Life is too short to pretend to be anyone else

Welcome to the first blog post of July! As I am writing this, I realized a went an entire a month without an outright "Pride Month" recommendation. But as organizations around the country switch their logos back to something a little less colorful and trade rainbows for the red, white, and blue of Independence Day, I figured I'd leave you all with a recommendation for one of my all-time favorite movies: The Birdcage.

Starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Christine Baranski, Gene Hackman, Diane Wiest, and Hank Azaria, this 1996 film is masterclass in comedy and is based on a 1973 play by Jean Poiret, La Cage aux Folles. Robin Williams plays Armand Goldman, the openly gay owner of a drag club called "The Birdcage" in South Beach. His eccentric and overly dramatic partner, Alfred, is the headlining act of the club who goes by the stage name "Starina". Armand's 20 year old son, Val, returns home one night to tell his father that he is getting married - to Barbara the daughter of ultra-conservative US Senator Keeley - cofounder of the coalition for moral order. The next morning, Keeley finds out that his fellow senator and co-founder of the coalition was found dead in scene that looks terrible for the coalition and Senator Keeley's reputation. To escape the press, they take a spur of the moment road trip to Florida to visit Jeb Bush and meet Val and his family.

Val panics and asks Armand and Alfred to change everything about them for the evening, in order to impress the Keeley's and keep things from getting overly dramatic. He redecorates the house, asks Albert to make himself scarce (in spite of Armand's attempts to make him act more stereotypically manly), and pressures Armand to recruit his biological mother (whom he has never met) to play the role of his mother for the evening. When Katharine (Val's mother) gets caught in traffic, Albert sees this as his opportunity to star in a new kind of role. He dons a blouse and 2-piece pink skirt and jacket, a blonde wig, and heavy drag makeup and becomes Val's mother for the evening. While the dinner runs somewhat smoothly for a while, eventually things start to fall apart when the press finds the Keeley's and Katharine arrives at the house. The charade is ended and now the Keeley's must figure out how to leave without being seen by the press. Thankfully, with the drag club just downstairs, the Keeley's have access to the perfect disguises to evade the press.

When it comes to perceptions about LGBTQ+ people, one of the biggest issues is a tendency for society to oversexualize queer-identifying* people. And yes, movies like Brokeback Mountain are certainly important for queer representation in romance movies, there is more to LGBTQ+ people than comedic tropes and sexuality. The Birdcage, I think, certainly does fall into the category of characterizing gay men as feminine and obsessed with drag as a form of art, to some extent (it was the 90's, after all). But the movie also does something incredibly important. Drag is the vehicle by which the moral of the story is communicated. There is both liberation and captivity in playing the role of someone else. Armand is clearly uncomfortable and frustrated when he puts on the persona of a conservative businessman to impress the Keeley's. Albert, on the other hand, sees it as an exciting new role to play as Val's mother. Armand is acts out a lie and Albert embraces his maternal role that he has been playing for years.

Drag as an art form has existed for centuries - millennia even - long-before popular shows like RuPaul's Drag Race thrusted it into the mainstream spotlight. It can be comedic, acrobatic, a commentary on current issues and affairs, educational, and more. But it has a tendency to make people (like the Keeley's) uncomfortable. There is a fear that drag queens are tools used to groom children or indoctrinate people into perverse and deviant behaviors. But recent statistics show that people in positions of formal authority are far more likely to groom children than drag queens. Other sensationalized misinformation that is widely circulated claims that the LGBTQ+ community pressures young people into confusion about their own identity and higher instances of exploring drastic and dramatic gender-affirming care. The more concerning statistic, I think, are the instances of violent crime and concentrated targeting of LGBTQ+ people by people who think "being gay or trans is a sin".

Today, the church is pretty divided on the issue of queer-inclusion. I'm blessed to be a part of a worshipping community where I feel not only tolerated but welcomed and celebrated. And at the same time there are so many queer people who live uncomfortably behind a mask because of the fear of what their family, friends, and faith might think of them. There are worshipping communities that might also have no problem with queer worshippers, but who choose not to say anything for fear of disrupting the delicate balance of personal feelings and convictions or backlash from their neighbors. Wherever you might find yourself today, I'm not here to convince you to march at a pride parade or go see a drag show (though they are incredibly fun). As a person of Christian faith, Jesus is the example that I try to follow in everything I do. And Jesus had a tendency to surprise both the establishment and his followers. He broke bread with outcasts and "sinners". He embraced lepers and welcomed sex workers. Jesus' most poignant criticism was directed not at the people on the margins but at the religious leaders, the wealthy, and the privileged. What does that tell us about how we should doing the work of the Gospel? But more than just that, I think Jesus calls us to live life authentically. God's creation is diverse and breaks the mold of human expectation. All the time, we find examples in nature that seem to defy the logic of self-imposed moral rigidity, be it frogs who can change from female to male or penguins who can form life long same-sex partnerships. The truth is that the work begins inside of us. We have to learn to love ourselves and live as we were made to be. The work has to start with us, casting aside our masks and stepping into the reality that we were created to love. After all, as RuPaul so eloquently states: "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?"

Movie: The Birdcage (1996)

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

Happy Pride!

-PT

*The use of the word "queer", while derogatory in the past, is now commonly used by LGBTQ+ people and widely within academia and society. While, it is always best practice to ask someone how they would prefer to be identified, LGBTQ+ and "Queer-identifying" have largely become almost interchangeable terms with one another.