Who Does That Bitch Think She Is?
Image: Doris Fish, 1979. Photograph by Eddy Hackenberg, courtesy Australian Queer Archives
Craig Seligman’s book, Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? Doris Fish and the Rise of Drag, on the life of uber drag queen Doris Fish, comes close to answering that question, but still leaves room for questions.
Seligman applies his considerable talents as a biographer to the journey of Philip Mills from the Manly Vale to becoming Doris Fish in emerging gay Sydney and ending with the declaration of Doris Fish Day by the mayor of San Francisco.
From the moment that Doris roller skated into Sydney’s eastern suburbs with a bag of drag to join the revolutionary act Sylvia and the Synthetics, Sydney’s inner city gay, drag and straight cultures would be turned on its head.
At the time, when these kids from the suburbs, who never seemed to have had a problem with identifying as gay and drag, Sydney gay culture was still largely hidden and kept quiet by police harassment and mainstream condemnation.
There were few outlets for drag outside of the Vegas show style of Les Girls that had found acceptance from the general public as a safe example of the art form.
Pre-dating punk, Sylvia and the Synthetics adopted an attitude to drag that divided queens and audiences, polarising them with their no-holds approach to shows that required little talent but plenty of drugs and defiance.
Eventually the group found a cult following, but Doris soon found San Francisco and her spiritual home with a bunch of like minded people that led to the formation of the performance group Sluts-a-Go-Go.
Here Doris perfected her persona and it was where her drive and ambition would take the legacy of the late ’60s hippie drag act, The Cockettes into another dimension.
Seligman does an admirable job of describing the complex living arrangements and the power dynamics of this group that could still be described as existing on the margins of gay society.
The writer also tackles why Doris is the epicentre of this group of misfits and what it is that drives him so hard into becoming the fully formed Doris Fish. But where Seligman excels is in his highly charged and empathic description of how AIDS first crept into the community before becoming an onslaught.
One tangible legacy Doris left is the feature length movie Vegas in Space.
Directed by Phillip R Ford and funded largely by Doris’s income from prostitution, the film is now considered to be a ground breaking venture onto camp, drag and gender identity.
Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? also examines the conflicts around drag and its representation of women by both the gay and lesbian communities, which have taken years to resolve, with Ru Paul’s Drag Race being one example of both gay and mainstream acceptance.
Seligman’s well written and meticulously researched book is a highly entertaining read that confronts head on the many issues faced by drag as a culture, with the fabulous Doris Fish at the centre of its beating heart.
Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? Doris Fish and the Rise of DragPublisher: Hachette AustraliaRRP: $34.99Available from March 1, 2023
Book Launch:
Venue: The State Library of NSW, Gallery & Friends Rooms, Mitchell Building, 1 Shakespeare Place, Sydney NSW 2000.
Tickets: sydneyworldpride.com/events/doris-fish-queen-of-queens
Vegas in Space screening:
Ritz Cinemas, Randwick, Tues 28 February, 7.00 pm. Tickets and info: queerscreen.org.au/sessions/vegas-in-space/
