NewFest: Miss Peppermint’s ‘A Deeper Love’ Documentary Premiere
The popular drag performer is the subject of a revealing new film from director Oriel Pe’er that debuted at NewFest in NYC.
Last night, director Oriel Pe’er’s documentary detailing drag queen Miss Peppermint’s transition and process of becoming a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9 had its NYC premiere at NewFest. It’s an intimate, up-close portrait of the drag performer and trans activist. The film took almost 10 years to complete, and it also captures pre-COVID life and how she adapted after the pandemic began in 2020.
Miss Peppermint moved to Harlem when she was 17 and started doing drag shows. In the documentary, she claimed that she always knew she was different and that she could finally be herself after moving to the city. When Drag Race came out in 2009, she found it harder to get work, so she decided to audition for the show, hoping that it would boost her career. However, she knew that drag, at that time, wasn’t accepting of trans performers, so she put off her transition. After years of not succeeding, she couldn’t wait anymore, so she started hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and the process of getting surgeries, but she never quit trying to get on Drag Race. Ironically, it was after she started living openly as a trans woman that she finally got on the show.
Peppermint and Pe’er met at Barracuda, a gay bar in Chelsea that closed earlier this year, and it didn’t take long for them to become friends. Barracuda did nightly drag shows and hosted a weekly event called “Star Search,” which might have served as inspiration for RuPaul’s Drag Race. Pe’er started helping Peppermint with her sizzle reels by getting extras to appear in them, editing her videos, and taking footage of her drag shows.
Pe’er was one of the first people that Peppermint came out to as trans. “I’m just going to say, like from my perspective, when she came out to me privately, years ago before she came out to everyone, it was a really special moment for me,” Pe’er recalled at the screening. “It’s not that I didn’t know she was like, gender bender, but she was the first trans woman who actually came out to me. And so she was my first trans friend ever, way before trans people were even talked about.”
Initially, the documentary was going to be a short about auditioning for and getting on RuPaul’s Drag Race, but the friends decided they wanted to make it about her transition as well. After months of filming, Peppermint realized she wanted to make a feature film. “The whole aspect of like, ‘Oh, let’s film a show is so easy.’ But then the notion of like, ‘Oh, come into my apartment, see me when I’m not dressed, see me when it’s not the show.’ It’s not what I’m used to presenting to people,” Peppermint recalled of shooting the documentary.
Following NewFest’s theme of queer films as an act of rebellion, the premiere also served as a call to action against rising transphobia. “[My career] was only possible because of things like Drag Race and the acceptance that people wanted to see shows like Drag Race and drag entertainers out in the world and doing Broadway. It’s only because people were ready for that, and accepting of that, that I was able to have these opportunities to do that. I don’t know if it would be like that today.”
The largest presenter of queer film in New York, NewFest runs through October 21.
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