Martin L. Washington, Jr is a youtube video maker and rising star in the acting community. He is talented, funny, and gracious with his fans. This Netflix streaming of "Alaska is a Drag" is huge for the rural LGBT community. It is an accessible and relatable film about being non-gender confirming, Drag performance and Gay in the rural communities of Alaska. The film has Margaret Cho starring as a bartender.
This film is an amazing chance to engage in rural dynamics of the LGBT community and for that reason I've asked the Interfaith LGBTI Clergy Association to watch it via Netflix and chat about it with their own communities.
I have even suggested to an urban art and cultural activist in Wilkes-Barre that a screening of this in his city would be a wonderful event. I do this because I believe powerfully that we are Narrative Theologians, and films are the newest form of parable for the American society. There are some older references to Bible and Church in the film, which bridge that traditional society and that of the LGBT community, and also speak to family dynamics.
I don't want to give away any of the plot but the boxing scenes also help deal with sports and masculinity and gender-fluidity in the LGBT community as do the fish fileting scenes and work in that environment.
Touching as this film is, it does leave you asking what happens next and maybe these endearing characters will be reunited in another chapter of this story, that would be wonderful. Their characters will bring you in and you'll care what happens to them.
