To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar Professional Film Review

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/ToWongFooThanksForEverythingJulieNewmar

Noxeema: There are steps to becoming a queen.
Chi-Chi: How many?
Noxeema: ...four. There are four steps to becoming a drag queen.
Chi-Chi: Well, don't be stingy, tell me! What are they?
Vida: Patience, mon cheri. You volition know when you've done them.

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (or To Wong Foo for curt) is a 1995 comedy virtually a trio of drag queens on a route trip to compete in a national pageant. Close friends Vida Boheme (Patrick Swayze) and Noxeema Jackson (Wesley Snipes) tie for a state-level Dazzler Pageant in New York City, winning a trip to Los Angeles to compete for Drag Queen of America. On their way backstage, they encounter competitor Chi-Chi Rodriguez (John Leguizamo), distraught that she lost. Seeing a diamond in the rough, charitable Vida convinces Noxie to take Chi-Chi with them to Hollywood while teaching her the ways of drag. To pay Chi-Chi's way, the queens sell their aeroplane tickets (something else that doesn't thrill Noxie) for an one-time but fashionable convertible and embark on their 2,000-mile journey across the U.s., making new friends and a few enemies forth the way.

The moving-picture show essentially served equally a comedic, American reply to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which was released in the previous year with a similar premise and as-unwieldy name. However, while Priscilla was more of a Dramedy steeped in realism, To Wong Foo runs on Rule of Funny. We never see the queens out of drag, and the motion picture is vague on whether or not they're transgender (all three of them use female pronouns, which is mutual with drag queens in character regardless of their gender), though Vida and Chi-Chi are heavily implied to be.

Swayze and Leguizamo were nominated for Gold Globes, and the pic has get a cult classic in the LGBT community. A decade before RuPaul'southward Drag Race, To Wong Foo spawned an unabridged generation of drag queens.

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Contains the post-obit tropes:

• Adventitious Misnaming: Do not mistake Sheriff Dollard's name for "Dullard".
  • "Information technology'southward a misprint!"
  • Upon meeting, Vida accidentally calls Virgil "Vernell".
  • A hilarious moment occurs when Vida has problem getting Jimmy Joe's proper noun correct. Until he politely corrects her.
• Amanuensis Peacock: Vida and Noxie do some asswhoopin'. In item, Vida is a fabulously dressed elevate queen, but is perfectly capable of knocking sexist men to the ground.
• The Alleged Motorcar: The yellow Cadillac, which doubles with Absurd Car. It was chosen for its glamour rather than functionality, a decision that later comes back to haunt them when information technology breaks in the middle of "Gay Hell".
• Armoured Cupboard Gay: Sheriff Dollard'southward long monologue in the bar sounds like he's interested in men, only tin can't quite figure out that he is. Moments afterward, he gives Virgil an approving await.
  • Given the monologue, he's a Manly Gay who disapproves of Campy men. He also hates drag queens.
• Artistic License – Awards: In actual drag pageantry, Chi-Chi would not be allowed to compete for a national championship without an affiliated regional title under her belt like Noxie and Vida have.
• As You Know: Noxie gives a quick rundown of different genderqueer types, which Chi-Chi already knows for the most role, before getting to the point that Chi-Chi not yet a drag queen but a mere "male child in a dress." Noxie's descriptions were most likely meant for the audition's benefit, though her definitions haven't aged well over time. See Values Racketinvoked in the YMMV page.
• Attempted Rape: Showtime attempted with Vida (or at to the lowest degree a molestation) from Sheriff Dollard, and later with Chi-Chi vs. some roughnecks.
• Attractive Aptitude-Gender: Sheriff Dollard is beguiled by Vida (at first), and Chi Chi manages to woo Bobby Ray. Admittedly, John Leguizamo makes a very disarming adult female, and Swayze could probably laissez passer at nighttime like in the scene.
• Avengers Assemble: The various drag queens getting ready for the pageant in the picture show's opening credits.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: The picture ends with an elaborate procession of drag queens introducing the the crowning of Miss Elevate America, Chi-Chi with a fabulously large, rhinestone tiara.
• Badass Boast: Chi Chi delivers two at once:

  Chi Chi: I'yard the Latina Marilyn Monroe. I got more legs than a bucket of craven!

