On Wesley Snipesâs role Noxeema and John Leguizamo as Chi-Chi Rodriguez.
âI grew up in the â70s and even within the street culture, there was a lot of flamboyancy,â Snipes told TODAY of his perception of drag before filming. âPimps wore the same furs as theprostitutes wore.
âSome of the great musicians of the world, like Parliament-Funkadelic, were very androgynous. So it wasnât really new for me to see men dressed as women or men dressed as drag queens.â
Snipes attended the famed LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts and then State University of New York at Purchase. He wasnât a dance major, but most of his friends were. âThat exposed me to the world of glam, vogue, drag, transgender and gay people, LGBTQ⌠but it wasnât in fashion those days. But it existed and I was around it.â
Not only did âPriscilla, Queen of the Desertâ pave the way for âTo Wong Foo,â so did films like the 1968 documentary âThe Queenâ and âParis Is Burning,â the 1990 doc that chronicled ball culture of New York and the various Black and queer communities involved in it.
Even though he was known for his action roles, Snipesâ portrayal of Noxeema wasnât the first time he played a drag queen. In 1986, he made his Broadway debut in the play âExecution of Justice,â playing Sister Boom Boom, a real-life AIDS activist and drag nun who acted as the showâs voice of conscience. Snipes pointed out, âSister Boom Boom did not have Noxeemaâs makeup kit.â
On whether he got any pushback for stepping into Noxeemaâs pumps, he said, âNot so much professionally but the streets werenât feeling it, and there were certain community circles. The martial arts community⌠they were not feeling it at all.â
âIn fact, when the movie came out and they would come down the street, I would see them in Brooklyn sometimes, they started listing all my movies. I noticed they would always skip that one. I would correct them, âNow you donât got the full count!ââ
Lesser-known than his co-stars at the time, Lequizamo didnât really anticipate becoming a transgender icon, but he did know that they were working on something special when they started filming.
âDrag didnât really exist in movies,â Lequizamo, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for his portrayal, told TODAY. âThere were straight men pretending to be women to get out of trouble or into trouble but this was not that. I was trying to make Chi-Chi a real life trans character and Patty and Wesley were trying to be real drag queens.â Never fully articulated in the film, Chi-Chi Rodriguez has always been perceived as transgender, something that ending up making an indelible mark on LGBTQ people in the late â90s as trans representation in media was limited.
âChi-Chi was a trans icon, but she also showed us that gay men and trans women can both perform and work in drag side by side, and that those relationships are symbiotic,â Cayne explained.
âIt was a powerful thing. I get lots of fan mail from LGBTQ teens telling me how my character helped them come out to their parents,â Leguizamo said. âThey didnât feel like they were seen, so that was a beautiful gift from the movie.â
Lequizamo also articulates that if âTo Wong Fooâ were cast today, a trans actor should be cast in his role. (And that just may happen, since Beane is developing a musical for Broadway.)
âAnybody can play anything, but the playing field is not fair that way,â he said. âNot everybody is allowed to play everything. So until we get to that place, it is important for trans actors to get a chance to act which they donât. In the project Iâm doing, Iâm making sure that the person playing trans is a trans person so we can make it legit, make it real. That just needs to be done right now.â
Source: How Hollywood heartthrobs and Steven Spielberg helped make a drag queen cult classic
prguitarman
gummygunk
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
