Sightlines · reception

How To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar was received

1995 · Beeban Kidron · To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar on Sightlines

The arc

Critics in 1995 largely shrugged it off as Hollywood's sanitized answer to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert — though audiences disagreed, sending it to #1 at the US box office. Three decades on it's been warmly reclaimed as a queer camp classic, with Patrick Swayze's Vida Boheme now regarded as one of his most beloved performances.

What’s debated

The perennial fight: is it a defanged studio take on drag culture from an era when only straight A-listers could headline it, or does its sheer mainstream reach — Swayze, Snipes and Leguizamo in a hit drag movie in 1995 — make it quietly radical?

Its footprint

It has one of the most gloriously unwieldy titles in movie history, endlessly invoked as a trivia answer and a template for jokes, and the image of its three macho stars in full drag remains instantly recognizable. RuPaul's cameo and the film's drag-pageant world made it a touchstone referenced across drag culture long before Drag Race.

Where it stands

A comfort-watch camp favorite with a firm place in the queer film canon — the kind of 90s crowd-pleaser Letterboxd users rate with the heart more than the head.

Did you know? The film was produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, and both Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo earned Golden Globe nominations for playing drag queens — while Julie Newmar herself, whose autographed photo gives the film its title, appears in a cameo.

A Deleuzian reading of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar →