May this day come again, this gay columnist thought. Two colleagues, older, heterosexual men, who ask me whether we should not say a few words about the death of the British drag queen The Vivienne last Sunday at the age of only 32. To my surprise, a news item appeared on the NOS website the day before. Well, 24 whole hours after her death took over my entire Instagram timeline, but still.
Look, I’ve known who The Vivienne was for years – real name James Lee Williams. I’m gay, I love drag, I’m an eager audience. I already knew who she was before she became known in 2019 as the winner of the first British season of the now mega-successful TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race. I still watch it sometimes her great impersonation of Donald Trump back during that season. I still quote from the videos she made with her American drag colleague Monét X Change for Netflix’s YouTube channel made. Very sharp, very witty, very British.
As American comedian John Mulaney once said: ‘I mean a lot to a small group of people‘. This also applied to drag queens for a long time. RuPaul’s Drag Race has become a kind of homosexual rite of passage, and I was, as was also true of my homosexuality in general, not early adopter. When I started watching the show in 2016, it was no longer niche, but nothing compared to the cultural phenomenon it is today. In the US it is in its seventeenth regular season, there have been several seasons in the UK, in France, in Spain, in Thailand, in the Philippines, in the Netherlands. Drag queens sell out arenas, get major roles in TV series and, in short, no longer stand as glorified clowns at the bottom of the cultural pyramid.
The Vivienne also far transcended the label of drag queen. She has appeared in several TV shows and has appeared in musicals in recent years, as Elphaba The Wizard of Oz and as The Childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Textbook example of how drag has gone from lowbrow to highbrow, of respect for the art form, of exceptional talent in her case, broader than a nice layer of make-up and a good outfit.
Of course I knew that drag has become mainstream, American politicians have made that clear in recent years with their fact-free crusade. And I knew that it was no longer just something to cheer about with twenty gays in a gay bar, like at an Oranje match.
And yet I thought it was special that the death of The Vivienne made it to the NOS, that my colleagues also had it on the radar. Although the reason was so sad, there was also something beautiful about it.
Frank Huiskamp replaces Frits Abrahams this week.