Actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein is, once again, in no-nonsense mode, looking back on his career with signature candor in a new interview with PrideSource.
With his Tony-winning musical "Kinky Boots" about to embark on a national tour, Fierstein offered his assessment as to the ongoing popularity of drag culture.
"Obviously, thanks to 'RuPaul's Drag Race' and other things, it's reached every corner of the population," Fierstein, who co-wrote the "Kinky Boots" musical with Cyndi Lauper, told PrideSource's Chris Azzopardi. "Drag can be used sexually, politically; it can be used to challenge. And it can be used to hide behind."
Fierstein, who also wrote the book for the 1983 musical, "La Cage aux Folles," shrugs off the criticism that he employs drag and other gay-relevant themes in his work too much: "I say, 'Why does [playwright] David Mamet write about heterosexuals all the time? And why does nobody ever ask David Mamet, 'Is this another heterosexual show? Wasn't your last play about heterosexuals?'"
He then added, "The Stonewall riots would not have happened without drag queens."
The "Torch Song Trilogy" scribe has been an outspoken critic of Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir in the past. Once again, he doesn't mince words when it comes to Weir, who he describes as an "a**hole," and points to the skater's reported use of a "postnuptial agreement" with previously estranged husband, Victor Voronov.
"...On the 10th anniversary of gay marriage becoming legal [n Massachusetts] he was putting out press releases saying that he has a new marriage contract -- a post-nup saying you can't touch another person's cock, you can't put it in your mouth, you can't put it in your ass," he said. "And I'm doing radio interviews, and instead of talking about the power of gay marriage and how all these states have gay marriage and the world hasn't fallen in and all that, I'm being asked instead about that asswipe's post-nup!"
Read the full PrideSource interview with Harvey Fierstein here.
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