Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, in partnership with Vermont Public.
Ten years ago, Emoji Nightmare performed in drag for the first time. Since then, Emoji has become one of the most influential drag artists in the state.
Back in February, Gigi Machon joined Emoji at Green Mountain Cabaret’s annual My Chubby Valentine, a burlesque show in Winooski with all fat performers. There, Machon talked with Emoji about burlesque, bodies and fat acceptance.
🎧 This story was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript below.
Katniss Everqueer (on stage introducing Emoji): She is the most impactful performer we have in this state for what she does. She talks at conferences. She’s on the national board of Drag Story Hour. She is an incredible human being. But she’s also a sassy performer, and she’s gonna give it to you a little bit. All right, let’s bring to the stage the gorgeous, the beloved, Emoji Nightmare!
Emoji Nightmare: If you go like way back, childhood-wise, I have memories of lip syncing to Shania Twain in my backyard. And like and then fast forward, you know, 20 years from there, and I was lip syncing to Shania Twain on stage.
So I think early on, I always had a knack for putting on shows and being ‘the star.’
We had dreamt up an idea of having an all-fat drag and burlesque show.
We were doing a lot of virtual shows at the time, in 2020 and 2021, and the first show we did [with all fat performers] was in February of 2021, which was My Chubby Valentine. And that was a success, so we then did a summer version called Beached Whales. And looking back, we just had the fifth My Chubby Valentine. And it’s been so, so great.
Doing burlesque in a larger body, you know, society teaches you in a lot of ways, like, ‘Don’t wear this, that’s not very becoming of you.’ I remember early on being told I could never wear horizontal stripes or the color yellow or, you know, things like that, which were stupid rules. So I didn’t necessarily have the confidence that burlesque was for me.
And meeting Katniss, and realizing that you can own sexuality, you can own sensuality, and a larger body, it’s not mutually exclusive. You can be both. And I think being exposed to that different framing of thinking really helped me.
Fat, in a way, has often been weaponized. Like, you don’t wanna be fat. Fat equals bad. And fat doesn’t necessarily equal bad. It’s a descriptor. It’s no different than describing the color of one’s skin.
In our description of our shows, we use so many synonyms for the word ‘fat.’ It’s great how many words in our language are used to describe fatness. And I’ve certainly reclaimed it.
I don’t remember necessarily the point where I thought like, ‘Oh, fat is not a bad thing.’ But if anyone’s ever like, ‘Oh, I’m just a little bigger boned,’ I’m always like — I mean, I’ve said that. But at the same time, I’m like, ‘Your bones aren’t any bigger than anyone else’s!’ Like, just say you’re fat, girl! It’s all good!
There is no way that I would be at the at the level of confidence I have with my gender, my sexuality and my body if it wasn’t for drag and burlesque.