Culture

Seven years ago, Drag Race stars Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme saw an opportunity to ring in the holiday season the way they wanted to — as two friends just gabbing to one another in front of a live audience.
“We could have just sat on stage and shot the s–t for an hour and a half,” Monsoon explains to Billboard. “That’s how this whole idea started, with us saying ‘Let’s just sit on stage, maybe do a couple numbers and bulls–t about the holidays.”

Today, that original concept has grown into an annual tradition for the pair that extends far beyond just chatting and singing in front of a crowd. The Jinkx & Dela Holiday Show, instead, transformed over multiple iterations into a spectacle of costumes, dancers, high-production performances and an ever-evolving story — one that usually pits the two performers’ disparate dispositions against one another.

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Each year, the pair use the plot of their show to tackle topics of the moment, including the oncoming approach of AI technology and adjusting to a post-COVID world. For this year’s show — which kicks off its 33-date North American run on Nov. 7 in Charlotte, N.C. — the pair recognized that there’s really only one topic they felt needed to be addressed; our current, fractured political discourse. “There’s a lot of fear right now,” DeLa explains. “We have never shied away from taking on those hard topics, but doing it in a way that also can bring joy and hope.”

It certainly helps that the pair are well-versed in the political challenges of this election — in July, Jinkx and DeLa joined forces with fellow Drag Race stars Alaska, Willam, Monét X Change and Peppermint to create the first-of-its-kind political action committee Drag PAC. Aimed at engaging young voters to exercise their rights in the upcoming election, the organization has already provided prospective voters with the tools needed to register to vote and spread the word about the high-stakes election taking place on Nov. 5.

Below, Jinkx & DeLa break down the creation of their latest special, their thoughts on the upcoming election and their approach to young voters who don’t feel represented by either candidate in 2024.

Let’s talk about the special! What made you want to continue your tradition of doing this holiday tour?

Jinkx: It’s grown through the years — it started as something special, and just becomes more and more special each year, and that’s because there was always true heart and intention from the very very beginning of this project. We are writing a two act musical spectacular for the seventh time, because what we created that first year resonated with an audience that wanted to come back the next year. Their support through the years has allowed us to grow and take more time; now, we take off four months a year to devote to this project. As freelance artists, that’s crazy. But it pays off, because it is not only a wonderful artistic endeavor, but it is one of our best ways to stay in communication with our audience.

DeLa: It’s really about the spirit of this thing. It’s so great to be able to do this, but also, Jinkx and I love spending this time together, we love spending this time with our show family. We wanted to create a new tradition for us and for our audiences, and now, this is coming home for Christmas for us. 

What can you tell us about this particular Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show? What are some of the new areas you wanted to explore with this year’s version?

DeLa: Every time we come at this, you can always expect that special Jinkx and DeLa flavor — we have a very specific brand of comedy, we have a very specific odd couple dynamic that makes for a very good time, and we come at it with a lot of humor, and camp, and sparkle, and spectacle, and original music, and pop parody. But we’re always also coming at it with keeping what is culturally happening around us in mind, so that will always dictate what is happening in the show. And this year, there is a lot of division happening, politically and otherwise.

Jinkx: I feel like drag queens are expected to be funny. Not every drag queen is funny, but there is an expectation that we’re going to tell some jokes and we’re going to entertain you, right? DeLa and I both chose comedy because it is a wonderfully effective tool for communication and for introducing new ideas. Throughout the years, I’ve learned that even though comedy kind of gets treated like this light-hearted, frivolous art form, it actually has been the most powerful way for me to convey very important messages to my audience.

When you double that with Christmas and what a difficult time of year this is for our community, it’s a no-brainer that people resonate with the work that we put a lot of passion into. This time of year is hard for all of us, and you don’t even have to be queer for it to be hard for you. 

The two of you clearly have an excellent working relationship as artists — what, in particular, about the other person makes them a good collaborator, to you?

Jinkx: I think if you asked us at different points over the last seven years, we might have had different answers. But right now, it’s pretty easy to say that there is trust and respect here. We have so much trust in one another that you can actually believe that this person is making a suggestion that we should wear specific costumes not because she thinks it’s the best option for her, but because she thinks it’s the best option for the show. To find another artist who wants to remove their ego from the conversation and put on the best show possible is rare. It’s hard to get there as an artist, but when you find an artist who brings that out in you, it’s a unique privilege as a performer. 

DeLa: Jinkx and I have just continued to propel each other to get better at everything. We come at this with very specific skill sets, and with different strengths — throughout the years, we’ve built each other up, we’ve helped each other, I feel like I am a freer, more comfortable improvisational artist because of it. I know that Jinkx feels like she’s gotten to learn a little bit about storytelling from me. It’s something that comes out of that incredible inspiration from each other. As a result, we not only are a stronger pair on stage, but we’re better comedy writers together. 

