Farrah Mones: Burlesque and Video Games

Farrah Mones is from the Seattle area. She's only 18 years old and she's still learning but she always seems to stay down to earth and has always been very approachable. Her drag isn't the typical modern drag because she loves to do Burlesque songs with her own modern twist.

1. Describe your drag persona.

Well, my drag persona is a mix of classic and vintage performance with a modern aesthetic. It's also a good mix of my twin and also who I would be as a woman onstage.

2. Who or what inspires you the most?

I think a lot of my character inspiration would be from my twin brother. My drag mentor inspires me the most. He's a performer who's been around for a long time and he knows his way around the ropes. He's been all around the country doing drag...he does old school drag. He really likes to focus more on performance instead of being so modern and predictable. His name is Mark Finley and he's Seattle based.

3. Where did you get your drag name from?

From sitting down and I was trying to think of who I wanted to be onstage. I wanted to be someone who could attract everybody, obviously. I wanted to be someone that you could feel like you've known through your whole life. I was also studying chemistry in school and just the biology of people who are kind of naturally attracted to each other. I was studying pheromones and that's how I came up with "Farrah Mones". She's someone who can appeal to everybody and you can feel natural being around. 

4. Do you think Rupaul's Drag Race has improved the drag community and ruined it and why?

Well if it wasn't for drag race, I probably wouldn't have been introduced to drag. But I can certainly see the negative effect that it has...it's given drag a lot of publicity and a lot of people think that just anyone can do drag. They do it and they call themselves a "Queen". It's not necessarily true that everyone can just go onstage and be a performer. Drag isn't meant for everybody. I encourage everyone to try drag but Drag Race has just given people the mentality that everyone can do drag and that being a bitch is the key component to being a drag queen and that's totally not true. I think it works for some people and it depends on what you take from the show.

5. What is your biggest insecurity?

I think my biggest insecurity right now would probably be my age. Being in Seattle there isn't many opportunities in drag for people who are under 21 and I'm only 18. Being at my level of drag that I'm confidently at right now, it makes me want to be onstage more often. Whenever I do competitions or whenever I just go onstage to perform, my age is something that makes me a little nervous because I feel like I'm not going to be up to the other people's expectations. Once I stop focusing on that I have more fun and drag becomes more enjoyable.

6. Do you have a most embarrassing moment?

Yes and I think it's something every drag queen experiences onstage at least once. But I was doing a competition in Seattle this past summer and I made it all the way to the semi-finals in a celebrity impersonation competition. Like every other week the judges would have to keep switching my character which is kind of weird because not everyone else in the competition was doing that but the judges wanted to see something different out of me. When the semi-finals came I had switched to Christina Aguilera who I had never really been a fan of before, but after watching "Burlesque" I learned that style of performance. So my mentor in the competition and I decided it would be a good idea for me to impersonate Christina in "Burlesque". I ended up getting onstage and I forgot half the words to the song which was completely embarrassing because the judges obviously called me out on it. It made me feel really basic. 

7. Who is your favorite drag queen?

Probably my drag mentor, Mark Finley because nobody does his type of drag anymore. He's an older queen and he sticks to what he was doing back in the day. So it's definitely him. If I had to pick a more modern queen it would probably be The Markos Sisters. It's 3 drag queens in Seattle who are all amazing in their own individual ways and they're a tight knit sisterhood. Their names are Kaleena Markos, Minerva Markos, and Cherry Markos and all 3 of them are unique in their own ways but fierce no matter what. If you could mold all 3 of them into one queen it would definitely be the mega queen. 

8. What is your favorite song to perform to? Any specific reason why?

If I had to pick one it would be "Mein Herr" from Liza Minelli in Caberet. It's from a classic movie but I got to do my modern twist on it all and it's super fun and campy. I love the old Burlesque style. Also my costume was amazing. 

9. If you had the power to completely rid the world of one thing, what would it be and why?

Probably traffic because I hate sitting in an hour of traffic everyday to get to Seattle when I only live 10 minutes away. 

10. What is your coming out story?

I was in 8th grade when I realized who I actually was and I had this plan because I lived in a really conservative family. My dad was always really vocal about how he just completely hated gay people. So I had this plan where I was going to wait until I turned 16 to see if it was a phase or not and then I was going to come out if I had a job and a car just in case I had to move out. My twin totally ruined that by outing me to my parents and it was really weird. I came out to people at school and my twin told my parents so everybody kind of found out all at once. I lived in a very conservative area too so I lost all my friends and my dad reacted exactly how I thought he would. He wasn't happy and it took him a long time to calm down from it. He realized though that having a gay son isn't the worst thing in the world. There was one time where he told me and my brother that we could become anything in life as long as we weren't gay. Basically we could be a serial killer, we could drop out of high school, we could become a drug addict but as long as we weren't gay he would still love us. It made it super difficult for me to even want to open up to him. After the cat was out of the bag it tore the family apart for a while which is kind of ridiculous because I was just in 8th grade and I didn't mean any harm. I apparently had done this horrible thing by being myself. So it took a while but things eventually chilled out and I think my dad saw me as more of an individual afterwards.

11. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

In 10 years I hope to see myself being happy and hopefully being able to travel the world doing what I love which is just entertaining people and making them happy. If I were to stay local with my drag, I would say in 10 years that I would be pursuing my professional career as a psychologist because that's what I want my real career to be. But in my fantasy world I certainly want to become a worldwide drag entertainer and to help people out and encourage them to do what they want to do in life. 

12. What is something that no one knows about you?

Oh my gosh, I don't even know. I'm such a blabber mouth and I tell everybody everything about myself. I would say that no one knows that I want to be Miley Cyrus but I just remembered that I tell everyone that. A lot of people don't know that I'm a video game addict. People think I'm a prissy think gay guy but I am obsessed with video games and I'm a really big nerd.

13. What else are you passionate about besides drag?

I would have to say my boyfriend. Haha. Anyways, I'm really passionate about civil rights because everyone should have the opportunity todo what they want. I'm passionate about making sure that everyone has their voice heard because I know what it's like to not have your voice heard and it sucks. So I make an effort to be passionate about other people's rights. 

14. What does drag mean to you?

Drag is everything to me. It's saved me on so many different occasions. If I never discovered drag I know I wouldn't be anywhere close to where I am in life right now. It's really my entire world. It occupies a lot of my time and a lot of my mind. Drag means to me to be your most free and open self in front of people no matter what they're going to think. 

15. If you could have any superpower, what would you pick and why?

My superpower would be shake shifting so I could get into drag in 3 seconds compared to having to take 4 hours to get ready. 

Stalk Farrah Mones:

Instagram: @farrah_mones

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=603332136

The Drag Enthusiast:

Twitter: @DragEnthusiast

Tumblr: dragenthusiast.tumblr.com

Instagram: @ragingdragaholic

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dragenthusiast