Gender, Speaking Out and Madonna with Ru Paul Superstar Gigi Goode

 
 

Strutting onto our screens at the age of 21 in a sexy couture pirate suit, ‘Ru Paul’s Drag Race’ Season 12 sweetheart Gigi Goode was a standout drag superstar from the very beginning. But there’s a drawback to donning show-stealing outfits and being almost irritatingly beautiful—often people think that’s all you have to offer. Fortunately, Goode had already shattered any underestimations by the end of the first episode, when their rap verse in the show’s seminal “I’m That Bitch” performance earned them a glowing review from Nicki Minaj: “Literally I would steal that line. That’s a real rap line. When I saw that you said that, I was like, who the fuck is this bitch!?” Throughout the season, Gigi would defy expectations over, and over, and over again, earning their rightful place in the top three and going down as one of the most iconic and multi-talented queens in Drag Race herstory. In Gigi’s own words, “I’m not just Goode, I’m incredible”.

Gigi Goode (born Samuel Geggie) was raised in Woodstock Illinois by their theatrical costume designer mother Kristi Geggie and was obsessed with hair, make-up and clothes from an early age. Over the phone from their home in LA, Gigi recalls getting ready for church at 5 years old. “[Mum] had this huge closet with, like, a little dresser and makeup table in there and every Sunday we used to go to church and I used to ask if I could braid her hair. I got good enough that she wore them to church and that turned into me wanting to pick out her outfits. Eventually, I became the muse.” These early beginnings are the reason that, today, at just 22 years old, Gigi’s drag speaks of a wealth of experience. That, and undeniable talent.

After first undertaking a degree in art education at Millikin University in Illinois, Gigi switched majors to “theatre, design and production with an emphasis on hair and makeup, which, for lack of a better term, is drag.” Eventually, Gigi would make the move to LA in pursuit of a career as a makeup artist, but soon found that it wasn’t the right fit and made the switch to performing. When I ask if makeup is what they’d be doing if the whole drag thing didn’t pan out, they reply, “Umm… No [laughs].” It seems that—even when Gigi wasn’t aware of it—the art of drag was always the destination.

Season 12 of Ru Paul’s Drag Race was hit with a few unprecedented bombshells, and not in the form of drama between cast members. The disqualification of a controversial contestant whom we won’t give any real estate here—resulting from a series of reprehensible incidents prior to the show—meant that the top 4 quickly became the top 3. But, of course, the biggest impact came in the form of a devastating global pandemic. The usual finale spectacle, cancelled. The opportunity to be whisked around the world in the whirlwind of queer fame that precedes the show was snatched from them like the proverbial crown. But, as Gigi would go on to explain, the virtual finale allowed the queens complete control over their ultimate performances and resulted in three truly individualised worlds the likes of which hadn’t been seen on the show before. Also, as lockdown has proved to us all in myriad ways, you can do almost anything digitally—so the opportunity to perform for and connect with fans hasn’t been completely lost.

 Gigi also brought about another first for the show, coming out as gender fluid for the very first time in the ‘Snatch Game’ episode. A big moment, precisely because it wasn’t one. It was no uncomfortable revelation, just a young person coming to a natural realisation about their identity. With a shrug, Gigi uttered the immortal line “I’m both, and I’m neither”, and gender, for a moment, felt almost inconsequential. When the scene aired, Gigi’s obvious comfort with their gender fluidity helped shift perceptions of gender plurality and inspired fans on their own journey of gender discovery. Gigi’s coming of age story was also punctuated with another evolution. Admitting on the show that the news cycle was an endless source of anxiety, they had lived their life up until that point shutting out much political discourse. But being on Drag Race lit a fire in Gigi that made them confront their internal struggles, educate themselves and learn to use their voice. In the events that followed, this became a timely and integral evolution to be given visibility. In the global fight against systemic racism, silence was no longer an option, not just for Gigi, but for us all.

