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CHEAP QUEENS AND REAL QUEENS Words and Images Minh Anh Nguyen
“I’m a cheap queen, I can be what you like” – King Princess (“Cheap Queen,” 2019). “Cheap queen” is a term that refers to a “queen” in drag who is resourceful, who can make something out of not very much.
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Amanda makes a grand entrance and audience member, Abi Ewen, expresses a pleasantly impressed look. (Jacque's Cabaret, Boston, MA)
Whether you’re a drag performer or a college student putting on an outfit to go out to a bar on a low budget – nobody wants to be called “cheap.” “It means you look tacky, like a cheap prostitute,” as one outdated answer from an online user on mumsnet.com in 2011 defined it. In popular culture, the consensus is that looking “cheap” is synonymous with having bad taste. But in recent years, we’ve moved towards an era of post-ironic aesthetics – which I would define as “looking cheap, but with intention.” Consider this: a woman in Vietnam wears a t-shirt that says “Supromo,” a near-missed spelling of the brand Supreme; a traveller captures an image of it as she drives past on her motorbike and puts it online; people love it. Awareness sets the distinction between “trendy” and “tacky.” Like most post-ironic fashion trends, it is considered ground-breaking when executed by people with means and “cheap” when executed by people who can’t afford effortless classiness. In drag, the idea of “realness” has reigned supreme. The term derives from the ballroom scene at its height in New York in the 1960s. It is a space where queer people of colour
