To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)

[DisneyBoy]

The rise of drag queens in pop culture got me interested about this film that I somehow managed not to see back in the day. I was expecting a bit more then just a story of three drag queens going to a small town in the middle of nowhere and making everything better by virtue of their fabulousness...but I still enjoyed it for what it was. John Leguizamo is easily the most compelling of the three leads, but I did get a giggle out of Wesley Snipes chasing the older woman around town in heels while warning "I'm going to get ya!" Patrick Swayze gets some nice outfits but never totally works as the character he's trying to perform. Apparently Robin Williams only makes a cameo in this because he auditioned play one of the drag queens but was deemed too ugly? It's a shame because one could only imagine what he'd have come up with. Then again perhaps this film lead to him doing Mrs. Doubtfire, so perhaps it worked out for the best.

I kind of found Stockard Channing miscast as the battered housewife. I guess it's just because I've seen her playing so many strong characters over the years but this one was a bit of a tough sell for me.

The title and the concept of the photo of Julie Newmar as some kind of mystical object of great significance was a tad random. I honestly just don't think there's much there. They needed some kind of gimmicky title and decided to focus on one of the many superstars that drag queens worship and she was the one who happened to consent to appear in the film. And who is Wong Foo?

The conceit of the drag queens teaching Chichi how to actually be a queen didn't seem all that important to the plot and almost like an afterthought to try and hold the premise together. I thought the film would do more with the cop who nearly raped one of them, but it seemed as though the film wanted to be accessible to kids or something because they never got too heavy with the subject matter.

Cute but not as fun or as substantial as it could have been. Apparently Priscilla Queen of the Desert is better?

[raven]

1 hour ago, DisneyBoy said:

Cute but not as fun or as substantial as it could have been. Apparently Priscilla Queen of the Desert is better?

I don't remember too much about To Wong Foo except that John Leguizamo (he's a scene stealer in Moulin Rouge as well) looked great and I think it was the Patrick Swayze character who calls home for help and is refused?

I am a fan of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - it has tons of heart, an unlikely romance, all the leads are memorable (Terence Stamp is a standout), great visuals and musical numbers and a memorable score.   Definitely watch it!

[Scarlett45]

I enjoyed this one for what it was. I should probably watch it again. RIP Patrick Swazye. 

[ClareWalks]

I love this movie, particularly because the leads (especially Snipes and Leguizamo) totally commit to their roles so much. But yeah, it definitely has all the flaws mentioned!

[methodwriter85]

4 hours ago, ClareWalks said:

I love this movie, particularly because the leads (especially Snipes and Leguizamo) totally commit to their roles so much. But yeah, it definitely has all the flaws mentioned!

Well, Leguizamo had been doing comedy sketches before this movie as a Latina woman, but yeah, Wesley Snipes never wavered from his character, which was such a 180 from the macho black male roles he was known for.

And how cute was Jason London in this part?  I like that his character probably "knows" who ChiChi is at the end, but doesn't seem to go all negative "You tricked me!" on her.

Priscilla is the more substantive film but this is a fluffy little concoction that's fun to watch.

[Dee]

Snipes and Leguizamo walk away with the film. "Little latin boy in drag, why are you crying?"

[MarkHB]

20 hours ago, DisneyBoy said:

Then again perhaps this film lead to him doing Mrs. Doubtfire, so perhaps it worked out for the best.

Mrs. Doubtfire was a decade or more prior to this film. :)

[BetterButter]

21 minutes ago, MarkHB said:

Mrs. Doubtfire was a decade or more prior to this film. :)

Mrs. Doubtfire  came out in 1993.

[MarkHB]

26 minutes ago, BetterButter said:

Mrs. Doubtfire  came out in 1993.

Ack, you're right.  I was thinking I had seen it in college, but now that you mention it, I was thinking of Tootsie. 

[DisneyBoy]

Hmmmm. Was what I read about him auditioning just a fan theory or rumor, then? If the man had just done Mrs. Doubtfire, I doubt he would have wanted to do yet another drag role and put himself in a box like that.

Quote

Wesley Snipes never wavered from his character....