 We spoke to Gigi this week over the phone from LA and discussed gender fluidity, becoming more politically engaged and how an indoor rockwall can be incorporated into your drag repertoire.

LOVE: Where are you right now? Are you still locked down in LA with House of Avalon?

GIGI: Yes, well I’ve been quarantining with them, but my place is right across the street.

LOVE: You’ve just announced a UK tour. What can we expect?

GIGI: I have time to make sure it’s really, really good. I’ve been talking to my Mum about some outfits to make and some fun references that a lot of people in Europe are going to love.

LOVE: Your drag really resonates well with UK and European audiences.

GIGI: You know, you’re not the first person to say that. It’s funny hearing that.

LOVE: Who do you look to for makeup inspiration?

GIGI: Not necessarily for inspiration, but for pure entertainment, is Nicky Tutorials. She is fucking everything. She just released a video with Crystal Methyd that I actually just watched right before this call and they were on FaceTime and Crystal walked her through how to do her face and it was so. Good.

LOVE: And Jeffree star? You did a video with him recently.

GIGI: Yeah, it’s funny because Jeffree Starr cosmetics is something that literally every drag queen under the sun uses, so when he asked if I wanted to come do his makeup I was like “okay!” The house was incredibly overwhelming, it was very, very big. The dogs are definitely not stuffed animals as I thought they all were. It was cool putting my face on somebody else and it was really the first time that I had done it.

LOVE: You’ve mentioned that your first performances were “at substance free venues that doubled as Indoor rock walls”. Can you walk us through one of those performances?

GIGI: [Laughs] okay, there are a few that I could go off of. I think my favourite that I did was with my friend Kirby [drag name Goddard]. I must have been like 16 years old. We performed private Idaho by the B52s dressed like garden ladies, and we of course utilised the rock wall and hung off of it and collected tips. Closer to my birthday I performed cake by Melanie Martinez dressed as a 1950s chef and I smashed and entire cake with lit candles into someone’s face.

LOVE: Sounds like you started on a high.

GIGI: Eugh, when I first started out it was not the best, but I will say it was better than some of the queens that I performed with that had been doing it for a couple years.

LOVE: And then you moved on to Iggy Azalea impersonating, right? Can you rap?

GIGI: Yep, and that brings us to that. Well, no, I was lip-synching and, honey, you couldn’t tell me nothing. I was giving you all the lyrics; I knew all the words. I had the straight, platinum blond, middle part, long wig. I still have that wig. I actually wore it for the makeover challenge. That’s the first wig I ever bought. Long story short, no I can’t rap, and I got very lucky on that first episode.

LOVE: Were you wearing that aqua blue body suit with palm trees on the nipples?

GIGI: Very that. That’s very what I wore. Just leggings and a crop top was the vibe, and no pads of course.

LOVE: What was it like being part of the virtual finale, and how tough has it been not being able to meet your fans?

GIGI: When I had first gotten the call that I was going to be on Drag Race, one of my first thoughts was “oh my god, what is my finale eleganza look going to be?”

LOVE: It’s a like drag queen’s wedding.

GIGI: Exactly. For every drag queen, that is such a huge moment. So, when we found out that wasn’t going to be the case it was a little devastating. Especially because everything that I wore, so, so many hours of work and planning went into it. I’m sitting here looking at these outfits wishing people could have seen them in person because they are so immaculate. But, on the other hand, I realised, especially with me being in the top, “oh, I have full control over what I give them”. If I mess up, I just don’t give them that take. It was nice to be able to focus solely on the content. I did have other plans for if it was live, but I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. I think it ended up being one of the most entertaining finales of all time.

LOVE: Can you walk us through your creative process when it comes to your looks?

GIGI: I am a slut for detail. I want people to see it up close. I want people to see the detail, the thought behind it. When I’m planning a look, it’s really about those minute details and those little winks that it might take you a minute to realise, but then as soon as you do, you’re like “oh my god, that was amazing”. The technical side of the process, I design every single look that I wear from scratch and my Mum has made it. And she’s got a body form at home in Chicago, like a literal cast of my body that she works from, so I know it’s going to fit every time. So yeah, it’s magic.

