[Film Review] Sequins and the Sounds of Home: A Love Letter to Baby Queen (2022)
Official Poster for Lei Yuan Bin’s Baby Queen (2022)
Opera, as in Chinese Opera. Tang, as in 唐人 (Tángrén, the Chinese term for Han Chinese)—or, in her grandmother’s Teochew dialect, Deng⁵nang⁵. From the very first moments of the 62-minute documentary Baby Queen, the artist makes her mission clear: “Drag through ethnicity.”
For those chronically online, Opera Tang needs no introduction. Even if you’re a nuclear-family-values enthusiast, a casual homophobe, or just someone who doesn’t keep up with drag culture, she’s probably landed on your For You Page at least once. Like it or not, there’s something about her that draws you in: her sincere bond with her 94-year-old grandmother, her scrappy DIY ethos, her effortless, affable charm.
So when a corporate invite landed in my inbox for a Pride film screening of Baby Queen, I didn’t hesitate—I RSVPed yes in a heartbeat. I work at ByteDance (the mothership of TikTok), and this was one of several events in our month-long BytePride programme. Though I’d seen Opera light up the stage before at drag and ballroom events, this evening promised something different: queerness in a corporate context... And, truth be told, I’d been kicking myself for missing Baby Queen when it made its Singapore debut at the SGIFF 2022 (bad timing, I was out of town). And, again, when it screened at The Projector in 2023 (really, what was I doing…….?).
The night didn’t disappoint. I won’t rehash the familiar politics the documentary surfaces—the very real challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community: parental rejection, social stigma, and the then-looming repeal of Section 377A in 2022. Instead, I want to focus on the unbridled moments of joy and inspiration that tore up the screen, expressed most vividly through Opera’s fashion and the complex relationship between the drag queen and her grandmother.
Major Camp, Reporting for Duty
This look made its entrance about halfway through the film, in a scene where Opera was mulling over what to wear for Pink Dot 2022. The timing couldn’t have been more poetic: she'd just been called up for reservist, which meant dusting off her No. 4 uniform, lacing up the combat boots, and reentering the green arsenal.
Sure, she showed up for duty in drab army standard issue, but at Pink Dot, she reported as Dynasty Drill Sergeant. Jungle green? Nope. Black utility boots? Absolutely not. Instead, Opera marched in strutting upon ten-inch, rhinestone-encrusted platforms, baby pink camo pants, and a boring unit tee turned fabulous—her name, Opera Tang, bedazzled across the back in loud pink defiance. Wielding a bubble gun instead of real artillery, she reminds us that a little camp never killed anyone (unlike some institutions, which take themselves far too seriously).
The most poetic element of this ensemble? The lingzi (翎子). These long, swaying pheasant feathers—traditionally affixed to the headdresses of warriors in Chinese opera—signify strength, rank, and presence on stage. Here, they ripple behind Opera (and Ah Ma) like echoes from another era, facilitating a collision of operatic tradition, ancestral performance, and modern subversion.
Samsui Siren: She Who Builds
Ah Ma’s mother was a samsui woman, Opera shares in the documentary, as she gently helps Ah Ma through a samsui drag makeover. Her great-grandmother laid the foundations of postwar Singapore, brick by brick. Ah Ma herself stitched dreams into wedding dresses, including the ones worn by Opera’s own mother. And now, perhaps without even realising it, Opera is building something monumental too—not just through performance or stagecraft, but in the intimate, earnest collaboration with Ah Ma.
Their tenderness flows easily, anchored in part by language. Unlike many of her generation, Opera speaks fluent Teochew, her grandmother’s tongue. It’s through this shared dialect that generational history, care, and queerness can quietly intertwine.
For much of the film, Ah Ma is nothing but supportive. She cooks for Opera’s boyfriend. She sews Opera’s drag looks, carefully scrawling measurements onto scrap paper with her unsteady yet practised hand. She even teaches Opera dressmaking, promising that Opera will inherit her beloved seven-decade-old Singer machine after she’s gone.
But embracing queerness, especially across generations, is never without complexity.
At one point, Opera asks Ah Ma if she can use a particular fabric to make her future wedding dress. Ah Ma sidesteps the question with a wry smile: “I’ll probably be dead by then.” When Opera gently presses again, Ah Ma replies that their religion—Catholicism—doesn’t allow same-sex marriage. And then, after a pause, she adds softly: “But love is love.”
It’s easy to assume, from bite-sized TikTok clips, polished YouTube features, and glowing editorials, that their relationship is uncomplicated, even charmed. But beneath the surface lies a delicate negotiation of love and belief, on top of tradition and change. Their bond is not defined by total agreement, but by a shared willingness to sit with discomfort through contradiction. It is in these quiet tensions—and the grace extended through them—that their relationship finds its deepest strength.
When Ah Ma’s makeover is complete, we step back to admire Opera’s work of art.
Ah Ma now wears the unmistakable eyes of Opera Tang—sweeping wings in deep plum and magenta that cut across her lids like bold calligraphy strokes. Her brows are sculpted into dramatic, hyperreal arches. Her cheekbones bloom with peony pinks, echoing both traditional Chinese opera rouge and contemporary drag artistry. Crowning her head is a reimagined samsui woman’s headdress, sequinned and rhinestoned into high camp. Each embellishment catches the light like a wink to history, queered and made radiant.
This is a face that folds time: the aesthetics of Peking opera refracted through queer futurism and returned, with love, onto the woman who first taught Opera how to sew. The traditional is transplanted onto the new—and then returned, shimmering and strange, to the old. What emerges is neither past nor present, but something more fluid, more transcendent. Something that resists easy definition.
In the hum of the Singer machine and the lilting rhythm of Teochew in this flat, we witness a quiet kind of inheritance. More than mere fabric or technique, it is an inheritance that dares to honour tradition while gently reshaping it, holding both legacy and liberation in the same breath.
All images courtesy of Opera Tang and Lei Yuan Bin
Edited by Stephanie Jaina Chia
