What can we learn from Arizona’s elder drag queens? A lot.
It hasn’t always been as accepting to do drag. And with new attacks on the art form, some of Arizona’s longest performing drag artists have some advice to give.
We will never hear the song Freddie Mercury would sing in his sixties, watch the film Rock Hudson would star in his seventies, or see the painting Keith Haring would produce in his fifties. In the minds of the ones they left behind and the generations that followed, they remain forever young, frozen in amber.
In Arizona, though, there are a number of elders within the drag community who many look to for guidance. But as drag has become more visible and accepted into the mainstream, it’s come with heavy baggage, specifically since far-right and religious voices—from the state Capitol to local school boards—have shown up with guns, bomb threats, and false accusations of child sexual assault.
The one-two punch of love and hate is familiar to Mia Inez Adams, 66, an elder in the Phoenix drag scene who spoke to LOOKOUT. She said there’s been an evolution of drag locally, but there are still unique challenges older performers experience.