.KaitlinButts cast drag queen Paris Van Cartier in the main role for her “What Else Can She Do” video: “When she closes her eyes she sees how she wishes the diner were, which is a reflection of what drag is,” she says.
specifically thinking about the political environment in her adopted home of Tennessee when she shot the video for “,” but her timing for releasing it could not have been more perfect. Filmed last summer at the Hamburger Inn in Ardmore, Oklahoma, the clip features the Tulsa native Butts alongside Texas drag queen Paris Van Cartier doing their best to make ends meet while working in a small-town diner.
“Honestly, I cannot believe that this has lined up. It was not even intentional at all,” Butts says, calling. “I remember looking at a Fox News article, it was the first one I had seen about drag queens. I was like, ‘You have to be kidding me. They’re going to come after this.’ And of course, I had just filmed this music video.”
The video’s genesis was even more uncanny. Butts had just played a show in Austin and was stopped by a man who told her he loved her set. She thanked him, then expressed her regrets that she couldn’t hang out for longer. The next day, she was chatting with’s wife Mandy, who mentioned that she didn’t get a chance to say hello to Butts because she’d been speaking with a friend who did drag. It turned out to be the same person she’d met earlier.
“It was so strange, because it felt like, ‘Why am I so drawn to this person, why do I want to keep hanging out with them?’” she says. “It just worked out so perfectly.” Butts has been a vocal advocate for the LGBTQ community and drag as an artform, all of which have beenBut “What Else Can She Do” is not specifically a video about drag. Van Cartier, playing the song’s central role, is treated like any other woman would be, but her reveries turn her humdrum existence into something fantastical.
“She’s just a regular gal. It was like an alternate universe kind of thing, but when she closes her eyes she sees how she wishes the diner were, which is a reflection of what drag is,” Butts says. “It’s beautiful and colorful and glamorous.” (The clip also features a cameo by Butts’ husband,
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