The Kinsey Sicks: I Wanna Be a Republican

The Kinsey Sicks—self-defined as a “Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet”—camp and mince it up in this insipid concert film designed to mock Bush-Cheney neocon values. While the excesses of the current administration may inspire a gold mine of sharp satire (cue Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert), this drag queen act has no clue how to harvest humor from today's political scene. Instead, their act consists of smutty jokes, mild humiliation of their predominantly homosexual San Francisco audience (“Good evening, ladies and lesbians”) and musical parody routines that inevitably deflate within seconds of the opening bars. Republicans, as presented here, are little more than a bunch of elitist, corrupt, prejudiced jerks—and I Wanna Be a Republican spends 84 minutes driving that single point home with nauseating repetition (even Howard Dean would wince at the puerile smacks aimed at the GOP). As for the performers themselves, the Kinsey Sicks (Rachel, Winnie, Trixie, and Trampolina) are the least amusing drag performers in recent memory: buried beneath an overkill of big hair and Fauvist makeup, they look like rejects from a John Waters casting call (and none possesses a fraction of the talent of drag superstars such as the Lady Bunny or RuPaul). DVD extras include cast and crew commentaries, a “making-of” featurette, four additional songs, and bloopers. Not recommended. Aud: P. (P. Hall)