RuPaul's Drag Race ReCap! Snatches, Corsets, and Drag OH MY!!!!!!!!

Ah yes, there is nothing better on earth than adding some snatches to drag and corsets *he he*

This week's RuPaul's Drag Race main challenge was the ever polarizing Snatch Game--some people love them, some people hate them.

Wherever you fall along the Snatch Game's love/hate continuum, one thing is for sure. The Snatch Games are here to stay. So my fellow writers, bloggers, dragsters, and corsetieres . . .

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Let the Snatch Games begin!!!

Read all about it at guest blogger spot at www.corsetconnection.com!! Click here!

RuPaul's Drag Race + Corset Connection +Writer Brandi Amara Skyy = The

It's that time of year again for FULL ON fabulousity!!! Drag, corsets, shade, camp, and glamour OH MY!!! YEP it's time for RuPaul's Drag Race and this time its personal!! One of Dallas' own, Alyssa Edwards, is on the show and she came to COM PETE!!

SICK O NEEN!

This season Corset Connection (who has been the official corset sponsor for RuPaul's Drag U) is NOW the official sponsor of RuPaul's Drag Race! Yes HUNTY, we have arrived!

i have also traveled with Corset Connection as their official drag and corsets blogger! Every week i will be giving you the Tea on all things drag, corsets, and, yes, shade.

Check out my Episode one blog, "RuPaullywood--Let the Drag Games Begin!! (And May the RuPoods Be Ever In Your Favor."



Let me know what you think in the comments section!

Till next week!

The Female Drag Anthology Deadline--EXTENDED!!

Happy New Year dragster and drag lovers! i hope your year has gotten off to a fabulous start!

i received so many emails in December from people wanting to submit to the female drag anthology, but they were unable to make the deadline because of the chaos of the holidays. Not one to want to miss any FABULOUSITY, i decided to extend the deadline!! YEA!!! Which means you have until April 30, 2013 to get your drag stories in!!!

In case you need a refresher, check out the call for submissions here.

May your days be dragful and gay!

The Original Faux Queen - Miss Piggy

Dear Miss Piggy,

YOU had me "moi!"

i remember when we first met, you were a young piglet and came via postal mail in the form of a comic book, "The Muppet Babies." i saw you once again when you made your second big screen movie, The Great Muppet Caper. You were doing the most incredible water ballet in the fiercest costumes and i couldn't keep my eyes off you. i had to figure out a way to be just as fierce as you were. 

And then it happened!
i found you!
In spandex no less . ..

 

i did your workout like it was my own religion. i hung your pull-out poster on my wall as inspiration. i studied the record cover like it was a treasure map. i wished on star every night in hopes of adding even just a speckle of your flawlessness into my life.



But i still didn't feel any different. i still didn't feel glamorous. i was still no closer to your fabulousity than when i first started. Devastated, i did the unthinkable . . . i sold my record in a garage sale. i KNOW. i know. i was hurt.

Soon after albumgate, you wrote THE book that changed my life and became my bible:

WIGS!!?!?

FASHION?!?!?

i was on a roll to being a diva!

But life happens. i became a teenager and i forgot all about the world of one diva pig because i was too distracted by the world of clothes, shoes, boys as drag divas, and love. Yes love. i had lost sight of the origins of my flamboyantly diva self.

i had forgotten you.

But you, my darling diva, will not be denied. You did NOT forget about me.

20 years later you reappeared when i least expected it--in a place that i would have least expected to find you--a vintage record store.

You had come back to me!!! You had forgiven me for selling you in the first place and for forgetting about you. We were back together. 

i brought you home and dusted off my bible. As i listened and read, i started to remember all the reasons that i fell in love with you in the first place: because you did not let your appearance dictate who were were, because you didn't take any crap from anyone (not even your Kermie), because you were always a lady despite being born a pig, and you did all with great style, grace, and attitude. 

And then it hit me.  

After all those years of trying to be you, i realized that i found you through just being me. You were never going to really tell me your secret to your flawless self, i had to go out and find that divaness for myself by myself. i realized that THAT'S what you were trying to tell me all along when you said, "the secret of getting that marvelous present you always wanted is to go out and buy it yourself." --i finally did that. i went out and created myself into the marvelous present/queen that i always wanted to be. My queendom was the only present i needed. i just had to need and want that queendom so badly enough that i would go out and find if for myself. And i did.

i still do.

