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It should not be a big hairy deal that a 32-year-old Chicago-based drag performer named Tenderoni will be vying in a virtual talent competition on Sunday, and yet it is truly a reason to wig out.<\/p>\n
The pageant is called Drag Queen of the Year 2021. But despite a penchant for lip-syncing to Missy Elliott, Tenderoni isn\u2019t a drag queen. He\u2019s a drag king<\/em>, which, generally speaking means a performer born female, who takes the stage in men\u2019s clothes. He is what was once called a \u201cmale impersonator,\u201d penciled-on mustache, compressed chest and all.<\/p>\nTenderoni, his creator says, \u201cis a mash-up of Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown, Prince, George Michael and Boy George.\u201d<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s drag, it\u2019s cosplay and, he hopes, it\u2019s enough to win.<\/p>\n
While androgynous costume in this direction is hardly new \u2014 Marlene Dietrich famously set libidos afire in top hat and tuxedo in the 1930 movie classic \u201cMorocco\u201d \u2014 drag kings tend to be the lesser-exposed and underappreciated segment of drag. Casual fans who get their drag from TV or with a side of waffles at brunch, in fact, may never even have heard of this particular practice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cIn the past, many of our audience members didn\u2019t understand the concept of drag kings,\u201d said Chad Kampe, a producer who has been staging popular drag brunches in Minneapolis since 2012. \u201cWe often got questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chief among them: \u201cWhat the heck is a drag king?\u201d<\/p>\n
But now that drag has gone mainstream \u2014 the Season 13 premiere of \u201cRuPaul\u2019s Drag Race\u201d on VH1 on Jan. 1 drew 1.3 million viewers, its highest-rated episode ever \u2014 performers who exaggerate and explore the tropes of manhood are getting a closer look.<\/p>\n
Although a king has not yet been featured on \u201cDrag Race\u201d (a trans man named Gottmik who performs in female drag has), drag kings at last are getting more exposure elsewhere, and surprisingly, the pandemic may have helped.<\/p>\n
The closing of bars and restaurants has hit most performers\u2019 pocketbooks very hard, but the mandated move to online entertainment may have helped level the playing field.<\/p>\n
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\u201cCovid made everyone have to go digital,\u201d said Tenderoni, who developed his act at Berlin, a club in Chicago. \u201cThat has made the audience for all kinds of drag so much bigger. I\u2019ve done shows and heard, \u2018I\u2019m from Brazil,\u2019 \u2018I\u2019m from London.\u2019 It has opened the floodgates.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u2018A Seat at the Table\u2019<\/h2>\n
The Drag Queen of the Year pageant takes such diversity as its mandate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve worked with trans men and trans women and drag kings and all these different kinds of performers our whole lives,\u201d said Alaska 5000, 35, the \u201cRuPaul\u2019s Drag Race All-Stars\u201d winner who founded the competition with a fellow drag queen, Lola LaCroix, in 2019.<\/p>\n
Why, they wondered one sleepless night flying home from a gig, shouldn\u2019t such performers all compete against and celebrate each other? \u201cEveryone has something to prove, and everyone brings so much,\u201d Alaska 5000 said. \u201cWhat they do isn\u2019t just valid, it\u2019s fierce.\u201d<\/p>\n
To that end, Tenderoni will go up against seven other disparate drag artists \u2014 some bearded, burly and burlesque; some Jessica Rabbit curvaceous; some known for their lingerie-clad muscles \u2014 for the Drag Queen of the Year crown in a show to be seen on the Sessions Live platform.<\/p>\n
Whether he wins or not, it doesn\u2019t really matter. \u201cThis gives us a seat at the table,\u201d said Tenderoni, who started performing in drag less than five years ago. \u201cDrag is a buffet. I don\u2019t need to be the main course \u2014 I just want to be included.\u201d<\/p>\n
By appearing that night, he will earn a spot in a brotherhood of drag kings that, under various names, has been around for centuries.<\/p>\n
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Male mimics Vesta Tilley and Hetty King were widely celebrated on British music hall stages of the 19th century. Storm\u00e9 DeLarverie, a Stonewall activist who preferred the term \u201cmale impersonator\u201d to \u201cdrag king,\u201d passed for a man while touring America with the Jewel Box Revue in the \u201950s and \u201960s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the \u201980s, the comedian and actress Lily Tomlin played Tommy Velour, a Las Vegas lounge lizard with more chest hair than talent. He lives on, in all his hirsute glory, on YouTube.<\/p>\n
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