Seattle holiday show is taking back the word ‘homo’

Last week, Don O’Neill came to work concerned about an ad he saw stretched across the side of a Metro bus. The ad was for a Seattle show called “Homo for the Holidays.”

“Homo For the Holidays” is a campy, sequin studded, burlesque, cabaret, drag, song and dance holiday spectacular that has been entertaining crowds on Capitol Hill going on nine years.

Is tech culture killing Seattle’s music and art scene?

But Don was confused about the name.

“Isn’t ‘homo’ derogatory?” he asked.

And would homophobic people think it’s okay to use the word “homo” since it’s on the side of a bus?

To get answers, I headed up to the Capitol Hill apartment of two of the show’s creators, performers, producers and real-life spouses, Kitten La Rue and Lou Henry Hoover.

“On its most basic level we use that word because its a hilarious pun,” laughed Kitten La Rue. “Definitely a reclaiming of a word that could be used in a derogatory way, but I don’t think is inherently derogatory.”

“We feel that now, more than ever, it’s important to be even more visible in this post-election moment,” La Rue said. “To proudly put the word homo on the side of the bus and say, ‘No, this isn’t just a small underground show on Capitol Hill that you don’t have to think about.’ We’re a part of this city in a major way and we want everyone to have to think about.”

‘Homo for the Holidays’

La Rue says about 5,000 people will see the show December 8-26 this year. And even though everyone in the cast is queer, everyone in the audience isn’t. At the beginning of every show, performer, writer, producer and the co-creator BenDeLaCreme tells the straight members of the audience that they get to be gay for the evening.

BenDeLaCreme is a Seattle drag performer who you may have seen competing on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

“I was called homo, I was called a fag, I was called gay,” BenDeLaCreme said. “That experience of having that really used frequently as ammunition against you and then getting to own that and be like, ‘This is my word and I get to do what I want with it,’ is really satisfying.”

One of the big themes of the show is the idea of chosen family, because many gay people aren’t accepted by the family they were born into. This show gives the performers a place to be during the holiday season, but it’s also become a tradition for many people in the community.

“While I now have reconnected with my parents, there were several years where they didn’t acknowledge my marriage or my life in general,” La Rue said. “So getting to have this show during this time of year where myself, and I think a lot of people, can feel lonely or estranged if they don’t have that perfect family to come home to, is a life saver. It makes you realize that you can create your own sense of family, your own sense of home.”

“Homo for the Holidays” takes classic Christmas themes and characters and presents them in their very own gay way.

“There is this reclamation of the iconography of Christmas where it’s of course Santa Clause, and that stuff is universal,” DeLaCreme said. “But there’s this way that people have been making a tradition of watching “White Christmas” every year. Who made that? That’s really gay! We joke about that a lot in the show, like, do you think a straight person came up with tinsel?”

“What is gayer than Judy Garland singing ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas?'” asked La Rue. “Nothing. That’s ours!”

For the show’s creators, it’s not just about having fun or creating work. It’s a surreal look at the beauty of their lives and how far our country and culture have come towards acceptance.

“I grew up in Ruston, Louisiana, which is a teeny little town in the bible belt,” La Rue said. “So not only did I not think: A) I would ever come out, when I was young.; B) That I would be married, legally married, to my wife or; C) that I would be co-producing an incredibly successful show about being a homosexual and then have that emblazoned on the side of a Metro bus. No, that was not in my wildest dreams. So it’s pretty cool.”

You can buy tickets to Homo for the Holidays here.

Follow @https://twitter.com/imrachelbelle