Why I'd Love to Spend the Holidays With the "Drag Race" Family

• You don't choose your family, and especially not at Christmas, when it is fashionable to devote a few days to dad, mom and others.

• But pop culture offers emotional refuges for those who can't or won't spend Christmas with their families.

  Imaginary adoptive relatives, yet very comforting.

• All week, journalists from the

  20 Minutes

  Media Service tell their dream Christmas in their dream pop culture family.

  Today, Fabien dreams of spending the holidays in the candy workshop of the

  Drag Race

  franchise .

" We do not choose our family.

Hum, hum, Maxime Le Forestier, not so fast!

Chosen families do exist, especially for LGBT people, many of whom are excluded by part of their family tree.

We are soon in 2023 and, even if the “marriage for all” law is about to celebrate its tenth anniversary, homophobia and transphobia unfortunately remain alive in our region.

Unfortunate scoop: the truce of the confectioners does not apply for them.

I am lucky that this is not my case.

Nevertheless, at the end of each year, I do not forget that many of my peers will spend Christmas far from their parents, brothers and sisters, whether they have decided to do so or are suffering from the situation.

Fortunately, we can count on our chosen families.

“Logical families”, as gay American author Armistead Maupin writes in his autobiographical book

.

The novelist knows what he's talking about:

, which made him famous, recounts how people from all backgrounds, sexual orientations and gender identities happily make community at 28 Barbary Lane.

Surrounding ourselves with those who want the best for us - and vice versa - isn't that the most desirable thing in life?

“Mothers” and “daughters”

My chosen family of pop culture to me, I would look for it on the side of the figures of

.

This drag-queens competition, whose first French season was successfully broadcast this summer on France Télévisions, has become a global phenomenon.

The general public has been able to discover that in drag, there are also mothers (“mothers”) and daughters (“daughters”)… Those who open the way and those who follow in their wake before becoming models for those who follow...

This notion of connection and transmission comes from the

scene , a place of emancipation for many black and Latina LGBT people who are often marginalized by a whole section of the gay community.

In the

scene , as in drag, there is a desire to resist and respond to normative injunctions: what you stigmatize us for, we make it our strength, basically.

Of course, over time, what was yesterday's counterculture tends to get eaten up by

, mainstream culture.

This is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but it is a problem if we forget the political roots, their reasons for being.

Drag is not just about entertainment and spectacle.

For many LGBT people who do it, it's a matter of survival, a way of life.

A relationship to the world.

Drag identity as armor

“Behind the glam, there is drama,” said La Briochée, in the first episode of

.

The franchise, created by RuPaul in 2009 in the United States, and whose fifteenth American season will be launched in January, has demonstrated this.

In the

, the workshop where the candidates prepare, there are many confidences.

Homophobic attacks, family banishment, economic difficulties, depression, illnesses... the traumas are told before the show starts again.

We understand that, for many, the drag identity is armor, a double allowing us to do and say what we would not dare to do and say otherwise, a transcendence.

These drag queens, drag kings or drag queers, I admire them.

They have the audacity that I would like to have.

They inspire me with their self-confidence, their creativity, their ability to provoke raw emotions and simply to provoke.

On my dream Christmas, I think I would have a lot to say to Paloma, winner of

.

We would talk about Clermont-Ferrand, where we come from, how Mylène Farmer built the people we are, about this word, "queer", which we are keen to reclaim to wash away the insulting charge that has so often been addressed.

I will obviously invite the rest of the French cast that I had the opportunity to present here.

Over 300 potential guests

For the rest of the invitations to my table, I would be spoiled for choice.

In the United States alone, more than 180 drags have already participated in

.

The figure easily exceeds 300 if we take into account all the international adaptations that continue to flourish.

So, on the American side, I would invite Trixxie Mattel and Katya, whose Salle Pleyel in Paris has been haunted by their ramshackle humor since their visit in November, the hilarious Bob The Drag Queen too, and, on the Canadian side, Rita Baga - to have scoops on the upcoming Belgian adaptation.

I would also burn that the Spanish Sharonne tells me how she is preparing for the Eurovision selection of her country.

I would send an invitation card to Xilhouete, the Filipina who fascinates me with her elegance, and would count on the Brits Tia Kofi and Lawrence Chaney for irreverence.

Italian Farida Kant could talk about the outfits she created for

presenter Nicky Doll .

The list cannot be exhaustive.

Does it need to be?

These paragraphs probably confuse the Boeotians enough as it is.

Local queens too

In reality, I would have to invite everyone because everyone has their voice, their say, their importance.

It would also be essential to also include drags who have not participated in the show, or not yet, and who absolutely do not need this validation.

If you discovered this universe with

, keep in mind that this art is not limited to this reality TV format.

Support your

and

, who perform regularly near you.

On the side of the Parisian scene, I will invite Bichette, Coco Ricard, Aaliyah Xpress, Cookie Kunty - whom you may have adored recently in

directed by Florent Goëlou (alias Javel Habibi) -, Minima Gesté, Loulou de Cacharel, Lewis Raclette, Père Eustache, La Duchiasse, Angelica Stratatrice and Clémence Trü (list necessarily incomplete)… At my dream Christmas, we would do a great zinzin choreography on

by Sheila.

Or not, we would overturn the table and the conventions.

What is certain is that we would give each other the gift of being together.

Culture

“Drag-queens and drag-kings are beacons in the LGBT community,” says Sofian Aissaoui, author of “Drag”

Television

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• Culture

• RuPaul's Drag Race

• Christmas

• pop-culture

• Television

• LGBT movement

• Homosexuality