There’s a saying in New York City: “Even if you’re one in a million, there’s seven more just like you right here in the five boroughs” (for the metro area, it would be “18 more just like you”). Which is to say, stop whining about how no one understands you and get out there and find some people who do. And don’t let who or what you are, however you choose to define that, stop you from living your life to the fullest.
It’s a point taken to heart by Marti Gould Cummings (they, them), who sought to become the first nonbinary person to be elected to state office in New York (also, presumably, the first drag queen elected). Cummings ran for a seat on the City Council of New York City, which is no small-time gig: the city’s population would rank it 12th or 13th among U.S. states, and the annual budget is over $100 billion. The Council has 51 members, each elected to represent a specific district within the five boroughs, so campaigns are intensely local. Cummings ran in District 7, which stretches along the west coast of Manhattan from the Upper West Side to Washington Heights (96th street to 165th street). It’s a densely populated area with a lot of diversity in terms of economic and social class and racial and ethnic background.
Emma Fidel’s documentary Queen of New York is structured around Cumming’s 2020-21 campaign. It opens on election night in June 2021, as Cummings and her supporters and staff eagerly await the election results. Queen of New York then jumps back a year to follow Cummings and her supporters through the campaign.
Spoiler alert (for an election of two years ago): Cummings didn’t win (Shaun Abreu did) but made a good showing in a field of twelve. New York City uses ranked-choice voting in primary municipal elections, so there’s two results to consider. In the election-night tally, counting only first-place votes, Cummings came in second, while in the final result, with ranking choices taken into account, they came in fifth. I’m sure someone more versed in ranked-choice voting could explain what that pattern of voting means, but both results are quite respectable, particularly for a first-timer.
Much of the footage in Queen of New York will be familiar to anyone who’s seen a “running for office” documentary before. You get the rallies, the door-to-door campaigning, the discussions of finances, the cameos by rival candidates and meetings with like-minded candidates, and the appearance by celebrity endorsers (in this case including New York City’s own Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). But you probably haven’t seen a candidate campaign in drag, seen such diversity of gender expression among their campaign staff and supporters, or heard voice of God narration supplied by Billy Porter. Nor are you likely to have seen a documentary about a candidate who maintained an active drag performance career while running for office.
One of the best things about Cummings’ campaign is that it brought people into politics who might never have become involved otherwise. In so doing, they laid the ground for different outcomes in the future while encouraging people to become involved in the political process so the elected candidates are more representative of everyone. | Sarah Boslaugh
Queen of New York received its world premiere at NewFest 2023 and is available by streaming through the festival web site through Oct. 24.
