Drag queens dressed as Marilyn Monroe “welcome” LatAm presidents to summit
Los Angeles, Jun 9 (EFE).- A quintet of drag queens dressed as Marilyn Monroe on Thursday in Los Angeles sang to President Joe Biden and the leaders of other Western Hemisphere nations calling on them to halt the climate crisis in North and South America.
The performance, one of many being staged in downtown Los Angeles as the 9th Summit of the Americas is under way, also featured a drag queen dressed as late Argentine first lady Evita Peron and who sang an adapted version of the iconic “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” – this one being “Don’t Feed the Greed, Argentina” – to urge rich countries to pay their ecological “debt” to developing countries.
The singers were surrounded by life-sized cardboard figures of several presidents from around the region.
It was a show coordinated by the human rights organization Avaaz and was staged to put the focus on Biden and his fellow leaders from Canada (Justin Trudeau), Brazil (Jair Bolsonaro), Ecuador (Guillermo Lasso) and Argentina (Alberto Fernandez).
“This initiative shows the solidarity of the drag community in Los Angeles with all those people who have had to migrate in the Americas due to the consequences of the climate crisis,” Avaaz campaign director Oscar Soria told EFE.
The drag queens performed a parody version of the number “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” Monroe sang to then-President John F. Kennedy back in 1962 to the cardboard figures of each of the leaders.
“The idea is to denounce a reality that is not always seen,” Soria said.
Regarding the leaders of the US and Canada, he urged them to increase their budgetary contributions to deal with the environmental crisis, to pay their “debt” to developing countries, to end investments in fossil fuels and to “save nature before it disappears.”
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro and Lasso were focused on in the form of a song criticizing them for “annihilating the Amazon,” financing petroleum extraction in the region and “not respecting the rights of indigenous peoples.”
Special attention was paid to Argentine President Fernandez, with the Evita Peron character calling on him to negotiate offsetting his country’s debt with the International Monetary Fund by fulfilling the objective of caring for the environment.
Keisha, one of the drag queens participating in the performances, told EFE that the group is “very concerned” about the impact that the deterioration of the environment will have on future generations.
It’s clear that there’s no real commitment on the part of the hemisphere’s leaders to stop climate change, she said.
The Avaaz representative praised the performances and said that other activists need to learn that the LGTB community can stage protests on serious issues with original activities that get to the heart of the matter.
EFE gac-romu/rg/bp
