A while back, there was a clip on YouTube of Bianca Del Rio talking to a little 7 yr old drag queen. Bianca asked the kid who her favorite drag queen was and the kid said, "Ginger Minj." People laughed because of course punch line is that Bianca thought it would be her and it wasn't.
Ginger Minj was on Hey Qween this week and talked about this video. She said that when she saw it and heard the kid say she was the favorite, it moved her to tears. Ginger went on to explain that as a little kid growing up in backwater Florida, there was no real role model or ideal of what it was like to be a little weird gay boy. It wasn't until she saw Pink Flamingos and felt the power of Divine that she understood the kind of light that a role model, even an unusual one, could have on keeping up one's spirits.
Now here we are, all these years later, and little odd children have an easier time finding people who appeal to the weird spirit inside of them. Ginger said she never, in all of her life, expected she would be someone who others looked up to and it was the most amazing feeling to have. I'm sure Divine would have felt the same way.
My best friend had texted me to tell me that Divine and John Waters were being discussed on NPR. My phone was off so I didn't get the text until much later, but the whole concept of them being on there intrigued me. When Waters and Divine first appeared on the scene, I doubt anyone would have predicted they would be discussed in a serious manner on a station dedicated to cultural enrichment. And yet here we are, not because our culture has degraded, but because we can't pick and choose what art moves people, what appeals to people, and what art is the vanguard leading the way towards the new expression.
Art, no matter how 'trashy' someone may believe it to be, is art because it feeds the souls of those who are hungry.
No comments:
Post a Comment