Retro Specs: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
The mother of all drag comedies should be required viewing for everyone.
Retro Specs is an ongoing series of film, TV, and music reviews—all pieces of older media that I’m taking a look at for the first time.
This month’s theme? Classic comedy films.
I knew this movie would be a feel-good watch, but I didn’t expect to be moved coming out of a road comedy about drag queens. And yet, here we are!
It’s wild to know how ahead of its time To Wong Foo was. Think of the environment it came into: released in 1995, when the swath of ‘80s AIDS-related deaths in the U.S. was still on the minds of many—along with the Reagan administration’s grossly homophobic initial response. (Truly, the result was an entire generation of young gay and bi men wiped out; if you’re wondering why there are so few visible queer elders, that’s certainly one reason.) It was pre-Will & Grace and Queer as Folk and The L Word… hell, even pre-Ellen coming out.
This tale about drag queens is more than a classic LGBTQ+ film; it’s also a movie that uses tools of queer liberation to bolster everyday paradigms of femininity. It makes feminine behavior (whether performed by men or by women) both the butt of the jokes and the heart of their resolution.
Tricky terrain, but director Beeban Kidron and writer Douglas Carter Beane pulled it off with withering humor and unflinching commitment to joy.
Here’s the sitch: The elder queer judges of New York City’s “Drag Queen of the Year” contest simply can’t crown only one winner. A trip to California to compete at a national level is awarded between the austere Miss Vida Boheme (Patrick Swayze) and the brash Noxeema Jackson (Wesley Snipes). They take fledgling queen Chi-Chi Rodriguez (John Leguizamo) under their wings before buying a clunker of a Cadillac and heading west.
Inevitably, after a predatory run-in with a cop and in between arguments about what it means to be a true queen, their vehicle breaks down along with their camaraderie. The trio post up at an inn in the small town of Snydersville, where there’s maybe one stoplight and a population who has zero idea how to react to the colorful newcomers. Over a tense weekend, the queens and the townsfolk (including a heartbreaking Stockard Channing and a delightful Blythe Danner) see themselves and each other anew, emerging transformed in the most fabulous of ways.
I love how many layers of comedy there are to play with here. Let’s start with the most meta piece: casting the late, great Patrick Swayze and ubiquitous badass Wesley Snipes as bonafide drag queens. (Please enjoy the original To Wong Foo trailer, which immediately plays on this whiplash-y turn in their careers.)
For the general public, it was a shock to see these two idols of masculinity appear as women—well, as gay men who simply have “way too much fashion sense for one gender”— with no preamble or self-aware wink at the audience. That’s the first and biggest joke: that the public’s expectations were so two-dimensional to begin with. (Or, even more cringeworthy, that viewers thought roles like Vida and Noxeema were somehow beneath them as men.)
The truth is that these guys were hilariously well-suited for this project. Swayze famously trained as a dancer early on, and Snipes had practiced martial arts since childhood. Each skill has roots in a distinctly graceful kind of strength that was excellent prep for wearing heels and sashaying on-count.
I’ll speak to Swayze’s performance in a bit, but I so appreciate that a staple of Snipes’ approach to Noxeema was hard-assed common sense. Where Vida Boheme is a lofty idealist, Noxeema is a realist with survival instinct who needs to see return on her energetic investments (though she’s not above offering help when the spirit moves her).
And listen, the image of Snipes dressed in peak ‘90s mall wear and pigtails while dragging a misogynist dude by the nads across the town square to properly address the local women? That should be commemorated somewhere.
Then there’s the absolute chameleon that is John Leguizamo. Reader, he’s one of those actors I’m always relieved to see pop up in any project. Whatever else is happening, I know we’re at least guaranteed an excellent, multi-faceted performance. Leguizamo’s Chi-Chi is a wild card with a massive emotional center, and it’s a tough role to land gracefully. One-liners aside—you simply can’t beat, “I’m the Latina Marilyn Monroe, I got more legs than a bucket of chicken!”—there’s a vulnerability to his performance that makes it sing.
On that note, I love when a comedy understands how to take itself seriously, and To Wong Foo delivers so many small, profound moments during its wacky journey. One is a now oft-quoted line in the drag community, when Vida and Noxeema first come across Chi-Chi crying in a stairwell. Noxeema bluntly asks, “Little Latin boy in drag—why are you crying?”
It’s a question that answers itself. Chi-Chi is mid-realization of their identity, with few tools and no support. It’s hard to manifest your inner-confidence as a drag queen (or as any ideal version of yourself) when your would-be peers barely bat a lash while calling you, “little Latin boy in drag,” like you’re a tourist playing pretend. (I did clock, though, that Leguizamo starts the film wearing a foundation that’s several shades too pale for his skin tone—a comment on internalized colorism—and ends the film wearing makeup that’s so well-matched, you’d barely know it’s there.)
While we’re talking about unearthing identities, can we address the women of Snydersville? One of the great things about To Wong Foo is that it correctly highlights the thing that bothers homophobes about queer men—their femininity—and uses it as a tool of enlightenment for the women our heroines meet.
I know it’s played for laughs, the idea of drag queens educating small town women about how to demand respect and have “a day with the girls,” but the underlying truth there is pretty damn real. Some women were born, taught, and raised so firmly in alignment with old world, heteronormative standards (read: “Women are made to have babies and be doormats.”) that the idea of taking time to simply enjoy themselves as individuals—not as wives, mothers, or sisters—has never, ever occurred to them.
That brings me to Patrick Swayze’s performance as Miss Vida. I don’t know how he landed on the earnest sitcom mom voice and the “I’m rich, sweetie, make way,” shuffle-walk, but my god, it’s such a fully-realized expression of who that character is at her core: a caretaker who gladly helps others the way her own mother refused to.
It’s a peak moment, then, near the end of the film, when Carol Ann and Vida have a tearful goodbye, having been truly seen and understood by another person so drastically different than themselves. Carol Ann’s parting, “I love you, Miss Vida Boheme!” seems like overkill, but Swayze’s carefully measured reaction makes it deeply-felt: “I’ve waited my whole life to hear those words said to that name.”
To Wong Foo has such inevitable rewatch value. The laughs resonate twice as deep because they’re firmly informed by the challenges of reality, which is the kind of comedy I like best: It may come off a bit extra, but it moves in a highly practical fashion.
For your reference, I leave you with the 4 Steps to Becoming a Drag Queen, per Miss Vida and Auntie Noxy:
Use good thoughts as your sword and shield.
Ignore adversity.
Abide by the rules of love.
Larger than life is just the right size.
Serious question: what is (or what would be) your drag name? Get in the comments!
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