“I take my anger and I turn it into jokes, and I take my sadness and I turn it into music, and that’s how I survive.”

It’s an empowering statement from “RuPaul’s Drag Queen” alumnus and Broadway star Jinkx Monsoon.

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Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme are on their way to “The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show.” The two just checked into their hotel in Durham, North Carolina. This is the third night of the show which will take them through the Southern states before heading north and to the West Coast.

Opening night was November 7 and there were lots of tears and a 1 p.m. technical inspection, but the show still had to go on. BenDeLaCreme found solace in performing in front of an audience. “That night, being able to hear every gasp and tight mouth because they see what they feel on stage. It was an extremely rewarding experience,” says BenDeLaCreme.

Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme sit in their hotel room and talk on Zoom. Monsoon says, “I don’t know what anger and sadness would do to me right now if I didn’t have a place to channel it and transform it into something that could have a positive effect. »

The two also spoke about the importance of queer art in these times and share details about their new holiday show.

It’s been a few days since the results, how are you feeling?

MONSOON JINKX: A little everywhere. My closest community members held me and I sobbed. It’s something I had because I’m part of a supportive community. So I tried to focus on the positive aspects of things, and the fact that half the country thinks we have a right to exist. It’s really disheartening to see that half the country you live in, or more than half, voted for someone who stands for everything we’ve been taught and is the opposite of American values. I was raised with this American cowboy idea that even though America is imperfect, our core values ​​are to stick up for the little guys and try to help them and get our hands dirty. We’ve been fed this ideal image of what patriotism is in America, and we’ve seen everyone say that racism, misogyny, and phobia are more important to defend. How do you understand this?

According to AdImpact, the Republican Party has spent nearly $215 million on anti-trans television ads. What comes to mind when you hear this amount?

MONSOON: Every time I hear this I just think about the fact that this is exactly what Hitler and the Nazis did. They started with homosexuals in the 1930s in Germany. The queer arts community was the test to see if it would work to take over, and it did for them. And now for these Nazis, they’re in our country, they’ve just taken over, and they’re fascists, and it’s terrifying.

BENDELACREME: It seems so cheap, and I feel so sad and angry that the American people could be this – this fear or this lack of understanding, or whatever it is. This hatred can be exploited to distract from everything else. That this can be the cornerstone of a campaign is astounding. I think I’ll get a lot more angry when I feel a little less exhausted, but I see so many comments and things on social media about “gay people are so dramatic” or “nothing will happen to you” or ” The campaign doesn’t hate you. Trump doesn’t hate you. This is a question of economics. And of course I also understand that there are poor people who worry about whether they can afford certain things, and that has been at the forefront of their minds, but the fact that somehow on the other can be so much in the spotlight, that you can really hear the amount that you just talked about being spent specifically to promote this ideology, and then you can say, “But it’s not about that’s about these other things. Everything will be fine. I voted for Trump, but I still love and support you.

MONSOON: That number, how many people would that have helped? But no, this money is being spent on ads to hurt people, and that is simply despicable. Like the only debate that took place, he didn’t even present any plans or policies. He just rambled on for nothing. Honestly, everyone who voted for him voted for him on these trademark promises that the rich will get richer, and he’s going to fix the economy with no plan in place. He just shrugs and says, “I’ll do it.” “Ultimately, you’re using the Trojan horse of transphobia, misogyny, and control over people’s lives to gain access. Is that why you wanted to win, and that’s why the people who voted for him agreed with that?

I saw something that said not everyone who votes for Trump is racist. I would like to say to every person who voted for Trump, you may not feel racist or transphobic, but you have told everyone you share a world with that these things are not deal-breakers for you. So now when you look at history and you look at the Nazis and those who supported them and those who did nothing if you voted for Trump, you can just know that you are one of those people. You did this to yourself. In my opinion – and I am not religious – these people are damned for eternity.

What would you say to young trans people who are trying to find themselves in the times ahead?

BENDELACREME: What I often tell people and myself is that this is where the queer community has thrived. Queer people, as artists and community builders, have always been those who have thrived the most under this type of constraint.

