month
NETFLIX AND SHOWMAX: SHOWS COVER DRAG QUEENS TO HOMOPHOBIA
New documentary-reality series features one of US’ bestknown drag queens.
You know your weekend is off to a good start when there’s a drag queen in the vicinity. Last weekend kicked off supporting Cape Town-based fringe Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex art group Diskotekah (DTK) on their fourth birthday celebration at the uber cool The Raptor Room.
“We’re drag queens for f**k sakes,” Gavin Mikey Collins, better known as SufferK, shouts in-between sets.
We’re sitting outside on Roeland Street and Collins and the drag queens and kings performing on the night are catching their breath, getting looks from passersby.
“We love everyone,” SufferK adds, loudly.
My friend and I are starstruck. An audacious drag queen is exactly what the doctor ordered. Drag queens are allowed to be glib and say things other people are often not allowed to say and we love them for it.
SufferK, cigarette hanging from the mouth, is a few drinks in and the conversation quickly turns to pop culture and today’s new release on Netflix, Dancing Queen. Netflix is likely to mine viewership gold this weekend with this brand new documentary-reality series featuring one of America’s best-known drag queens, Alyssa Edwards.
Edwards, the creation of Justin Johnson, is a dance teacher who gained notoriety after winning the Miss Gay America pageant in 2010 and appearing in the fifth season of popular reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race. Edwards became an immediate favourite, thanks to her Southern charm and endless bank of catch phrases. That success let to this hilarious and heartfelt docu-series set in Edwards’ dancing, prancing, world as he juggles his dance life, drag life, family life and love life.
Filmed in Johnson’s hometown of Mesquite, Texas, Dancing Queen goes into the drag performer’s highly competitive Beyond Belief Dance Company as he prepares a young class for an intensely competitive season.
It’s like dance moms, by way of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with generous doses of crazy and just as South Africa starts Pride Month. Between Showmax and Netflix there’s exciting representation of a community on the forefront of gender politics this month to stream.