AVANT GARDENER
Last week marked the last episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race (RPDR) UK vs. The World Season Two, with Filipina queen Marina Summers making it to the final four. Runner up and fan favorite from Drag Race Philippines Season One, Marina served many iconic looks that represented the Philippines. In episode one, Marina donned a Roman Sebastian number made with indigenous textiles from the Cordilleras, sashaying down the runway with a basket of green rice stalks on her back. Even her palayok-inspired wig, coiffed by Margaux Bertrand, was an ode to Filipino food culture.
In episode three, she once again showed off the Philippines in a group challenge where the queens had to create immersive experiences that best highlighted the theme Drag Race World. Marina and her group mates Keta Minaj and Tia Kofi created a tourism commercial with Marina, a Nueva Vizcaya native, once again highlighting the Philippines’ rice industry by using a palayan as a setup for a gag about doing drag in the rice fields. This is reminiscent of the wonderful videos of usually young Pinoy or Thai drag queens making frocks out of agriculture material and parading down the dirt roads beside their family’s fields.
Both times, Marina used rice fields to effectively anchor her brand as a Filipina, which shows that to this day, rice is still associated with the Philippines in popular media. Despite ranking eighth in the world as of 2022 according to the Department of Agriculture (DA) website and despite having a huge chunk of the DA’s budget allotted to its cultivation, the Philippines, whose rice is largely, if not wholly rain fed, still managed to garner top spot as highest rice importer in the world, according to the International Trade Council. It’s sad that rice is so attached to the Philippines since the country has trouble producing enough of the grain just to feed itself.
Marina isn’t the only Drag Race queen to come from a farming background.
Miss Fame from Season 7 was raised on a chicken farm. They showcased their ability as a chicken whisperer on the show, being able to mimic the sound of a chicken. They now live in the Swiss countryside with their husband where they, of course, raise chickens.
Utica Queen, or simply Utica, from Season 13 takes her drag name from the small farm town she grew up in. The quirky queen peppered her performances on the show with farm references in honor of her farming background (milking cows was one of her chores growing up), including a challenge where she drinks straight from a fake cow’s udders.
But back to the Philippines. There’s a school of thought growing within the agricultural committee that given this, the DA should increase funding and support for other high value crops, as well as crops and agriculture industries with more profit potential, including ornamental plants. According to the paper “Ornamental plants in Thailand” published in the International Society for Horticultural Science, Thailand may rank number 22 in ornamental plant exportation worldwide, but it’s “the leader in ASEAN countries.” This isn’t counting the amount of flowers and ornamental plants that Thailand itself needs on a daily basis for offerings, decor, and so on. The Philippines is rich in flora. It’s well known in the ornamental plant community that a lot of mother plants cultivated in other countries come from the Philippines.
The Philippines of Marina’s drag, one that’s a rich agricultural nation, is an area where I hope reality mimics fantasy. I, too, would like to live in a Philippines that is food secure, that can produce, at the very least, enough rice for itself. This, I think, to misquote another RPDR queen Valentina, would make sense with my fantasy.
Congratulations on representing the Philippines, Marina! No matter what they say, you truly are a Filipina winnah!