Adiós Botella...

I love this video - and not just because its protagonists are three scary-fabulous drag queens working it in some of the most emblematic locations of my beloved Madrid. I love it because it represents to me a lot of what I admire and, as an extanjero, find so interesting about the Spanish.

In order to explain what I mean by that, I need to give you a bit of background.

Kiki Lorace and her lovely ladies of the video are welcoming Manuela Carmena, a seventy-one year-old ex-judge to the alcaldía (Mayorship) of Madrid and politely saying “bugger off” to Ana Botella (drag on left), the previous Mayor who was not actually contesting this time, and her party-mate Esperenza Aguirre (drag on right), one of the most powerful and divisive forces in Spanish politics, who was hoping to keep the city in the hands of the conservative People’s Party (PP).

The fact that Manuela is now Mayor of Madrid is a pretty big deal.

On a local level, because it brings an end to 24 years of PP rule in the Spanish capital, something I imagine most drag queens (and anyone else of a progressive tilt) is pretty happy about.

On a national level it represents something extraordinary that has happened in Spain recently: the apparent end of the two-party dominated system that has characterised Spanish politics since the transition to democracy in 1978.

Manuela is a member of a party called Ahora Madrid (Now Madrid), which in reality isn’t exactly a party, but rather a collective of left-wing parties and community organisations. Very importantly, Ahora Madrid is backed by Podemos, a new political party that has emerged with a bang of Spain’s political scene.

Here’s a pretty in depth story from the Guardian about Podemos, so I won’t go too much into it, apart from to say that the party evolved from a grass-roots movement that was, amongst other things, fed up with what they saw as the inaction of the traditional political parties to alleviate the misery that the financial crisis has wrought on the people of this country.

Spain’s second city, Barcelona, is celebrating a new alcaldesa (Mayor) too - Ada Colau. Her group, Barcelona en Comú is similar to that of Manuela and also has connections with Podemos. Colau entered public life as the controversial leader of a community group dedicated to stopping the evictions of people unable to pay their rent or mortgage.

Campaign poster for Ada Colau's successful run for Mayor of Barcelona

And in Spain’s other major cities, Podemos and other new political parties and coalitions have taken the top jobs or facilitated the changing of the guard.

The truth is, nobody really knows whether these new parties and coalitions will be stable enough to actually work, but a great many voters are obviously prepared to take the risk in the search to for something they feel is better than the traditional politics.

Now back to the video. It has always been in the best traditions of drag to be political. “Men dressing up in women’s clothing and mouthing the words to other people’s songs,” as Guy Pierce’s character says in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is not just about men wanting to dress up in frocks (although I’m sure there is a lot of that). It’s also about making a statement, challenging the accepted gender roles in society and everything that that represents.

But having said, I’m finding it hard to remember any recent time when a bunch of drag queens got so excited about a political party that they bothered to make a music video celebrating it – at least one with such good production values.

Kiki & Co's excitement wasn’t an isolated incident either. Graphic designers and artists developed pro-Manuela imagery and uploaded it to social networks, taxi drivers donated the sides of their cabs for campaign posters, all manner of people organised themselves to lend their time and skills in support of Manuela.

An animated gif from an artist involved in the Madrid with Manuela collective
- a sort of unofficial campaign group for Manuela's bid to be Mayor of Madrid

It is this get-up-and-go, this ability to self-organise in the most creative, interesting and effective ways - so often with the good humour shown in the video - that I find so admirable about the Spanish. In fact, I've written about it before.

And whether or not you agree that this new politics is the way forward for Spain, or anywhere for that matter, I don’t think there is any denying that the courage and optimism it conveys, let alone its recent successes, is very exciting.