When filmmaker and musician Dorian Electra decided she wanted to create a pop song and music video about the history of gender-nonconforming performance, Chicago and its drag scene were at the forefront of her mind.
“I’m a cisgendered woman, so there’s only so much I can speak to, but so much of the history of femininity in general has a lot to do with the oppression of trans women and gay men and all these other people that aren’t necessarily thought about when people think about women’s history and the history of women’s sexuality,” she explains.
The song moves from a period when “drag or some form of cross-dressing was a sanctioned part of the entertainment,” through subversive forms of drag culture in a 1920s speakeasy setting, and into the fledgling LGBTQ movement of the 1960s, Imp Queen explains. Electra says performers were given their choice of era.
“It’s just ignorance within the community and outside of it,” she says. Jade decided to get involved because of her close relationships with the drag performers featured—including Imp Queen, who’s also a trans woman.
Electra says Trump’s victory made it more important than ever for her to broadcast a message of inclusion and self-acceptance, as well as a forceful challenge to prescribed gender roles—all set to the beat of a catchy pop tune.
