A new reading series at the Brooklyn Public Library introduces elements of gender bending and camp to little ones.
On
a recent Saturday morning, about two dozen small children and their
parents gathered in the Park Slope branch of the Brooklyn Public Library
for a new reading series. There were pregnant women with tattoos,
breast-feeding moms, and a little girl in pink ballerina gear climbing
on the laps of her two dads. Many of the kids, who ranged in age from
newborn to five years old, wore tiny T-shirts showcasing their parents’
favorite bands (Nirvana, David Bowie) or political views (one read, “The
Future Is Female”).
The event was hosted by
Michelle Tea, a writer from Los Angeles, who started attending library
story hours after becoming a mom. “Story time rises or falls on the
charisma of the storyteller,” she said. “Some seemed to have a
personality disorder or didn’t even like children.” She’d brought her
partner, Dashiell Lippman, and their two-year-old son, Atticus, who had a
haircut that resembled David Beckham’s. “He is pretty butch—we call him
Fratticus,” Tea said. “I’m always pushing a tutu on him, but he’s,
like, ‘No.’ ”
Tea’s solution, called Drag Queen
Story Hour, introduces elements of gender bending and camp. “I have
long thought that drag queens need to be the performers at children’s
parties, rather than magicians or clowns,” she said. “Drag has become
more mainstream. Kids might have seen one on a billboard or on TV.”
Rachel
Aimee was at the library because she had seen a Facebook post about the
series. “I work at the Feminist Press and thought, Maybe we could
present it,” she said. “The thing that first struck me was it’s all
about dressing up and being pretty without the baggage of gender coding.
As a parent, I’ve been looking for something like that.”
“Yeah,
it’s just fun and glitter,” said Tea, who was wearing animal-print
palazzo pants and had a red heart tattoo on each of her fingers.
Having
a six-year-old daughter has made Aimee question some of her feminist
beliefs. “She got really into watching ‘Barbie: Life in the Dream
House,’ ” Aimee said. “How could I tell her not to watch it? It has a
thousand girls and only, like, two boys in it. I would be teaching her
that shows about girls are bad.”
At eleven
o’clock, Tea made her way to the front of the room. “Do you all know
what a drag queen is?” she asked the children. “Drag queens are amazing.
They get to do fun things like dance and sing and travel and play
dress-up with their drag-queen friends. And they’re all feminists.” The
parents chuckled politely.
The drag queen Lil
Miss Hot Mess came out, wearing a white sequinned tunic dress and
matching heels, bright-pink tights, and a curly auburn wig. (She has
performed at Bushwig, a drag festival, and at SFMOMA.)
She declined to give her birth name but said that she is a graduate
student in media studies at N.Y.U. She put on black owlish reading
glasses, sat on a folding chair, and addressed her audience: “Can
everyone say, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a drag queen’?”
The children just stared.
She
would be reading from “Tatterhood,” a collection of feminist folktales,
which had originally been published by the Feminist Press, in the
nineteen-seventies. The title story, from Norway, features a feisty
goat-riding heroine who fights off angry trolls with a spoon.
