John Cameron Mitchell Says Drag Bans Won’t Last: ‘Most Young People Realize It’s Absurd’
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John Cameron Mitchell, who blazed onto the indie scene with the 2001 queer musical “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” hopes that the recent state legislation outlawing drag shows will soon be a thing of the past.
“I think it’s temporary because most young people realize it is absurd and eventually, the bigots die off,” Mitchell told TheWrap in a recent interview.
The Tony-winning actor, who costars in Apple TV+’s “City on Fire” and did musical turns on Netflix’s “Sandman” and a Season 2 episode of “Yellowjackets,” recently moved to New Orleans and spoke about a pending drag ban in Louisiana.
“Can you imagine New Orleans, Mardi Gras? They generally just laugh at the state capitol. Where I live now, the whole city is in drag,” he said. “Part of it is a kind of cover for anti-trans stuff, which is a different thing that some people equate to gender non-conforming. And [they say it’s] ‘against God’ and it’s ‘child abuse.’ It’s outrageous, because it’s a cover for other things.”
He added, “If you’re a parent, you know, some kids are queer, and they’re finding their way. And of course it is a delicate journey to find out who you are and what you need. But let the parents work on that. Let the doctors work on that. And let the performers be, for Christ’s sake,” he added.
“We all know that the most powerless get the shaft first, the immigrants, the queers, Black folks, any poor folks, anybody who doesn’t have a leg up, tends to be the first target,” he said. “When the Fox News folks need to pass their anti-tax laws or whatever, distract them with gay marriage, distract them with drag, distract them with trans youth journeys, you know. It’s cynical, and it’s disgusting.”
The 60-year-old actor/director, who came out as non-binary in 2022, quipped, “I’m too old to change my pronouns because I can’t remember my phone number. Pronouns are great, but at a certain point, we all forget what gender and sexuality our friends are and we just live our lives, right?”
As an older member of the LGBTQ community, he weighed in on the movement for gender-neutral acting categories at awards shows, “I think these things take time to flow a little bit. So let’s slowly get there. Once there are more non-binary people, I think it will become clear that one category is probably better. I’d like to let things develop more slowly so people can get used to them.”
