Shit & Champagne

Shit & Champagne was created on the basis of a successful drag show and it is necessary to bow down before director D'Arcy Drollinger because of the spectacular way he managed to translate it to film. Not only does the film not exhibit the usual ills associated with adaptations of stage plays, but it also makes full use of cinematic language. Mainly, however, Shit & Champagne is captivatingly delightful drag camp that revels in the aesthetics of 1970s genre flicks, with women’s blaxploitation trash at the fore. Instead of period themes weighing on the African-American community, we have a farcical fantasy of white drag queens, culminating in a mega-conspiracy around the essence of mediocrity, the Walmart retail chain. The central protagonist, Shania, combines the cheekiness, vigour and chest girth of Pam Grier with the wardrobe extravagance of Tamara Dobson and the karate skills of Jeannie Bell, but she simultaneously overshadows all of them with the size of her hairdo, the glistening of her lips and the power of her eyelashes. And that’s not even to mention the rest of the ensemble, which is teeming with various forms of drag, opulent wigs on absolutely everyone, including the extras, and a full range of glamour and trash outfits. The screenplay wonderfully revels in the kitschy absurdity of genre clichés and playfully undermines the seriousness and grittiness of the referenced movies with spectacular affect and a tremendous degree of exaggeration and self-reflection. In addition to that, it arms the main protagonist with the machine-gun cadence of furiously florid catchphrases, next to which the mumbling macho heroes of the 1980s come across as hopelessly limp embarrassments. Shit & Champagne quite rightly appropriates the mark of the modern midnight cult film, dividing the audience into those who will love the movie and its protagonist and the poor slaves to normality. This intoxicating brew goes quickly to the head, as well as to the heart. (2021.11.07)