CAUGHT IN THE ACT

Boy, Girl. Artist, Advocate. Courtney Act is more than just the sum of her parts. I have always thought she was under estimated as a drag queen. She was widely known before going on Drag Race...and she was quick to be edited on the show as the sort of one note drag queen, and the fishy, and was getting pegged as the villain to a point. But to me Courtney has way many layers, and is very mutli faceted as a queen. Having seen her shows many times, and the last one, in Provincetown in the summer of 2018, her show covered it all.  She also entered the 2018 UK Celebrity Big Brother house with the wardrobe malfunction seen ‘round the world, but Courtney quickly proved she was no ordinary celebrity housemate. Her iconic blend of heart and humor- brains and beauty- won the world’s heart and the competition! 

And yet, Courtney Act is more than just gender or drag. She is a contemporary artist who embodies the zeitgeist of an era. One of the first artists to show their gender fluidity as well as their natural talents when boy, Shane Jenek, was passed by during the auditions for season one of Australian Idol, he came back the next day as girl: Courtney Act. Courtney showed the judges so much more than her music ability and went on to be one of the most iconoclastic contestants the show has ever seen and was signed to Sony,  embarking on a national arena tour with her fellow Idols.

 In 2014 she returned to the television arena as one of the Top 3 in Season 6 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Though she didn’t steal the crown, she did steal the hearts of millions of viewers around the world. Courtney then released her debut EP, Kaleidoscope, featuring mainstream pop beats and lux music videos featuring collaborations with Jake Shears, Sam Sparro , William Baker (Kylie Minogue), The Squared Division (Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj). Her videos online have been viewed over 40 million times.

Proving once and for all that she was more than just a voice and a body, Courtney took on a number of controversial social causes and stories in her award-nominated political series American Act on Junkee.com. The series has had over 6 million views and saw Act fire a gun, smoke marijuana, and attend a Trump rally in full drag. I have seen some of the series...it is pretty interesting. But what I really loved was her touching documentary Becoming Courtney Act.For much of Courtney's career there was a struggle going on between the glamor puss queen and the man behind the make-up, Shane Jenek. The turning point came in 2014 when he was introduced to the concept of gender fluidity. Since then, Shane and Courtney haves used reality tv and social media to preach a message of acceptance and tolerance and gender fluid issues. If you have the time to watch this great and inspiring story about Courtney's trip, hit play. It's is also very touching to see how here parents were so accepting and supportive, especially her father. It's an intimate portrait, Jenek talks candidly, both as Shane and Courtney about his career and identity issues.