Drag was born out of the need to create beauty and joy in spaces where people weren’t experiencing that. Creating a sense of power and celebration, making people who have never had the right to be themselves or express themselves live under the constant threat of violence. Drag queens were the people on stage speaking these truths. There’s this cultural significance in the way that drag queens talk openly about sexual topics in these public spaces where it can’t be talked about anywhere else, and it would give gay people who were afraid to speak up about it, that would give the ability to say, “Oh wow, I’m not alone in this situation. »

So there are these microcosmic examples of how drag queens have historically not been afraid to say something that’s considered unspeakable, and I feel like that’s a really powerful story to be a part of . It’s a legacy I’m honored to be a part of. I have a responsibility to get on stage and continue to say the things we’re told not to say elsewhere. This is the power of art. This is our strength in these times.

I walked down the street the day after the election and felt like making eye contact with strangers on the street in solidarity with, “Oh, this day is so dark,” and I realized I was afraid to make eye contact because I wasn’t doing it. I don’t know who is who. But when we’re in a theater or performance space, we know we can look everyone in the eye because we’re all on the same team. We’re going to have fewer spaces like this where we know we’re all united. And so I think whether you’re in the audience or on stage, it’s a very powerful thing.

MONSOON: With them in power, be prepared for everything to be a lie, but art made by real artists can still be the truth, and art is how we survived in the past, and art is how we survive it now. This is how we will keep our community alive and continue a legacy to tell the next community because they believe that homosexuality is something that can be isolated and eliminated. It’s just a part of life. It’s just a part of humanity. You get rid of this generation of queer people, your kids are going to be queer, and then what are you going to do? Kill your children? Jesus Christ. What a dark fucking world they’ve created.

It’s horrible, the dystopian futures we’ve been warned about in our art are happening. I don’t care if I look dramatic, the people who think I look dramatic have never walked down the street for fear that someone might attack them because of the way they look. Anyone who thinks we’re being dramatic has never left their house thinking maybe I won’t come home today because someone doesn’t like me, and now there’s a president telling them that It’s okay to not love me.

BENDELACREME: Our country refuses to even acknowledge that what they do to us has this kind of effect on us, making sane people crazy, making fanatics proud. Anyway, we have a holiday show, and I wouldn’t say these topics are addressed directly, but it’s just part of life now. So that’s part of our art, and our art is always very funny and always very entertaining and always very Christmassy and silly, but it’s real, it’s truthful and it comes from our heart for your heart.

Opening night was two days ago. Talk about being in that space and, like you said, feeling the love. How was it?

MONSOON: There’s no more satisfying moment than knowing that your jokes land, that plot points hit, and that they’re with you every step of the journey. But on this night, being able to hear every gasp and tight mouth because they see how it feels on stage. It was an extremely enriching experience as an artist.

BENDELACREME: We speak very loudly in allegory, and we really worked hard this year to write a show. We knew people weren’t going to want to talk about it. We need to give them the opportunity to be distracted, to have a good time, to laugh, and we also need to give them the opportunity to feel some catharsis. We knew that no matter what world we lived in, the message conveyed would always be true. We’ve been through a very difficult time recently, and we’ve fought very, very hard, and there are still fights, and we should also be proud of the fight we’ve had, because that’s how we continue . You need to stop and take stock of what you have accomplished and what you have done, whether you have “failed or succeeded”, because fighting is something to be proud of, and if you don’t think about it , if you don’t honor yourself, and the fact that you see yourself, you see that you fought for me, I fought for you, then what incentive is there to continue if you don’t take that pace .

That same morning we sat down and wrote the new ending scene. We knew what he had to say and we played it to the audience that night, and it was so immediate. I feel so proud of us for being so honest in that moment, and really saying: This is what it is today, and this is how we feel. When we first revealed where we were going with this scene, we felt the audience care so closely about us, and it felt like it was amazing.

MONSOON: You could hear a pin drop. It’s so hard to get everyone in a room to focus on one thing,
and just to know that, like in that lonely moment, we were all together in synchronicity. It was truly magnificent.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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