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Scrolling through social media last week I caught a recent video posted by a local drag queen. In it, dressed as Anne Frank with a yellow star on her blouse, she lip-synchs a medley while writing in her diary. The bridge to each song is the sound effect of heavy boots on stairs. She reacts. Sensing the coast is clear, she continues.
The audience reviews are mixed. Some rush to defend the notion that nothing is sacred and comedy keeps alive our awareness of tragedy. The comments range from “cute” and “charming” to “Genuinely lol’d”. And, after all, since drag queens have suffered too, they get to do whatever they want. Others, however, see a different side, one I admittedly take myself. Namely, there are boundaries.
For drag entertainers, confrontation and crossing the threshold of taste are part of the art. The departed diva Divine’s trademark was studied tastelessness. Her calculated mission assaulted mainstream, middle American pseudo values. But Divine never used Anne Frank as a prop. In 1980, the punk rock band Human Sexual Response performed the song, “The Anne Frank Story.” The lyrics explored invisibility, isolation and the fear of knowing one’s destiny. In the context of our social revolution, there were legitimate parallels. The song was topical and introspective.
Granted today’s Anne Frank act might have a similar artistic purpose. Surely, one hopes, there was no intent to insult the millions of lives lost in the Holocaust, or, by extension, the countless causalities of man’s inhumanity to man. I know this drag queen. She has suffered her share of indignities and discrimination both as a gay man and as a Native American. However, I’m not convinced this was an artistic effort. At best, one might argue the naïveté of a 20-something.
One wonders what reaction there would be if she lip-synched a Motown medley as a black victim of a lynching with a noose around her neck or in a dilapidated feather bonnet reenacting the Trail of Tears. Would she get “cute” and “charming” kudos or universal condemnation?
And yes, drag thrives on being edgy and empowered. Yet, shouldn’t we err on the side of caution in our expression of empowerment? You can find enough dog-whistle or direct derision of Jews, blacks, gays and Latinos by the ignorant masses. As LGBT people we have a duty to maintain a certain dignity and respect. Allowing our compassion to fail in an effort to prove ourselves as insensitive and crass as those who oppress us is not art.
For your sensitivity training homework, there’s still time to catch the Waukesha Civic Theatre’s production of The Diary of Anne Frank. While on tour in Berlin, perhaps our drag queen should visit the “Topography of Terror” exhibit at the former site of Gestapo headquarters. Better yet, when in Amsterdam she can ascend the very stairs behind the bookcase to our heroine’s hidden attic that is now the Anne Frank Museum. Perhaps the sound of footsteps on those worn wooden planks might evoke an emotional jolt rather than a guffaw.
