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description=Facing the disappearance of familiar LGBTQ+ spaces in Montgomery, Ms. Victoria Jewelle stitches together the pieces of her drag identity at other Alabama locations and in New Orleans. From Victoria s perspective—over twenty years of performances, protests, and intimate moments shared with members of her drag family—drag takes on a deeper resonance as an expression of identity. ;

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victoria southern spaces southern spaces home browse emory african american art african american history african american studies africana studies agriculture appalachian studies archival studies arts asian american studies atlanta studies biography business and commerce civil war criminal justice digital humanities disaster and relief early america economics education environmental studies film television radio foodways gender and sexuality geography georgia barrier islands gis mapping global south health industry and labor journalism latino studies literary criticism long read memory and memorial cultures migration museums music native american studies natural sciences photography poetry politics and government public scholarship queer studies race relations regional studies religion and spirituality residential rural studies short read slavery social class social movements transportation travel and tourism urban and suburban studies whiteness studies authors years series collections about editors submit contact search for c advanced search southern spaces a journal about real and imagined spaces and places of the us south and their global connections contents articles monographs interviews photo essays videos presentations reviews blog posts educational resources sections introduction to victoria about the filmmaker victoria john haley university of alabama at tuscaloosa video published october 20 2025 overview facing the disappearance of familiar lgbtq spaces in montgomery ms victoria jewelle stitches together the pieces of her drag identity at other alabama locations and in new orleans from victoria s perspective over twenty years of performances protests and intimate moments shared with members of her drag family drag takes on a deeper resonance as an expression of identity queer intersections southern spaces is a collection of interdisciplinary multimedia publications that explore trouble and traverse intersections of queer experiences past present and future from a variety of perspectives and with an emphasis upon the us south this series edited by eric solomon offers critical analysis of lgbtq people practices spaces and places introduction to victoria i first met ms victoria jewelle reflected in the bathroom mirror in front of me slowly applying layers of makeup constructing a face she loaded a suitcase into her car and drove a few miles to a sports bar off the highway i followed her into a crowded storage room at the back of the building where half a dozen drag queens had transformed the space into a temporary dressing room eventually the lights dimmed and the queens paraded out one by one victoria emerged between two curtains silhouetted against a solitary spotlight suspended in time the moment seemed to end quicker than it began wigs and dresses zipped away suitcases rolled out to the parking lot cars peeling onto us 31 this cycle repeated in front of me across alabama a small town bar in the state s northeast corner a restaurant in a montgomery strip mall a gay bar in dothan a rustic event venue in brundidge and the steps of the alabama state capitol it s a pattern that has intensified somewhat since the closure of montgomery s last gay bar a few years ago a loss that left miss victoria jewelle criss crossing the state to in her own words keep our existence alive ms victoria jewelle has performed for over twenty years in alabama her drag identity emerged somewhat unexpectedly a missing piece of expression that she outlined for me as an intractable desire to locate an indescribable piece of oneself it s a wild thing to want to be something and you re not sure how to get there she mused she found this missing piece unexpectedly one night when living in mobile the feeling of seeing victoria jewelle her drag identity looking back at her for the first time made her feel whole this sense of wholeness has persisted even as montgomery s gay bars have closed leaving victoria searching and stringing together spaces to treat as empty vessels designed for other purposes storage rooms and empty banquet halls are reimagined as the drag queens apply their makeup and zip up each other s dresses as a documentary filmmaker i orient to the circumstances presented to me including physical spaces this disposition can be limiting a fidelity to treat places as i see them rather than how others might as i accompanied victoria across alabama watching her perform against wood panels rainbow streamers american flags and bible verses i discovered that to victoria these spaces function as beads on a thread extending a family legacy as i worked through the footage i began to reconfigure these places bending them to her movements allowing for her actions to extend without regard for the physical limitations in this short documentary victoria s movements applying lipstick blending makeup blinking begin in one place and finish in another her actions transport us between locations linking pieces of her chosen family narrative one that began for victoria years ago when her drag mother applied her makeup for the first time i think back to victoria describing a desire for something that couldn t be located in the everyday world something that felt to her almost indescribable but that she ultimately found staring back in a mirror i saw the spaces victoria inhabits as similarly unrecognizable temporarily reimagined through the perspective of a drag family searching for a home these places are unbound by physical restrictions we normally use to organize our world victoria the documentary seeks to recognize this reimagining through the movements and feelings of a drag queen assembling the pieces of her drag identity about the filmmaker john haley is a documentary videographer artist and educator who examines fissures and seams in the american social fabric his work juxtaposes personal narratives against institutional structures using observational cinematography testimonies symbolic imagery and vivid recurring soundscapes haley s films have screened at doc nyc palm springs international shortfest nashville film festival virginia film festival st louis international film festival new hampshire film festival santa fe international film festival tallgrass and sidewalk his short documentary sanctuary was named a vimeo staff pick for 2025 haley s work has been supported by the verdant fund the mccanna house artist in residence program the southern exposure fellowship the anderson center residency and more he is currently an assistant professor of creative media at the university of alabama in tuscaloosa banner still image from victoria video copyright 2025 by john haley interested in submitting your work to southern spaces similar publications interview the poetics of rescue and resilience a conversation with jericho brown on the selected shepherd jericho brown and eric solomon article beer prayer and nellydrama im possibilities in max vernon s the view upstair s stephanie rountree article out long enough to be historic racialized gay space in pre stonewall san antonio amanda mixon presentation the room that we re able to take up forrest lawson s queer aesthetic eric solomon and forrest lawson interview the joneses home made in mississippi john howard eric solomon et al presentation sayhername towards a gender inclusive movement for black lives brittney cooper load more f african american studies f gender and sexuality f queer studies https doi org 10 18737 w65504 sections introduction to victoria about the filmmaker