• Beauty Contest: The film'southward Framing Device. It begins with the queens competing in a land-level drag pageant, and the majority of the movie involves their trip to Los Angeles to compete in the national.
• Betty and Veronica: Bobby Lee (the Betty), the evidently and blonde Girl Next Door competing with sexy, exotic brunette Chi Chi (the Veronica) over Bobby Ray (the Archie).
• Bland-Proper name Production: The national pageant they're competing in, "Drag Queen of America," is based on two real-life elevate pageants: Miss Gay America and Miss US of A, two of the "Big 4" drag pageants in the US along with Miss Continental and Entertainer of the Twelvemonth.
• Blithe Spirit: The girls, outsiders to the small-scale, conservative boondocks of Snydersville employ their fashion sense and fabulous ways to spice up the lives of the townsfolk, making them more exciting and fashionable.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Redhead Vida, Blonde (most of the times!) Noxie and Brunette Chi-Chi.
• Boomerang Bigot: The racist, sexist and homophobic Sheriff Dollard is gay and he hates effeminate elevate queens.
• Bystander Syndrome: Noxie contrasted with Vida's "foolish" compassion.

  Vida: Virgil's beating up Carol Ann!

  Noxie: (unconcerned) Most likely.

  Vida: We accept to aid her!

• The Cameo: Ru Paul, Naomi Campbell, Robin Williams, Joey Arias, and Julie Newmar herself.
• Captain Obvious: When the girls meet Sheriff Dollard and he refers to Noxie and Chi-Chi as indigenous slurs, Chi-Chi makes this observation:

  Chi-Chi: I think that cop is prejudiced!

• Cassandra Truth: Sheriff Dollard gets this treatment from his fellow officers after blaming his "assault" on 3 random crossdressers. None of them believe that he was knocked out by a man in drag, and they brand fun of him for getting beat up past a girl.
• Cerebus Syndrome: When the plot shifts its focus to hotel possessor Ballad Ann and her abusive husband Virgil.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Vida suffers from this contrasting with Noxie's insensitivity. Lampshaded past Noxie herself.
• City Mouse: The three girls are all fantastically dressed New Yorkers who are very out of place in the minor town of Snyderville.
• Cool Car: The yellow Cadillac, which doubles with The Alleged Machine. They actually were given the chance to get a functional, but tasteless, grey machine and declined, preferring fashion over substance.
• Crotch-Grab Sex Cheque: When harassing Vida, Sheriff Dollard shoves his mitt up under her dress and gets an unpleasant surprise. This shocks him long plenty for Vida to shove him off of her.
• Defrosting Water ice Queen: Noxeema. At first she'southward snarky (though not deadpan) and cocky-serving, with a mixture of disdain and social anxiety towards the mainstream public, merely warms up by the cease.
• Directionless Driver: For a drag queen, Vida has a decidedly macho distaste for interstate maps.
• Dingy Cop: Sheriff Dollard is a racist hick who sexually assaults Vida at a traffic finish.
• Does Not Bulldoze: Noxeema and Chi-Chi. It's implied that the reason Vida is the only one who ever drives the car is considering she's the simply one with a driver's license. Truth in Television, as many New Yorkers never learn to bulldoze considering they tin spend their entire lives without needing to ain a car, while Vida is originally from a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia.
• Down on the Farm: Much of the pic takes place in a Midwestern rural hick boondocks where the girls are stranded.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: John "Chi-Chi" Leguizamo stands out for really looking like an attractive daughter. He spent much of his stand-upwards career impersonating his Latina relatives, so the script played to his strengths. It doesn't injure that his stature and facial features are far smaller compared to his burly, lantern-jawed costars.
• Elevate Queen: Well duh! The movie focuses on iii protagonists who are professional elevate queens on a journeying to Los Angeles.
• Embarrassing First Name: When they're being pulled over, Vida mentions that her real outset name is Eugene.
