Legends Podcast #783: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
About this episode
The episode celebrates Pride by discussing the film 'To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar' and its impact on queer cinema.
This week, we're celebrating Pride with the movie that brought the drag queen road trip genre to America! Hot on the high heels of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert from 1994 Australia comes this 1995 American release starring Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo. When their car breaks down in small-town Nebraska, three drag queens must win the hearts and minds of the local townsfolk while evading a bigoted sheriff. With supporting turns by Stockard Channing, Blythe Danner, Chris Penn, Arliss Howard, and cameos by RuPaul, Naomi Campbell, Robin Williams, and the titular statuesque actress herself, the film opened at number one at the box office and is considered groundbreaking for being the first mainstream Hollywood production to depict drag queens. Along with RuPaul's popularity, the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning, and the aforementioned Priscila, interest in drag drove audiences to the cinema. Critics, however, were less enthused, but Swayze and Leguizamo were both nominated for Golden Globes, and the film has, of course, endured as an icon of queer cinema. Now the four of us are piling into a yellow convertible 1967 Cadillac DeVille with an…
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