There is nothing like watching Tandi Iman Dupree drop from the ceiling. The first notes of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘I Need A Hero’ pound through the nightclub. A muscular Superman crosses the stage, scrutinising the crowd. The song builds. Suddenly, there is a downwards flash. Out of nowhere, Tandi has dived from the ceiling, and landed into perfect splits. She effortlessly pounces into an energetic dance routine, strutting in her slinky Wonder Woman outfit.
Even though the footage (from a Miss Gay Black America pageant in 2001) is grainy, the feeling that this performance conjures – of prideful elation, of absolute awe – pierces through. It is quintessentially drag.
The meteoric rise of RuPaul’s Drag Race, a televised drag queen competition in which queens lip synch, death-drop, and stomp the runway, has allowed millions to bask in this feeling. RuPaul’s Drag Race has become a bona fide phenomenon.
Plastique Tiara out of and in drag
But this success has been hard-earned: the story of drag, especially in America, is not a brief one. It is a history of the city, of queer cowardice and courage, of racism and resistance, of marginalisation and community.