"If a caterpillar was afraid of wings, it would never become a butterfly." This line from the 1977 film Outrageous!, in which the movie's main character is persuaded to trade in his hair-cutting clippers for a dress and a wig, beautifully encapsulates the film's message of self-acceptance, self-realization, and the thrill of living a life outside the lines. 45 years ago, Richard Benner wrote and directed his first feature about a gay hairdresser, his schizophrenic best girlfriend, and their quest to become the people they were meant to be. It became a cult hit and garnered critical praise at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival. Looking back at the film over four decades later, it still stands as a joyous exploration of drag culture without judgment.

From the movie's opening scene, it's clear Outrageous! is going to live up to its title. An irritated drag queen in a glittery gold skirt and matching opera-length gloves takes the stage to practice her number. Seconds into her song, she tugs on her skirt as it transforms into an incredible bouncing floor-length fringe flapper ensemble. The performer is in her element and the audience is right there with her. This is also the first hint that Outrageous! isn't going to be another late 1970s look at the "dark side" of the gay community. No, this is going to be a party and moviegoers are invited to bring their noisemakers and enjoy the fun.

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Craig Russell, in a stunning movie debut, plays Robin Turner, a long-suffering Toronto hairdresser, bored with his work, bored with life, and resigned to his middling existence. He longs for something more but lacks the confidence to step out of his comfort zone as the guy who coifs the city's housewives. His best friend Perry (in a wonderfully comic performance by Richert Easley) enjoys an occasional foray into playing dress-up (his impression of Karen Black in Airport 1975 is not to be missed) and tries to encourage Robin to do the same, with little success. It doesn't help that Robin faces resistance to drag queens within the gay community itself. Eight years after the Stonewall riots, as gay people were finally beginning to be recognized and accepted as equal citizens, there was a growing sentiment within the community that the visibility of drag queens harmed the gay rights movement and gave heterosexuals a reason to mock and degrade homosexuals.

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In the film, Robin is a double outcast - a man already facing discrimination for being gay, risking further discrimination should he make drag performing his next career choice. Even Robin's gay boss at the hair salon threatens to fire Robin if it gets out that he does drag. "A drag queen working in my shop? Never," he says. At a Christmas party, after Robin's boss sneers about men doing drag, Robin's friend Perry snaps back, "Sugar, he wants to liberate the denim f**s and lock up the satin queens!" Outrageous! shines a light on this struggle between the "establishment" gays and the drag queens who, incidentally, were first in line among those who led the fight at Stonewall that gave birth to the modern gay rights movement.

When Robin's schizophrenic friend Liza (Hollis McLaren) escapes from the institution in which she's been housed and moves in with Robin, they form a unique "marriage" of sorts - two oddball outsiders, each struggling with their own personal demons, who gain strength and confidence from each other. Robin is empathetic to Liza's condition and helps her cope with the visions she sees and the voices she hears. Despite her diagnosis, Liza clearly sees what Robin could become and eventually convinces him to pursue his dream. In a poignant scene, Robin confides in Liza about how it feels to be different. "Do you know what it's like when a really good-looking boy looks at you, and all he sees is drag queen?" Liza tells him he must follow his aspirations, regardless. "If people laugh, then they don't go crazy." Outrageous! poignantly shows, without restraint or qualification, the genuine love and support shared between two characters on the fringe of society.

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At Liza's urging, Robin books an engagement at a Toronto gay club and the fun kicks into high gear. His Bette Davis impression comes with a wheelchair prop for taking Blanche (from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?) on a ride. Then it's on to the A Star is Born version of Barbra Streisand ("I cut the picture myself, because that way, we get a woman's point of view. This woman's."). It's worth noting that in this scene, director Russell takes care to include plenty of footage of the club's gay patrons laughing, dancing, and enjoying themselves. Rarely did movies of the time show what went on inside gay clubs, and when they did, the clubs were usually presented as dark and dangerous venues to avoid, not bright, cheerful places where people comfortably embraced their lives. Robin's act is a hit. His fellow drag performers rally around him and encourage him to take his act to New York City, where he's assured he'll bring in both straight and gay audiences. Robin agrees to give himself two months in the Big Apple to try and make it big, temporarily leaving Liza (who has found herself pregnant) behind, but in the care of Robin's drag-performing friends. Again, the film presents the men who wear wigs and high heels not as freaks, but as complete human beings who come together as a supportive family.

Robin gets booked at The Jack Rabbit Club, not exactly the 42nd Street-style debut he had hoped for, but definitely a step-up from the Toronto dives where he honed his act. He wows audiences with his truly hilarious impression of Mae West, which lands him a gig at the upscale Ziggy's Cabaret, a Manhattan club with a mixed clientele that gives Robin the opportunity to bring his act into the mainstream. What follows is a montage of Robin's brilliant send-ups of some of the entertainment world's most iconic females. There's Carol Channing ("We've been singing that song for 25 years now, and it's almost perfect!"), a slightly creaky Marlene Dietrich, Ethel Merman ("I hope you like the lyrics, 'cause you're sure gonna hear 'em!"), and even a scat-happy Ella Fitzgerald sporting giant black horn-rimmed glasses with lenses that look like magnifying glasses. Robin gets a standing ovation from the mostly straight crowd, and for one of the first times in modern cinema, they see a drag performer not as an oddity, but as a talent worthy of stardom.

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The film takes a somber turn when, while Robin's star is ascending in New York, Liza loses her baby in Toronto. Robin returns to Canada and brings a despondent Robin back with him, but he's unable to get through to her. "I'm dead," she says. In a role switch from earlier in the film, Robin becomes the motivator who must convince Liza to live. While some of Robin's friends question whether it was wise for him to bring the emotionally unstable Liza to the big city, Robin persists. Remembering that it was Liza who told him that drag performers keep people from going crazy, Robin dresses Liza up and takes her to The Jack Rabbit Club to watch him perform. While Robin's onstage doing a terrific, turbaned Peggy Lee, Liza is nearly catatonic, completely shut down emotionally. She wanders through the crowd like an abandoned kitten looking for a corner where she can hide. But as other drag queens take the stage and energize the audience, Liza begins to come alive again. "You're not dead," Robin tells her. "You're alive and sick and living in New York, like 8 million other people." They take to the dance floor among the drag queens, leather queens, and all the other assorted queens and celebrate being oddballs in a community of oddballs. The caterpillars have found their wings, courtesy of their drag queen fairy godmothers.

Outrageous! gave audiences of the 1970s a look at a counterculture that wasn't steeped in self-loathing, but that instead found delight in being on the outside. It presented the world of drag queens to audiences who, up to that point, might have only seen them on their television screens in less than flattering portrayals (like John Davidson as a homicidal cross-dressing performer in a 1974 episode of The Streets of San Francisco). Outrageous! reveled in the joy of drag and made audiences admire these wonderful, wacky, witty creatures. Watching the film today, it's not hard to believe it inspired other modern-day drag-themed movies like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Too Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. It's a pioneering film with a positive, life-affirming message that's worth re-discovering today.