LOVE: Did you realise that your part in ‘Madonna the Rusical’ was going to be so pivotal in the moment?

GIGI: In the moment, I was really not expecting to have won that. As soon as they didn’t call Jan’s name I was like shit, okay. I’m with the house of Avalon, no joke every single day. And they are fucking obsessed—obsessed is the biggest understatement in the world for how they feel about Madonna. Thank God I had them to give me some sort of knowledge about Madonna because prior to that I didn’t know that much. She wasn’t really one of my divas and, since that challenge, she has really become a big influence on my drag. Thank God I didn’t end up getting Britta’s part.

LOVE: Do you think you are still underestimated as just a look queen?

GIGI: I like to think that I’m not. Obviously, there are people out there who love to hate and that’s fine, that’s their prerogative. I know what I am capable of and what have been able to overcome. There are still people out there who send me messages like “you think you’re all that and a bag of chips, you can’t sing, you can’t dance, you’re just a look girl, if that”. I have learned very quickly—and thank god for my mum raising me the way that she did—to believe nobody is a judge of my character except for myself. And Ru Paul for a month of my life [laughs]. Nobody’s comments affect me unless they’re positive ones.

LOVE: How do you shut those trolls out?

GIGI: Odds are they’re sitting behind a computer screen in a ratty pair of sweatpants and a shirt that’s too big for them. The haters and the trolls are not real until they are face to face with me telling me exactly what they’re telling me online. No one’s ever going to do that, everyone’s a coward. Until the day that [they] do that I don’t have a single hater out there.

LOVE: You came out as gender fluid on the show. What was it like coming to that realisation, and then voicing it for the first time on TV?

GIGI: It’s always been something, like you mentioned, that has never needed to be discussed. The way that I grew up, thankfully, was that I never had to explain myself to anybody. I know a lot of kids out there don’t get that kind of luxury, but, to me, gender and the whole spectrum of gender—and this not to at all discredit anyone else’s gender journey or anything of that matter—but to me, personally, it could not matter any less. It had a big effect on so many more people that I had expected it to. It had kind of escaped my mind until it aired again. And so, when fans are telling me that I’ve changed their perception or their parent’s perception of gender, it’s amazing. Some people have been messaging me and saying, “why don’t you talk about this more, why don’t you have Instagram lives where you’re talking about gender and fluidity”. And I get it, but it comes back to the fact that it’s not a very pivotal factor in how I live my life. To me, I could throw gender out the window and not change a single thing about how I live.

LOVE: It’s difficult because we need these labels, I guess, to make progress, but at the same time they can be reductive.

GIGI: Totally. And it’s another thing too where I’m comfortable enough in my own skin where anybody could label me as any gender or anything and I’m completely comfortable with it. Whatever you want, go for it. But just remember that I have a name.

LOVE: Can you tell us about your transition into being more politically engaged and vocal? Do you have any advice for people on the same journey?

GIGI: I didn’t realise that I had this issue of shutting out the news. It was just something that made me anxious, so in my head that became, “ok don’t pay attention to it and you won’t be anxious”. It wasn’t until being on national TV that I realised that was not an option. It also made me realise that it’s not about me. None of this is about me. If you feel the same way that I felt and you are anxious you are stressed about the situation, that’s not going to make any progress. You have to educate yourself. So, I have been constantly, constantly scrolling. I’ve found a great way for me personally to ease into the world of politics is watching The View. There is nothing like a group of powerful women talking about the news. And it also made me realise a lot of my anxiety came from it being men delivering it to me. I’ve never really been one to love to listen to straight political men.

