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It's a Big Drag Town. . .
Now there's a sound bite. It's from a drag queen featured in WHAS-TV's most recent ratings sweeps story -- this one focused on drag shows held at The Connection downtown.
WHAS-TV's Arianna Hopkins went backstage at the show, interviewing three of the performers in what is becoming an increasingly mainstream entertainment option. Mainstream, maybe, but it's likely news to the core audience of TV news programs.
At The Connection, there are three shows a night, four nights a week, and it seems all are drawing good crowds -- 60 percent of which the report says are heterosexual.
So it's natural fodder for TV sweeps and a story no one would touch outside of the ratings-driven period. Thursday, by the way, marks the halfway point for this month's sweeps.
The drag piece got the attention of Louisville History & Issues editor Steve Magruder, who wrote this insightful commentary:
What I liked most about this piece was the intimate portrayals of two drag queens as real people with real lives doing real jobs. They have stresses, issues and joys just like the rest of us. This report was very good at lifting the curtain, so to speak, to reveal a very interesting part of Louisville culture, which amazingly some area residents still may not know about or fully appreciate. After all, it's the #1 drag show in the country, and its audience is frequently majority heterosexual, so many may now be newly interested in checking it out. The thumbs up from a corporate news outlet could mean the taboo is finally lifting, so those last few individuals who thought they might be embarrassed being seen near the Connection Complex on Floyd Street need not worry any longer.
What I found especially humorous about the piece was how the news anchors treated it. They seemed to treat the phenomenon of this show as something that is brand new, even though this show has been going strong in various incarnations for decades. It was like "Imagine our surprise that we have a very popular drag show going on in our little city". Too funny. At any rate, oddly enough (and even proudly), these shows do indeed put Louisville on a cultural map, as no other city, big or small, seems to be able to match the quality of Louisville's shows. Louisville isn't just Derby City; we're Drag Queen City too.
Which is a reputation I'm sure some local politicians, i.e. the same crowd that's always fighting porn and strip clubs, will soon start complaining about. I'm sure some Metro Council ordinance prohibiting some aspect of the show to be introduced soon.
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Rick Redding