Is "I'm Every Woman" The "Freebird" Of Drag Queens?
-by Jeremy Gloff
-appeared on TheNewGay.net
-May 17th, 2010

I felt like a fucking alien. Had I known this evening would have entailed this much douchery I would have gone home and watched Forensic Files in my boxers.

Sure, when I arrived at the restaurant I was already in a bad mood. Best case scenario seeing my friends would have cheered me up. Worst case scenario … well … read on.

The night could have been fun. My friend’s magazine was celebrating their second issue. There was a room full of single gay men, and the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season One was slated to perform. I was hoping to write a column for OMG. I was hoping to meet a guy. I was hoping the winner of a well known reality show wouldn’t suck.

To be fair this wasn’t really my crowd. The room was full of cheek kissers. I can always sense them from across the room. I cringe when they see me. Once eye contact is made, there is no escape. Through a maze of twenty people they slither towards you, lips puckered until they reach the final destination. First the left cheek, then the right. I’ve always found the whole ritual dreadfully hollow. False fronts and social graces bore me more than writing this article.

And then came BeBe.

I watch very little TV. Had I watched RuPaul’s Drag Race perhaps I would have learned that BeBe Zahara Benet had an awful past. Perhaps she macheted her way through a rain forest, rode a camel through the desert, and hijacked a helicopter just to audition for the show. All without breaking a press-on nail. As I stood in the room that night I had no sentimental attachment or preconceived notions about Bebe Zahara Benet.

Her first performance was an enlightening ditty called “I’m the Shit”. Even as a statement, “I’m The Shit” has never appealed to me. People who call themselves “the shit” are usually overcompensating for an uncertainty of their own validity. I don’t think I’m the shit. I think I’m alright. I definitely didn’t think BeBe Zahara was the shit. I’d seen more convincing drag queens at the Nite Spot in Jamestown, New York – a place so awful it wasn’t a hole in the wall, it was a puncture in the universe.

Miraculously BeBe’s second performance outsucked the first tenfold. As the opening piano chords drifted into the room a resounding “no fucking way” clattered through my head. Yes, it was THAT song again.  And then the beat kicked in. And then Whitney Houston’s voice kicked in. Yes my friends, we have reached the billionth drag queen performing to Whitney Houston’s “I’m Every Woman”.

BeBe entered the room wearing a wig that looked like Ronald McDonald dyed black. As the room went apeshit I thought to myself “fuck, this bitch isn’t even trying.” BeBe missed a great opportunity at irony. Retooling Whitney’s “I’m Every Woman” to instead proclaim “I’m Every Drag Queen” would have been genius.

I wish I could have been excited. Everyone looked like they were having so much fun. BeBe, I know society is harsh, and you are probably a very nice person. I know we are all oppressed, and many of us say things like “I’m The Shit” just get get through the day. But Mr. Curmudgeon strikes again, and I can truly say the only thing more dreadful than your performance that night was watching the idiots in the audience eat it up like the sheep they are.

I had a lot of revelations that night. I realized I would be going home alone.  And I realized when in doubt, always opt for Forensic Files.