Elektra Trash was born over 20 years ago in a bowling alley contest in Rosario. Her creator needed a job, didn't have a penny to her name, dressed up in trash, and won. These days, she can be seen at the second edition of the National Festival of Transformative Art (FENAT), from October 6th to 8th in Buenos Aires, where she will be giving a free makeup workshop. By Paula Bistagnino “You know what, my love? If you can’t get on your drag queen right, don’t even bother. You’ll look pathetic. And if you can’t handle high heels, do something else. Real high heels. Not platforms, stilettos. And don’t even think about relaxing. When you’re a drag queen, you can’t let your guard down: you have to strut the whole time, sit properly, move flawlessly until you take off. And your eyebrows can’t be seen. If they’re badly shaped and visible, everything’s wrong. I’m sorry, but a drag queen has to be very meticulous with her wardrobe and makeup. Because meticulousness is beauty, people like to consume beauty, and a drag queen is a consumer good.” After twenty years of performing, more than half his life, Liborio Pablo Iuculano has the ten commandments of the drag queen. Somewhat removed from the persona that was part of recent Argentine drag history, he dedicates himself to teaching it to his successors at his drag queen school and carries it almost like a banner against improvisation. Even in that competition where he debuted in the late 80s and became a drag queen in a single night, if there was one thing he never did, it was dress up. “I’m an artist of the genre. But not me. Anyone who does it seriously has to be an artist.”

-How did you go from looking for a job to becoming a drag queen?

–Out of necessity, to earn a living. I'd left my parents' house at 18, after telling them I was gay. Not because they kicked me out, but because I needed to live the way I wanted. And I also wanted them to have time to process it. I was young, I needed to work, and I was getting shitty jobs. Promotions, selling cell phones, all things that control your life in a hostile and awful way. And then suddenly a Drag Queen contest came up at a nightclub in Rosario, where I'm from, and the prize was a job as a performer at the club. My friends started telling me to enter, that it was perfect for me, that I was half actor, half character, half comedian. So we put together a production, and I won. Two weeks later, I started working as a drag queen. I didn't have a penny, not even enough to buy shoes, stockings, dresses, or makeup… I was the saddest drag queen in history. But I think my attitude and energy made up for the poverty.

-So, the "trash" thing (riding with trash) was a necessity ?

–Yes. Elektra was completely different from the other drag queens, and that's why she stood out. She was the scruffy one, but she walked just like them. What I did was real art. But that's precisely why I started getting a lot of work and became popular. That's when I realized I had to change my name. My character was too feminine to be called Liborio. I asked Topacio Fresh, the hottest drag queen in Rosario at the time. She taught me everything and took me under her wing. And she and a fashion designer from Rosario christened me "Trash." The night I won the contest, I wore a wig made of photographic negatives and a dress made of polarized glass sheets and chicken wire.

-What did you know at that time about the Drag-Queen movement?

In Rosario, the movement was always very strong aesthetically; I knew what it was. But the trend was very much like what RuPaul wears now. It was the nineties, and the supermodel aesthetic was everywhere. Everyone looked like that. Elektra too: Elektra was a supermodel, but from the trash can. Because I was so thin at that time, I looked like a heron, and I'd put a trash can on my head and it looked amazing. That's how it was: I'd walk to the club from my house, and whatever I found in the trash I'd put on my body until I got there. I created myself as Elektra over time, seeing what people liked and didn't like. Like you create yourself over the years in your life, in everything. But I didn't know anything at all: just a little bit about makeup because I had started selling Mary Kay products a while back to earn some money while I was studying Engineering. Thanks to the mother of a classmate. And besides, when I was about 15, I had been a model and knew how to walk the catwalk… I was a model! I was a model! 

-You once said that being a drag queen is not about transformation but about deformity. What is your definition?

There was a time when there was a lot of conflict between transvestites and drag queens. And I said this: we distorted transvestism. Because transvestism is the art of imitating women. A drag queen is the creation of an exaggerated, androgynous female character. It's directly linked to aesthetics. camp, which is exaggeration and extravagance, somewhat kitsch, and which was commonly seen as something eccentric. What Lady Gaga does: is what we've done all our lives. Older than gas. Nothing new about it. That was in the United States in the 60s, but the English say that drag queens were born in Elizabethan theater when women were forbidden from acting and men impersonated them, vulgarly disguised as women. I, Liborio Pablo Iuculano, I define drag queen as a transvestism movement completely focused on performance.

-Beyond the aesthetic aspect of the movement , what is the political and revolutionary message?

-It can never be something purely aesthetic. Drag is something completely political because it embodies Pride in one person; it's the entire alphabet in one. It's the entire LGBTQ+ community in one person.It will never be something without a political message. I hope that one day it stops being so, because that would be the day it became so commonplace that it ceased to be disruptive. I would want to say that diversity was truly accepted and we would all be much happier. But since the world has so many bullshit standards, created by men to control other men, and they are so ingrained that seeing a man dressed as a woman is seen as a rarity, and it's a bigger load of crap than a house. Until that happens… What's more: uA drag queen is all politics, even if she doesn't want to be. Because she breaks with everything and all categories. And we're even a nuisance within the community. Because there are also fucking fascists, and because the standards are also within the community. So until this nonsense ends, drag queens are going to keep being a pain in the ass. And I came into this world and I'm going to keep working to make this world a drag queen. Elektra Trash will be giving a free makeup workshop at the second edition of the National Festival of Transformative Art (FENAT), from October 6th to 8th in Buenos Aires. All the information is available at www.festivalfenat.com ]]>