The Queen | |
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Directed by | Frank Simon |
Produced by |
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Narrated by | Jack Doroshow |
Cinematography |
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Edited by |
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Distributed by | Grove Press |
Release date |
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Running time | 68 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Queen is a 1968 American documentary film directed by Frank Simon and narrated by Flawless Sabrina. It depicts the experiences of the drag queens organizing and participating in the 1967 Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest held at New York City's Town Hall. [1] [2] The film was screened at the International Critics' Week section of the 1968 Cannes Film Festival; however, the festival was ultimately curtailed and ended due to ongoing civil unrest in France before any awards could be given out. [3]
First released in the United States in June 1968 to generally positive reviews, it was subsequently screened in France (November 1968), Netherlands (1969), Denmark (1969), and Finland (1969). The film was revived in January 2013 at New York Film Forum, followed by a 4K restoration screened during the 2019 Melbourne International Film Festival. [4]
In 2020, Kino Lorber released a Blu-ray of the restored version of The Queen, with bonus additional footage, an interview with Flawless Sabrina, and Queens at Heart as additional features. [5] [6]
Jack, a 24-year-old gay man living in New York and working as a drag queen named Flawless Sabrina, is the mistress of ceremonies for the 1967 Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest. The competition operates on a points system: a maximum of five points each for walk, talk, bathing suit, gown, make-up and hair-do; and ten points for beauty.
In between rehearsing and performing, the contestants discuss topics such as draft boards, sexual identity, sex reassignment surgery, transgender identities, and being a drag queen. One contestant, Pepper LaBeija recounts receiving a draft notice and being turned away because of his feminine appearance, despite requesting to serve and protect his country.
Jack's protégé, Richard, performs under the name Rachel Harlow and enters the contest. Also competing is Crystal LaBeija (who would later become the founder of the House of LaBeija). Rachel and Crystal both make it into the top five, with each finalist completing a final runway walk into the audience, which includes Andy Warhol, George Plimpton and Terry Southern. [7] Crystal places fourth, to her displeasure, and storms off the stage. Rachel is ultimately crowned as the winner.
Some contestants are shown protesting Rachel's win; Crystal states that the contest was fixed and that she may sue Sabrina. As they leave the building, Crystal runs into Rachel and Sabrina on the stairs where Sabrina denies the allegations. The film closes on Rachel out of drag, walking through the Port Authority Bus Terminal and twirling her crown on one hand.
The documentary originally opened to generally positive reviews in June 1968, when first released in the United States, with subsequent releases across Europe in 1968 and 1969. [8]
In January 2013, The Queen was revived at the Film Forum in New York, then restored in 2019 by Kino Lorber for screenings at the IFC Center and Melbourne International Film Festival. [9]
In a 1968 The New York Times review, Renata Adler called the film an "extraordinary documentary" that "shows us another America." [2] Andrew Sarris from Village Voice stated "The drag queen contestants are eminently likable in curiously peripheral ways."
In a retrospective piece written after the film's restoration, Jerry Portwood of Rolling Stone described the film as "extraordinary because it captures so much, doubling as a time capsule of a generation's innocence and fashion-forward sophistication. You can tell why it functioned as a template for many future gender-nonconforming people looking for some sort of pre-internet guide through the confusing maze of sexuality and gender." [10]
The film's concluding scene featuring Crystal LaBeija has led to The Queen become a "cult favourite"; Crystal's speech was sampled in the track "Ambience 001" in Frank Ocean's album Endless , and drag queen Aja (who would later join the House of LaBeija) impersonated LaBeija in season three of RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars . [4]
The Queen has often been compared to Paris Is Burning , a documentary focusing on the New York City drag ball scene of the 1980s, which includes in its cast members of the House of LaBeija. [4] [11]
Drag is a performance of exaggerated femininity, masculinity, or other forms of gender expression, usually for entertainment purposes. Drag usually involves cross-dressing. A drag queen is someone who performs femininely and a drag king is someone who performs masculinely. Performances often involve comedy, social satire, and at times political commentary. The term may be used as a noun as in the expression in drag or as an adjective as in drag show.
Paris Is Burning is a 1990 American documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it.
William Roscoe Leake, better known as Willi Ninja, was an American dancer and choreographer known for his appearance in the documentary film Paris Is Burning.
The Ballroom scene is an African-American and Latino underground LGBTQ+ subculture that originated in New York City. Beginning in the late 20th century, Black and Latino drag queens organized their own pageants in opposition to racism experienced in established drag queen pageant circuits. Though racially integrated for the participants, the judges of these circuits were mostly white people. While the initial establishment of Ballroom mimicked these drag queen pageants, the inclusion of gay men and trans women would transform the Ballroom scene into what it is today: a multitude of categories in which all LGBTQ+ people may participate. Attendees "walk" these categories for trophies and cash prizes. Most participants in Ballroom belong to groups known as "houses", where chosen families of friends form relationships and communities separate from their families of origin, from which they may be estranged.
