I first encountered Dean Johnson in the cafeteria of Weinstein Dormitory, where we both resided as first-year New York University students in the fall of 1980. But then I ran into mentions of friends and started to change my mind, and not for selfish reasons. Did Goodman really need to get so granular? I thought this when I hit page 198 of 350. If I were to throw shade on any aspect of this book, it would be on something that could also be considered a strength. In his 1968 film, “The Queen,” pageant contestant Crystal LaBeija decried the “Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest” as “racist.” LaBeija’s outrage eventually led to her founding of the House of LaBeija in Harlem, “with Crystal at the helm as ‘Mother,’” providing much-needed “family structure” for queer folk outside their families of origin and “laying the groundwork for today’s ball culture.” Decades later, LaBeija’s community-building efforts would serve as an inspiration for three seasons of the TV series “Pose.” “Normal is a setting on the dryer,” Doroshow often said, and according to theater artist Taylor Mac, “her flawlessness was found through fostering artistic expression as a form of civics.” Doroshow’s legacy is not without controversy. Doroshow, who described Sabrina as “very bar mitzvah mother,” with “big swoops of blond hair and thick black cat eye liner,” hosted and produced pageants, contests in large and small cities around the United States for decades, from the 1960s on. Flawless Sabrina, whose life straddled the intersection of personal and societal transformation. Goodman is especially compelling when chronicling the life of Jack Doroshow, a.k.a. Along the way, Goodman mentions familiar figures, such as the legendary “Godzilla of drag queens,” Divine, but also others who defy categorization, such as Rollerena Fairy Godmother, who worked by day on Wall Street but “coursed through in roller skates, magnificent 1950s pillbox hats with giant shimmering earrings, and rhinestone eyeglasses.” Take Broadway female impersonator Bert Savoy, rumored to have provided inspiration for Mae West, who, out of drag, was reportedly “bald, paunchy, middle aged, and blind in one eye,” but once ensconced in a “formfitting dress and spreading, feathered hat” made “a dashing if slightly bawdy fashion plate.” On the other end of the historical spectrum, we’re introduced to Wang Newton, a contemporary Asian American drag king who parodies cultural and gender stereotypes. ![]() “The great thing about drag is you can invent the roles for yourself,” explains drag artist Marti Gould Cummings, and Goodman’s book features a thrilling array of mothers of invention.
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