A line of men wearing tight pants and vibrant-colored shirts stretched from the Majestic door all the way to the Capitol for the sold out “RuPaul’s Drag Race: Battle of the Seasons” show Tuesday night. With crisp, orange entrance band in hand (or rather on wrist), I walk to the end of the line, all the while observing the diverse crowd. Immediately I realize this will be unlike any event I have covered in the past.
Women with short hair and baggy pants are mixed throughout the line, along with the average college students and sorority girls. Older men with soft faces link arms and share scarves as the crowd awaits in frigid temperatures for the Majestic to let everyone in. Every type of person you could possibly imagine, ranging from an eight-year-old girl to a 50-year-old muscular masculine man to a drag queen with a face full of make up and a tight sparkly dress, waits anxiously in the cold.
When the doors open, people in the front begin to cheer. As I stand with my scarf wrapped around my face and toes nearly frozen to the ground, I am thankful but nervous to get into the warmth of the theater. Although I’ve seen “RuPaul’s Drag Race” on LOGO TV numerous times, I have no idea what to expect. For those who don’t know, the show is like America’s Next Top Model for drag queens, and I am about to see the best of the best.
The opening act, an Adam Lambert look-alike, sings “be who you are” as I make my way toward the stage. It isn’t until later in the show that I realize how significant and meaningful those words are to this crowd.
Finally, the girls start coming out on stage — and damn, they are hot. With apparel tighter than a speedo and no bulge to be found, you would never guess they were men in drag.
By the time the drag show begins, the place is packed. Screams and cheers accompany the booming EDM bass. Drag performances include dancing, lip-synching and comedy. Anything is possible: Ivy Winters dresses as a butterfly and sings on stilts; Sharon Needles makes an entrance in a coffin and performs a song from her upcoming CD; Manila Luzon sings her original jam “Buy My T-Shirt” as she throws shirts to crowd members willing to buy them. For each performance the intensity of the crowd rises. At the beginning of the night the audience members threw $1 and $5 bills at the performers, and at the end, an enthusiastic man held up three $20s for his favorite queen.
In one skit drag queens grab contestants from the audience. Even though Plan B’s drag queen, Karizma Mirage, is one of the chosen contestants, a different contestant stands out in particular. It is a timid and scrawny man wearing a plaid button up, khaki pants and some brown penny loafers. He seems shocked he was pulled onto the stage, and his face flushes red once he finds out what the contestants have to do; each contestant is paired with a drag queen that has to dress him or her to fit the show. Immediately after the pairings are made, clothes start flying off.
By the end of the challenge, the timid man is wearing nothing but boxers and duct tape. He has a hand on his hip, ending the challenge nearly nude, proud and confident with a rose between his teeth. At this moment I felt the unity and togetherness filling the Majestic.
The night was filled with fun, laughing, dancing and unlimited entertainment. Individuals weren’t shoved into a stereotype or appointed a label. Whether straight, drag, hipster, lesbian, gay, elderly, bi-sexual, transgender, masculine, feminine, sorority girl or just the average Joe, everyone was united into one community: “Be who you are.”
