'King of Drag's Dick Von Dyke is weaponizing the gay male gaze to kick down drag doors
With their quick wit and provocative performance style, Dick Von Dyke stole the hearts of the audience during their time on King of Drag. But theres one person who struggled to watch them on the show: Dick Von Dyke."Its hard for me. I don't really like watching videos of myself, he confesses to PRIDE. Fortunately, Dick, who admits to being an unfair self-critic, wasnt on the judging panel, and the talented king made it all the way to the Revry originals groundbreaking finale, which saw him facing off against King Molasses for the crown.The journey to that moment was at times hard on the Minnesota-based king, but he had a secret weapon that helped him get through the grueling production schedule and the mental challenges that come with starring on a reality competition series: his cat Tootie.She's an angel. She's a baby. And right before I left for the show, I was like, I physically don't know how I'm going to be away from her, he recalls. So he did what any cat dad with separation anxiety would do in this situation: he turned to technology to bridge the divide. I bought a video treat dispenser. So every night I was giving her a treat from the hotel room, he recounts. Adorable as that is, those moments of long-distance king/cat connection were incredibly helpful in grounding Dick. I think it made a huge difference in my ability to show up and be myself, to be able to see my cat.I usually am so confident in my art, but I feel like this competition... I wasn't allowed to have the self-care in place to like what I was doing, he continues. I was just dysregulated, which I think also makes it hard to watch. I'm watching a deeply tired and deeply dysregulated person.Where does some of this anxiety come from? Dick suggests it originates from being a queer person who grew up in a conservative church. I think it gave me a real sense of never feeling good enough, like never feeling like I could measure up to whatever these standards are that I think we create societally, and I knew that I did that in my personal life, but I didn't realize that I do it professionally sometimes too, he says.Now that the season has wrapped and hes had a chance to step back and process the experience, hes most excited that the show did such a wonderful job of introducing more people to the art of kinging an introduction that could prove life-changing for artists pursuing this form of performance. To televise drag is to make it accessible in places where people might not have as much access to live performance, he explains. If you exclude kings on TV, then there's this Ronald Reagan trickle-down effect, where then all the local queens are like, well, it's not me excluding drag kings. It's the man upstairs who said it was okay. [Who] said, drag kings aren't real drag.His hope is that this show will drive awareness and more demand for kings at drag shows, while admitting that they still face one major barrier to breaking through on a local level: men. Specifically, men who run local drag scenes. It's not that every drag queen is a man, trans women obviously initiated this, but men stole it from them, too. So there are all these men who are local drag queens who then show up in a leotard and tell me that my drag is not good enough, says Dick, adding that they feel they have a role to play in changing the king status quo.Theres a lot of privilege in being a six-foot lez with a fat ass and a big nose, Dick shares. Because I think a lot of times gay men kind of forget that I'm not one of them, and so I'll kind of get in the door, and I feel this huge responsibility to prop the door open and be like, okay, everybody come in too.Not only does this kind of exclusion hurt the performers being left out, explains Dick, but it makes drag less of what it was meant to be: a radical form of art and self-expression. The minute we start to gatekeep drag from kings, it's like, one, we're missing the point, and two, we're limiting the beauty and the furthering of the art form, he explains. And it breaks my heart to think about kings that have been left behind for decades.It also makes it less interesting, he says. You're making your own shows boring by leaving people out. Grow up. Just because you were excluded in high school doesn't mean you have to exclude people now to make yourself feel big, boo.Drag is for anybody with a gender or really without a gender, tooanyone who has ever had it to interact with gender, drag is for them, says Dick.Inclusivity lies at the heart of much of what Dicks drag is all about, which is why he had some concerns about making it to the top two alongside Mo. As thrilled as he was to be there, he couldnt help but think about who could have been there in his place. Mo's excellence was always so clear to me, but I was like, I don't belong in the final two, he admits to feeling. I think there's like a fat phobia, a body aspect to it, too. We're like two kings who are considered kind of fit or whatever.Dick admits that he wishes he could have seen more body diversity in the finale, and fears that King of Drag could be seen as having fallen into the same trope as similar shows. Drag Race... I mean, I'll just say it, they have a very fat-phobic take on drag.I just hope that this final two doesn't contribute to that, he admits, sharing that this is a topic he thinks about often ever since having conversations with a larger-bodied king, Boris Tudeth, whom he performed with in Kansas City, Missouri, and who remains one of his favorite kings of all time to this day.Drag queens are notoriously taller than kings not in my case, but in a lot of cases drag queens are tall and their hair is big, and their shoes