TELEVISION
A Fierce Dose of Drag Therapy
What happens when drag queens invade small towns?
BY DAVID KENNERLEY
In March 2020, HBO premiered
“WE’RE HERE,”
a full-hearted docuseries
chronicling a trio of alums
from RuPaul’s Drag Race as they
deliver a dose of drag empowerment
to small-town Americans. It’s
a divine mashup of “Queer Eye”
and “The Adventures of Priscilla,
Queen of the Desert,” with a dollop
of “Kinky Boots” for good measure.
Each episode fi nds Bob the Drag
Queen, Eureka, and Shangela descending
on a town like Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania; Branson, Missouri;
or Farmington, New Mexico
to stage a badass drag show, recruiting
some of the locals to put
on a wig, false eyelashes, and high
heels to help let go of their anxieties
or prejudices. Many of these
folks had never seen a drag queen
in the fl esh, nor did they dream
they’d ever want to.
Due to the raging COVID pandemic,
production was shut down
while fi lming in Spartanburg,
South Carolina. More than a year
later, it’s back with Season 2, which
comes out on HBO and HBO Max,
appropriately enough, on National
Coming Out Day, October 11.
In a recent interview via Zoom,
creators Johnnie Ingram and Stephen
Warren, who are a couple, recounted
how they stumbled upon
the concept for “WE’RE HERE.”
As they tell it, about three years
ago while vacationing in Mexico,
it rained so much they ended up
binge watching “RuPaul’s Drag
Race All-Stars.”
“We love RuPaul,” Warren enthused.
But they pondered, “What
if we took these drag queens and
brought them to small towns?
What would the reaction be? We
looked at each other and thought it
would make a compelling show.”
Neither one had ever developed
a TV show, but with Warren’s job
as an entertainment lawyer, and
Ingram’s background in advertising
and production, they certainly
were no strangers to showbiz.
During a random lunch with a
Bob the Drag Queen and Johnnie Ingram.
close friend who happened to be a
bigwig at HBO, Warren decided to
pitch the show on a whim.
“I thought, HBO doesn’t do this
kind of stuff, but lemme just see
what he thinks,” Warren recalled.
“And he goes, ‘I love it! There’s a
woman in New York who runs my
unscripted division who’s been
wanting to do something like this
forever. Can I tell her I want this?’
And it happened.”
Ingram, who grew up in a small
town in eastern Tennessee, has
personal experience with the challenges
growing up LGBTQ in these
communities. When he left for the
big city life, he moved to Chicago
and worked in drag bars while going
to school. When his mother
would visit, she would come to
those shows.
“For some reason, any barriers
we had about my being gay seemed
to dissolve,” Ingram said. “The
shows opened the door to so many
questions and conversations that
we weren’t normally having.”
Bob, Eureka, and Shangela, who
refer to themselves as “Drag Mothers”
to the “Drag Kids” they are
mentoring, also grew up in small
communities, so they can instantly
relate to the travails these “people
of difference” are going through.
In a separate Zoom call, Bob
recalled poignant moments from
Season 2, which was marked with
intense highs and lows. In the Del
Rio, Texas episode, a Tejano young
man named Esael was so confl icted
about expressing his true self,
he refused to invite his parents to
see him in drag onstage. In fact, he
hadn’t even told them he was gay.
He was fearful of how his parents,
who are conservative and Mexican,
would perceive him.
“It’s not about how they would
react,” Esael said. “It’s about how
they will look at me. I’m gay but I’m
still Esael, I’m still their son. I don’t
want my sexuality to be the only
thing they see.”
Bob was convinced Esael would
not come out to his parents, declaring.
“Not a snowball’s chance
in hell – or in Del Rio, which is very
hot.”
“I thought to myself, I’ll just let
it go, and maybe he can have this
moment with his sister and some
friends. But when he announced
that he came out to them and they
were coming to the show, I was elated.
It was touching because I know
how much I love sharing the joy of
my success with my mother.”
In the Selma, Alabama episode,
Bob was overcome with emotion
when speaking with a Black woman
named Lynda Blackmon Lowery
who was beaten by state troopers
on the Edmund Pettus bridge during
GREG ENDRIES
the momentous “Bloody Sunday”
civil rights march in 1965.
“It was gratitude for being
around someone who had endured
so much, so that I could be where
I am,” Bob explained. “It was also
a sense of guilt for having what I
have and not having to go through
what she went through.”
To be sure, many of these towns
are in ultra-conservative, biblebelt
regions where “Trump 2020”
banners are as common as “Store
For Rent” signs. Each Drag Kid
they enlist has their own heartwrenching
tale to tell, and many
are traumatized. In Spartanburg,
the handsome, bearded Noah currently
identifi es as male and wears
traditionally masculine garb, but
he’s been grappling with his gender
identity. He fears if he expresses
his true nature, he might be followed
and bashed.
Not that all the Drag Kids are
LGBTQ. Some of the recruits are
allies and include ex-homophobic
mothers, Methodist pastors, and
agonized brothers. The Spartanburg
episode also follows Olin, who
is straight and has a brother who
is a drag performer. By shearing off
his beard and donning drag himself,
he not only can take a walk
in his brother’s shoes (in this case,
➤ WE’RE HERE, continued on p.23
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