Film

To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)

Director: Beeban Kidron

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Three drag queens on a cross-country journey get bogged down in a one-horse town. Sounds familiar? Though the journey is from New York to LA, and the mode of transport a 1967 Cadillac convertible, this is a rip-off of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Made for Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, it's low camp for narrow-minded Middle Americans who can't cope with the idea of a cock in a frock. Leguizamo's Chi Chi is the only one who looks anything like a drag queen, let alone a woman; yet we are asked to believe that it's Swayze's breathy Vida and Snipes' squealing Noxeema who've got their stocking seams straight. The queens' gayness is simply never addressed. These are not rope-suckers, these here are big, blowsy women with attitude. And for all their hip-wiggling, hand-flapping and eye-rolling, they still manage to liberate the town's battered wives, closet gays and lovestruck teenagers, while dealing in a more manly way with its shit-kicking good ol' boys and beer-swillin' wife-beaters. The script is as subversive as Are You Being Served?, and the cross-dressing on a par with Mrs Doubtfire.

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