They’re here. They’re queer.
After three seasons of dragging their charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent city-to-city across America, the team behind “We’re Here” realized a drastic change was needed. And not just for the sake of Season 4.
Not only have Bob the Drag Queen, Eureka! O’Hara and Shangela been replaced (be it for Madonna tours, assault allegations or none of the above) by fellow “Drag Race” icons Jaida Essence Hall, Priyanka, Sasha Velour and Latrice Royale, the new episodes only take place in two heartland locales — Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Tulsa, Okla. — as opposed to the usual one town per episode operation.
That change in schedule and format allows the cast and crew to spend more time in each of the communities; an astonishing four weeks rather than just one. That means the audience gets to see more of their drag kids’ life stories, but also that the unkindlier conservatives in town can’t just grin and bear their presence for a couple of days before going back to their ungodly ways.
After filming their fourth season, creators Stephen Warren, Johnnie Ingram and fellow EP Peter LoGreco said that living proudly as a 2SLGBTQIA+ person (Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Androgynous/Asexual, Plus Sign) is actually harder today than when the show first premiered four years ago in April 2020. In fact, Warren said they experienced “some of the most heinous, horrible speech” they’ve ever encountered.
“Because the world has shifted so dramatically in a dangerous way, we realized this year we needed to expand the ‘We’re Here’ family,” Warren told TheWrap. “We needed to do this in order to bring more points of view and more stories from our drag queens — and the drag kids — to be presented to the world, so that the more the world is exposed to different drag queens and different queer people, the more you feel connected to the community at large.”
“I do believe that the majority of folks in these places have their hearts in the right place and love does conquer hate,” Ingram added. “What we’re really facing this season, in particular, is just the misinformation that’s being spread about our community.”
“The anti-trans legislation affects trans folks in small towns that maybe don’t have a lot of power in their community. How can we help them help themselves by making a difference locally?” he continued. “So we chose to spend three hours instead of one hour in one place. It’s risky any time you change the format of a show, but … I think it was a great move.”
Showrunner and director LoGreco concurred, saying, “From the end of 2019 to now in 2023-24, the situation has actually gotten more difficult in many places because whatever kind of discrimination or anti-LGBTQ sentiment might have existed culturally has translated into institutional legislation and empowered a whole different level of rhetoric around trans people, queer people [and] drag queens that feels extremely divisive and hateful. It was really important to go directly to the places where this was most on people’s minds.”
“We’d already been to Texas and Florida … and Tennessee — as we were developing this season — actually went to the level of passing a drag ban, whether or not it was constitutional. In further research, we found that there was a tremendous amount going on in Oklahoma,” he added. “So we started on a state-wide level this season, whereas in the past, we really started with personal journeys.”
And while the people behind-the-scenes were well aware of the bigoted rhetoric sweeping the nation, the stars in front of the camera came face-to-face with the hate like never before, too.
“How different the world is, [from] even when they were filming Season 3. There’s so much louder, more present opposition to drag than ever before — not ever, ever before, but certainly in the last decade,” Velour recalled. “There’s been increasing excitement around drag and that hasn’t stopped. But now there’s this other side that is ex