We are kindred spirits, Miss Piggy. i, like you, am a little speckle of drag glitter-glamour where you would least expect to find it. 

kissy kissy from your forever devoted subject,



moi

How can you not LIVE for this FLAWLESSNESS?!?!?!?

Want more Miss Piggy fabulousity? Check out this amazing website: http://www.misspiggyfans.com/

Faux Queens the Book: Working Introduction

So with some tweeks of course, here is a sneak peak of the introduction to my work on faux queens.
___________________________________________________________________

    It’s a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I’d be a drag queen.
                                                                                               Dolly Parton (qtd. in Stevens)


     I was seven years old and I was obsessed with Dorothy’s ruby red slippers. I watched The Wizard of Oz over and over again fast forwarding to the parts that featured the shoes. I needed those shoes in my life, and I was determined to have them.  I rummaged through the all-too-big hand-me-down heels my mother gave me when she was finished with them and found the perfect pair to prep for transformation: a caramel-latte-colored, faux snake-skin, three-inch heel. I asked my mother to take me to the craft store where I had her purchase five tubes of red glitter. Armed with this glitter and an unstoppable imagination, I layered the entire shoe with Elmer’s glue and then covered them completely with those tiny red prisms of magic until I had created my very own pair of ruby red slippers. Fast forward to 2009: I am playing a modern-day Dorothy in a drag show and I am watching my drag mother, Jenna Skyy, somewhat in disbelief, as she transforms a pair of white knee high boots in almost the same way I had: red spray paint, spray adhesive, and buckets of red glitter into those same shoes I had created for myself over twenty years ago. At that moment I knew there was no real distinction, save for biology, between me and my drag mother—I, like her, had always been a queen.


     As far back as I can remember, I have always had an affinity for all things considered to be and accepted as gendered feminine/female excessive. From Dorothy’s ruby red slippers, to my obsession and need to be Miss Piggy—the way she could change her look at the drop of a hat (sometimes literally), I have never been one to shy away from all things shiny, sparkly, and rhinestoned.  So I am not surprised to find myself surrounded by books on drag queens, hyper-feminine female performance, and any/all things excessively marked feminine. Still, despite however closely and deeply connected I was or might have felt towards the drag queen community, there was still one obvious and blaring question that I couldn’t escape: how and where does a biological female (cisfemale/ciswoman) who loves and feels she is all things drag fit into this gay male-dominated community? And then, on a randomly ordinary kind of day, I stumbled upon my answer: in the Wikipedia drag queen entry nestled in-between the various definitions and descriptions was a new term that I, in all my years in the drag, academic, and LGBT communities, had never heard: faux queen. “A faux queen or cisqueen is a female performance artist who adopts the style typical of male drag queens. A faux queen may be jocularly described as ‘a drag queen trapped in a woman’s body,’ though few are female to male transsexuals” (Faux Queen 1).  Needless to say, this discovery set me off on a firestorm of Googling, YouTubing, and endless searches for literature, pictures, articles, personal testimonies—ANYTHING that would manifest and deepen my understanding of this new subset of  drag. My searches led me to small bouts of victory and sporadic revelations: I learned there was a faux queen pageant in San Francisco that began in 1996 and ended 2005 (where was I!?!?) and that more cisfemales than I could have possibly imagined claimed, right along with me, to both feel and identify as a “drag queen trapped in a woman’s body.” But it also led me to more questions and new obstacles: why wasn’t there more literature and scholarship on us? Why and how could I have not heard about these gender performance rebels in all my involvement with my local LGBT and drag communities and academic pursuits?


