To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

Noxeema Jackson, Vida Boheme and Chi Chi Rodriguez are ready to show America a thing or two about being fabulous. The three stars of New York’s drag queen beauty pageant circuit hit the open road Hollywood bound in a 1967 Cadillac convertible, but trouble soon finds them. When car problems force the trio to take a detour into the narrow-minded Midwestern town of Snydersville, the girls are determined to make the best of a bad situation and set out to spark joy, transformation, and fabulous chaos for the small-town residents during one wildly outrageous weekend.

Patrick Swayze, John Leguizamo and Wesley Snipes star — and camp abounds! — in this feel-good cult classic, which highlights the importance of community, solidarity, and acceptance. Screenwriter Douglas Carter Beane wrote the screenplay in response to an anti-gay Christian propaganda film that provoked, "Do you want these drag queens in your town, America?" His reply was a resounding "yes" and the idea for To Wong Foo was born. 

Although dated by its casting decisions, language, and representation of queer communities, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar was groundbreaking for its time as one of the first mainstream films to celebrate queendom. Released in 1995, its message of acceptance and fearless main characters were also a welcome reprieve at the at the height of the AIDs epidemic.

The first screening will be introduced by Victoria Serafini, a queer filmmaker who recently completed their PhD in the Department of Performing & Media Arts and currently serves as Programming Coordinator for the Gender Equity Resource Center at Cornell.

Our "Queer Classics" series is cosponsored by QGrads and the LGBT Resource Center.

Courtesy of Universal Pictures and Swank Motion Pictures.