I love Love LOVE the way Jimmy Kimmel is not holding back with the Trump jokes/factual reporting in the wake of his brief suspension. Whether it be razzing the Commander in Grief over Jimmy being statistically more popular, or having an American National Treasure denounce (in a groovy way!) the actions of this administration. It all gives me a reason to get up in the morning… after staying up late the night before to catch the show. And here’s another gem Jimmy just gave us: last week he invited RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3 winner Trixie Mattel to host “Drag Queen Storytime” with a group of little kids. Why? Because reading is fundamental! (Unless you’re a fundamentalist spending your suspiciously large amount of spare time lobbying for book bans, but I digress.) Unlike some small-minded adults, the kids were perfectly happy to greet Trixie in all her heavy-eyelinered Barbiecore glory. It was the reading material that brought out each tyke’s sassy inner drag queen:
The All Stars 3 winner and Trixie Motel hostess joined Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday to head a satirical segment in which she entered a small library in the name of youth literacy. Kind of.
“Do I scare any of you?” Trixie asked the children as she sat down in a full face of makeup, to which one of them replied, “You just look amazing. Why would that be scary?”
Trixie and the children then sifted through a pile of books to decide what to read.
“What if we chose one together? This is, after all, a democracy,” Trixie told them, before clarifying, “As of this morning, it’s still a democracy. I’m not sure.”
Among the choices? A title called Who Cares About Elderly People and another named Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich — neither of which worked out (obviously).
After the children booed at the thought of reading a book by Donald Trump, Trixie proposed a solution: “What about President Trump’s least favorite son?”
She then opened Eric’s Under Siege and proceeded to read a passage aloud: “Donald Trump is certainly unconventional. He’s certainly not politically correct. He also has a heart of gold and is the greatest father a son or daughter could ever have.”
One of the kids butted in, telling her, “Okay, I’mma stop you right there. Instead of skipping this page, we should skip the entire book. No, instead, we should skip the entire storytime and just go straight to lunch because I’m pretty hungry right now.”
Later, another child said she would “kick” Donald Trump “in the…” before the show bleeped out the rest of her response.
Finally, Trixie led the children outside for a “science experiment” involving a trash shredder.
“This might not be a great book, but it’s going to make excellent confetti,” Trixie said, tossing Under Siege into the machine and cheering as it was ripped apart.
[From Entertainment Weekly via AOL]
You guys, I just about fell out of my chair at “Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich.” There’s a soft spot in my heart for that kind of random, absurdist humor. Like Trixie’s intentionally crude and cartoonish makeup, the whole skit is fantastically campy. The wild cards are obviously the kids, and Trixie, being well-versed in live entertainment, knows how to respond quickly in the moment to whatever the kids lob her way. And boy, do those boys and girls deliver in that regard! The kid who goes, “Okay, Imma stop you right there.” Priceless! Also, gotta love a kid who’s just ready to get to lunch already. There’s even more in the full clip than what is excerpted above, which you can see up on the Jimmy Kimmel Live Instagram or below on YouTube. The first comment to the Instagram post is Trixie herself saying “Woke!!!!”
So what have we learned from this lesson? A couple things. One, books “authored” by a Trump (cause really, how can you write if you don’t read?) make for excellent confetti. And two, to quote Mother RuPaul, “If a drag queen wants to read to you in a library, LET HER!”
photos via YouTube and credit: IMAGO/Dave Starbuck/Avalon