New doc Avant-Drag! is a reminder that doing drag remains transgressive – and often dangerous.
RuPaul’s Drag Race empire, Global All Stars, hit our screens. Featuring drag performers – all queens, it has to be said – from across almost all of the international versions of the reality contest, the new spin-off is proof that the art form is universally popular.
Drag Race that turns drag into palatable, easy-viewing content that can be consumed en masse in the living rooms of heterosexual couples everywhere, there are queers in backstreets and grungy basements making art without being seen. While TV death drops get applause, these drag artists still often get deathly stares on the streets.
“Somehow, in the process of going for the mainstream, we forgot a little bit about the underground which is where we started,” says Athenian filmmaker Fil leropoulos (who doesn’t capitalise his surname).
In addition to being the birthplace of democracy, Greece’s capital city is known as a cornerstone of the arts. Famously, the arts include the art of drag, and Athens is brimming with the kind of anarchic, punky and eccentric drag that is yet to bag an Emmy nomination. We’re talking baked goods for breasts, scribbles of “slut” as makeup, and hairpieces made of inhalers.
leropoulos is capturing it all. In his new documentary film, Avant-Drag!, he follows 10 local drag performers as they take their art, expression and politics to the streets of the city, forcing a space for themselves in the public eye – regardless of whether it’s a safe one or not.
