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Welcome

Anthony Mundine the boxer and me after Big Brother eviction

It's back in all it's glory for 2010. Feel free to register, chicks or blokes or whatever!

A lovely celebratory intro to Spring in 09!

Twas a wintry hoot!

My last fabbo extravaganza party, it was a HIT!

Vanessa Wagner Drag Opinion piece for SMH

SYDNEY DRAG CULTURE WITH REF TO MG

When I was asked to write an article for the Opinion section of this paper my first impression was "oh, another brief interest in my work as a token spokesperson during Mardi Gras". It seems that my alter ego Vanessa Wagner and I come into demand around the same time each year and usually for a brief moment. Is it the annual "tug the Vanessa doll" or "bring out the clown season"? For in the 21st century I feel that I am still seen as a freak by the arts and media Mafia, only allowed a display during this supposedly appropriate period.

Sydney has a rich and somewhat ancient tradition of Cross-Dressing, Gender Illusionism, Drag, Sista Girl, and Showgirl activity. I am no expert and can only comment on what I have seen in my career as an entertainer/activist over the last 20 years. My first experience with a man in "women's" clothes was Dame Edna Everage and I loved it. But Barry Humphries is rarely called a drag queen regardless of the fact that he too, like the pantomime before him and the bad drag after him often relies on the "pay out the punter in the third row" technique for that character.

In the early eighties I was lucky enough to see some of the fab shows up and down Oxford Street before most of the luvvies went and died on us. I can remember hysterically funny shows with meticulous sight gags, gorgeous sets and props and a sense of subversion rarely seen these days. I would sit cross legged front row in awe at the inimitable and rivetingly frank and funny banter of Cindy Pastel, or would watch like a kid in a candy store as Doris Fish made huge heels, gems and other sparkly props for the MG parade in the Woolloomooloo workshop. If the show wasn't that great you generally could be guaranteed that the banter would be good or the make up totally, explosively, psychedelically fantastic.

Enter corrupt mayors, councilors and developers and watch a living city be put to death (before being artificially and poorly bought back to "life"). Cheap warehouse space for artists and entertainers was destroyed, venues disappeared and people passed away or on to the task of surviving in new vicious economic times. I was talking to various entertainers at the MG Launch recently and they lamented the appalling wages and enormous unpaid sewing feats that many of today's drags must endure to pay the rent and entertain the masses. Promoters, venues and festivals will spare no expense on lights and sets but leave entertainers with barely pocket money for their craft. Is it not way overdue for a showgirl union?

In the mid 1990's a TV producer said that drag was no longer in fashion! It made me laugh. Why then are clowns still in demand I asked myself? Society has always needed visual stimulation and buffoonery, we had the jesters in the courts and drag performs a similar role today. Take the parade of Icons in the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics, the colourful drag section was popular and exciting. Funny that Cindy Pastel and Vanessa Wagner were the only icons not to be named in the Icon parade and even funnier that they had no product placement either! Elle Macpherson had her undie range, Greg Norman had his Golf Clubs, Kylie Minogue had her albums, Paul Hogan his Hollywood films and Cindy and I, the nameless two had nothing but our fabulous-ness to spread. It said a lot to me about how we are seen by the powers, "let them have their 15 minute but for gods sake don't let them get too much attention and don't give them the respect of names". Although a lot of drag has become tired, predictable and irrelevant some is still fantastic and inspiring, if not delightfully distracting.

For me as an entertainer and an audience member I need more than an airbrushed look-a-like of a pop star, lip syncing to a song in a sequined frock. I get tired and want stimulation and variety. I want self-deprecation, funny and insightful repartee and some decent dancing and tomfoolery. Drag is not so much the freak show it used to be (thanks to our legends gone and films like Priscilla) but it is still kept in its place. The mainstreaming of drag has made it like any other commodity ripe for superficial exploitation and this will continue unless quality performers are paid to create, rehearse and perform quality stuff.

Australia once had a rich tapestry of variety/comedy live television with the likes of the Mavis Bramston show, The Naked Vicar Show, Auntie Jack, The Don Lane Show or the Norman Gunston show, to name a few. Now days these shows could be seen as too risque and definitely too expensive for networks only interested in Executives and shareholders profits. Why make interesting live local shows when you can import cheap shows form overseas? Or better still pop people in a cheap set and let them have a go at each other for prize money. ABC and SBS are stalwarts and have run victim to the plummeting quality of journalism. They, like may fall victim to nepotistic and navel gazing. Their relevance as national broadcasters is flailing and their charters are not being me

It vexes me that a country with such an internationally renowned tradition of drag does not have a regular LGBTI/drag program on free to air TV and I won't go away until it happens and preferably with me! Come on Aussie Come on! (Or I'll rip your bloody arms off!)

(written 2002)

copyright Saunders Wagner Entertainment 2009.