Drag drama

SouthernVoice.com

Backstage politics before curtain time

Charlie Brown?s voice seesaws between anger and pain when talking about the most recent collision between politics and drag, and her passionate tone sounds like she is steadily on the brink of tears.

?All of the entertainers in this city have always been close, but it seems recently a little ripple has gone through the community,? says Brown, who finds herself on the opposite side of a heated debate sparked by a couple of crown-jewel performers in Brown?s ?Atlanta Drag Idol? franchise.

GiGi Monroe ? whose creative energy earned her the first ?Drag Idol? title in 2005 ? created a different kind of buzz in Atlanta?s drag scene last fall when she refused to perform at WETbar after an outside promoter brought in Shirley Q. Liquor, a controversial white drag queen who performs in blackface and uses exaggerated stereotypes in her act.