“Queens of Drama” spans 50 years, taking that much time to map out of the movement between two songs: “Don’t Touch” and “Fisting to the Heart.” Queer, non-binary director Alexis Langlois took the most baroque fantasies inspired by pop singers and their fandom, running wild with them in this musical. Their film takes wild delight into garish, bright colors. The production design is gloriously tacky. Even so, it never settles into a comfort zone of mere prettiness. Langlois’ style always contains at least a small hint of discomfort. Their images are pierced by arrows of light that degrade the cinematography. “Queens of Drama” is steeped in outrageous camp while still respecting its characters’ emotions and the pressures faced by actual women in fame’s glare. It’s the most romantic movie ever made to sing the praise of fisting.
YouTuber SteevyShady (Bilal Hassani) introduces the relationship between Mimi Madamamour (Louiza Aura) and Billie Kohler (Gio Ventura) from the year 2055. A Perez Hilton analogue, SteevyShady describes himself as “the Internet’s biggest bitch.” In 2005, Mimi and Billie encounter each other while performing on the TV show “Starlets in the Making.” While Billie’s a punk, Mimi performs smooth pop for a panel of judges. (A slimy man says she can sing but expresses no personality and requires his molding.) Mimi is a closeted lesbian. Billie is outspokenly queer, performing lyrics like “you and me will f**k the patriarchy” and singing about her attraction to butch women to an excited audience. Despite their differences, the two fall in love, but they can’t keep from sniping at each other. Mimi has to decide whether she wants fame at the cost of staying away from Billie, or the possibility of love.
Mimi and Billie use their music to speak about their lives, even in coded form. As they sing to a large audience, they also send messages to each other. Mimi’s signature song is “Don’t Touch.” As she comes out, she takes on touches of Billie’s punk style, wearing a feathered grey wig. She moves onwards to a new song, “Baby, Touch Me.”
As laid out above, “Queens of Drama” sounds like a relatively typical showbiz narrative, just taken in an explicitly Sapphic direction. It feels a lot different. Something’s off with the look of “Queens of Drama.” The direction and cinematography are designed to bring out an inner rot. Everyone’s too heavily made up, caked in orange grease. The style is grainy, always a little too bright to allow the spectator full focus. Later on, “Queens of Drama” adopts the perspective of cheap cameras, turning even more pixelated. It’s a wallow in dirt, both visually and spiritually.
“Queens of Drama” pulls from fictional pop culture, real life, and the middle ground of celebrities’ public personae with little distinction. Like Britney Spears, Mimi shaves her head when she becomes disgusted with the spotlight. The dangerous behavior of a self-mutilating fan comes straight out of Eminem’s “Stan.” Like the heroine of Brian De Palma’s “Carrie,” Mimi and Billie have a bucket of blood dumped upon them. Purposefully, “Queens of Drama” adopts the larger-than-life ethos of pop stardom while pulling the rug out from its glamour. It offers a nightmarish fantasy of showbiz exploitation, much like Brady Corbet’s “Vox Lux,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s ‘The Neon Demon,” and Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance.”
It has a bigger heart, though. The film’s romanticism is genuine, a thread that carries “Queens of Drama” along. It’s also extremely frank about Mimi and Billie’s physical desire for each other. It views pop music as a container of liberating potential – Billie says “without the Spice Girls, I never would have read {feminist theorist and novelist] Monique Wittig” – while criticizing the business built around it. Mimi’s big public statement about her sexuality is turned against her, as a talk show projects photos of her snorting coke and the host calls her “the queen of trash.”
Langlois’ 2019 short “Terror, Sisters!” was a manifesto for a rebellious trans cinema. Like “Queens of Drama,” it swerves hard into the realm of fantasy. Langlois’ maximalism is akin to other queer French directors, such as Bertrand Mandico and Yann Gonzalez, but their interest in the impact of pop culture upon LGBTQ people also places them close to Jane Schoenbrun and Vera Drew. As harsh and aggressive as “Queens of Drama” can get, its ultimate goal is finding a place of peace where queer women can take refuge from the outside world’s hostility.
“Queens of Drama” | Directed by Alexis Langlois | Altered Innocence | In French with English subtitles | Opens at the Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn April 18th
