Intrigue Thursday, February 3, 2011
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Emily Adams / Photo Editor
Braxton Tanner, sophomore in environmental design, puts on make-up as he prepares to transform into alter ego Joan Oullet Wolfe at Club 322 in Montgomery Saturday night.
Far from a
DRAG
Drag show helps student express inner woman Miranda Dollarhide Intrigue Editor
Braxton Tanner sits alone at a small table in the Gnu’s Room wearing an Auburn baseball cap and a green Hollister sweater. Tanner looks like any college male, but he has a secret that most people couldn’t guess by looking at him. He is a drag queen. “I love being able to look like a boy and fool people into thinking I am a woman, and then in 10 minutes go back to being a boy,” said Tanner, sophomore in environmental design. Tanner said being a drag queen isn’t what most people think. “A lot of people are confused and think that we as men would like to be women, but that is plainly not the case,” Tanner said. “What drag is, is an art expression. For a lot of us, it’s our theatre.” He sums it up in one quote. “To steal a quote from the movie, ‘To Wong Foo,’ ‘Drag is when a gay man has too much style sense for one gender,’” Tanner said. His start in drag began last August. “My first time out in drag was to a birthday party,” Tanner said. “Then I started going to clubs.” One night at a club in Montgomery called 322, Tanner was encouraged to start performing. “They said, ‘You know what, you look fierce. You should come out for our amateur show,’” Tanner said. His first time wasn’t a success, but that didn’t stop him. “I came back, and I started winning competitions,” Tanner said. “Then they asked me to eventually perform on the main stage.” The “main stage” is a cast of five drag queens who perform Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
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I like being able to look like a boy and fool people into thinking I am a woman, and then in 10 minutes go back to being a boy.” —Braxton Tanner, Sophomore, Environmental Design
The cast consists of Tanner, who named his persona Joan Oullet Wolfe, and four other drag queens named Thai, Chloe, Mindy and Felicia. They perform almost every night there is a show and may be accompanied by a guest or the winner of an amateur show. “If you win an amateur show, you are given one night to perform in one of the shows on the main stage,” Tanner said. Tanner said his confidence grew on the main stage from winning numerous amateur nights. He said the other cast members were surprised by how good he was. “He performed, and everyone was like ‘Wow, who is this?’” said Chloe VonTrapp, a cast member at 322. “People took notice.” They were so impressed that they created a position especially for “Joan” on the main stage. “She was young, fresh and exciting to watch,” VonTrapp said. “She has a lot of natural stage presence.” Tanner’s success in drag came from taking the time to build his persona. » See Drag, C2
Emily Adams / Photo Editor
emily Adams / Photo Editor
Tanner performs as “Joan” to a rendition of the Britney Spears’ song “Womanizer.”
Tanner adds padding to his shirt to give him a more shapely figure while performing.
Intrigue C2
DRAG » From C1
“I prepared a lot for drag before I ever went out for the first time,” Tanner said, “which is different from a lot of people.” Once Tanner decided he really wanted to get into drag, he said he saved money and bought expensive make-up and clothes before his debut. “I really had time to sit and think about what my look was going to look like,” Tanner said. “I was sitting there thinking about a name and so Joan Rivers—just her personality and a little bit of that edge and that crass—was attractive to me. I just thought, ‘I have to incorporate Joan.’” His drag middle name, Oullet, and last name, Wolfe, were just as inspired. “Oullet is my drag family name,” Tanner said. “When I started I was adopted into a drag family and that was my drag family name.” Tanner was brought into a “drag family” by fellow cast member Mindy Michelle who is known as his drag mother. Tanner said the part of Joan’s name that best represents her personality is Wolfe. “I come from a Latino background, so Shakira was another huge inspiration, and she has the album She-Wolf,” Tanner said. “So I took Wolf, and it also was this iconic sort of animal. It has this fierce and this edge to it. It’s very stoic.” What Tanner most enjoys about being Joan is the illusion it creates. “I am a fan of the extreme,” Tanner said. “It is like the most stark illusion that you can make to confuse someone into thinking that I am not a man.” Tanner has created such a good illusion that people actually do mistake him for a woman. “I have people ask me all the time who know I am a drag queen,” Tanner said, “They say, ‘Please tell me you are a real woman.’” People may be confused by Tanner’s gender because of the dedication he puts into actually looking like a woman—not like a man trying to look like a woman. “He looks very polished,”
The Auburn Plainsman VonTrapp said. “He wears good costumes, and his makeup is amazing, very well put together from head to toe.” Tanner said he owes his femininity to the region. “Queens in the Southeast are known for realness, padding,” Tanner said. “We wear hip pads, butt pads. We duct tape our chests and stomach together. We like to literally look like a woman.” Even though Tanner finds excitement in drag, many people he has encountered don’t understand it. “It’s either people don’t notice, they really like it or they really don’t like it,” Tanner said. “There is not really any indifference.” Tanner even had an incident with harassment last year. He said he filed a report with Auburn Public Safety, but nothing ever became of it. “I don’t think it is as big a deal for drag kings,” Tanner said. “I think it’s a big deal for drag queens because men have this iconic status, and when you demote yourself down to a woman, in certain people’s minds, it is this shameful sort of deal.” Tanner receives support from friends and some of his family. His parents don’t know, but his cousins keep up with his shows. “I don’t think my parent’s read The Plainsman, but if they do, it’s not the first bridge I’ve had to cross,” Tanner said. Drag takes up a lot of Tanner’s time, but he doesn’t consider it all he is. Tanner said he considers drag just a weekend thing. He spends the rest of his time running around campus attending class, doing things for Spectrum, also known as Gay Straight Alliance, working at the herpetology lab and playing with his pet lizard, Tiki. He hopes to one day use his environmental design degree to design exhibits for gardens, museums and zoos. “I like taking something, like a blank slate, and creating something completely different.” Tanner said. “That is what motivates me into doing things, whether it be my job or drag. It’s the way I live my life.”