 The end of the story is, this is so much bigger than your internal struggles and there’s not going to be change affected until people actually start to change. I am a little bit ashamed of myself for taking this long to change, but then again, I am only 22 years old and my whole life prior to this moment has been living in the middle of nowhere—Woodstock Illinois—where we weren’t exposed to issues like this. And I’m so thankful that I’m in an environment where I’m exposed to issues like this, because it made me really aware.

LOVE: Do you feel more comfortable using your voice now?

GIGI: Yeah. It’s also something that I’ve realised is my honour and my responsibility as someone who has a platform. You know, my fanbase is primarily made up of 15-year-old girls whose parents might just be that Karen in Central Park. If you can affect change in a little child fan’s mind then there’s a chance they can affect change in their parent’s.

LOVE: When playing Maria the Robot in the Snatch Game episode, you rejected Ru Paul’s advice, and it paid off. Where did this confidence come from, and where do you find it now?

GIGI: When I said that, I didn’t even realise that I was just taking what Ru Paul said and throwing it out the window, I was just being honest. When It comes to confidence, it goes back to how I was raised, and I’ve been raised to feel 100% in everything that I’m putting out. In the moment, in my head I was like “that’s weird that Ru Paul is saying this because in my mind this is going to work out perfectly”. So, I was like “hmm, ok, I appreciate your concern, but I don’t have the same concern”.

LOVE: Where does your physical comedy come from?

GIGI: It’s the little things. I just love the itty-bitty little things that again might fly past you and then later on, to yourself, you have a little giggle. Carol Burnett is someone my Mum has been into for a long time and I love Kristen Wiig. I just think I have such a dry sense of humour that I think really flies past people so often. It’s just how I’ve always been. I don’t even consider myself to be a comedy queen, but there’s always some element of humour put into every single thing that I do. You can call it humour, you can call it camp, but it’s always there.

LOVE: Have you given your followers a name yet?

GIGI:
I believe they’ve deemed themselves ‘Gigi’s Campers’. That’s what I’ve heard the most. The campers. Which is really funny. And when I was preparing for that line, which was again, the very first introduction in the first episode, I was like, how can I bring a note to the fact that I am a campy queen and then also deliver it in a campy way, and I’m so glad that it was received really well.

LOVE: Who were your favourite queens going into the show?

GIGI: I love Violet Chachki. Violet definitely shifted my perception of drag. Violet really brought the tailored campiness to it and that is really what I love about drag and about my drag. I also love Katya, BenDeLaCreme, Shae Coulee. There are a lot of queens that I love, and I don’t think there are any queens on that show that I hate. There’s no definition to drag. If you’re doing drag that was good enough to get you on the show, clearly you were doing something right.

LOVE: What’s the first thing you’ll do when quarantine ends?

GIGI: Honestly, I am so sick of online shopping. I just wanna go shopping in person so bad. That’s a minor thing that I wanna do. Obviously, the thing that I would be most excited about, which I think goes without saying, is—I haven’t had a single gig since the show aired. I’m so excited to be able to meet the people who have been so kind to me online and have been giving me nothing but love. I really can’t wait.

LOVE: What’s been your proudest moment so far?

I think my proudest moment—which is a collective of several moments—was being able to merge my drag with my relationship with my Mum. I know a lot of people started getting annoyed with how much I talk about her, but honey, there are so many times that I talked about her on that show that they didn’t even air. So, be glad.

I’m honestly proud of our entire season for being so kind to one another, and finally, finally bringing drag back to what it was meant to do and what it was meant to be. Drag has never been and is not about drama. Drag from the very beginning has been about bringing light to dark situations and entertaining a crowd and being kind to one another; lifting each other up. I think a lot of times people forget that this is still a community, and there’s so much hatred within the community that is so uncalled for.

LOVE: What does the future of drag look like?

GIGI: Drag is literally changing week by week now. There are things that drag queens do that were once acceptable but are no longer acceptable. I think that there has been a lot of censorship in drag, which has been both a good and a bad thing. But I can only hope that the future of drag is going to be bright.