are big and their eyelashes are big, and there's like, this bigness in terms of silhouette, in terms of taking up space, says Dick, adding that, on the other hand, kings who tend to be shorter, wear fewer wigs and heels, literally take up less space in a way that I think mirrors a lot of the patriarchal tendencies of drag.Body diversity, Dick explains, is one of the ways that kings push back on this dynamic. Boris used to [be like], I love my bigness. This is how I take up space in a room. This is how I walk in and take up as much space as a drag queen. That f-cking rocks.For Dick, working out is one of the ways that he takes care of his mental health, a practice he says he shares with Mo. But hes also aware of how audiences react to his appearance, and those reactions can be complicated for the nonbinary performer.Sometimes it feels uncomfortable when our bodies are objectified even in drag, he says. In ways that feel, frankly, like I've been objectified as a woman. This funny aspect of drag kinging, where you have to kind of process misogyny, even with the mustache.Its even more complicated because, Dick says, he knows that this dynamic is also a part of his success as a drag performer. Unlike many other kings, Dick earns the majority of his income through drag performances, and he's done so, he admits, by leaning into appealing to the gay male gaze. Nine times out of 10, the people who run the shows are men. So... my strategy with Dick Von Dyke is I try to appeal to the gay male gaze.I don't even have to try for the female gaze. That part I've got under control, he admits. Instead, his focus becomes how he can retrofit what he is doing with his art to appeal to the gay men who hold the power of the purse and access to the stage. Because that's how I get booked, he says.This strategy is an unfortunate necessity. A lot of times, how drag kings get shat on is because gay men are like, well, I don't find him attractive, so therefore he does not matter, says Dick. I think that's how a lot of women feel in gay bars in general... there are gay bars that I've gone to where my girlfriend would be like, I'll go get us some drinks, and she'll go up to the bar, and the bartender will just, like, literally ignore her, because it's like, yeah, they don't see women a lot of the time.How this all interacts with his gender identity adds another layer of complication. Frankly, I've been sexually harassed by gay men. [And] frankly, [thats when] I know I'm doing my job correctly, he says, with more than a note of exasperation in his voice. Gay men have said disgusting things to me, as if I'm a man. Then there's this weird, you know, trans mascuness, aspect to it where there's like two seconds of it where, Im like, oh my god, that was so validating. And then I'm like, I was just fucking harassed!All of which underscores why the industry needs to change, and why Dick hopes King of Drag helps to shift the dynamic. The experience certainly changed Dick, who says being in a room with kings taught him so many things, big and small, about drag and his community, and really underscored how rare and special being in a room surrounded by drag brothers is.I learned so much from the other kings. Because, like, you said, it's like, when you're only ever tokenized one at a time, like, when booking producers will be like, Oh, we have a king. We're done, we're good, he says.Its so weird how we're always kept from each other, but then you're also keeping the progress, the passing of knowledge from each other. It's on us to still get together and pass on that knowledge. That's how the art form is going to grow.While the experience of filming King of Drag brought many blessings into his life not the least of which is a whole new drag family he isnt racing to get back in front of the cameras anytime soon. Hee hee, absolutely not, he jokes. There are things that I want to do next, and reality TV is not on that list.What is on that list is more musical theater. As we sat down to chat, Dick was just embarking on his next project: co-producing a drag opera. Musical theater has been a huge influence in my drag, says Dick. I really just want to tell more stories, I want to write more music, I want to make more art. Also I just, like, want to collaborate more, not only in my own backyard, but like across the country.Hes feeling especially inspired right now for a beautiful and surprising reason: reconnecting with his estranged family. This journey has come at such a cosmic time for me. I talk about it a little bit on the show, but when we filmed this, I was kind of newly in the process of achieving repair with my mom, shares Dick. My parents were never malicious, but we jus had different ethos.Coincidentally, when the show was airing, Dick received a call he never expected. My dad called me and we had such a beautiful repair conversation, he says, with emotion evident in his voice. I feel like... I just think [about] being able to build an adult relationship of mutual respect, even in light of our differences. To be a queer person who can pursue repair with my parents, I feel like it has been a huge dream of mine, and one I didn't even really ever plan to achieve.All of this is to say that it has changed the trajectory of his art once born out of a spirit of rebellion, now he sees it evolving into something born out of repair and reconnection. There's so much repair that needs to happen, like culturally, in our country and in the world. Not to be dramatic, but I do think that art on a local level can be a big part of that. I aspire to make art that reflects the loving repair that I have found in my own life, and I would love to pass on to other people.
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