Day 79: To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar

On their way to a beauty pageant in Hollywood, three drag queens end up in a tiny ‘traditional’ town. While there, they bring some life into the town and they remind the women of their strength.

You know when you’re watching a film and you get angry at one of the characters and you end up saying things like “If you so much as touch her I will batter you”? I always get so caught up in fiction and clearly forget that I can’t smack characters. And then when you have two characters that you want to throttle, well, it’s all the more difficult to remember that it is just a film. First up you’ve got the racist cop who then tries to kiss Vida (Patrick Swayze) despite her saying no. He puts his hand up her dress (rage) and finds a penis, and she knocks him to the ground. They should’ve ran him over. Second up, we’ve got the wife beater. How can you hurt someone you’re meant to love? I don’t understand how anyone could do that, it is so terrible. Vida helps Carol Ann (Stockard Channing) find her strength and she stands up to her waste of space husband, driving him out of town.

How exciting must road trips be? You're seeing so many new things and new places, it just seems excellent. If I don't go on a road trip at some point then my life shall have been a waste. Just imagine, you've got your good company, your good music, and you can go anywhere you want. It just sounds like the best time.

Patrick Swayze is such a beautiful woman, I’m always so taken with him every time I watch this film. I wish his character did exist in real life, I’d love to be friends with Miss Vida Boheme. This film is really great. It’s such a wonderful scene when the whole town stick up for Vida, Noxeema (Wesley Snipes) and Chi Chi (John Leguizamo) against the cop. They don’t care that they’re a little outside of what they’re used to because they’ve brought such life to an old town and to their lives.

“When a straight man puts on a dress and gets his sexual kicks, he is a transvestite. When a man is a woman trapped in a man’s body and has the little operation, he is a transsexual. When a gay man has way too much fashion sense for one gender, he is a drag queen.”

8/10