A Scream Queen is a beautiful, bad actress who's really good at screaming, but it also represents standing up for equality and anti-bullying for LGBT youth.
— Sharon Needles
I think the reason people are propping up drag queens is because it's popular with the fans that identify with them, so we're great for marketing. We're not allowed to be the Christmas tree, we're just allowed to be the decorations, and I still think we're looked at as clowns by a majority of the society.
Campy films almost create real-life cartoons.
Sometimes I'm not even really quite sure why I do what I do - do I do it because I like to show that I'm an educated person to exploit these certain things artistically and, in my opinion, in a very smart way - or am I just a punk rock brat that likes pushing people's buttons and relishing in the negative reaction? I can't tell.
Well I grew up in a small town in Iowa and there weren't a lot of imaginative and fun outlets for kids of my caliber, so pretty much my mom's closet and any large pieces of fabric in the Halloween box were my favorite toys.
Discrimination must always be drawn out, like venom from the wound.
Any younger person - let's say if you're over the age of 30, Pride is a great excuse to go day-drinking. But no one forgets their first Pride and how much they felt that they were included and that the future was bright.
I can't speak for everyone, but the kind of comedy that makes me laugh are the ones that kind of make me cringe, and kind of make me look inside my own fears, my own anxieties.
I wrote my first album almost as an entitled child. 'Taxidermy' is written by a much more precarious, untrusting adult.
Love is a universal thing that everyone understands. Love, like death, is the only thing that binds humanity.
Call Me On The Ouija Board' is homage not just to horror movies involving children, but my favorites as a child.
It sounds odd, but it's almost hard to find a piece of negative press about myself.
It seems I am more beloved on a reality show from an extended cable network than I am in social circles in my own city.
I was such a bizarre conundrum of everything that makes you worry about a child. I was a bad student. I got picked on a lot. I loved horror movies.
I like work that pushes the barrier of bad taste.
A drag queen on time is not a drag queen.
I've always loved Salem, and I love the title of Scream Queen.
If you were to come in to my house, I have archived every fan letter I've ever been given, boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of them.
I think that the attraction to camp is its irreverence, it's strange, it in no way reflects reality while using real characters.
Sharon Needles was based on two things: That she was beautiful and that she was stupid.
I could talk about myself for hours!
It has always been my aim to live everyday like Halloween by celebrating individuality and creative freedom within a world of horror.
Drag really isn't just about exaggerating and celebrating femininity. Some drag queens want to look like monsters, some drag queens want to look like hot dogs. Really what it is is just dipping your toes in all the swimming pools of identity and allowing yourself. Because society really tries to compartmentalize humans in a certain way.
If anyone boos you offstage, that is simply applause from ghosts.
When I wrote 'PG-13,' I had just won 'RuPaul's Drag Race,' all my nightmares had come true, and I was a brat. I was a privileged brat overnight.
I found my first picture of Amanda Lepore online in fashion magazines. It was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen in my life. I thought nothing could trump the perfection of that photograph.
When most kids were hiding their eyes or cowering under the covers, I was three inches away from the television when horror movies were played.
When in doubt, freak 'em out.
Growing up in Iowa I could have had it a lot worse. My family was more worried about my education and my health than the fact that I wore my sister's dresses.
I never hate my bullies from high school. I actually kind of appreciate them. If it wasn't for that boot camp training of how the world treats gay people and especially drag queens, I don't know if I would have survived as well as I have.
I can't speak for all queens, but Sharon Needles is definitely a different entity from me as Aaron Coady.
Most American adults know what a drag queen is, but as they're portrayed in films like 'Dressed to Kill' and 'Silence of the Lambs.'
I love celebrities, and I love the concept of fame, but it took me getting fame to realize that it doesn't exist, which was kind of a bummer. Fame is great if you're not famous, because it seems like this elusive impossible dream world. And it's not. It's a fancy word that managers and producers make up so they can keep hawking you for more money.
It's like, 'Oh, great, drag queens can excel!' - but then the ceiling is so low. You're only allowed on the first floor; you're not allowed to go play with the big boys upstairs. Even RuPaul, who's a massive success, has been limited to where her music career can take her.
A lot of people call horror movies 'campy,' and I can certainly see why they think that they are, but being a product of the 80s, I didn't notice that they were campy - I came from a campy generation. I mean, Ronald Reagan is campy. But I don't think they're campy.
I've always toyed around with creating over-the-top lady characters in my head.
It's a pleasure to join the ranks of Debbie Rochon, Linnea Quigley, and Heather Langenkamp as one of America's most recognizable Scream Queens!
I find doppelgangers terrifying... can you imagine two of me?! Now that's scary!
Drag can be considered so many dangerous things, which it isn't. But the one thing we're never called is misogynist, which might be the only thing that we truly are. Because no woman looks like this. You have so many real biological everyday women say: 'Oh I wish I would look like you.' They would look ridiculous if they looked like us.
Dead things should be buried and not eaten.
Before my time on 'RuPaul's Drag Race,' Halloween was my favorite day of the year since I was a little kid. It's the day we worship the macabre and live vicariously through the costumes that we wear.
In the past, when I lacked designer duds, I simply relied on my hot glue gun.
Beneath the 30 pounds of makeup and corsets and gowns are real beating hearts of real people and they usually come from a place of pain.
I represent a kind of underground, punk side of drag.
The thing about fame is, you want it your whole life, but no matter how bright you are, no one ever asks themselves why they want fame. You never really know what it is until you have it. You can never tangibly feel your own fame.
I'm the sort of person who wants to wear a wedding dress to a wedding.
Once you are in full Sharon Needles mode, you don't feel fear, you don't feel physical pain, and you also don't feel your own moral filter any longer.