Thursday, February 3, 2011
EMILY ADAMS / PHOTO EDITOR
Nick and Julia Wiard spend quality time with their two daughters, Hayden, 3, and Avery, 1, in their dorm suite in Aubie Hall.
A different kind of family The Wiard family calls the residence hall home Emily Clever COPY EDITOR
Up a staircase between Aubie and Eagle halls in the Village live Nick and Julia Wiard and their two daughters, Hayden, 3, and Avery, 1. While most college students would find this situation unique, Nick said it’s not—many campuses have similar family housing options. Auburn has three or four other live-in families, and it’s actually similar to a family living in a flat in a large city. Their second daughter Avery was born at the East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika, and the dorm suite is the only living situation she has ever known. Nick works as the area director for the Village and part of the Quad. He said his job allows him to be available and on campus full time in case of an emergency, which usually involves assisting in student
Chicken Milanese
personal crises. “The reason they put us in is for a quick response,” Nick said. “If they need a professional-level response right away—if an emergency happens in a building—I can be over there in about three minutes, as opposed to 15 or 20 minutes for somebody off campus.” The flat is larger than the standard dorm room, complete with a full-sized kitchen with oven and dishwasher, tons of counter space, a stacking washer and dryer, a bedroom for the girls (large enough for two cribs), a master bedroom and bathroom, a guest bathroom and an office. “We joke about the fact that if we live in any longer, we’ll just move them down the hall, and they’ll start going to school here,” Nick said. “The other thing that I thought about is a lot of schools have a freshman year live-on requirement, and so both of our girls already fulfilled that in the first couple years of life.” As with all housing situations, there are some advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is free rent, just like with student
resident assistants. “It is an incentive to keep people in that would rather not,” Nick said. “In certain places in the country it’s so expensive to live that you have to provide for your folks because you wouldn’t be able to get them in on the salary they would like to pay most professionals at that level.” Another is closeness to all the events on the University, like gymnastics meets and basketball games the Wiards only walk two minutes to attend. “They get to go see Tiger Walk—some people drive three or four hours to get here to see them do that, and we walk out six minutes,” Nick said. But not having a carport or yard, the constant fire drills and worrying about the girls’ volume levels, especially at night, can be a burden. The Wiards said they plan to move into a house by the time Hayden enters kindergarten. “They take care of us here,” Nick said about the washer and dryer the University provided at Nick’s request.
Nick said moving out will be difficult because of the advantages and cost effectiveness the dorm room provides. “Hayden’s just starting to be aware of the fact that she lives in Aubie Hall and will tell people that,” Julia said. “For the longest time she would say, ‘That is my house,’ and I don’t know if she understood that there were 700 other people living here or not.” Nick graduated from Central Arkansas, where he met Julia, and both worked at Western Kentucky University before moving to Auburn. Julia, a Selma native, works with the Student for Leadership and Ethics program in the Auburn University Student Center, creating workshops and conferences aimed at building leadership throughout the year. But regardless of whether they live on campus or make the tough financial transition to a house, Julia said they’re in the Auburn area for good. “It’s kind of been fate that he got a job here,” Julia said. “It’s closer to home. Auburn’s kind of where we wanted to be.”
Kerry’s recipe of the week
Ingredients: 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts salt and pepper, to taste 1 egg ½ cup milk 2 cups seasoned Italian bread crumbs ¼ cup canola oil
Directions: Slice chicken breasts lengthwise, so each breast will become two. Season with salt and pepper. In a large bowl, beat the egg and milk together. In another large bowl, add the bread crumbs. Dredge the chicken breast in the egg and then coat with bread crumbs. Repeat for all chicken. Preheat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil. When oil is hot, add the chicken. Do not overcrowd the pan. Cook for 4 minutes. Flip and cook for an additional 4 to 5 minutes. Drain on a paper towel. Serve hot. Serves: 4
Contributed by Kerry Fannon
Joe Random JT Howard
Sophomore, Chemical Engineering ── What are your hobbies? I like to run and hike, and I attend all Auburn athletic stuff. What do you think is weird? The MTV show Skins, but I like weird things.
Who is your celebrity crush? Rachel Bilson Favorite place to eat on campus? Southern Grill at Foy
Any bad habits? I gossip. That’s bad, right?
What do you want people to remember you as? Fun? That’s so lame. But it’s true.
What’s on your bucket list? I want to travel to Africa and help out.
Coolest thing you’ve done this school year? My life is just cool.