Yes, Trump Banned Harvey Fierstein (And All Decent Art) From The Kennedy Center
The MAGA gaslighting won’t work here.
One of Donald Trump’s early fascist moves was seizing control of the Kennedy Center, replacing the board of trustees with MAGA stooges, and installing himself as chairman. His motivation was open contempt for the arts in general and diversity specifically. He announced, in his usual supervillain ranting style, “Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP.”
Tony Award-winning legend Harvey Fierstein, himself a drag performer, denounced Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover and correctly stated in an Instagram post that the “shows I’ve written are now banned from being performed in our premiere American theater. Those shows, most of which have been performed there in the past, include, KINKY BOOTS, LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, TORCH SONG TRILOGY, HAIRSPRAY, SAFE SEX, CASA VALENTINA, SPOOKHOUSE, A CATERED AFFAIR, THE SISSY DUCKLING, BELLA BELLA and more.
“I have been in the struggle for our civil rights for more than 50 years only to watch them snatched away by a man who actually couldn’t care less. He does this stuff only to placate the religious right so they’ll look the other way as he savages our political system for his own glorification,” he wrote.
I could write an entire piece about Fierstein’s artistic and personal boldness. Just watch how a young Fierstein unapologetically confronts Barbara Walters’s own prejudices in this 1983 20/20 interview.
Richard Grenell, who Trump appointed as the Kennedy Center’s interim executive director, claimed that Fierstein was overreacting and that he was welcome to perform at Trump’s Propaganda Palace.
“You aren’t banned. In fact, come do Hairspray or La Cage here at the Kennedy Center. This is your personal invite,” Grenell posted on social media. “Let’s meet. If, however, you can handle diverse opinions and want to be inclusive of everyone, that is.”
Grenell’s Orwellian spin is that Fierstein should appreciate the “diverse opinions” of bigots who hate him. Someone who truly cherishes freedom will willingly let others enslave them.
Here’s why you shouldn’t stereotype: Grenell is gay, but he apparently hasn’t actually seen Hairspray or La Cage aux Folles, both of which feature drag performances. If you removed drag from these works, it would be like those horrible basic cable reruns of Sex and the City where it seemed as if they cut out all the Samantha storylines.
Fierstein wrote the book for the musical of La Cage aux Folles, which premiered on Broadway in 1983. It’s the story of gay couple (yes, this is 1983) Georges and Albin. Georges runs the titular drag nightclub where Albin performs. Their son is engaged to the daughter of a right-wing zealot who heads the “Tradition, Family and Morality Party” that wants to shut down drag clubs. It’s not complicated critical analysis to point out that the “bad guys” are like Trump and MAGA, who openly attack drag performers. Of course, the right-wingers in the musical are more humane. La Cage aux Folles was pretty damn “woke” for the height of the Reagan era, where homophobia had only increased during the AIDS epidemic. The first act ends with “I Am What I Am,” when Albin refuses to hide who he is to satisfy his closed-minded future in-laws. (Watch below.)
La Cage aux Folles wasn’t just affirmatively pro-gay at a time when far too many Americans believed AIDS was God’s “punishment” for homosexuals. It was also affirmatively pro-gay men like Albin, who embraces his flamboyance and considers it his strength.
“It’s my world that I want to take a little pride in,” Albin sings. “My world, and it’s not a place I have to hide in. Life’s not worth a damn, 'Til you can say, ‘Hey world, I am what I am.’ … I don’t want praise. I don’t want pity. I bang my own drum. Some think it’s noise. I think it’s pretty.”
Albin has no interest in becoming the “polite” gay man who doesn’t make heterosexuals “uncomfortable,” isn’t overly affectionate with his partner in public, and of course reliably votes Republican. There was always room in the GOP for closeted (white) gay men. This includes Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn, who died of AIDS in 1986. Roger Stone unironically alluded to a famous scene in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America when he insisted, “Roy was not gay. He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate. He always seemed to have these young blond boys around. It just wasn't discussed.”
Respectability politics is an issue for all minorities, and many “polite” gay men didn’t care for La Cage aux Folles. I can imagine Grenell squirming while watching a production with a MAGA audience. In Angels in America, Roy Cohn offers theatre tickets to the wife of a Nixon-appointed judge: “Yeah, yeah, right, good, so how many tickets dear? Seven. For what, Cats, 42nd Street, what? No, you wouldn’t like La Cage, trust me, I know.” He gets her tickets for Cats (not surprisingly, a favorite of Trump’s) but once she’s off the line, he confesses he thinks La Cage aux Folles is “fabulous. Best thing on Broadway. Maybe ever.”
La Cage aux Folles is an adaptation of the 1978 French film of the same name, which was later adapted into the 1996 film The Birdcage, starring Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, and Nathan Lane (I miss when I could see new movies with Hackman and Williams). Now set in Miami, the movie even more directly confronts the right-wing politics of the period. (Watch below.)
Fierstein won a Tony for his work on La Cage aux Folles. He later would win another Tony for his performance as Edna Turnblad in the musical of Hairspray. Based on the 1988 John Waters film, Hairspray doesn’t feature drag in quite the same way as La Cage aux Folles and The Birdcage. Edna is a woman within the story — a working-class Baltimore mother. Legendary drag queen Divine, who originated the role, made it clear that he was playing a woman: “What drag queen would allow herself to look like this? I look like half the women from Baltimore.”
Hairspray is even more overtly political than La Cage aux Folles. After winning a spot on a local TV dance show, Tracy Turnblad uses her fame to promote racial integration in 1960s America. Once again, the bigots are the bad guys. That’s a theme with quality art. (Watch below.)
Grenell won’t admit that La Cage aux Folles and Hairspray are obviously no longer welcome productions at a MAGA Kennedy Center. Grenell can only look at those works through the lens of their hard-earned popularity. He considers these critically acclaimed musicals from the 1980s and 2000s somehow exempt from Trump’s bigoted decrees, but no true artist would accept that offer.
Grenell also criticized the producers of Hamilton for canceling a planned run at the Kennedy Center. This is a musical whose biggest applause line is “Immigrants, we get the job done.” The country’s founders are played by people of color. The score celebrates American hip-hop. Maybe now conservatives might embrace the Tony Award-winning hit, but if it were released today, Trump and MAGA would dismiss it as “DEI history.”
Conservatives are often behind the times, and while the best art graciously allows audiences to “catch up,” there’s no reason that artists or anyone who loves art should stand by today as Trump stamps out free expression.
It astonishes me that anyone thinks there can be theater without queerness. It's built into the damn thing.
hard to overstate either Fierstein's impact or guts, defiant and proud in the Reagan era as AIDS raged. so important to highlight the heroes who over decades have stood tall with integrity in their truth, in this era of appalling capitulations.