Drag has been featured in popular culture for decades. Movies like ‘Kinky Boots,’ ‘Tootsie,’ ‘The Birdcage’ – even ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ – have showcased men, some gay, some not, who dress and perform as women. Jenna Wortham Read Quote
I like to dim the lights and talk about the ghosts I’ve known and invite other people to tell me their stories. Jenna Wortham Read Quote
When I visited my family in Virginia, I tracked down my seventh-grade best friend and sat in TGI Fridays near a mall for hours, laughing while her daughter took insane-looking selfies on my phone. Jenna Wortham Read Quote
Falling head over heels in love with women was a habit I thought I’d thoroughly grown out of in middle school, when a group of about five girls and I color-coordinated our outfits and spent weekends and even some weeknights sprawled out in each others bedrooms. Jenna Wortham Read Quote
Once, at Thanksgiving, a neighbor wandered in while my cousin Lisa worked on a turkey, shearing meat off its frame and sliding the steaming slices onto a big flowered plate. ‘Hey, that’s the man’s job,’ she yelped, in between slurps of her Big Gulp. No one even paused to acknowledge the comment; everyone just laughed and laughed. Jenna Wortham Read Quote
I’m a white girl and not a white girl, identified by other people as black and not black for as long as I can remember – which, in mixed-people speak, means biracial. Jenna Wortham Read Quote
The argument has been made that smart women on screen are already enough of a minority to make up for the lack of women of color. Nope. Not good enough. Jenna Wortham Read Quote
Most times, at the movies, my stress levels are ratcheted up so high that I can barely sit through the full production without excusing myself, clutching people next to me or crawling out of my seat, incapacitated by the unknown. Jenna Wortham Read Quote
TV shows and movies are a rare form of atemporality, and in an ever-changing, always-on world, spoilers feel irrefutable – sheer access to them gives the illusion of control. Jenna Wortham Read Quote
