The issue of the LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance has been on the table for quite some time. And I am afraid it will stay there till it's no longer an issue. While it is so, we need to talk about it. While film as a medium offers one such platform to do so, it not always does any good. Let us see what the Vietnamese comedy Drama Queen by Kay Nguyen has done.
Drama Queen (2020) by Kay Nguyen screens at the 21st San Diego Asian Film Festival.
Hang Duong (pop star Nguyễn Hương Giang) kind of always has known he is a she. Working as a film and TV stuntman, (s)he struggled to save money for the surgery. Besides, there is always this big question mark of things going wrong. But as (s)he becomes a very unneeded witness of a murder, (s)he must put all worries aside, scrounge up the money and with help of the gay bestie, step into the doctor's office. Now, hidden from the gangsters behind a new pretty face, she just need to find a way to (legally) earn the money she borrowed and “borrowed”.
Then, like a rainbow on a totally sunny day, she spots a poster calling all the pretty-faced girls to a beauty pageant to win some validation and some good money on top of it. Safe and easy, ain't it? Well… Yeah… Nope. Remember the gangsters? They haven't stopped looking and somehow think they can find their witness by entering their own contestant. Moreover, there is a (cis)girl in distress, romance, a suddenly ill father, alcohol and a mysterious phone… Seems like too many ingredients? Well… Yeah… Yeah.
The main problem of “Drama Queen” hides in the end credits – it was written by “A TYPE MACHINE”. Over the top acting, action or reaction in general can lead to an enjoyable piece. But within a narrative, even the most unleashed chaos needs order. And that is missing. The imbalance in the ideological setting of the film, too quick changes of heart and too loosely-handed directing lead to the murky waters of “watched, rolled eyes, forgot”. You could perhaps forgive the father going from “I have no daughter!” to the main protector of transgender people within two mascara applications. What is more difficult to digest is the overall messiness and the unaddressed casual sexism, gay cliché, and the “trans vs normal” binary thinking in a film that peaks with one hell of a heartbreak even if wide-eyed speech-slap against transphobia.
While the story introduces interesting and important tropes like a professional stunt-trans-woman, a (f*ck boy turned) lover boy without prejudice, supportive parents and friends from gay and straight spectrum, it loses big for being sloppy. With everything out of order, too many loop holes and bumps, the TV soapie mixture of too much drama and naivety with a knife-licking bad guy and a smartphone with a die-hardest battery ever, “Drama Queen” induces more sighs than smiles. To not to be too bitchy, the pageant host wore some killer outfits.
