'RuPaul's Drag Race' star Trixie Mattel gets hero's welcome at Milwaukee homecoming show
Piet Levy
Trixie Mattel is known for many things. Appearing on "RuPaul’s Drag Race" in 2015, and winning "RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars" this spring. Co-hosting “The Trixie and Katya Show” on Viceland. Having two country albums that count Kacey Musgraves among their fans.
And Wednesday, at a sold-out Turner Hall Ballroom, Mattel was introduced as something else: "Milwaukee's skinny legend."
"Milwaukee, the place that made me," Mattel yelled excitedly over ecstatic cheers. The man behind the makeup, Brian Firkus, was actually the product of the small northern Wisconsin town Silver Cliff, but Mattel herself was born in Milwaukee, where Firkus moved when he was 18 to attend the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and where he performed in drag for the first time.
Mattel's talk about her hometown pride clearly wasn't an act, as she reminisced about performing at "Tony n' Tina's Wedding" at Turner Hall years ago, and talked about her favorite haunts like Comet Cafe, Beans & Barley and This Is It!, where Mattel promised she'd appear for the official after-party Wednesday.
She also wasn't afraid to rib her homeland, joking that Wisconsin kids switch Capri Sun for Pabst Blue Ribbon once they hit 14, and making fun of the Shops of Grand Avenue.
She also didn't hold back with her very blue, and very dark, stand-up, making insensitive and off-color jokes that touched on the Columbine shooting, the late actor Paul Walker and incest, her porcelain deadpan and lavish posing akin to sugar being poured into a flesh wound.
She did more than shock, though. After describing the current political climate as "cloudy with a chance of Nazi genocide," Mattel had some very smart material about white privilege, riffing on the ongoing debate over Mona Lisa's smile, and joking that Caucasians have such carefree lives they will actually go out to a puzzle store to buy a problem.
Mattel's general message Wednesday at the hometown stop of her "Moving Parts" tour was that people need to lighten up. Beyond the jokes, she practiced what she preached through song.
There were a few originals from her albums "Two Birds" and "One Stone," including "Mama Don't Make Me Put on the Dress Again," "Moving Parts" and "Break Your Heart," all performed Wednesday with a wink. That approach was probably necessary, given the show's tongue-in-cheek aesthetic, plus Mattel's huge Dolly Parton-inspired hair and shiny, pretty-in-pink '70s attire.
But the songs are strong on their own merits, worth listening to outside the context of a drag show — and, based on the loud singalong for "Mama," pretty much everyone at the show Wednesday already had.
There also was a satirical send-up of Christianity, through a medley of Kesha's "Die Young," Madonna's "Like a Prayer," Faithless' "God as a DJ," and Carrie Underwood's "Jesus, Take the Wheel," with Mattel pantomiming Marguerite Perrin's viral "God Warrior" meltdown on the reality show "Trading Spouses," and taking a selfie with Jesus.
She also mixed and matched Avril Lavigne's "Sk8rboi" with the music of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide," and vice versa. And there was a mashup of Katy Perry's "Hot N Cold" with Jimmy Eat World's "The Middle," in which Mattel sang, "Just be yourself/It doesn't matter if that's good enough for someone else."
Mattel definitely lived by those words at Turner Hall Wednesday, and based on the applause and cheers and booming belly laughs, she was definitely good enough for her hometown fans.
SAMPLE JOKES
- "I call this my ex-boyfriend makeup 'cause it, oof, got away from me."
- "I'm a millennial, I'm not going to do the work" (after pantomiming playing guitar).
- "I want to be one of those people where people say, 'You are aging well.' Instead, they go, 'You are aging.' "
- "I have a BFA from the Peck School of the Arts. Look at me pantomime drinking a beer."