(energetic music)
- She's a woman!
- Action.
Two households, both alike in dignity,
in fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
where ancient grudge, okay.
Hey everybody! It's Miz Cracker
and you are here for Billboard pride.
We about to spill the tea.
- Mhm.
- Today, we're going to talk about
drag and popular culture.
Here is my question for you ladies,
almost 50 years after nobody died at Stonewall...
- People don't know what stonewall is.
You know what I mean?
- Won't you tell everybody what that is?
- That was fighting for gray rights,
and people were killed.
- Nobody was killed at Stonewall.
- Nobody was killed?
- ...queer culture is on the global main stage.
And my question is, have we reached a limit for drag?
Have we come so far that the bubble's gonna burst
and there can't be any more queens,
do you know what I'm saying?
- [Ginger] Absolutely not.
- You don't think so?
- No, absolutely not because every queen's different.
It's like every little snowflake
is absolutely perfect in it's own way.
I think every queen represents
a different part of the entire spectrum.
So, as long as there are new queens
coming up that are offering up something different,
of course there's going to be a space for them as well.
- Right, and I feel like as long as there are
little boys and girls out there
that love putting on makeup and wigs
and just celebrating being extra,
drag will still live on.
It's just a celebration of being more
than what you see on your driver's license.
- And also, we've been around for centuries.
Let's do our history lesson.
- That's true, that's very true.
And what is it, king Henry the seventh, right?
Originally outlawed men from dressing on stage,
and that's kind of how drag got started
because all these men had only learned
to act as women on stage in the Shakespearean plays,
so when they didn't have a job anymore,
they started working in bars
and different pubs to try to make a living.
- Isn't that what we all do, too?
We're trying to make a living, so we'll put on a wig.
- Also, Geishas were originally men. Geisha in Japan.
- I did not know that.
- [Eureka] I didn't know that either.
- The performance goes back far.
- Right, come on gender performance.
- But I think the question is like,
it's so popular right now.
There are like three television shows about it.
There are these huge Drag Con conventions
where you have like 50 thousand people coming through.
Do you think it's going to hold at that level?
Or do you think it's going to.
- Well, I think like anything else in the world
it's going to ebb and flow.
But I think that we have kind of reached our own spot,
we've come into our own within regular culture.
- Well, obviously we've been really big
in the LGBTQ entertainment industries,
but now we're branching over into a mainstream segment
where a lot of our fans are now heterosexual women,
including men and their families
and any kind of cisgendered in between.
So, now we're broadening to a whole new spectrum
where people that haven't been
doing drag the last 20 or 30 years, so I think
it's just now starting to get good.
It's about to be freaking crazy.
(laughs)
- I guess the answer is to continue
recruiting new audiences to the drag army.
- Oh, we don't have to do that.
- Yeah, girl. Hella so many.
We are many, and we are mighty.
So, thank you guys so much.
- I actually have another question,
how has RuPaul's Drag Race impacted the local drag?
- Well you know, I always like to tell
the girls when I'm traveling,
I'm like, I am a local queen.
When I go home to Florida, I'm still a local girl.
So, I've obviously, sorry girl!
- No, it's fine, I was just trying to subtly do it,
then I was just like, oh no,
she wanted to be the one to do it.
- Oh there's nothing subtle about it,
girl just knocked me over.
But I think that having all of us
have experience both sides of that coin,
I think that the only difference between local drag
and RuPaul's Drag Race drag, is the fact that
we've been given such an incredible platform.
So, more people know who we are,
but it doesn't take away from anything
that the local girls do because
I feel like some of the best drag out there is undiscovered.
And it's just waiting for it's moment.
- I think local drag, there's something that
is so pure about local drag
because you aren't making shit,
and every single dollar you make
goes back into a costume or a wig.
You sacrifice eating a sandwich,
you sacrifice paying your rent.
- I never sacrificed eating a sandwich.
- I was speaking for myself!
- I'd just eat 10 bags of ramen instead of a sandwich.
- You know, since like even in these small bars,
it's your opportunity to feel like a superstar.
And then, Drag Race just helps bring that fantasy
into more of a reality because, you know,
like you said, you get the platform.
But there is something that I do miss
about those days where it was just like,
that dirty glamorous hustle because you did it
just for the pure love of drag.
- Girl, I will never turn down a booking.
And when I'm home in Orlando,
I don't care if they offer me to work for tips.
I will show up and do it because
it brings you back to that place
of really loving what you do
and just being excited about it.
- Also, I think you see, in local drag.
You see people try new things
that for some reason, if you stick with the national queens,
you don't see those creative ideas in the same way.
You're so glad when you are at a local show
because there's always something fresh
and I could never let that go, I need to see that.
- Absolutely, I mean I randomly just did
a gig this past week where I was at my home bar
and I hadn't been there in months,
and I literally promoted it like
two days before I was there,
and everyone that I had worked with for years came out.
So, it was super fun, but I just remember feeling
so empowered and comfortable there,
more than anywhere that I've traveled to work
because my family and my friends
that believed in me regardless of drag races there.
So, there's something special about local drag
in the sense that you have your community
that supports you locally.
And that's what's incredible.
You are still famous, maybe not on
the level that Drag Race is famous,
but you're famous to that community
that you represent locally.
- And that's why I think it's also very important
that the local audiences keep in mind
that it's important to support your local girls.
Because without supporting girls
like us when we were local,
we never would have had the resources
or the opportunities to go for RuPaul's Drag Race.
- They get the support, which is nice.
The local girls, they still get the support which is nice.
- [Eureka] Yeah. Thankfully, thankfully.
- It's kind of like if you say I love music,
you can't only listen to Ariana Grande.
Do you know what I mean?
- I'm sorry, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
- You have to throw in a little Justin Bieber.
- Into You. I'm sorry.
- Okay, you can only listen to that song.
Maybe Ariana Grande's a bad example.
- I still have it on repeat, it's two years later.
I just celebrated it's two year anniversary
literally three days ago.
- That's because you can't get your car fixed, girl.
That's a different thing.
(laughs)
- You don't gotta be spilling my tea like that.
Leave my 93 Plymouth Neon alone.
(laughs)
- All I'm saying is if you love something,
you love all of it.
And if you say you love drag,
you should be out at the bars,
you should be watching Drag Race,
you should be on Instagram,
you should be everywhere.
Not just thinking that it's one thing.
- We remember those people, we remember those supporters.
- And even if it's not your cup of tea,
every particular performance,
you should be able to find something within every queen
and everything that they do that you can appreciate.
Even if you don't like it, you can appreciate it.
- Because it takes drink just to get up there.
We're taught that from day one.
- Every flower belongs in the garden.
- [Eureka] Every flower belongs in the garden.
I don't see you walking children in nature!
♪ You gotta get up and fight ♪
♪ That's right, cause there may not be a later ♪
♪ If we don't do something right now, ♪
♪ We won't be walking children in nature ♪
♪ That's right, we won't be walking children in nature ♪
- Give me the pruning sheers.
Alright everybody, so I guess the lesson here
is support all kinds of drag.
- Yep, even locally.
- Especially locally.
Locally sourced.
- Is this drag queen local?
- Instead of calling girls local queens,
can we call them organic?
- [Miz Cracker] Yeah, absolutely.
- I love that, organic queens.
- Farm to table.
- [Shea] Grassroots.
- Grassroots drag!
- Sitting on your nuts?
- No, not, it's just this in here.
- Sitting on my nut sack.