The other project the two of you worked on earlier this year was the creation of Drag PAC. What made the two of you want to engage in this specific way in the election?

Jinkx: The credit actually has to go to a wonderful member of our community, someone who has helped create a lot of work for drag queens and queer entertainers since the pandemic, and that is our good friend Big Dipper. He really is the brain behind Drag PAC, and I don’t mind saying that because he puts in a lot of work so that we can come together as a group of very busy entertainers and use our platforms and our voices in a way that hopefully — actually, no, that will empower our community and give us voice in the political arena. 

This is a very high-stakes election, especially for the LGBTQ+ community. With less than a month until Election Day, how are you feeling about the outcome of the campaign and our collective future as a country? 

DeLa: I, personally, am feeling a great sense of gratitude for the way I’m seeing our community come together. I feel fortunate to get to step up and be a voice in the way that I do, and I feel inspired and grateful to see so many other queer people in the public eye doing that, as well as just seeing queer individuals across the board realizing that, collectively, we can make a lot happen, we can protect things and we can make change. That has been true of the queer community for decades, and I think both Jinkx and I feel very fortunate to be a part of the legacy of drag that has fought for queer rights and for the rights of all disenfranchised communities. As scary as what’s happening can be, and as infuriating as it can be, the counter to it is us knowing our extreme power. I feel a sense of knowledge that we are unbreakable, and no matter what happens in the next couple months, we will not stop fighting.

Part of Drag PAC’s aim is to engage young voters specifically, and there are a lot of Gen Z voters who have made it clear that they are not satisfied with either candidate in this election. As two people hoping to mobilize young voters, how do you approach conversations with people who don’t feel represented by the candidates?

Jinkx: In my lifetime, I’ve never lived through anything more tumultuous or divisive than the last eight years of politics. I know that those people who do not want to endorse either candidate, in many cases, are thinking about the fact that endorsing either candidate makes your friends from Palestine, your friends from the Middle East, your friends who are being actively affected by what Israel is doing, feel like you don’t care about what’s happening to them because it’s not happening to you.

I am not the most satisfied person when it comes to our government, but I’m at a point where I understand that if we want to have the kind of future where we can really dissent to things and have more options than just two candidates, then there’s only one option to vote for right now to make that future possible. I think it’s pretty obvious that, under Trump, we would lose our ability to protest, to dissent, to speak out against our government. He’s made that very clear. If you want to talk about what you can do right now to try and ensure that future that undecided voters are trying so hard to manifest, then there really is only one option right now. 

DeLa: It’s important to note that Drag PAC, as an entity, is about motivating Gen Z voters, and there is no endorsement for a specific political candidate there. The intention is to encourage people to do their own research, find the candidates that align with their own values, and then take the steps to make change through our system. That free thinking is an important piece of all this. But as individuals, yes, Jinkx and I absolutely have our personal endorsements.

I also think there’s so much nuance here. I think about Rep. Ruwa Romman from Georgia, who is a Palestinian-American who was not allowed to speak at the DNC. There’s so much to say about that, and I think it’s also important for people who have strong opinions about this to go and listen to this person that they are upset they didn’t get to hear from at the convention — she has a very nuanced approach to this. She cares deeply for the Palestinian people, but she also has a lot to say about how voting Democrat is an important part of this process when you zoom out and see the full picture. That’s something we’re trying to tackle in our show this year — the importance of larger thinking, of listening, of not getting so entrenched in your own story about what’s going on, but really connecting to others face-to-face and listening to what people have to say. Sometimes, it’s not what you assume it’s going to be. 

Before we wrap this up, is there anything else you want to add?

Jinkx: Yes — we’re comedians, I promise. [Laughs.] 

DeLa: One hundred percent. I mean, one thing Jinkx and I are so proud of is that we’re not afraid to come at the hard stuff directly. At the end of the day, though, we are both inspired by drag. We love to make people laugh. The point of this show is that, at a hard time of year, in a hard year, a bunch of people get to come together and look at some beautiful visuals, outfits, props and performances from our brilliant cast, and get to reap the benefits of some really skilled performers who have developed a very real camaraderie over the years. Hopefully, people will come and experience some joy from this thing, and also come out feeling a little better about some of the harder stuff. 

Jinkx: We’re not just spokespeople for the community — we benefit from being members of this community, too. The audiences charge us to keep going, and we only hope to charge our audiences to keep going, too, and to provide some food for thought.