The New York City Department of Education and PBS are partnering together for a new education program called “Let’s Learn,” which is geared toward kids ages 3 to 8. One of the latest episodes of the program features a drag queen named Little Miss Hot Mess reading and dancing to a book the host wrote called “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.”
“You may be wondering to yourself, ‘What on earth is a drag queen?’ Well, don’t worry because I’m going to tell you. Drag queens, we are everyday people who love to play pretend and dress up as often as we can. We love to wear shiny, sparkly outfits with all of our sequins and all of our glitter and a lot of jewelry and maybe a little too much makeup,” the host added. “And big hair, and big personalities. We like to perform on stage. We like to sing and dance and tell jokes. Sometimes we like to lip-sync, which is when we move our mouths to other people’s songs.”
“I wrote this book because I wanted everyone to get to experience the magic of drag and to get a little practice shaking their hips or shimmying their shoulders to know how we can feel fabulous inside of our own bodies,” Little Miss Hot Mess said.
The book, which is a play on “The Wheels On The Bus,” features all of the characteristics Little Miss Hot Mess says drag queens possess, including heavy makeup, snapping, shimmying, twirling, and hip-shaking.
“We’re not really queens or princesses or royalty. But we just believe if we act like we are people will treat us as such,” the host explained.
“Let me see you shimmy your shoulders,” Little Miss Hot Mess said while demonstrating.
“And I always say if you have trouble snapping, which can be kind of hard, you can always give a flip your wrist or a little bit of a jazz hand,” the author said. “Because part of drag is faking it until you make it.”
At the end of the book, the author summed up drag queens in general.
“You’ll notice this wonderful smorgasbord of drag queens because, you know what, drag queens, we come in all shapes and sizes and colors and ages and genders and abilities,” Little Miss Hot Mess explained. “And we speak different languages and we have different styles and different tastes. And if you see a thousand drag queens, you’re going to see a thousand different ways to be a drag queen.”
The author went through the book again, this time demonstrating the actions.
“I think we might have some drag queens in training on our hands,” the author said.
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According to WNET Media Group, which owns the PBS affiliate, the “Let’s Learn” series doesn’t belong to PBS. The programming is made available to PBS stations, the Daily Caller reported.
Little Miss Hot Mess’ website indicates that the author “was among the first Drag Queen Story Hour queens, and serves on its global leadership team.”
Drag Queen Story Hour has come under fire in recent years for a number of scandals. In 2018, a Louisiana drag queen who participated in the events admitted to grooming children as young as three. In 2019, photos surfaced of children lying on top of drag queens during the story hour in Portland. That same year, another drag queen was caught exposing himself to children during the event in Minnesota.