In the age before ballroom culture, when queer femme people were societal outcasts and dressing in drag was still illegal, it's actually quite remarkable that a documentary like Frank Simon's 1968 film The Queen was able to hit theatres at all. The Queen chronicles the Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest at New York's Town Hall in 1967. The competition was made up of a flurry of queens from diverse pockets of America, battling for the crown under the mentorship of their collective drag mother Jack Doroshow, aka Flawless Sabrina.
The undisputed highlight of the film is when Crystal Labeija, founder of the House of Labeija, storms off in a fury after being announced as the contest's 3rd runner-up. But this moment gave us so much more than Crystal's iconic quips and reads. This incident was the catalyst that led to the creation of the ballroom scene, where Black and brown queer people formed their own spaces where they could celebrate themselves. That is what makes Crystal Labeija's legacy authentically iconic.