20 years later, 2003’s cult drag comedy ‘Girls Will Be Girls’ is problematic AF… & still a f*cking riot!

Six years before RuPaul’s Drag Race graced our television screens for the first time, there was another form of drag entertainment that threw us into a tizzy: the cult classic drag comedy film, Girls Will Be Girls. 

Directed by Richard Day, Girls Will Be Girls tells the story of three actresses at various places in their careers. Originally conceived as a TV series for Showtime, the movie was released as a low budget film in 2003.

But where it lacked in production value, it more than made up for in its whip-smart writing, over-the-top camp, and hilarious performances from the likes of drag icons Miss Coco Peru (Clinton Leupp) and Varla Jean (Jeffery Roberson), as well as actor Jack Plotnick.

On the heels of its 20th anniversary, Queerty recently rewatched the queer-tastic comedy, and counted all the reasons why you should too…

It changed the way drag was portrayed on screen

Whereas many films of the time often starred men dressing up as women for the sake of comedy (see: Mrs. Doubtfire or The Birdcage), Girls Will Be Girls was totally different in that it had men playing heterosexual women, who have straight sex and even get pregnant.

It’s a small detail that makes the movie feel that much more special and unusual. It even threw drag icon and star of the movie, Clinton Leupp, for a loop.

In an oral history with Logo, Leupp shared how portraying a cisgender female character in the movie “totally tripped my brain out, because in my one-person shows I don’t even pretend to be a woman, and now I’m playing a real woman. But then I understood what Richard was doing and it took me that first week of filming to get my footing.”

Even The New York Times took note. In their 2003 review of the film, the pub mentioned, “It’s satisfying to see classic drag again…. For decades now, moviegoers have seen men playing men dressed as women for plot-dependent reasons, or men playing transvestites or transsexuals [sic], but Girls Will Be Girls offers men playing women. Period.”

Hey, if the New York Times is praising it, you know it’s legit!

It’s problematic AF and yet… we still love it?

You know those people who are always like, “there’s no way [insert random TV show] could be made today!” Well, this is very much the case for Girls Will Be Girls. 

Between jokes about abortion, dead dogs, micro-penises and much worse, literally nothing is off limits in Girls Will Be Girls. The filmmakers even find a clever way to use the R-word in the film (which tbh, as someone who is disabled, I wasn’t too thrilled about, but hey! It was 2003.)

Needless to say, Girls Will Be Girls is completely batsh*t and very much a product of its time. In no way does it hold up, but somehow I couldn’t stop laughing?!?

@gwbg2012

Oh, Evie

♬ original sound – Girls Will Be Girls

It’s 79 minutes of non-stop zingers

Speaking of laughing, Girls Will Be Girls is a f*cking riot. Much of this can be attributed to Jack Plotnick’s iconic portrayal of foul-mouthed drunk, Evie. But honestly, everyone is on their A-game here. 

With the biting humor of TV’s dearly departed Arrested Development (which had jokes stacked upon jokes stacked upon jokes, before Netflix f*cked it up!) and the quotability of Mean Girls (on R-rated steroids), Girls Will Be Girls never lets up in the funny department.

For those who haven’t seen it… let’s just say, you’ll never see Cheez Whiz or hear the word “astrophysicist” the same way again.

Good luck trying to parse out your favorite line in the movie! Well, actually lets share some of the funniest lines we could find online:

@gwbg2012 Of course #girlswillbegirls #misscoco #cocoperu #arresteddevelopment #drag #filmtok ♬ original sound – Girls Will Be Girls

@gwbg2012

Let’s not

♬ original sound – Girls Will Be Girls

@gwbg2012

Supposing

♬ original sound – Girls Will Be Girls

TV sitcom fans will recognize a certain someone

Fans of ABC’s Modern Family will be delighted to see a familiar face in the form of Eric Stonestreet, who played Cam on the hit comedy. But make no mistake, Stonestreet is no gentleman in Girls Will Be Girls! Far from it. 

Without giving too much away, Stonestreet plays Dr. Benson, a morally and ethically deplorable doctor with close ties to one of the main characters in the film. 

Even though he plays someone truly awful, he does give us one of the most terribly hilarious marriage proposal scenes in cinematic history.

@gwbg2012

I’ve really enjoyed these

♬ original sound – Girls Will Be Girls

And finally… there’s a sequel, but nobody knows when, or even if, it will ever be released

Scooby Doo, where are you, when we need you most?! We appear to have a Girls Will Be Girls sequel that’s gone missing!

For those who aren’t up to speed: In 2010, a Kickstarter campaign was launched for a sequel to Girls Will Be Girls, titled GWBG 2012.

But as you can probably tell, it’s been *checks calendar* more than two decades since the original film was released and we still have no sequel. Sad day.

To be fair, it sounds like the sequel’s director, Richard Day, was going through some sh*t back in 2015, and in 2021, he told Logo he’d spent “much of the COVID-19 pandemic laboring on the sequel’s CGI effects.” Which like, is the sequel meant to be Avatar In Drag? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

Alas, it’s but been more than two years since we’ve heard any kind of update. And man, waiting sure is a drag.

Perhaps it’s time someone fired up the Mystery Machine, and tried to solve the case of the missing sequel once and for all!

Girls Will Be Girls is available to buy or rent via a variety of streaming platforms.