Linda Simpson, the Boswell of Drag, spoke to The Cut about the evolution of the New York drag scene in the late ’80s and ’90s and about her exhibition of photographs, spanning from 1987 to 1996, titled “The Drag Explosion.”
Where were these photographs taken?
Most of the earlier ones are in the East Village, especially at the Pyramid Club, which was a hotbed of drag back then. And then as drag became more popular on the nightlife scene, it expanded into a lot of clubs and nightlife in general, so a lot of my pictures are from the big clubs at the time — Limelight, Tunnel, Palladium, etc. There was a lot of media attention on the drag scene at that time, especially when RuPaul became a star, so a lot of my pictures are from the trimmings of that — at video shoots, or at movie premieres, or behind the scenes at talk shows. We were really the first drag-queen group to break through to the mainstream — we were very visible and all over the place. We familiarized a lot of people with drag.
You titled the collection “The Drag Explosion.” How did the New York City drag scene change in the years you’ve chronicled?
Well, like I said, for most of the early years that I’m talking around, it was centered in the East Village — and that scene was very rare at that point. And it was a new kind of drag — people were putting an emphasis on personality, and it wasn’t so much about impersonating old divas as it was about creating new characters. And it was very kooky and avant-garde — almost punkish. And then all of the nightlife became very dazzled with the drag phenomenon, and we were hiring drag queens to be club hosts, go-go dancers, working the door. It was a great form of eye candy, and the masses really liked it, so having these colorful people onboard would bring a lot of people to the establishment. And then RuPaul became famous with her single “Supermodel” in 1992, so all of a sudden there was a massive amount of attention — there were drag-themed videos, movies, TV shows, and tons of magazine articles, you name it. The scene just got bigger and bigger.
I would say it peaked around ’95 and then started fading, because the media was onto something else by then. And also Giuliani’s “quality of life” campaign started really cracking down on the nightlife, and drag and nightlife were going hand in hand, so there were a lot fewer places that you could perform and go out.
How does it compare to the drag scene now?
Well, it’s more spread out, I think. My scene was concentrated mostly in Manhattan, and I think that it was probably a little more unified, and we knew each other better. I think it’s actually bigger now. A lot of drag revival, not just in New York but everywhere, has been sparked by the popularity of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and so there are a lot of drag queens, and perhaps more opportunities for drag queens, with the internet. But to some degree there’s not the … I don’t know, the edginess that we had, because we were the first time that the mass media was really coming to terms with drag. Now we’re at a whole different stage, so it’s even hard to compare.
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