Feature: New movie spotlights drag culture

LOS ANGELES, April 13 (UPI) -- Two of this week's three major film releases are targeted directly at traditional male audiences, while the third is aimed at women as well as a segment of the male market that Hollywood only occasionally caters to: cross-dressers.

Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill Vol. 2" is likely to dominate at the box office. "The Punisher" -- the latest Marvel Comics movie adaptation -- appeals to young males in particular.

"Connie and Carla," actress-writer Nia Vardalos' follow-up to her 2002 hit "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," is a comedy about two women who have devoted their lives to singing show tunes. After witnessing a gangland execution, they hide out in Los Angeles, where they find success disguised as men singing show tunes in the city's drag queen subculture.

Vardalos' co-star, Toni Collette, gained fame in the 1994 comedy "Muriel's Wedding" and was nominated for an Oscar for "The Sixth Sense" in 1999. "Connie and Carla" also features David Duchovny, the Emmy-nominated star of "The X-Files," as a heterosexual man coming to grips with his brother's homosexuality.

Like "Greek Wedding," "Connie and Carla" is a showcase for Vardalos' acting and writing. It also gives an ensemble of gay actors a rare chance to strut their stuff in a mainstream Hollywood picture.

The cast includes Stephen Spinella, who won Tonys in 1993 and 1994 for "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches" and "Angels in America: Perestroika." Also featured is Alec Mapa, best known to TV audiences as Adam Benet, the flamboyant record company receptionist on the UPN comedy "Half & Half." In "Connie and Carla," they play a drag queen team known professionally as Peaches (Spinella) N'Cream (Mapa).

The movie gives the Filipino-American Mapa his highest profile ever in a feature film, in a career that he said only began to take off when he came out of the closet.

"For the first time I was speaking in my voice," he said in an interview with United Press International. "When I decided to be out in my work ... things really started to happen for me. Things I had previously viewed as liabilities, my ethnicity and orientation, became assets."

Mapa began his career playing Song Liling in the 1988 Broadway production "M. Butterfly." Since then, he has guest-starred on such TV series as "Friends," "NYPD Blue" and "Seinfeld," typically playing characters who are gay or Asian or both.

He has also combined his writing ability with standup comedy to produce one-man shows, but he has not made a specialty of playing in drag -- so "Connie and Carla" represents something of a new frontier for him. Mapa said the movie, which was shot in Vancouver, cast some actual local drag queens who lent authenticity to the proceedings.

He said members of the film company regularly attended cast mate Robert Kaiser's Sunday show in Vancouver.

"That kind of raised the bar for authenticity for us," said Mapa. "Apparently drag is really huge in Vancouver. There's something about the Pacific Northwest that makes men want to put on dresses."

The plot of "Connie and Carla" is reminiscent of "Some Like It Hot" and suggestive of "Victor/Victoria." Mapa said the drag queens in the cast had strong opinions about which drag-themed movies had authenticity ("The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert") and which didn't ("To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar").

"We came up with a fictional organization, the International Drag Advisory Council," said Mapa. "Fairness, accuracy and glamour in all drag portrayals."

The movie comes to the market at a time when much of American culture seems disenchanted with the relatively loose approach to public decorum that has prevailed for decades in entertainment.

In keeping with the trend, "Connie and Carla" does not leer at cross-dressing, or at sexuality in general. Rather, it presents the two main characters as innocents who touch down in a world that seems strange to outsiders but is eventually shown to be sweet and hospitable.

"It's kind of a throwback," said Mapa. "There are very few comedies right now that kind of center around innocence. Most of today's comedies focus on the ironic."

Mapa said even the Teamsters -- movie company drivers with a reputation for being among the most socially conventional people on the set -- picked up on the movie's themes of diversity and tolerance.

"On the last day of shooting, all the Teamsters were lining up to have their pictures taken with the drag queens, for souvenirs," he said.

Mapa is well aware of growing public impatience with risqué and vulgar entertainment, but he doesn't feel threatened by it.

"I think that people are actually more open and accepting than the current media gives them credit for," he said. "While there is certainly a very conservative movement taking place, everybody knows somebody who is gay. At some point people are really going to have to examine their feelings about how they want to treat a member of their own family. I think compassion will win."

Now approaching 40, Mapa said even he is re-evaluating the lengths to which the entertainment business sometimes goes to titillate audiences.

"I knew I was getting older when I watched 'The Real World' a couple of seasons ago and I felt like a real prude," he said. "They were doing it in the first episode."

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