(Gardenia, Photo credit: Luc Monsaert)
The Art of DragGardenia is poignant meditation on beauty and age
By Richard Burnett (printed from Fugues with permission)
I have been to just about every major drag event in London, Sydney, Paris, New York, New Orleans, Vegas and Montreal, and as drag culture has morphed into a universal phenomenon, it is evident it has also become increasingly homogenous and mainstream. There are no longer any great differences between, for instance, French and English drag performers (if there ever were), except for perhaps in Quebec where audiences still really love their clown-like drag queens like Montreal icon Mado La Motte – so-called when she started her career at Poodles nightclub on the Main back in 1987 because patrons there thought she looked like a mutt.
“She looks like a clown!” my six-year-old brother Skye told me as he pointed to Mado at his first Gay Pride parade in Montreal over a decade ago. When I told Mado about it afterwards, she replied, “He’s right, I am a clown!”