     This work is an exploratory journey into the world of drag: the art, the illusion, the queens, and how the cisfemales who love them make sense in it. While ciswomen performing various forms of femininity, sexuality, and women’s roles is not new, cisfemales performing drag in the gay male drag world is emerging as something unique. Among the various forms of cisfemale drag are female dragging male—drag kinging, woman dragging woman—burlesque or neo-burlesque, and woman dragging man dragging woman—the faux queen. While I touch upon notions of burlesque, particularly neo burlesque, I am not equipped nor do I have the experience and knowledge in this art form to begin to hypothesize what female/drag performances and identities mean to other cisfemale performers of drag. While I take into account and believe these gender performances carry their own gender, political, and social connotations that bring with them their own unique perspectives and relationship to drag, I do so only in relationship to the drag world and to faux queens. What follows is a narrowly focused snapshot into the complex panoramic world of faux queens. My ultimate goal is to illustrate how the faux queen relates to and transforms drag and gender; I argue that the very act of a ciswoman performing as a gay man performing as a “woman” and the choice to more closely align and identify with a drag queen’s version of femininity (what I call flamboyant femininity) is exactly the kind of transgression that queer studies, academia, and the LGBT community need to embrace in order to expand their definitions and beliefs about gender construction, gender performance, and gender identity.  My work on drag is about carving out and creating new spaces between preexisting ones for myself and others that I could not find in anyone else’s theories, scholarship, and media that surveys women, gender performance theory, gender identity, and drag.  

Faux Queens - The Book

Here's a sneak peek into my book in-progress about faux queens. This is the as-of-now preface--i am more than sure that it will go through many more edits but i wanted to show you where i'm starting from. Drop me a comment and let me know what you think!!

The construction of a written body of work is really no different than the art of illusion: start with an empty page—a blank face. You begin by playing with the general layout, gathering your ideas, main points, and (perhaps) quotations onto the page–layering foundation on the face, a bit of shimmery highlight, and a gradient of shades for contouring. You write yourself in(to) the work (whatever that means to you); after all, the personal is political—add a burst of color on the eyelid and your signature trademark (mine is a random rhinestone on my face). You then incorporate the scholarship and opinions of others whose works both support and challenge your own—create your body shape by adding foam hips, “tucking,” and a stuffed bra (or prosthetic breast plate—know in the drag world as a “tit bib”). You top it all off with an overarching conclusion or “ending”—throw on your highest pair of heels, wig/hairpiece, and your one-of-a-kind handmade costume and viola! Fiercely flawless, you have just attempted and completed both your first written body of work and your first “drag body” of work. However, we know that neither is as simple as my analogy might suggest. Complications occur: you find that your writing contradicts itself; you try to blend colors on your eyelid that don’t work well together; you can’t put your ideas into words let alone get them on paper; you confuse inspired by with replication, and creative freedom in your makeup for painting hard.[1]

Sometimes colors, materials, and ingredients do not blend well together—oil-based make-up with water-based cream, spray adhesive on bare skin, metal-set rhinestone jewelry with a chiffon gown. Other times you just need the right kind of tool/brush—one specifically made for shading—to help foster the blending process. In this work, I attempt to be both the brush and its strokes as I blend vantage points within subjects of drag, the drag queen, and its newly emerging component: the faux queen. Bridging, blending, finding points of connection within the multifaceted (and heavily opinionated) world of drag is not necessarily easy, nor are drag’s ideas often conducive to one another; however, I feel that finding these moments and places of connection is necessary in order to explain and show this world —a world which is very standoffish to outsiders—in the most panoramic view possible, to the communities that need it the most: queer studies, academia more generally, and the LGBT community. It is from a place of honor and respect for all the drag queens who have opened their art to me that I begin the blending process of the various hues that make up the rainbow of our community/myself: the student trying to (creatively) find academic form and function amidst all this abstract tulle,  glam, and AB Swarovski crystal gowns and shoes; the voice and performance of the drag queen trapped in my body who joins the gay male drag community in love and admiration, not competition and/or appropriation; and the bio-female who is so attracted to this world of gay male drag that she has dedicated her life and this entire work trying to find her and other’s home/place within it.

  

[1] In the drag world, the phrase “painting hard” is used when the make-up is not blended properly, i.e. the make-up wears the queen not the other way around. Color, texture, design . . . anything that the mind can image is game in drag make-up; however, the key to the perfect “mug” is to blend it all together. (“Mug” is drag slang for face.)

Drag Queens on the Capitol in Austin, Texas!!

My friend, Kai Lee Mykels, and a group of other queens got together for the second annual Stonewall rally in Austin Texas . . . on the Capitol . . . in drag.

