New York

INTERVIEW | Last night the New York International Film Festival screened “Charmed Life”, a documentary by Kat Delaney about Drag (yes honey, with a capital D), at Cinema Village yesterday.

Centered on the life of Sweetie, a staple warm-hearted mother-figure in the drag community, the film shows the dark and light side of this lifestyle that seeks to entertain, transcend gender and ultimately be a living and breathing sculpture.

The film contains interviews and clips of a whole slew of now-legendary drag and gender-bending performers—Mother Flawless Sabrina, Lavinia Co-Op, Sherry Vine, Linda Simpson, Flotilla De Barge, The Mistress Formika, Gusty Winds, Rose Royalle—and discusses both the glamour and the melancholy of drag life.

Sweetie, who calls herself a “Big Titted Honky Soul Momma,” has been on the scene for years is famous for her perfect lipsync (she’s won best in New York for the past decade), and is a successful and established actor both in and out of drag. She spoke to HN about the making of the film and its importance.

How did this film get started?
It was made four years ago and was first shown three weeks ago at the Atlanta Film Festival, with a great response. And it’s all steamrolling at once, the NY International Film Festival picked it up and we’ve had some interest from TLA video and LOGO.

At the time I was doing this party with Daniel Nardicio called High Life Low Life, it coincided with this filmmaker approaching me about doing a doc about New York drag. They kind of went hand and hand so well. The film circles my life as  Sweetie  but touches with the people I was working with and employing at the time, doing big drag shows every Saturday night.

What is it that makes “Charmed Life” unique from other dragumentaries, or old Wigstock viewings
It shows the incredible, incredible human beings underneath the beautiful painted faces . It’s very candid: there are moments of big bombastic explosion, but the mood is much different than that, it’s very confessional.

There’s three generations, and people like Rose Royalle, who has been a staple on the scene since Jackie 60 and was the original waitress for VIP room.  I believe she’s 68 years old now. I used her for all of my parties- – does she move to quick? No! Does she get every drink order right? No! But does she dress up a room? Absolutely! She goes back to the Warhol factory days — she was so viable — pretty major in her own right in her youth—kind of the old guard.

Or there’s Charity—people don’t know her unless you’ve been to Fire Island, she’s been staple there since the late 50s. The year that Flawless hosted Ms. Fire Island pageant was the year that Charity won!

Also you’ve got more genderfuck, androgenous people like Jimmy James or T-Boy—stilettos, panties and garters, but not tits or wigs. There was  a lot of those hard, old school queens who were affronted to their being a part of a drag documentary.