Who Does That Bitch Think She Is?

Doris Fish and the Rise of Drag

By: Craig Seligman

Narrated by: Mela Lee

An exciting new history of drag told through the life of the remarkable, flawed, and singular Doris Fish

In the 1970s, gay men and lesbians were openly despised and drag queens scared the public. Yet that was the era when Doris Fish (born Philip Mills in 1952) painted and padded his way to stardom. He was a leader of the generation that prepared the world not just for drag queens on TV but for a society that welcomes and even celebrates queer people. How did we get from there to here? In Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? Craig Seligman looks at Doris’s short but overstuffed life as a way to provide some answers.

There were effectively three Dorises—the quiet visual artist, the glorious drag queen, and the hunky male prostitute who supported the other two. He started performing in Sydney in 1972 as a member of Sylvia and the Synthetics, a psycho troupe that represented the first anarchic flowering of queer creative energy in the post-Stonewall era. After moving to San Francisco in the mid-’70s, he became the driving force behind years of sidesplitting drag shows that were loved as much as you can love throwaway trash—which is what everybody thought they were. No one, Doris included, perceived them as political theater, when in fact they were accomplishing satire’s deepest dream: not just to rail against society, but to change it.

Seligman recounts this dynamic period in queer history—from Stonewall to AIDS—giving insight into how our ideas about gender have broadened to make drag the phenomenon we know it as today. In a book filled with interviews and letters about a life that ricocheted between hilarity and tragedy, he revisits the places and people Doris knew in order to shed light on the multihued era that his remarkable life encapsulated.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Craig Seligman (P)2023 PublicAffairs

Critic reviews

“This smart, funny, and sexy queer history is a smash.”—Publishers Weekly

“An intimate feel to a lively read. Drag culture and camp humor hit it big…”—Kirkus

A fantastic portal back to another era in San Francisco

The first night I found the courage to venture into a gay bar, Doris was there emceeing the wet jockey shorts contest. She made an impression.

I later went with a friend to that final grand benefit at the Victoria in 1990 and was mesmerized all over again. And, by chance, I moved to SF the month that Philip died; I still have the day marked on my calendar as "Doris Fish Day" each year. My friends and I made our own drag movie with Vegas in Space as our inspiration.

This book was fantastic, as was the narrator. This *really* exceeded my expectations. It was great getting the full picture of his life, and it led to a lot of self-reflection about my own. I laughed. I cried. I loved Doris all over again.

Beautiful and heartbreaking

A beautifully written biography of the life and heartbreaking death of the great Doris Fish.

Treasure Trove of History

I felt like I was being led through the back halls and doorways of the bold and brave gender bending history of drag subculture. This is an important glittery treasure.