The Rise and Fall of an Ozark Princess

As a lifelong Midwesterner, and fellow Missourian, I love that Chappell Roan titled her breakthrough album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. That “Midwest” is a little indeterminate, a little generic, but in a way that in American terms feels expansive, open-armed and open-ended, an ideal match for the album’s big, queer, pop ambition. It tracks, too, that a Princess of the Midwest variety would experience her fortunate fall into drag queen aesthetics, as Roan says she did, at the Kansas City, MO, location of drag-themed restaurant chain Hamburger Mary’s. Still, I must admit that I’ve wished more than once that her title had been a bit more biographically precise: The Rise and Fall of an Ozark Princess. Maybe swapping Midwest for the-closer-to-hand Ozark, with its hillbilly connotations and associations with The South more generally, was a necessary first step on her journey out of from the Ozarks and towards Hollywood.