Mr Trump is not a drag
He bangs his own drum, some think it’s noise; isn’t it pretty?
Yesterday was my housemate’s big Hawaiian birthday (Five-0) and we celebrated along with our Abraham. All weekend long. From Saturday teatime to Monday lunchtime. There was champagne, beer, ginger beer, rum, Coca-Cola, wine, vermouth, party garlands, cake and candles, an 85-year-old, a 19-year-old and everyone in-between—even a six-and-a-half-year-old Labrador called “Q”, who didn’t emit such much as a whimper.
The whimpering was done by the 19-year-old, who is forging a career in drag, and wanted all present to know it. He caused slight ruffles of concern among us when it transpired that he wanted all present on the 8.27 train to Antwerp to also know it, but I checked the newspaper headlines this morning and I think he made it to the club unscathed.
Anyone who has entered the world of drag queens will know that it takes a certain chutzpah, a certain bravado, a certain certainty to don a role that outsiders all too readily associate with a certain uncertainty. Listen, honey, it takes balls to do drag.
The only comment that was left among those around the table who had accumulated that little bit more midriff than our teenage Sia-impersonator was that, even hanging from a titanium chandelier, a capacity to learn is likewise a requisite on the path to theatrical perfection.
The kid at the party lip-synched rather than singing. He concentrates on his body movement, the just enough of his make-up, the seduction of the glitter on his lips, the right tone of rouge, the sweep of his scarf. “Open your lips,” we said. He did, and the performance electrified. All it takes is a bit of audience reaction, and the artiste blossoms.
The advantage with lip-synching is that you can save all your energy for your physical performance. But you must know the lyric, even better than if you were singing it. Because lip-synching doesn’t provoke the same muscle memory as singing does. And the great disadvantage with lip-synching is that you don’t have any vocal input into the emotion.
Clip: Say what you like, it’s an astonishing choreography. If you don’t like the genre, sit back and enjoy the performance.
In the world of politics, there are those who dress up as someone else, and can pull it off, to boot. There are those whose minds work overtime and wouldn’t know lipstick if it hit them on the kisser. Some sing their own songs, and some lip-synch, and don’t even know the lyric.
When Jens Stoltenberg sings a tune, there are many dragged artists who synch along to his lyric but, when it comes to the movements, they don’t seem to know the words. Even a dubbed movie on TV’s better than that, because at least we don’t expect a perfect match between lips and dialogue.
Mr Trump has been scolded for inviting Mr Putin to invade lacklustre contributors to European security and has earned reproach for his outrage and audacity. I’m not so sure about the reproach being earned: what he has done is shake Europe into a realisation that Mr Putin is there and, to be honest, for the past four months, people had forgotten about him. Coo-ee, he is still there, and he may just huff and puff and blow someone’s house down.
There is nothing outrageous about Mr Trump rattling cages by inviting Russia to invade a minor eastern European country. Mr Putin doesn’t need an invitation to do that. Mr Putin has already seen the response by America to his invading a major eastern European country, and he’s still invading it, two years on. Who knows but that he won’t be invading it another two years from now?
Europe needs to decide how dear to it its security is. And, moreover, dear as it may be, what it’s willing to pay for it. All that Mr Trump is doing is the little hypothesising that penny-pinching Europeans are all-too wont to eschew: What if America didn’t get involved any more? What, then, would you do? What’ll you do if America turns inward and decides to leave the world to sort itself out?
Well, is that not precisely what we in the liberal centre want? For America to butt out? Nineteen-year-old drag artists have already learned far more than some sad, torch-song singers ever will: to forget the emotion, and take advice from the audience.
Oops, this isn't Kyo, it's Maddie Ziegler (then only 11 years old) dancing in the official video to Sia's song "Chandelier"! But she is astonishing, really, and there is a huge depth - particularly - to her "baby doll" movements. She's here in the film as a doll to be manipulated: we get small insights into her personality, but her eye is opened by her owner, and closed again, she's fed like some cabbage-patch doll. The energy is total.
I hear what you say about Trump and the word "Fay" pops into my mind every time I type the letters. In King Lear, by Shakespeare, of all the 29 characters, three speak truth. All the others lie. To themselves or to others.
The three who speak truth are the Earl of Kent, Cordelia and the Fool. Kent and Cordelia are honourable, but the Fool is also funny, so he is the best role to have in Lear. As the audience sits and laughs at him, it sometimes forgets that what he's saying is right, and not always just a joke.
The wizened audience member will listen to the Fool and ask themselves, "Is that really as wrong as it sounds?"
Thank you Graham for sharing this video clip. Your friend is a fantastic dancer. As to the trumpster, I'm afraid we, here in America, cannot be so laissez faire about him. For us he is as much a menace - in fact more of a menace, because he's here - than the Ayatollah, Ki, Putin and Xi, combined and frankly I'm not anxious to die under a dictatolrship, so I'd rather hold of for a couple of years at least. (:-)