Cultural Nights Continue with The Bash
The Cultural Nights continue Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in the Soda Center with the 12th annual LGBTQIA’s The Bash, whose theme is “You Better Werk,” inspired by drag queen and drag innovator RuPaul. The free event features food and mocktails, followed by a Moulin Rouge–themed set of performances of spoken word, dance, comedy, and drag, according to Bash lead chair Nani Schroeder ’18.
RuPaul is famous for his TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race, which will enter its ninth season on VH1, as well from his hit song “Supernatural (You Better Work),” featured in The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
“Not only do we [on The Bash executive team] love RuPaul and love drag queens and everything they represent, but we also really like the aspect of campiness that drag queens often have,” said Katherine Manley ’18, set director for the Bash.
Camp, in terms of drag, is taking an aspect of one’s identity that is condemned and exaggerating it to the point where it makes people feel uncomfortable, according to Manley.
“[For] gay men … they are constantly condemned for being attracted to another man which is, in our heteronormative world, is what women do. Thus, they take that feminine trait and exaggerate it. They cover their face in this ridiculous makeup and put on huge wigs, they cover everything about themselves that is masculine and make it feminine,” she said. “Camp is a way to celebrate the things people usually hate us for and shove it in people’s faces.”
One does not have to be in the LGBTQIA community to partake in drag, however. The Bash team encourages everyone to come in drag.
“We want everyone to come to the Bash and play with their gender,” said Manley. “You don’t have to be queer to do drag, you always don’t even have to cross dress.” Manley, for instance, will be faux-queening as Lady Gaga—meaning that she will be dressing as Lady Gaga while exaggerating some aspect of herself in her costume.
While the Bash is free, it will be accepting donations to the LGBT Youth Center in San Francisco.
“We’re doing [this] specifically in light of what the Trump administration has said in regards to transgender rights to use bathrooms,” said Manley. In line with this message, the Soda Center will have gender-neutral bathrooms for the duration of the Bash by covering up the men’s and women’s signs.
The Bash is one of but a few LGBTQIA-identified facets on campus, besides PRIDE Club. To its executive team, The Bash is an essential resource to the LGBTQIA community at Saint Mary’s.
“Oftentimes, our experiences get lost because there’s not that many of us [LGBT folks] on campus, or at least out. It’s important for us to share our cultural experience with the rest of Saint Mary’s and be able to give people a space to express themselves and feel safe [doing it],” said Nani Schroeder.
“If I didn’t hear other people talking about their experiences coming out at The Bash, experiences that resonated with me and reminded me of my own story and my own process of what it means to be a queer woman, I don’t know if I would’ve ever had the confidence to come out myself,” said Manley.