Glenn Belverio

During the 90s, Glenn Belverio, also known as Glennda Orgasm, was cohost of a popular Manhattan Cable series called The Brenda and Glennda Show. A mix of politics and satire with an activist edge, the show took the art of drag out of the nightclubs and into the streets. Both playful and political, this hugely popular series, which included a Christmas special, featured a variety of guests ranging from Wexner Center Artist Residency Award recipient Barbara Hammer to drag queen Hedda Lettuce. After Brenda left the show in 1993, Belverio started Glennda and Friends, a postqueer talk show that featured costars such as artist Vaginal Davis, gay pornographer Bruce LaBruce, and best-selling author and controversial social critic Camille Paglia.

In this episode of Glennda and Friends, entitled Bad Grrrls, Glennda and Fonda LaBruce (Bruce’s drag persona) attend a Riot Grrrl conference on New York’s Lower East Side. Popularized by such West Coast bands as Bikini Kill, Riot Grrrl was a 1990s movement that updated punk rock’s activist stance with radical feminist and queer-positive politics. At the conference, the two hosts conduct interviews with performers, artists, and attendees (with cameos by Sadie Benning, another past Artist Residency Award recipient, and Penny Arcade) as they navigate a range of perspectives on feminism, punk culture, and underground activism. A reminder of the rich creative history of cable access television, the video provides valuable insight into drag’s relationship with feminism and questions how to reconcile the problems of punk (until then a largely male-dominated movement) with Riot Grrrl’s desire for women’s liberation. (29 mins., Hi8 video)

Bad Grrrls (1993) presented courtesy of the Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, vdb.org.