Review: The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show Offers Season's Greetings for Scream Queens

Jinkx Monsoon announces at the top of The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show that this year, she and BenDeLaCreme are going to put on a “good old-fashioned holiday drag show.” And at a recent performance at Brooklyn’s palatial Kings Theatre, everyone instantly knew she was lying—Jinkx most of all, her teeth gritted in anticipation of fresh holiday horror conveyed via absurdly contrived dramatic action of pop music parodies.

Typically, I’d blame the framing device. This year’s show is narrated by Mr. Fir, a Tim Burton-esque Christmas tree who appears in video shorts between live scenes, like a garlanded crypt keeper (the voice is a practically unrecognizable Jeff Hiller). But in the case of Jinkx and DeLa, who have previously used their Christmas spectacular to address the tyranny of the algorithm and threat of creative burnout, we have come to expect more. These are the kind of queens who have read Ezra Klein, have a begrudging familiarity with the work of Paul Kingsnorth, and have something delightfully shady to say about everything.

With so many horrors in the real world, Jinkx and DeLa understandably look to the celluloid classics that have for decades been an unlikely source of comfort for scream queens (sure, your job sucks and you can’t maintain a steady relationship, but at least you’re not being pursued by a chainsaw murderer). This year’s edition features parodies of Gremlins, Freaky Friday, and Rosemary’s Baby—a terrifying tale of co-op board politics that has here been rebranded Jinkx/Mary’s Baby.

We learn all about the Immaculate Conception though Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like a Lady,” here rewritten as “Virgin Had a Baby.” Jinkx is the unwilling vessel for that miracle, although when she learns she might just be carrying the Antichrist, she slightly perks up. Eat your heart out, South Park.

As always, DeLa directs with the perfect balance of steadiness and frivolity for a tale that, like a toddler on a sugar high, cannot sit still. A cast of six dancers (Isaiah Brooks, Jace Gonzalez, Jim Kent, Ruby Mimosa, Derrick Paris, and Chloe Albin, who also choreographs) is more than game to translate their wild sci-fi fantasies into dazzling showmanship, with the ever-jolly Gus Lanza offering his assistance as “Hunky the Elf,” who this year receives a significant expansion of lore.

But the most memorable segment sees DeLa gifted a Rodudu, a sycophantic AI helper encased in the body of a sinister-looking Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer plushie. Stars in its dead eyes, it sweetly asks, “Would you like me to compose a thought for you?” Ostensibly parody, it’s a fairly realistic depiction of where our consumer-driven fling with artificial intelligence is taking us, as physical joy gives way to a completely virtual life. On that point, Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” here becomes “Another Bike Left to Rust.” The satisfaction comes from the adrenaline high of the purchase, not the subsequent use of the item.

Jinkx and DeLa are drag queens for the thinking them. Their chemistry has only grown in this 8^th year of their holiday spectacular, and they come from afar bearing a special message: Before we climb into our Matrix pods, we can still sing and dance and fuck and love. And the holidays are the perfect opportunity to do just that. God bless us, everyone!