Last year was a great year for Samantha Hudson. She appeared in Drag Race España, was featured on Vogue, starred on her own Christmas Special – the first one dedicated to the queer community in Spain – and also released her debut album Liquidación Total.
Her history is a very popular anecdote in Spain. At 15-years-old, Hudson created a musical video entitled Maricón [Spanish for ‘fag’], in which she spills the T on how the Catholic Church deals with sexual diversity. In her eyes, her high school project was a great idea. What happened next is well-known. Through social media, she became an icon among the millennials with a sharp way of criticising society from a gender and sexual diversity perspective.
Talking to GAY TIMES, she takes stock of the most eventful year of her career so far, tells us her next steps and once again drops a punchy sentence celebrating queerness while dictating the end of cis-heterosexual hegemony in society.
Hi Samantha, how are you?
Hi, very good! I was vaccinated a while ago, and I was terribly ill, but I am already much better. Thank god!
You recently criticised the mediocrity of the cis-heteropatriarchal system when it comes to creating Christmas movies and other cultural products. Do you think the cultural industry should be an exclusive competence to the LGBTQ+ community?
I don’t really have a problem with mediocrity. I think it’s great. There must be diversity in all the proposals. I think the main problem is that this diversity does not exist and there are always the same stories told over and over again. Not long ago, there was a controversy about Anne Boleyn’s TV show, starring a Black woman. Not bad, but in the end it is still telling the same stories but putting in a racialised person. The plot, the anecdote and the narrative remain the same. It was also a bit of an argument against the norm for my determination to criticise men, because it is something very easy and very effective if you want to create content on the internet. It may be a subjective opinion, but it seems to me that queer people go further in terms of fun, quirkiness, being cool… We have it all.
Tell me all about the experience of recording Una Navidad con Samantha Hudson [A Christmas with Samantha Hudson, in Spanish].
It has been a race against time in terms of filming, because I had done supporting roles but had never starred in anything. It’s 50 minutes of footage, but we shot it in just a week. It was overwhelming as well as hilarious. I have taken very useful things at a professional level. But above all, what I have taken is a performance that falls on your ass, in which we have joined Arturo Vals with Pepe Villuela and Manoela Trasobares, and all that consolidated in a universe very Samantha Hudson. Actually, I take it as my first foray into the big screen, or maybe the small screen because, as it is for a streaming platform, everything depends on the size of your computer.
Do you like Christmas, or is it something you hate? There are many people in the queer community who, because they did not have a cis-heteronormative family, had to learn to live without these festivities, or sometimes they can even be quite oppressive environments for those who live outside the cis-heteronorma.
I believe that everything that is imposed on you or is presented as a natural and established order is usually negative. To begin with, the meaning of Christmas itself has become trivial over time. I refuse to think that the entire population of humanity celebrates the birthday of Jesus Christ today. It depends a lot on how you want to re-signify it and reappropriate those symbols that have been imposed on us. It’s funny because the Christmas special I did does not mention my family at all. I think in this sense it is very nice and descriptive of queer experiences, because unfortunately many people who live on the margins of the norm do not have a good relationship with their family. Not for pleasure or because they want to, but because they are simply marginalised even by people they share their own DNA with. Something nice about the underground and the LGBTQ+ community is that it generates ties and social relations, and a very favourable environment because we all share the feeling of being rejected at some point in our lives, and that pushes us to pay more attention to the dynamics of care that we have among ourselves.
You have released your new album Liquidación Total. I have noticed a difference compared to the first one, you sound more relaxed and mature.
I always say in interviews that this is my first studio album because it really is. You can see a change and a progression in music production because there really has been one. I recorded Los Grandes Éxitos de Samantha Hudson at my house in a dirty way; in my room with a microphone that I borrowed on Instagram. Here, I have decided to take it a little more seriously, largely because I am already covered by a record label that is Subterfuge and also because I believe that it is necessary to renew or die, right? I want to continue being trash, and I don’t want to leave the underworld, but I also understand that you don’t have to stay stagnant, much less be boring, because all I want to do is be modern. And if being modern means making an album, a little better produced, then I’ll be there.
