Yahoo Finance Meet Jupiter, the drag performer inspired by your favorite cartoon villains
Jupiter is a drag performer who’s bringing classic villains to life, taking inspiration from cartoons, movies and anime to create looks that perfectly blend fear and glam!
Ben Seagren, aka Jupiter (@isthatjupiter), is changing the face of drag with his unique, villain-inspired looks.
Jupiter, whose aesthetic is “somewhere between a cartoon valiant and an alien deity,” has a distinctive persona that’s as fresh as it is fierce.
“My favorite thing that I enjoy about drag is the transformation,” Ben told In the Know. “I want to show different spectrums of characters and different people and different versions of what drag can be. I love messing with the norm.”
Messing with the norm is hardly a new concept for Ben, who has been using makeup to express himself since he first stole his mom’s palettes while growing up in Aurora, Colorado. “Because I came out young, I didn’t have any reference to what being queer was, or what doing drag was,” Ben told In the Know.
To Ben, drag was simply a way to express himself and transform his identity. “My version of [drag] was watching cartoons and anime and all of these queer-coded villains that I looked up to,” said Ben. “That was kind of my North Star for what I created and what inspired me to create Jupiter.”
When Ben got to college, he was able to embrace the wider drag culture, and establish himself as one of the more unique performers on the scene. But like all great villains, Jupiter wasn’t just looking to join in on the fun. Jupiter was seeking to change the world’s perception of drag.
Jupiter takes the concept of a “drag queen” and flips it on its head. In fact, the title of “Queen” is far too restrictive when it comes to Jupiter’s ever-changing persona.
“Sometimes I feel more feminine, feel more masculine, and [sometimes] I feel more monstrous,” Ben told In the Know. “I wanted to push that boundary of what drag was because of all of the different experiences we have as a people. I think of all of us as such a spectrum of who we are and how we navigate the world. I wouldn’t ever want to put myself in one box.”
To Ben, drag is far more than, as he puts it, a “gay man doing female impersonations.” Ben sees drag as an expressive vehicle for transformation. “I love the possibilities of drag because they’re endless,” Ben told In the Know. “It’s always growing, it’s always changing, and I always want to be at the front of those changes.”
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