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More “out” than ever: New York’s drag scene
Girls’ Night Out
- What explains the crossover appeal of cross-dressers?
Photos and interviews by John Bentham
Excerpt: What is it about a man in mascara and a sexy cocktail dress? Whatever it is, the fascination is enduring: Drag queens have been part of the counterculture gay scene for as long as there has been such a thing. French avant-gardist Brassaļ, for example, was capturing faux “ladies” with his camera in underground Paris in the 1930s. But today’s drag queen scene is less underground than ever, with performers gaining more bookings in “legitimate”, if still edgy, clubs and cabarets from Budapest to Brighton, U.K., from New York City to Las Vegas. Audiences are now likely to include straights alongside gays, with women catcalling right next to the men. . . . ¶Still, with rare exceptions, the live drag scene today is mostly a large-city phenomenon. In New York City popular restaurants Lips, Lucky Cheng’s and Escuelita host dinners with divas nightly, along with bachelorette parties (as well as—just as inevitably, perhaps—parties celebrating divorces). An additional dozen or so bars feature weekly drag-themed nights, with impresarios, venues and evenings shifting about often. Demand for the hosting services of the city’s best-known divas—such as the Lady Bunny, whose star rose a decade ago with that of the now-defunct annual Wigstock drag festival—extends to non-drag-exclusive events such as the opening of a Crate and Barrel store in Soho or a comedy show to benefit the Humane Society. Even so, the typical New York drag performer can’t survive without having a day job as well, whether it’s as a makeup artist or something in the corporate world requiring deeper cover. Photographer John Bentham welcomed Proof’s invitation to train his lens on a few local men who dare to be professional divas. The results, shot at such New York City drag clubs as Lips, Barracuda and Vlada last summer, offer a peek at what he saw. . . .
About the photographer: New York City–based photographer John Bentham specializes in documentary projects and portraiture; subjects of his portraits include Seal, Uma Thurman, Harrison Ford, Kurt Vonnegut and Evel Knievel. Two long-term personal projects have led to privately printed photo books: one documenting the annual bikers’ rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., and the other focusing on members of an underground NYC sex club partying at, well, underground locations. Samples may be viewed at www.johnbentham.com.
About the writer: Proof contributing editor Robin Noble, a New York–based writer and photographer, teamed with photographer Michael Harlan Turkell on “Kitchen Duty”, a day-in-the-life-of-a-restaurant photo story originally published in Proof Issue 3 and later turned into an online slide show by foodie website chow.com (www.chow.com/stories/10386).
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