Angie Xtravaganza was a co-founder and Mother of the House of Xtravaganza. A prominent transgender performer in New York City's gay ball culture, Xtravanganza featured in the acclaimed 1990 documentary film Paris is Burning.
Pepper LaBeija was an American drag queen and fashion designer. She was known as "the last remaining queen of the Harlem drag balls".
World of Wonder Productions is an American production company founded in 1991 by filmmakers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey. Based in Los Angeles, California, the company specializes in documentary television and film productions with a key focus on LGBTQ topics. Together, Barbato and Bailey have produced programming through World of Wonder for HBO, Bravo, HGTV, Showtime, BBC, Netflix, MTV and VH1, with credits including the Million Dollar Listing docuseries, RuPaul's Drag Race, and the documentary filmsThe Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000) and Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (2016).
How Do I Look is a 2006 American documentary directed by Wolfgang Busch. The film chronicles ball culture in Harlem and Philadelphia over a ten-year period.
Drag pageantry is a developed form of pageantry for female impersonators, drag queens, and trans women, styled after traditional beauty pageants or contests for cisgender women. It has also evolved into a pageantry for male impersonators, drag kings and trans men.
RuPaul's Drag Race is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, WOW Presents Plus, VH1 and, beginning with the fifteenth season, MTV. The show documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar". RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. Contestants are judged by a panel that includes RuPaul, Michelle Visage, an alternating third main judge of either Carson Kressley, Ross Mathews, or Ts Madison, and one or more guest judges, who critique their progress throughout the competition. The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song "Drag Race" both have a drag-racing theme.
Michelle Handelman is an American contemporary artist, filmmaker, and writer who works with live performance, multiscreen installation, photography and sound. Coming up through the years of the AIDS crisis and Culture Wars, Handelman has built a body of work that explores the dark and uncomfortable spaces of queer desire. She confronts the things that provoke collective fear and denial – sexuality, death, chaos. She directed the ground-breaking feature documentary on the 1990s San Francisco lesbian S/M scene BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes & Sadomasochism(1995), described by IndieWire as “a queer classic ahead of its time, a vital archive of queer history.” Her early work included 16mm black and white experimental films combined with performance. She is also known for her video installations Hustlers & Empires (2018), Irma Vep, The Last Breath (2013-2015), and Dorian, A Cinematic Perfume(2009-2011). In 2011, she was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for her film and video work.
Paris Dupree was an American drag performer and documentary participant featured in Jennie Livingston's 1990 documentary, Paris is Burning, which was named after Dupree's annual ball.
Flawless Sabrina, also known as Mother Flawless Sabrina, was an American LGBT activist, drag queen, performer, and actress, based in New York City. Flawless Sabrina was a pioneer for transgender people and drag queens not only in the mainstream, heterosexual society, but within the gay society as well, where transgender people remained heavily stigmatized. Sabrina lived in New York near Central Park from the 1960s until her death.
Venus Nadya Oshun, known professionally as Aja Miyake-Mugler, better known mononymously as Aja, is an American rapper, reality television personality and drag queen best known for competing on the ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race and on the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars.
Crystal LaBeija was an American drag queen and trans woman who co-founded the House of LaBeija in 1968. The House is often credited as starting the house system in ball culture. She became a mother figure for homeless LGBTQ youth.
The RoyalHouse of LaBeija is a prominent drag family founded by Crystal LaBeija and Lottie LaBeija in 1968. Crystal and Lottie established the House of LaBeija in response to the racially oppressive drag pageant system of 1960s America. Their first event was called "Crystal & Lottie LaBeija presents the first annual House of Labeija Ball at Up the Downstairs Case on West 115th Street & 5th Avenue in Harlem, NY." This is thought to be the birth of house culture within the ballroom scene—as it is known today. Houses serve as alternative families, primarily for gay, gender nonconforming and transgender youth and others who feel ostracized from conventional support systems.
Queens at Heart is an American short film described as both a documentary and an exploitation film in which four trans women are interviewed about their lives. It was produced in the mid-1960s. The film was digitally preserved in 2009 by the UCLA Film and Television Archive as part of the Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation. Andrea James and Jenni Olson were among those who worked on its restoration.
Rachel Anne Sennott is an American actress, comedian and screenwriter. She is best known for her starring roles in the films Shiva Baby (2020), Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022), and Bottoms (2023) and in the HBO drama series The Idol (2023).
The first season of Canada's Drag Race premiered on July 2, 2020. The cast was announced on May 14, 2020. The winner of the first season of Canada’s Drag Race was Priyanka, with Rita Baga and Scarlett BoBo as runners-up.