• Fanservice: The very first scene shows Patrick Swayze coming out of the shower. Oh yeah!
• Forceful Kiss: Sheriff Dollard attempts to kiss Vida. When she resists, he attempts to strength himself on her, leading to an Unsettling Gender Reveal.
• Foreign Remake: Critics claim it served as this to Priscilla.
• The Girl Who Fits This Slipper: The just inkling Sheriff Dollard has to observe Vida is her shoe.
• Groin Attack: Noxeema on the ringleader of the town bullies: "Do you similar my nails?"
• He Cleans Up Nicely: The roughneck Noxeema manhandled shows up afterward in the movie with a cleaned-up outfit and attitude.
• The Hecate Sisters: The iii drag queens fit the setup. Noxeema is the crone, a snarky and jaded person with life experience and an interest in the past. Vida is the mother, a meddling busybody who sees herself as a mother effigy to Chi Chi, and almost anyone else they meet. Chi Chi is the maiden, immature and sexy without much life experience and in need of mentoring and protection.
• Hidden Eye of Gold: Noxeema is cynical, snarky and sometimes she seems to be an outright cold-hearted bowwow. In fact she is very kind and lovable, just agape of trusting other people, since "at that place are people you don't trust, considering they'll use it to stab you in the ribs". She drops the facade in the stop.
• Honest John's Dealership: Crazy Elijah'due south Used Cars. "His cars are his children."
• Housewife: Carol Ann starts as a sad example of a Housewife, only she gets her happy ending.
• I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Realizing she can't keep i secret from Bobby Ray and non wanting to start any relationship with lies, Chi Chi steps aside and so that Bobby Ray could be happy with Bobby Lee who's in love with him.
• I Am Spartacus: When Sherrif Dollard rolls into Snydersville looking for the girls, the townspeople each claim that her shoe is theirs, eventually driving him off.
• Information technology's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans: The girls conveniently bear witness up merely a couple of days before the town is about to have its simply annual political party of any sort.
• Incompatible Orientation: Chi Chi, a gay human and drag queen, becomes romantically interested with Bobby Ray, who'due south straight.
• Tardily to the Punchline: If y'all were younger when this movie came out, Noxie'due south pop culture references may have taken a while to sink in.
• Lipstick-and-Load Montage: Gender-flipped during the opening credits, with Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes performing information technology, fabulously of form. Clip is hither.
• Long Title: To Wong Foo, Thank you for Everything! Julie Newmar, an unabridged letter of the alphabet. Often abbreviated equally "To Wong Foo".
• Love Triangle: Between Chi Chi, Bobby Ray and Bobby Lee.
• Magical Queer: Even though the girls are the main characters, they human activity every bit Magical Queers to the town. In their brief time there, they liven up everybody's lives and prepare seemingly every major personal problem in the boondocks, helping a woman get out of her abusive union, setting upwards/improving several other couples' relationships, getting an old woman to talk and just generally making things more fun and fashionable there.
• Mood Whiplash: Yeah, show the town ladies trying out 60s outfits in ane scene and in the next scene Carol Anne is being abused.
• The Mountains of Illinois: Inverted. Correct earlier the girls become pulled over by Sheriff Dollard, Noxie assumes they're in West Virginia, despite the total lack of mountains. We never practice notice out where Snydersville is, merely Iowa or Nebraska (where the rural scenes were filmed) are about likely given the route between New York and LA.
• Pimped-Out Dress: The two pageant scenes. This would use to any elevate show, simply it goes double here, equally they were purposely strutting their stuff for the prize.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Sheriff Dollard casually fires off racial slurs about Noxie and Chi-Chi.
• Pre-Asskicking 1-Liner/Ironic Echo:

