Dope Queens is a story of real love and friendship of three unlikely dreamers united by their desperation during one summer night in San Francisco. These characters come together because they long to make something meaningful out of their brokenness, hoping to change from their deep pain. It’s also a narrative reconstruction of my own experience while living in the margins of society. I like to call the dialect Queenspeak and is my intention to communicate the vibrancy and regality of this decaying world. I do not support reifying stereotypes for the sake of entertainment, however, this was/is the reality for so many on the fringe. These are the kinds of people your parents told you to avoid, and yet, here I was being embraced and loved by this community, while at the same time mostly men of position and power sought to fetishize and exploit such desperation. The characters within this story are living under a unique vibration, something deeply visceral, clamoring for recognition. And it is my hope to convey the love and appreciation that carried me through this meaningful time in my life.
The use of 1950's Doo Wop/Motown Music is intended to reinforce the innocence and timelessness of these extreme lives. There is something dreamlike, a nostalgia for the past, burgeoning forth, calling for life to be reclaimed. Also, the music is just rad.
Grafton Doyle
