BLACK DIVAZ Film Review—Miss First Nation Drag Queen Pageant 2017

BLACK DIVAZ Promotes LGBTQI Acceptance Within Aboriginal Culture

The goal of this documentary film is to promote pride and acceptance within the Aboriginal culture for LGBTQI people. This film is dedicated to those in the LGBTQI community that have lost their lives due to homophobia, trans hatred and traumas resulting in suicide within the Sister Girls and Brother Boys Mob.  With passion, skill and sometimes more than five hours of applying make-up, wigs, corsets and falsies, these girls transform themselves into glittery entertainers, dancing, lip-syncing, doing comedy acts with poise, feathers and sequins.  Through sharing their courageous performances, these Drag Queens hope to provide inspiration and create acceptance for others within their communities.

The director, Adrian Russell Wills, filmed this documentary to make you feel you are there with the camera on stage, in the dressing rooms, greeting the contestants as they arrived at the hotel, and at the judges’ tables.  The viewer gets to watch the make-up application, the contours being drawn, and the gluing of the brows. You see performers transform as they step into their costumes and fasten their high heels. The cameras are so close you might even perspire or wring your hands with anticipation on the final day. The scenes are edited to convey unrehearsed authenticity.

Crystal Love from the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin, whose parents’ indigenous affiliation were the Alligator and the Buffalo, talked about how as a trans-woman, she relied heavily on the support of her friends and family including straight family members.  Treated harshly at times by her own people for being trans, she spoke about homophobia and trans hatred growing out of the modernizing of Aboriginal Peoples adopting Christianity and Catholicism. Crystal talked about both of her parents being alcoholics and her own struggle with alcohol. Back home her boyfriend won’t walk openly down the street holding her hand, yet on stage she struts proudly, wears pink false eyelashes and historically inspired gowns.

Isla Fuk Yah, who identifies offstage as a straight male, began struggling with anxiety during his late teen years and feels that by having the freedom to transform into his stage persona, she can help moderate some of the social anxiety he feels. His mother helped him into the hotel with his costumes and wigs.

Josie has performed as a drag queen for years and made a decision that, as a gay man, one could either cower or work being gay to their advantage. She also introduced her partner and admitted that without him, she’d be lost.

A warning in bold white type appeared against the black screen in the very beginning of the film.  It read, ABORGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS VIEWERS ARE ADVISED THAT THE FOLLOWING PROGRAM CONTAINS IMAGES OF PEOPLE THAT ARE DECEASED. Amid all the glitz, upbeat music, excitement and anticipation of the competition the reality of present-day Australia is that First Nation Drag Queens are members of two minorities and face double discrimination for being Aboriginal as well as being gay.  Before the credits scroll, photographs and a video of a young, deceased Aboriginal Drag Queen scroll by and the film is dedicated in her honor.

Identifying as an ally of the LGBTQI community, this writer was unfamiliar with the struggles of the Aboriginal LGBTQI community, although they mirror the prejudice and bias faced by people of color in the LGBTQ community in the United States. You, like this writer, may similarly feel compelled to search  the internet for definitions of unfamiliar terms and maps of the Australian states. At the end, this film leaves us feeling somber, but hopeful, and appreciative of the privilege it affords to observe closely and take a brief look at First Nation Drag Queens.