I watched it feeling like he must have channeled every sassy black girl he ever knew growing up. Does he have a sister? I really enjoyed his character even though he didn't get much plot.

Quote

And how cute was Jason London in this part?  I like that his character probably "knows" who ChiChi is at the end, but doesn't seem to go all negative "You tricked me!" on her.

This would be the Bobby who was her white knight in a pickup truck? Yeah, I never got the sense that he'd figured it out (his dialogue about her never lying to him seemed to suggest he was utterly oblivious). I don't see how he would fail to notice the flat chest and larger upper body that Leguizamo was sporting, but there was no dialogue to suggest to me that he saw her as anything other than an actual biological woman. And it bugged me that minutes after Chichi broke up with him, he just wandered over to Bobby Lee for that dance instead. I really liked the character until they didn't offer some kind of resolution to whether or not he knew or didn't know and then just had him move on to the next available girl in a dress. He seemed a little slow frankly, but sweet. The business with him rescuing her from the gang of guys and then showing her that he'd already painted her name on a roadside billboard was charming if someone implausible. When did he have the time to really decide he'd fallen for her much less go out and paint the billboard about it?

And what was the deal with that gang of guys? Were they planning on raping or sexually assaulting Chichi at the beginning, or just roughing her up because she was clearly a boy in girls clothes?

I honestly couldn't follow whether everyone in the town knew they were drag queens the entire time or certain characters were figuring it out at certain moments. Stockard Channing's character obviously figured it out, but what about everybody else?

They should really do another movie like this now that drag queens like Bianca Del Rio and Willam are so much a part of pop culture. I was looking at that last scene in the movie at the drag competition and wondering how many of those ladies were famous drag queens from the 90s versus just extras done up to look like drag queens...did anybody spot someone who was a big deal back in the day doing a cameo? (Other than RuPaul of course)

Edited September 18, 2017 by DisneyBoy

[Morrigan2575]

On 9/17/2017 at 10:50 AM, DisneyBoy said:

Cute but not as fun or as substantial as it could have been. Apparently Priscilla Queen of the Desert is better?

It was, IMO.  I was also under the impression that To Wong Foo was Hollywood trying to capitalise on Priscilla being such an unexpected hit.

[Morrigan2575]

6 hours ago, DisneyBoy said:

Hmmmm. Was what I read about him auditioning just a fan theory or rumor, then? If the man had just done Mrs. Doubtfire, I doubt he would have wanted to do yet another drag role and put himself in a box like that.

 

https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/08/13/op-ed-amazing-story-behind-wong-foo

Quote

Steven read the script that night — what faith he had in me, in all of us there — and loved it. But he needed some confirmation. It wasn’t the gay stuff that worried him; he just wanted to be sure the script was as funny to other people as he found it. So he sent it to his comedy meter: Robin Williams. The verdict? Make the movie. Mr. Williams said he couldn’t play the lead, Vida; he was concerned he was too hairy. But he’d do a cameo.

Quote

And what was the deal with that gang of guys? Were they planning on raping or sexually assaulting Chichi at the beginning, or just roughing her up because she was clearly a boy in girls clothes?

It's been forever since I've watched the movie but, I remember that scene being very similar to the one in Priscilla. IIRC they were going to rape Chichi because he was a man pretending to be a woman (their logic)

I think the biggest problem with Too Wong Foo is how similar the plot was to Priscilla. The comparisons were unavoidable and To Wong Foo ended up suffering, too 'Hollywood', no heart.

Edited September 18, 2017 by Morrigan2575

[Bruinsfan]

20 hours ago, Morrigan2575 said:

It was, IMO.  I was also under the impression that To Wong Foo was Hollywood trying to capitalise on Priscilla being such an unexpected hit.

Possibly, but I recall thinking at the time that it was pretty groundbreaking to have a Hollywood movie with drag queens as the sympathetic main characters rather than comic relief or (more likely) the butt of a joke, which is how they tended to be presented back then even in LGBT-themed movies. There were some very touching moments for Patrick Swayze's character, and I still think it's the best acting Wesley Snipes has ever done.

