90’s homosexual teen nostalgia: I think the first blatantly gay movie I saw as a kid was “To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar”. It kind of blew my mind at the time and I took a lot of what I saw in that movie as gospel.

I revisited it the other night, and knowing what I know now, it is a downright WACKADOO appropriation bordering of intentionally broken telephone account of drag culture, not to mention - A FIRESTORM OF LOGISTICAL ERRORS.

Number’s 1 through 100 - WHY WOULD THEY HAVE TRAVELLED IN DRAG?!?! They wouldn’t have!!! They weren’t transexuals and were adamantly NOT transvestites, so there is no reason that they would have made a cross-continental trip in drag, let alone packed contempo-casual outfits suitable for rural wear-and-tear!!! That BLATANTLY misled me as a child. 

Also - Swayze, Snipes and Leguizamo were hardly dainty. They were linebackers. Maybe this was intentional, to discourage any gender confusion in middle America, although I’m sure there were still plenty of middle-American pigfuckers that didn’t know what was going on. 

Something else - THEY NEVER WOULD HAVE TORN UP THAT MAP. I don’t care how disgruntled you are visiting your upper-class hometown, seeing your mother on your old front porch, having her look at you as if you were a terrifying ghost and fleeing back inside, Patrick “Vida Bohemme” Swayze - you would NEVER have torn up that map!

Also, the town of Snydersville/Spidersville had a population of exactly 29.

Also also, the townswomen include an especially Gwynethly-looking Blythe Danner, the mother from “A Christmas Story” and Kathy Geiss. 

Also also also, I only NOW get what RuPaul’s character ‘Rachel Tensions’ name means. It just sounded like a punchy name when I was 13, as I was not even aware that racial tensions were a ‘thing’.

That said, it’s still Wesley Snipes’ best work. For real. Shoulda got Oscars for that shit. When him and Vida get tied for Miss New York or whatever, I still DIE when he says “Wushemean TAI?”…

That also said, the International indie call that it was a Hollywood response to, “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” was much, much more authentic, effective, and perhaps most importantly, logistically sound. I mean.

But in the end - To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar - more like To Wong Foor, Thanks For NOTHING, Julie Newmar.

And by that I mean everything. Especially the soundtrack. Featuring the likes of Tom Jones, Chaka Khan and a reunion of the original lineup of LaBelle. Which I totally bought.

Turn it out,

—- Aj