Documentary Review: 'Lady Like'

Lady Like

Directed by Luke Willis

Written by Luke Willis

Starring Lady Camden

Release Date January 3rd, 2025

Published January 6th, 2025

What is it that drives people to want to take joy away from others? Is this some kind of caveman instinct? Is our too slowly evolving intellect still recalling a time when being loud and happy might attract predators and thus we must crush those aspects of humanity for the protection of the tribe? I don’t understand why anyone would look at a child who loves to dance or play dress up or emulate a lifestyle that they weren’t born into and decide that this expression of self, this joy and comfort in what they enjoy, needs to be taken away from them.

This is literally what so many parents and members of general society attempt to do to a group of people who simply wish to follow their muse and live a life that brings them joy. The boy who grew up to be Lady Camden, runner up on Season 14 of Ru Paul’s Drag Race, knows this feeling all too well. She grew up wanting to dance and play with Barbies and many people stepped in to try and take that away from her. Whether it was angry bullying or ugly shaming, somehow people looked at this vulnerable child and thought that what was best for them was to take away what made them happy.

Lucky for her, and for all of us who now can enjoy watching her perform, Lady Camden found an escape. With the help of a supportive mother, Lady Camden found ballet school and a safe place of expression, art, and self. Ballet eventually gave way to Lady Camden finding drag and from there she’s become a star with a loving, supportive community. We experience this journey in lovely and charming fashion in the documentary, Lady Like directed by Luke Willis. Ostensibly intended to capture the heady few months leading up to the finale of Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Lady Like evolves into a thoughtful exploration of identity, community, and the journey to understand one’s self.

Watching Lady Like and the conversation that slowly unfolds between Lady Camden and her younger self, I was deeply moved and could not stop feeling my heart ache for the many kids today who suffer at the hands of family or kids at school or Donald Trump simply because they find their joy and their self in ways that defies societal conventions. It honestly makes me wonder if cis-straight-white-men like myself have ever truly been happy? Like, what if bigotry is really just jealousy in disguise. Watching Lady Camden perform in front of, first club audiences and then a rollicking stadium crowd, my heart soared. Why would anyone want to take this kind of joy away from people, both people like Lady Camden and the people who adore Lady Camden from the crowd?

Do we see the joy that Lady Camden embodies while in drag and get angry that we can’t experience a similar kind of joy? What causes old white men to become so angry about men who wear dresses and entertain people? What makes them so afraid? Is it simply because they’ve never felt brave enough to feel genuine joy? Are they so ashamed of being happy that they have to make everyone else miserable? It can’t possibly be that simple and yet, it’s a thought that I cannot escape.

I think many cis-white-men are afraid of their own self expression and envy those who can feel joy and share joy with others. Drag is an expression of joy, it’s a wildly imaginative artform that inspires laughter, tears, eroticism, exaltation, and true freedom. Drag is freedom from the expectations of society, it represents the throwing off the shackles of the world and defying convention. It’s terrifying to anyone who is afraid of their own expressions of joy. It also makes them angrily jealous that they can’t be as happy as Lady Camden is on stage, entertaining and communing with an audience.

Lady Like is a deliriously fun documentary filled with imagination and invention but it also has an aching soulfulness to it that makes the joyous moments all the more joyous for being so well earned. If everyone who has ever looked at a drag queen with disdain instead spent their time cultivating the freedom and life that drag queens represent, the world would be a much happier place. You don’t have to be a drag queen or even like drag. Just find your own ‘drag.’ Find the thing that could make you as happy and fun and alive as someone like Lady Camden. Her life isn’t perfect, it isn’t always fun, but so much of her pain and hardship has been caused by people who fail to find the thing that would, at the very least, get them to leave people like Lady Camden alone to enjoy themselves.

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