Drag

Gowns! Sequins! Miss Northern Marianas!

My friend Len asked me if I wanted to attend something called “Queen of Queens 2005” last week, and I of course agreed. I hadn’t been to a drag show in a long time, and I assume that you, dear reader, may have never been to one, having lived a less dubious life than I. I was very curious to see how drag played in the far west Pacific, and a show with a title like “Queen of Queens” -- well, who could possibly resist?

The pageant was held in the auditorium of the at the SandCastle resort, which is a big dinner theatre attached to one of the Japanese tourist hotels. It may be the nicest theatre on island, though the hotel’s brochures suggest to me that the dinner show sort of cheesy. This isn’t intended as a criticism. There’s an ice-dancing couple and a magician and lots of pretty girls, and I expect it would be like anything you’d see in Las Vegas. (My friends are usually surprised when I tell them that if I were to go to Vegas, the first thing I would do is get tickets to see Wayne Newton, Joey Heatherton, and Siegfried and Roy. The whole point to going to Vegas is to see Vegas-style entertainment. Book me Lola Falana, and I am so there.) The SandCastle seemed a very classy place for a drag show, but I am used to seeing them in smoky, divey bars in Michigan. When I see drag, I don’t expect much -- bad wigs and tacky sequin-clad “ladies” of a “certain age” lip-synching “I Will Survive.” Expect little and you will never be disappointed.

This was very, very different. The ticket price was rather steep, but it included a buffet dinner and an alcoholic drink, some new promotional cocktail called a Hypnotiq, which wasn’t hypnotic, just for the record, but it was tasty in a grown-up, Kool-Aid sort of way. The buffet was extremely simple -- meatballs, salad, pancit, vegetables and dip, and chocolate mousse -- and the theatre itself was quite nice. It is designed for dinner shows, so that tables are oriented toward the stage, and there were a great number of waiters running around, fetching drinks.

I got there early, found our table easily, and sat back to watch people show up. One might think that a drag show would appeal primarily to gay men, but on Guam, all sorts of people turn out for Queen of Queens. Lots of Filipinos and Filipinas were there; my friend Corman was there along the entire staff of his office. (Corman is from Palau and rooted faithfully, and loudly, for Miss Palau.) My colleague Dawn was there with her husband. Lots of media folk were there, not that there are that many media folk on Guam. The whole crowd was not unlike a typical crowd for any theatre production -- some gay men, of course, but lots of others too. It was not at all what I expected.

Nor was the show. A portion of the proceeds were being donated to the Eddie Calvo Cancer Fund, which was something new for me. Eddie Calvo is from one of the patriarch families of Guam--the Calvos own a great number of businesses and may be the wealthiest family on island--and he died recently of cancer, so the family set up a foundation so that cancer patients could be treated on island rather than have to fly to the States or Asia for treatment. A touching video was shown, and people were visibly moved by it, myself included. The Calvo family is held in very high esteem, as indeed it is the richest family on island, and the Queens of Queens people were happy to make a sizeable donation.

The show itself was wonderful in a weird way. The native costume portion was hysterical, as each contestant wore something that made her (him) look like a float in the Rose Bowl parade: not so much native as very vaguely suggestive of where (s)he was from. Miss Puerto Rico appeared to be wearing an enormous conch shell which completely enveloped her, as if she were a pearl. Miss Taiwan wore a pagoda, or, rather, she was a pagoda. Miss Guam came onstage with a full-size palm tree backing her up. All the contestants spent a lot of money and, apparently, tissue paper, putting these get-ups together. (Miss Puerto Rico? Don’t ask. The presence of Miss Zimbabwe was even stranger.)

The evening gown competition was what you might expect: glittery sequins and plenty of ’em. The interview was largely forgettable, though watching Miss Taiwan have a mental meltdown onstage was amusing and/or painful, depending on how well you knew her. Each one was asked a stupid question; typical was something along the lines of “What do you hope to achieve by being named the 2005 Queen of Queens?” One kept hoping that at least one potential Queen was working on the Mideast peace process and would thus have a real answer to this inane question, but each one said something to the effect of “I want everybody to feel pride in who they are, because that’s so, like, real, and that’s what being Queen of Queens is all about.” Yeah, yeah, yeah, bring on the talent competition.

But there wasn’t one, as perhaps some of our Queens were not all that talented. Last year’s Queen and her runner-up (2004 Drag Princess. I’m serious) did a scripted comedy routine, “comedy” being used loosely, painful as it was to watch, which gave me an indication of the talent level. It was fabulous in that it was so execrable, not unlike watching the carnage at the scene of a train wreck.

In any event, Miss Guam is our 2005 Queen of Queens, a decision that the judges and members of the audience took very seriously. She actually has duties on island: making a donation to the Red Cross, appearing in charity functions. It was impressed upon me that the women were not gay men in drag, but actually transgendered persons in various stage of transition. Everybody seemed very cool about this, which seemed awfully big of them, when you consider how panic-stricken folks Stateside get when they are confronted with someone who’s somewhere between genders. (Maybe he’ll hit on me! Maybe he won’t! Maybe she’ll hit on me! Et cetera, et cetera.) I has hoped to end this with some kind of profound observation about lgbt people out here, but I can’t; I can’t imagine that gay issues are a non-issue here, but they don’t seem to be a big deal, either. My guess is that when you’re on a small island where everybody knows everybody and your brother comes out, you freak momentarily and then just get on with life. We’re all family here.

So. The Queen of Queens is elected, we’ll be seeing her around island for the next year, and I even knew one of the judges! Small place, big heart. Lots of sequins.