By Barrett White
“Please make me sound smart,” laughs Vera Drew, Hollywood editor and recent Emmy nominee for her editing work on Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who is America? We chat by phone as I sit cross-legged at a coffee shop in Houston’s Montrose District. Across the country, Drew drives to a set location in Los Angeles. I assure her that her “rambling” is, in fact, excellent, if not tender, commentary on what it means to be a newly out-of-the-closet transgender woman in the cis male–dominated entertainment industry—and more specifically, in the comedy genre.
Drew grew up in the suburbs south of Chicago. “Never mind ‘transphobic,’ because I don’t even think that was a word in the ‘90s,” she says. “Sometimes I forget how ‘queerphobic’ the ‘90s were. And it wasn’t that long ago. Being out as queer in any capacity wasn’t really on the table for me. There was no visibility [or queer representation] at all in the town I was from.”
Drew later left Chicago for Hollywood, honing her editing skills at the Tim and Eric production company Abso Lutely Productions—known for incubating some of the industry’s most unique editors. She also helped to launch Tim and Eric’s new Adult Swim streaming network, Channel 5. Drew wrote and directed four series for Channel 5, including I Love David, a doc-series starring public access legend David Liebe Hart (who Drew says is “an amazingly, beautifully weird human being” and “a staple in the alt-comedy world”), and Tim and Eric Quiz, a 3–D animation and live–action game show that takes place in a dystopian future.
When Drew landed the job editing Who is America?, it was another step into the realm of reality-based comedy, where she’d been getting her foothold after several years with Adult Swim. The Emmy nomination came as a surprise to Drew, who never saw an honor like this in her future. “Not in a self-deprecating way,” she says. “It’s just that the bulk of my work is geared toward 15-year-old boys who watch Adult Swim. Don’t get me wrong, those are my people, but they’re not exactly Emmy voters.”
But as the accolades and recognition came in, so did the pressure to “be excellent,” she says. “Being trans is complicated,” she begins. “I am of the opinion that gender is a social construct. So much of it is based off of ideas that we put upon the various roles we play in society. But just because it’s a social construct doesn’t mean that it isn’t ‘real.’ There are societal norms that are put in place, and navigating that as a trans woman can be difficult at times because when it comes to expressing my gender, that’s performative in a way. It depends on how I’m dressed or if I’m wearing makeup that given day. So I’m trying to be careful to not fall into problematic ideas about my own gender expression. I don’t want to reinforce those negative ideas.”
As a kid, Drew’s funny bone was inspired by shows like Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Jackass, while filmmakers like Kenneth Anger informed her editing—a style that has earned her an endearing reputation as “an editor who thinks like a writer.” “I just always saw that potential for storytelling while playing with reality,” she explains. “Like why can’t a comedy filmmaker use the same tools that a documentary filmmaker uses to tell a funny story?”
In any case, she’s slaying the game as one of the industry’s unsung heroes. As far as reputation goes, there’s nothing for her to prove—her resume precedes her. “In film school, I was tired of being told that the stories I wanted to tell weren’t marketable,” she says. “[Now], it’s a very exciting time to be working in the industry. It can only go up from here. I’m kind of on the ground floor of what can hopefully be a future of much more representation, and hearing queer stories that are much more than ‘before and after’ pictures.”
Her vision is that one day, queer characters can have story arcs that aren’t about being queer—that we can exist in a space where we’re allowed to tell our everyday stories without them revolving around sexuality or transitioning. While those stories are absolutely necessary, Drew says, she also strives to tell stories about what makes us human—a part of Hollywood that cisgender, heterosexual audiences take for granted. “A friend once told me that we’ll know we’ve made great strides in queer representation when you see a trans character who’s a total asshole,” she laughs.
Having proven that her style and craft are, in fact, marketable—to both 15-year-old Adult Swim fans and the Emmy-voting artsy crust—Drew has a few artists in mind that she would love to work with to produce work that pushes the boundaries of comedy. “Janet Mock,” she immediately says. “I’m just crazy about Pose.” The show’s telling of transgender stories—without solely focusing on the characters’ transitions, but instead treating them as humans—resonates with Drew.
Kim Petras and Sophie make the wish list, too. Drew continues, naming artists who stand up for themselves and create what is important to them, despite the misgivings of agents and field professionals. “I want the Wachowski sisters to adopt me,” she laughs. “I talked about not having queer representation in the media growing up, but in a way, I did. The Matrix was one of my favorite films growing up, and now when I watch it as an adult, it’s impossible for me to see it as anything but a queer narrative.”
“I know that not everyone has the privilege to come out, not everyone has that option for one reason or another,” she continues. “But for me, this time last year, I was only out to a few people. So for people who are closeted, but who are able to come out, I say, I know it seems impossible right now, but it’s not. It’s all within your reach, and it’s all out there. There have been times over the last year that have been challenging that required whole afternoons in a blanket cocoon. But I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world because I get to live authentically, and that makes all of the difficult times worth it.”