What follows is an amazing visual testament to the many sides and faces of drag: the glamour, the fun, the camaraderie, the celebration, and, yes, the political activism. Being political doesn't stop when we, as queens, put on some make-up, a wig, and a dress. On the contrary. Drag's very nature situates us within political and social contexts, commentaries, and statements. The queens in this picture embody and reflect much of the same political and social gumption and fearlessness that those queens who began the Stonewall riots did.

Texas is NOT an LGBTQ friendly state. Just because it's 2012 and we, on the surface, appear to be making political strides doesn't guarantee that in our everyday lives we, as a society, have progressed beyond the hatred, harassment, and homicide that was the reality before Stonewall. In March of 2012, mother Wanda Derby in Fort Worth Texas beat her son's boyfriend with a cane because they were gay. In the city that i call home and who's streets i roam as a flamboyant and PROUD gay, 2 men were attacked and beaten with BASEBALL BATS. Baseball bats, people. This past June in my hometown of Corpus Christi, young lesbian couple Mary Kristene Chapa and Mollie Olgin were shot in the head. Chapa was in critical condition and Olgin lost her life. The cops said "there was no sign of a hate crime."

And in the very city that these queens took this picture and on Austin's PRIDE weekend, Mike Soret and Andrew Oppleman were on their way to get pizza when a man picked a fight with them and began pounded them with his fists. This happened a week ago today. That could have been you. That could have been me. That could have very well been those queens who were photographed in front of the Capitol of Texas celebrating the birth of our movement that has allowed our community to be open and freely gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer and remembering that it wasn't always so. And reflecting on the fact that it's not always so now.

Let me clarify: i'm not saying that the trials and tribulations of LGBTQ people are exactly the same as they were back in 1969. We have come a long way. And yes, we are making strides. What i am saying is that hatred of LGBTQ people and the very real consequences of that hatred still exists.

So, as a queer lesbian gay drag faux queen i am thankful and forever grateful. Thankful to be a part of a lineage of bravery, sacrifice, camaraderie, and love. Yes, love. There is a lot of love in our rainbow village. Grateful that there are still queens, as well as others, who are willing to put themselves out there for ALL of us: flamboyantly queer, those who wish to assimilate, those just coming out, those still in the closet, and gay republicans. i am grateful for the queens of the past, the one's in the present, and the many more of the future for their endless bravery of putting on a dress and heels in a society (and a community at times) that doesn't always see drag queens as the invaluable and revolutionary beings that they are. 

This post didn't start off in the manner in which it became; my intention was to post an amazing picture of some drag queens that caught my attention on Facebook and that i connected to for reasons that i didn't quit understand.

i understand them now.

Reno Winston, Samira Sacriste Aguinaga, Robbie Foster, Althea Trix, Kara Foxx Paris, Nadine Hughes, Kai Lee Mykels, Pannica Tack, and Reagan Reynolds shine on you crazy diamonds! And thank you. i am so grateful for you taking that extra (flawlessly heeled) step.

i am humbled and proud to be a part of the drag family.

~b.

female drag anthology call for submissions - revised

so i have redrafted the call for submissions to the new drag anthology i'm editing. since i've redrafted it, i have received so many great and exciting responses. read the revised call below or click on the link.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - NEW ANTHOLOGY ON FEMALE DRAG PERFORMERS
Calling ALL Performers of “Feminine” Drag: Faux Queens, Burlesquers, Bio Queens, Femme Dragsters, Female-Female Impersonators, and Drag Queens![1]

Title: TBD

Who: We are looking for female identified individuals who love performing “feminine” drag including but not limited to: bio-queens, female-female impersonators, high femme dragsters, burlesque, faux queens, drag queens, etc. If you are performing as a drag queen or in woman drag, we want to hear from you!

About the project:  This anthology will explore drag from the not-often-written about or discussed female perspective. In majority of drag arenas, female performers are frequently over-looked, undervalued, and are often not  considered to be doing drag because of their choice to drag their birth gender as opposed to its opposite. But over the past few years, female dragsters have slowly begun to emerge, impact, and fashion their places in discourses of drag, gender performance, and queer consciousness. We want this anthology to create a tangible space in which we, in all our drag forms, come together to tell our stories, share our experiences, analyze ourselves in our art, and help pave the way for other female performers. Our goal is that this anthology ignites a dialogue that bridges us to one another, introduces us into discourses of gender performativity and gender identity, and ultimately deepens our connection to the fabulously flawless world of drag.

