DeePression Holliday
"So, what actually got me into drag was when I was like 15, almost 16. I was in this closet that we had at our house and I found this like tackle box looking thing and I open it and it was my step-mom's old makeup from before we were Pentecostal. And I was like, Ooh, this looks like it'd be fun. And then I started playing in it.... And then it just started growing and growing and growing.
And it got to be where I was wearing makeup as a boy, but farther down the line, a friend of mine was like, Hey, you should go get a wig. We should see what you would look like in drag. And that was when I first got a wig was when I was 16."
"I grew up Pentecostal…. And to this day I still get a lot of backlash from the Pentecostal community because that is my hometown. They're not accepting. There was a lot of bullying involved. Growing up in a small town taught me a lot. Growing up in a small town, taught me, "get the fuck out and don't come back." When you are bullied, growing up in a small town like that, you are in such a bad place thinking, “Oh my gosh, there's nothing out there for me,” but I moved away from that town. If I would have never moved away, I would not be the person that I am today.
I can honestly say that moving away was probably the best thing for me. I moved an hour away from home, and my life completely changed. I'm so much happier. Growing up in that town was just tormenting…. The farthest that I've got was just backlash from some family that didn't have a damn thing to do with my life before drag, but felt the need to put input in my life about my drag and told me that I was going to hell and that I should kill myself over it. You'd be surprised at the amount of people that backlash about it. I've lost a couple of friends over it, but in the end, those people, if they weren't supporting me, they weren't needed in my life. There's a couple people that are like, “Oh, you dress too provocatively. You dress like a slut. You do this, you do that. You know-why don't you try a more contemporary version of it?” It's like, that's not who I am as a drag queen."
"If you had to compare drag the South to drag out East or out West or up North, I would say Southern drag is comparatively different because we don't have these big bars that have four or five shows a night. If you go to a big town, you're going to have a bar that's going to have a show at seven o'clock, a show at nine, o'clock a show at 10:30, a show at midnight and a show at 2:00 AM. Up there, they get drag all the time. The people in this area are true fans of us because they know they're going to have to travel to Oxford. They know they're going to have to travel to Tupelo. They know they're going to have to travel to Starkville to go to see their queen. Everyone ends up with their queen, or even their group of queens, that they love. But Southern drag--and I almost hate to say this, but we're local celebrities.
There's not really a creative outlet for drag in this area. There’s very few. So, for us to get together and perform in the South shows a lot. Living in a homophobic, bigoted racist part of the state, the Bible Belt; it's a big deal for us to be able to get together and perform and put on our heels and put on our lashes and sashay. I mean, ask Eric, he was arrested for doing drag. It's come a long way in the time that I've been doing drag, but I couldn't imagine how bad it was back in the day. They used to sneak around to bars and have to hide their drag. I don't know how I could hide it. But living in the South is good and bad on its days. We run into bigots sometimes, but living in the South -- it can be a good thing because you get to expand your drag more. If I lived in a town like New York City and they have drag shows all the time, I would be a goldfish in a shark pond, but in the South, we are a whale in a fish tank. We have so many more opportunities to go to different places and to meet different people. If I lived in a really big city, I would have to really do some work just to get into a show or get my name known. I'd have to go on RuPaul to get my name known-- something huge just to get some recognition, but in the South, it's more abundant with their recognition because it's so few and far in between that the little bit of recognition that we are getting means a lot to more, and it means a lot to the people that are coming to these shows. I can think of people right off hand that come to every single show that we ever have. And if they can't make it--they will make it, they will find some way shape, form, hitch, a ride or walk if they had to. They're diehard fans in this area. And I feel like if I lived in a town up North, it wouldn't be the same."
"Gender can play a big role in drag because as of lately, I’ve seen more and more of what I call a “fem queen”, which means a biological woman who plays a drag queen…. There are also transgender men who play as drag kings….Now, it’s hard to say that it does play a big role because it has gotten to the point where you can be a biological man or a biological woman and still do drag as that same-gender portrayal. You don’t have to reverse the role just to do drag, you can do it as your current gender, you’re just expressing a different side of yourself….I mean, when I'm in drag, I'm not the same person. As a boy, I have flamboyant tendencies, but I'm not the gayest “McGayerson” person that walks around the street, I guess, is the best way to say it. I can be pretty gay. I’ve gone as far as having rainbow hair. I carried a purse as a boy a couple of times, but to say that gender plays a big role in it is not truly accurate in my opinion. Gender doesn’t define you. Your gender does not define you as a drag queen or who you are as a person."
Put on your Face
Put On Your Face (2019) is a short fly-on-the-wall documentary about two Mississippi drag queens putting on makeup for a fundraiser event in Memphis, TN.
This film is the first piece in my series, and my gateway into working with Mississippi drag queens. In early October of 2019, I attended a drag show in Tupelo, MS for class, and I was interested in documenting this community. I reached out to a classmate of mine who knew some of the performers, and I gauged the interest of GoDiva Holliday and DeePression Holliday.
In late October of 2019, I agreed to an invitation to their studio at the Link Center in Tupelo, MS to meet and document them. After spending an entire afternoon filming the Holliday duo getting ready for the Memphis benefit event, I edited this piece which became the first project to many.