Queen of the Capital was shown at the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse tonight as a donation fundraiser for Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance. The 91 minute film (on Vimeo) is directed by Josh Davidsburg and was at Sundance.
This turned out to be the last film I would see in a theater before the coronavirus (Covid19) lockdowns of businesses and stay-at-home orders. This was a Sunday night (Sunday, March 8, 2020) the seating has tables for food and drink. The Arlington has always been an important neighborhood theater on Columbia Pike. In the 1950s I saw “Gone with the Wind” there with my mother and cousin on a Sunday afternoon. On March 10 I would do a day trip in PA, my last out of towner for six weeks. The crisis was coming fast and yet this night seemed normal.
The documentary focuses on drag queen Daniel Hays, as Muffy. He had some sort of injury as a child to overcome, and became a drag performer, but he says he is not transsexual and does not want to be a woman and actually considers himself as psychologically masculine, as a performer and entertainer.
The film traces the lives of several other Washington drag queens. One of them had stayed in the closet while in the Army (in the days before Bill Clinton’s “don’t ask don’t tell”) and said, while stationed (apparently at Fort Meyer) he had been given a list of off-limits bars, and that included the gay bars (like Lost and Found).
Another had met the supposedly ideal boy friend according to upward affiliation ideology, and the guy turned out to be a drug dealer and abuser.
The drag queens get ready for the Imperial Court competition (in Richmond). The film has some scenes in Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington VA and some at both the DC gay pride march and festival, maybe around 2016 or 2017. There was one person in the crowd I think I recognized (from the libertarian community). On the day of the competition, Muffy deletes his social media accounts, and that part is not really murky.
Muffy did a quick QA afterwards.
(Posted: Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 10:30 PM EDT)