It seems inadequate to try examining one without the other. Two different generations epitomizing one similar act of rebellion: being a man who wears dresses.
Sixteen-year-old Jamie New wants to be a drag queen. That’s all he envisions for his future; that’s all he thinks about, all day, every day. But it’s not easy following his dreams in a world that still looks on some people’s choice of personal expression with scorn. He encounters bullying at school; he harbors memories of a father’s shame; he faces discouragement from his teachers. And he meets it all with a cavalier spirit and air of confidence that sometimes border on obnoxious. Everything about his personality screams of rebellion and standing out when the world just wants him to keep his head down and blend in. To all intents and purposes, he is a teenager with stardom on his mind.
Hugo “Loco Chanelle” Battersby is everything Jamie hopes to live up to. A former drag artist who almost instantly takes Jamie under his wing, Hugo has a past that isn’t all just glitz and glamor. Having lived through the eighties and nineties, Hugo’s own acts of rebellion weren’t just against a system that looked at him with scorn: they were against a system that would rather have seen him dead. The song “This Was Me” is an especially beautiful and haunting look into Hugo’s struggles, as well as a tribute to the early gay rights advocates who raised a lot of hell and danced in the face of discrimination and the AIDS crisis with a similar drive to stand out and be loud.
Putting these two side-by-side, showing this juxtaposition of obstacles each has met over the course of their lives, is what strengthens these characters’ foundations. Meeting Hugo is Jamie’s first lesson in humility: he is willing to risk his reputation in order to look fabulous and be famous; Hugo and fellow drag queens of his day risked their lives for the simple freedom to be who they were. The freedom—to at least some extent—that Jamie enjoys.
Meeting Jamie, on the other hand, is Hugo’s chance to pass on the lessons he himself had to struggle through so much adversity to learn. While Jamie has support from family and friends, it is Hugo who helped pave the way for such open support to be possible. It is Hugo who pushes him past his few remaining reservations, essentially handing over the spotlight he once had in order to help Jamie realize his full potential. And it is Hugo who ultimately understands Jamie better than anyone else in his life.
Though I admit Jamie’s aggressive approach to confidence frequently crosses a line for me, the more I watch the movie the more I can also admit that it’s meant to. Jamie may have had an easier time with being openly gay than Hugo did, but his journey is not without its own challenges. From the beginning, we can see his struggle with a particular memory of his father, and how one word “built a wall / a wall inside [his] head.” One can argue Jamie’s story is all about breaking through or climbing this wall to find a more viable sense of confidence in himself on the other side. And what truly grants him this confidence in the end is actually a bit of humility: his friends and family help him to feel beautiful, and while Hugo helps him express this beauty, he also encourages Jamie to find and to be himself. In the end, Jamie is not his drag persona, but he is also not just a boy who sometimes wants to be a girl. In the end, he is Jamie, and that is what really matters.
Hugo and Jamie represent two different generations ultimately fighting for the same thing. And while their struggles don’t entirely mirror each other, their victories—and ultimately, their joy—do. And before we close out the month of Pride, we should make it a point to remember those like Hugo and Jamie who take a stand for freedom in the face of unbearable odds.
Night Owls, what other fictional characters (or people from history, for that matter) have helped you show your pride?