You are on tour in Spain promoting the new album. What can fans expect from your shows?
You are going to find a brat stumbling on stage, yelling and swearing expletives and struggling to do what is possibly the worst choreography ever. And that’s great because I think there are already very good artists, so terrible artists are missing from the market, you know? Filth was lacking, depravity, so I feel very proud to represent that niche of the market that are the failures.
Por España has been an event, especially for the audiovisual piece. Were you afraid of the public’s reaction before the premiere?
I was not afraid until the day before launching it, when I considered that the Nazis exist and that they take real actions and that many times they are terrifying. But then I thought, ‘Look at this, it is poetic justice.’ So if I can’t bust Franco’s head in a video clip, I’d rather leave the country. I don’t want to live so limited. And surprisingly, the right-wing has not spoken as much. There was a stir among the most reactionary sectors of the left-wing that perhaps felt offended that a transvestite was talking about the dictatorship “suffered by my grandparents, who fought for the Republic” as they say. I believe that queer people also have relatives who have fought for the Republic and, above all, not forget that if I and all my companions had existed during the Franco dictatorship, we would surely have ended up shot.
Will you work on another single from the album? Can we wait for another video clip of Liquidación Total?
Of course! Where is the fun on an album without a video clip? In fact, I love Madonna, but what I hate the most about her is that she spent like two or three albums giving us either no video clips or video clips that were not up to par for me. I want to follow in Madonna’s footsteps, but I’d rather skip those steps, so for now I have two more singles that I’ll release this year. And I hope the video clips exceed expectations, because after Por España, I don’t know what I’m going to do any more.
Which one will be the following single?
The first one will be Demasiado Coño, which at the moment is my favourite song on the album, and I have also collaborated with Chenta (Putochinomaricón) who is great, so I can’t think of a better single to start the new year.
I can’t help but ask what you think of the current situation of the LGBTQ+ community in Spain? Recently, the Community of Madrid has voted to repeal the LGBTQ+ laws and quite violent anti-LGBTQ+ attacks have occurred.
We are living in a moment of regression, and it is due exclusively to the incursion of far-right parties into positions of power. We already have Vox occupying seats in the Chamber of Deputies. What were once perhaps insubstantial threats or delusions of a retrograde old glory can now become reality and represent a huge step backwards in all the fundamental rights that have been achieved in recent years. On the one hand, it scares me, but on the other hand, I am calm because I believe that there is no action without response, and for the time being, we are not considering stopping existing. I imagine that as events progress, we will take whatever actions we find pertinent. I do hope that the current government and all the political parties that consider themselves progressive take measures because I also imagine that it will be difficult, that it is not as simple as I think to stop Vox and the entire right. But I believe that the LGBTQ+ community and other collectives are quite unprotected and above all there is an atmosphere of palpable tension.
What plans do you have for the year ahead?
At the moment, I have a fairly complete year with the tour. I am very happy with my first tour nationwide. Such a modern girl has no limits, and I have already told you that I am the most modern, or at least that is what I like to think. So whatever comes up to me. I already have a Christmas special, who knows what next? I might become a nurse or even a minister. Furthermore, I am like Barbie. I am accumulating professions and, when I get bored, I just quit and look for new pastures. But for now, non-stop and no limits.
LOOK 1
Outfit – Pepa Salazar
Gloves – Rosita Fernández Gloves
Earrings – Bimba y Lola
LOOK 2
Jacket and dress – Palomo Spain
Tights – Emeerree Studio
Earrings – Bimba y Lola
LOOK 3
Dress – Pepa Salazar
Suit – Palomo Spain
LOOK 4
Dress – Crack Studio
Trousers – Palomo Spain
Gloves – Rosita Fernández Gloves
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