                                         

What we are looking for: Everything!! We want to engage with all aspects of women performing drag and highlight our diverse voices within it: our personal definitions, our relationships (if any) with drag queens, our lived and/or academic theories, our drag personas and how they developed, and our insatiable need to perform femininity on stage. But we also want to touch upon what goes on behind the scenes by considering questions pivotal to the female drag and drag community: is there something deeper that  bio-women need to understand before proclaiming, “I want to be a drag queen” and/or claim their place in drag? What does the emergence of female identified performers in the world of drag mean for traditional drag queens and drag theory? Is it necessary to be a lesbian and/or queer in order to perform drag? Some other ideas that could be explored:

·         Personal stories and essays on why/how you came to drag

·         Why did you choose the identifier that you did to describe your performance of drag?

·         What does drag mean to you?

·         How would you define the drag that you do?

·         Poetry about your life in drag

·         How have you been perceived by the drag community?

·         Your experiences in the drag community

·         Some of the reactions to your performances

·         Does the drag community in your area embrace what you do?

·         Funny stories, the craziest thing that’s happen to you on/off stage, worst performance, favorite performances

·         Do you believe there’s a difference between all the various female performances of drag, i.e. burlesque, faux, and traditional drag queen drag? Why or Why not?

·         Is your drag performance also your identity?

·         What inspires you? Who are your biggest influences?

·         When and how did you first learn about the female drag community?

·         Tips for those new to the world of the drag. Best advice?

·         Has your acceptance within the drag community changed because of the way you identify?

·         For the bio-female, can/is the desire to be a drag queen a transgender space? Why or why not?

·         Do you have a drag mother? If so, how did that relationship come about?

These are all just ideas to get your creative drag juices flowing! Please don’t limit yourself with this list! We want your experiences, your creativity, and your words. We would also love pictures of your performances, your drag mother, your first time in drag . . . send it all! (But please don’t forget to include your name—drag or real—and some detail about the pictures.) Please forward this call for submissions to any and every one you think would be interested.
               

Anthology information: Publication date will Summer 2013 with a to-be-determined publisher.  We will keep you posted on the project status.

Submission Guidelines: Please include a short bio of yourself. Email your submissions to: submissions@fauxqueens.com or mail them to: Female Drag Anthology, PO Box 195212, Dallas, TX 75219.

Submission Deadline: January 1, 2013

Please feel free to send any questions, comments, and/or ideas to:

baskyy@fauxqueens.com

For more information on faux queens and/or to join our virtual community, please visit: www.fauxqueens.com and/or www.facebook.com/fauxqueens.

---

[1] This call was originally titled “The Faux Queen Anthology.” However, we received a lot of emails about wanting to submit, but being unsure if this anthology included their performance or identity because they didn’t necessarily identify as a faux queen. So we have modified the call to reflect the anthology’s inclusivity that wasn’t adequately portrayed in the initial call. If you consider what you do drag, then we want to hear about it!!

http://www.fauxqueens.com/female-drag-anthology/

drag queens, rhinestones, corsets OH MY!!

i'm sooo excited to announce that i'm guest blogging for THE corset hook-up for RuPaul's Drag U - Corset Connection!!! what could be better than drag queens and corsets?

check out the blog here

Please make sure to leave some good vibes & comments on the blog - I'm aiming to be THE blogger :) xoxo, b

the faux queen anthology cfs

sooo...i've been working on various projects that relate to my life as a drag queen trapped in a woman's body and i'm uber-excited to announce the call for submissions for my latest project: the faux queen anthology! Since putting it out there in the internet universe i have gotten some great responses! i'm looking forward to connecting (and helping others connect) to all those obsessed with rhinestones!
Follow the rainbow linked road here for the full CFS: The Faux Queen Anthology CFS
To keep up with the project or to see what the hell i've been up to connect with me on facebook, twitter, and linkedin.
To follow the fabulous world of faux queens visit www.fauxqueens.com and/or our facebook page faux queens.