  Vergil: Some women merely need to be hit.

  Vida: And conversely, some men need to be hit back.

  SLAP!

• Prolonged Prologue: The pageant intro, buying the auto, and the route trip take near half the movie earlier the car breaks down and the girls are stuck in Snydersville, which is when the real plot begins.
• Refuge in Audacity: RuPaul's cameo as Rachel Tensions: a black drag queen in a Confederate flag dress.
• Sassy Black Adult female: Played with. Noxie, the black daughter of the trio, is very snarky and critical of Vida's schemes, just she more often than not goes along with Vida and doesn't disharmonism with her quite every bit much equally Chi-Chi does.
• Surreptitious Secret-Keeper: The townspeople of Snydersville figured out eventually Vida, Noxie and Chi-Chi'southward true identities and withal accepted them for whom they are.
• Shout-Out:
  • The three main characters watch the others dance from a balustrade in a clear "shoutout" to Sleeping Beauty. (They're fifty-fifty wearing pink, green and Chi Chi has a blue jacket over her white nightgown!)

    Vida: You know something, girls, sometimes it just takes a fairy.

    • This itself is a shout out to The Boys in the Band, when Emory signs, "Mary, it takes a fairy to brand something pretty."
  • When fixing up their hotel room, the vocal that plays is the theme song from Wonder Woman (1975).
• Sour Supporter: Noxie to Vida.
• Spicy Latina: Chi Chi is contained and resistant to criticism, just also very sexy and flirtatious, and is the Latina of the group.
• Stepford Suburbia: Vida's hometown of Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania ("Information technology's Welsh"), a real-life suburb of Philadelphia. While Noxie and Chi-Chi are impressed by the lavish mansions, Vida hated living at that place and couldn't expect to get out on her own. It'southward also fabricated clear that Vida'south parents don't corroborate of her doing drag, as her mother comes out of the house to look at the iii of them and appears positively sickened when she recognizes her child.
• Strawberry Shorthand: The town'due south distinguishing tradition (and i of the things that perks the trio upward) is their Strawberry Social — "Nosotros all bake strawberry pies and bring them to the center of town, then we eat the pies... so we get home." The queens convince them to go all out and try a range of strawberry themes and wearing apparel in glorious brilliant red.
• Of a sudden Shouting: Sheriff Dollard raises his very water ice when Vida, Noxie and Chi Chi keep mispronouncing his name due to it being misspelled.

  Vida: Well, it says "Dullard" on your name tag...

  Sheriff Dollard: WELL, It'S A MISPRINT!

• Tap on the Head: It's worse than that. Vida simply shoves Sheriff Dollard, and he's out like a light.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Chi Chi and Noxeema don't exactly hit it off. Earlier long, Chi Chi has stirred upwards bad blood with Vida, also.
• Title Drop: The moving-picture show'due south title comes from an autograph Vida swipes from a ritzy Chinese bistro. Nosotros never detect out who Wong Foo is, but he and Ms. Newmar are given a totemic reverence throughout the movie. Ms. Newmar even appears at the very terminate.
• Token Trio: White Vida, Black Noxeema, and Hispanic Chi-Chi. The movie tries to counter Vida being the leader (though she's the just one who ever drives the car) by giving the other girls' plots aplenty screentime and Wesley Snipes pinnacle billing, simply the implication is yet there. Lampshaded throughout the movie, every bit Noxie and Chi-Chi accuse Vida of existence a meddling white woman, Vida and Noxie make constant reference to Chi-Chi'southward "Latin mess," and at one point Noxie claims to be Jesse Jackson'south girl.
• Trans Tribulations: Vida's character arc involves seeking acceptance every bit her female person persona, strongly implying that she's non just a performer but actually identifies every bit a woman. Some, including John Leguizamo, believe Chi-Chi is trans as well.
• Trans Nature: One interpretation of Chi-Chi's taking offense to Noxeema's "little boy on a dress" quote is that she is actually transitioning and non just a professional drag queen. Same with Vida.
• Trans Tribulations: Vida faces discrimination from a sexist, racist dirty cop Sheriff Dollard due to being in drag and disownment from her rich parents due to being transgender.
• Trans Relationship Troubles: Vida has problem maintaining friendships with people other than Chi Chi and Noxeema due to them discovering she is transgender and possibly rejecting her because of it.
• Twofer Token Minority: Noxie and Chi-Chi as gay men of color.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: The three queens manage to fit a seemingly endless supply of clothes in their tiny automobile. Each of them wears a different, fabulous outfit in every scene, even though the movie but takes place over a couple days.
• Unsettling Gender Reveal: Sheriff Dollard reacts in the worst possible mode when he finds out Vida is a human, merely the townsfolk... not so much. They're fooled but eventually figure it out on their own, and take the girls all the same.
  • The men came close to gang-raping Chi Chi had withal to detect she is really a drag queen until Bobby Ray comes to the rescue.
  • Sheriff Dollard returns to Snydersville with Virgil outing Vida, Noxie and Chi-Chi as drag queens to the townspeople as "boys in dresses". The townspeople defend them desire this revelation.
• Volleying Insults: Vida and Chi-Chi kickoff insulting each other and it probably would go all night like that if they weren't interrupted by Virgil'due south beating Carol Ann.
• Married woman-Basher Basher: Oh, Vida. She beats the crap out of Virgil and kicks him out of his own firm after she hears him hit Ballad Anne.
• World of Ham: Drag queens are flamboyant by nature. Add that the three actors (specially John Leguizamo) are ramping information technology up for one-act's sake...
• Wrench Wench: Carol Ann fixes the girls' Cadillac showing that she'southward not just a housewife.
• You Can't Go Abode Again: The trio take a detour to see Vida's home. An old woman, implied to exist her mother judging by the tiny wave Vida gives, sees her and rolls her optics earlier walking back into the house, prompting a minor Heroic BSoD in Vida.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/ToWongFooThanksForEverythingJulieNewmar

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