[dusang]

22 hours ago, Morrigan2575 said:

It was, IMO.  I was also under the impression that To Wong Foo was Hollywood trying to capitalise on Priscilla being such an unexpected hit.

 

2 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

Possibly, but I recall thinking at the time that it was pretty groundbreaking to have a Hollywood movie with drag queens as the sympathetic main characters rather than comic relief or (more likely) the butt of a joke, which is how they tended to be presented back then even in LGBT-themed movies. There were some very touching moments for Patrick Swayze's character, and I still think it's the best acting Wesley Snipes has ever done.

I think it's definitely both -- Hollywood was definitely trying to capitalize on the success of Priscilla and it was ground-breaking to have three men who had essentially made their names on being uber-macho (well, at least two of them) play drag queens.

It's been a long time since I saw either film, but looking back now I feel like there's a conflation of "drag" and "transgender" in Wong Foo (and possibly "gender fluid" although they generally stuck to binaries).  Priscilla, in my memory, was explicit that Terence Stamp was trans and performed drag, while the other two were performers and were seen out of drag for much of the movie. I think only John Leguizamo was seen partially out of "drag" in Wong Foo and otherwise all three effectively lived as women, at which point I don't think we can call that "drag" anymore.

[methodwriter85]

On 9/19/2017 at 3:44 PM, dusang said:

 

I think it's definitely both -- Hollywood was definitely trying to capitalize on the success of Priscilla and it was ground-breaking to have three men who had essentially made their names on being uber-macho (well, at least two of them) play drag queens.

It's been a long time since I saw either film, but looking back now I feel like there's a conflation of "drag" and "transgender" in Wong Foo (and possibly "gender fluid" although they generally stuck to binaries).  Priscilla, in my memory, was explicit that Terence Stamp was trans and performed drag, while the other two were performers and were seen out of drag for much of the movie. I think only John Leguizamo was seen partially out of "drag" in Wong Foo and otherwise all three effectively lived as women, at which point I don't think we can call that "drag" anymore.

I wonder if that was partially because they were effectively living undercover as woman when they were there, and that's why they stayed in drag the entire time. It was easier just to stay consistent the entire time.

Edited October 9, 2017 by methodwriter85

[DisneyBoy]

It would have been good for a scene to address that. Was it harder for them to sleep in drag out of the fear they'd be discovered?

And they were staying in a house with an abusive husband... and he had no objections to them and all their flair?

[paramitch]

Just to note -- To Wong Foo was already in production when Priscilla was released. Both were entirely independent productions, and To Wong Foo was written well beforehand (Priscilla was also not expected to be the hit that it was).

I like the movie -- for me, one of the most wonderful and powerful moments is the very beginning, when Swayze emerges from the shower as this gorgeous musclebound young guy who's literally naked, but then we see that only when he is made up and becomes Vida, that he is actually himself (herself). I found that gorgeous and breathtaking, and I love how Vida isn't an alt-persona but the woman-self he truly is, in his heart.

I think there are things that don't work (especially the scene where the men advance on Chichi threateningly -- the sudden shadow of gang rape there just doesn't work with the rest of the movie for me. These same men are all portrayed as eventually sweet, bumbling and misunderstood by the end, and I'm still going... "Wait, you were pretty obviously about to beat or rape Chichi so...??").

I think Patrick Swayze was actually the best thing in the movie for me, actingwise. He uses his dancer's training so that Vida moves in this beautiful, graceful way. Even the way she moves her hands and her face; Swayze had this gentle and understated elegance that was also just mannered enough to be slightly arresting and theatrical. And I thought he had some lovely and really poignant emotional moments. Meanwhile Snipes impressed me with how soft and comfortable he was, and Leguizamo made for an absolutely stunning woman! All three were so much fun, and I felt did justice to their characters with a lot of real femininity and enjoyment -- I never thought they were trying to wink at us, but were instead true to their characters.

I also loved Stockard Channing and her final, very sly monologue to Vida. It's always weird to me to see Arliss Howard as the abusive husband here, because I think of him as such a gentle actor, but it was nice to see his character get his comeuppance.