Drag and Playing Roles with Lil Miss Hot Mess

Pop and Play

Nathan and Haeny are joined by Lil Miss Hot Mess (LMHM) to talk about playing with roles through drag, Drag Queen Story Hour, and what it’s like doing drag events for kids. LMHM talks with Haeny and Nathan about her journey in drag, and how drag can be part of modeling possibilities for adulthood with kids. They tackle questions like, how can we defend drag from its critics and uplift its possibilities without sanitizing discussions of drag as an art form? And LMHM demonstrate her skills in coining drag names on the fly.

Lil Miss Hot Mess is on the board of Drag Queen Story Hour, and is the author of two children’s books centered on drag, The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish (Running Press Kids, 2020) and If You’re a Drag Queen and You Know It (Running Press Kids, 2022). Check out their website to learn more about her and her work!

For transcripts of this episode and more, visit our website.

Our music is selections from Leafeaters by Podington Bear, Licensed under CC (BY-NC) 3.0.

Pop and Play is produced by the Digital Futures Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The views expressed in this episode are solely those of the speaker to whom they are attributed. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the faculty, administration, staff or Trustees either of Teachers College or of Columbia University.