It can cost an aspiring drag queen their life savings …. and more …. to have a chance to get to participate. In fact, several don’t win any more than a day in Bankruptcy Court.
It’s all a far cry from the days when a drag queen made her way in the world purely on talent, ingenuity wit, and a handful of luck. Learning their craft was the only way to make a living for which there were no shortcuts These are the drag queens that feature in LEGENDS OF DRAG QUEENS OF A CERTAIN AGE, an excellent new book by Harry James Hanson and Devin Antheus
The project began as a feature on vogue.com in 2019 and profiles over 80 pioneers who sashayed their way into queer history. As well as this it includes fabulous portraits and pearls of wisdom from these legendary entertainers.
Hanson (a creative director and drag performer) told VOGUE “These elders know how to survive a plague, how to bring joy to those around them and how to cultivate resilient communities — and they do it all with style, charisma, and grace” For Hanson, doing the project stemmed from a more personal place. “As a drag artist myself, who didn’t come up within a traditional drag family, I’ve always been fascinated by the way things were ‘before,’ because those stories were never told to me—I had to seek them out.”
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Hanson and Antheus traveled across the entire US to find each city’s local drag icons, but in the end narrowing down the list of who was to make the cut, was not easy “We sought out queens with whom we felt an aesthetic resonance, who looked like they had stories to tell,” says Hanson, adding that they allowed each city to guide them towards their various subjects. “Social media and deep dives played a big role as well,” says Hanson. “I still have a spreadsheet of nearly 100 queens whom I’d really love to work with.”
While each queen in the book differs greatly in style—from Collette LeGrande’s Old Hollywood glamour to Hot Chocolate’s campy wears—the duo says they were all united by one mission: To disrupt. “Drag has a long history of subversion and resistance,” says Antheus. “It draws on diverse lineages and traditions, and yet is ever being re-invented.”
Legends of Drag: Queens of A Certain Age is published by https://www.abramsbooks.com/imprints/cernunnos/
Labels: 2022, book, drag, queer history
