Muun’s Choose Your Comfort series of short films explores unconventional characters and their discovery of their own comfort – a perfect complement to their “None Fits All” credo. To celebrate the release of the second short, we present an exclusive essay by Jinkx Monsoon. The drag queen, winner of the fifth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and poster-girl for sticking to your own path, is the focus of the clip.
“Jinkx Monsoon was born when I was about 14 years old. There was a dance at my local queer youth resource center, the theme was fairytales, and I decided to go as the Queen of Hearts. It was the first time I ever dressed in full drag and I just remember looking at myself in the mirror – by all means the makeup was terrible, the hair was terrible, the outfit was basic, but I still looked in the mirror and I saw the most gorgeous woman in the whole wide world.
I spent many years trying to present as something that I thought the world wanted me to be. Then I was given the opportunity to be a full time drag queen, which means I don’t have to fit into the real world any more. I don’t have to work a day job, wear a uniform, or try to present us something that was prescribed for me based on my genitalia or my gender or my physicality. I get to decide how I present myself to the world. Nowadays I just feel very exuberant about the fact that I don’t have to pretend to be anything but myself.
There is nothing comfortable about wearing a pound of makeup and a big wig that you have to keep stable on your head; there is nothing comfortable about wearing a corset pressing on your ribcage and moving your organs into funny positions; there is nothing comfortable about wearing high heels and tights and restrictive dresses and tons of jewelry that gets stuck in your hair and get caught on your clothing. There is nothing comfortable about all of that.
But when you are a drag queen and you know how amazing you look and feel when you are wearing all of this, your brain begins to think that you could run a marathon, you could swim laps if you had to. I can’t let one element go if I’m in drag – if I don’t have heels on or if I’m not wearing my corset that day it doesn’t feel like I’m Jinkx. I have to have everything in place to feel like I’m embodying this creature I’ve created. And once I am wearing all of it and once I’m fully in the character and I’m living as Jinkx, none of that pain and none of that discomfort matters anymore, because I’ve become my ultimate self – this special, unique realisation of the most intimate part of myself. And, suddenly my feet don’t hurt anymore and my ribcage doesn’t feel like it’s been mangled and suddenly my scalp isn’t burning with 50 bobby pins shoved into it. Suddenly I just feel like I’m on cloud nine and I can take on the whole wide world.
My name is Jinkx Monsoon, Seattle youngest MILF. I’m a premium Jewish, narcoleptic drag queen and the winner of season five of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
You can watch the second episode of Choose Your Comfort, starring Jinkx Monsoon, on YouTube.
All images by Moritz Grub, courtesy of PRAG Agency.
