Growing up in Fayetteville, Arkansas, I knew we were a blue speck in a red sea of a state. Honestly, I hated Arkansas for a lot of my life. I thought it was boring and filled with hateful people and that I needed to get out to somewhere like California or New York, where real artists and people like me live. It was living in California that made my love for Arkansas grow. I missed real trees, rain, people actually acknowledging me as a person, calm drivers, the sound of nature.
When I moved back it took me a while to readjust to being an Arkansan again, and to discover all the hidden gems throughout the state, and I definitely have only uncovered a few. One of my favorite parts of Arkansas, that I knew very little about until recently, is the Arkansas drag scene. When I was 18, in my drunken stupors to the nightclub on Sunday nights, they had drag performances. I was enamored with the queens, but ultimately my alcoholic mind had more important things to focus on: blacking out. It wasn’t until my recent stint of sobriety and obsession with RuPaul’s Drag Race that I really started getting interested in the art of drag.
Last June, I went to Halo in Fayetteville to see Vanessa Vanjie Mateo perform. She is one of my favorite funny drag queens to come off RuPaul’s Drag Race, and it was a treat to see her in person, but my favorite part of the night was my introduction to some of Northwest Arkansas’ local queens. The Angel Divinity, Star Flower, Vivi Dreams, Nicki Savage, and Juicyy all gave sickening performances that have stuck with me now over six months since seeing them! I’m not really a bar person, so I have been supporting them online since then.
RuPaul also introduced me to some more Arkansans: Symone, winner of season 13 from Conway, and Maddy Morphosis, ninth runner up of season 14 from Lincoln. Symone is a gorgeous model and a fashion icon, often putting a lot of intention and culture into her looks. She is one of the founding members of the House of Avalon, a queer art collective that started in Little Rock. Maddy Morophosis currently hosts a podcast called “Give it to Me Straight”. She is hilarious and a fantastic interviewer.
Another massive part of America’s drag scene is the Miss Gay America pageant, which is often held in Little Rock. It is one of the most prestigious awards in the drag world and it was only recently, when Tracy La Louisianne was crowned, that I realized that the pageant was held in Arkansas.
Drag is about all embracing who you are, sometimes by dressing up as someone else, and I love learning about and experiencing it. As a queer Arkansan, I’ve had to deal with a lot of internalized homophobia and Arkansanphobia, but my introduction to the drag scene here has helped me come to terms with some of it. I only hope to learn and experience more of it and I hope you can, too! Drag shows happen regularly at C4 in Fayetteville, Eureka Live in Eureka Springs, Sway in North Little Rock, and many more places around the state!
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