The 52: Victor/Victoria

    From June 2023 to June 2024 I'll be watching a lgbtqia+ film each week and coming back here with my thoughts, feelings and plenty of hopes we aren't met with the "kill your gays" trope. I call this The 52.

TW: rape jokes

But she wants to be straight nowwwwwww

Image source: Wikipedia

Oh god, this film is NUTTY and went on for way too long, but I was tired and, admittedly, hooked. We always knew Julie Andrews was a gay icon, but in Victor/Victoria, she gets to play one and it was… interesting.

Following Andrews' Victoria, a failed singer who is willing to do literally anything in exchange for food (a bad taste rape attempt is thrown in here for laughs while she’s barely conscious, only to never be mentioned again; rape, in fact, is made a joke of twice, as later in the movie a character thinks Victor is about to assault her and she screams, only to ask for the door to be locked so no one can disturb them; turns out Victor only wanted to show off his boobs. Precisely no one with taste laughed!), and it turns out the answer to her problems? DRAG.

Going undercover as Victor, the story gets a little wild, for what does Victor do for a living? He's a drag queen of course.

So we have Victoria pretending to be Victor, and then Victor who works as a drag queen. Drag on drag, and let me just say: Victor is a huge triumph when he's performing as a queen, but Victoria when she's in character as Victor? Her signature move is a flat palm to the side of the head, smoothing down already slick hair about 43 times.

Not only is Victor/Victoria about an hour too long, it’s also ridiculously out of touch. Victoria? She’ll do anything it takes to have enough money to eat… unless a hot guy walks past, because then her life is a tragedy, all her choices come into question, and food? She could live without that.

Maybe that’s the crux of the film, and how it lets the viewer down. It never quite goes so far as to trivialise the queens or the queers - it constantly pushes that while being gay is ~fine~ what’s more important than being able to eat is a dream… a dream of a man and a woman… a dream of where a woman sacrifices everything she has achieved for a man who is openly homophobic and won’t be seen in public with her when she’s in drag… a man who is a piece of shit.

All in all, I felt like I was watching someone’s trip come to life. Julie Andrews? Legendary. This film? Forgettable. 

Like things shorter? Follow me on Letterboxd and see my review