the reality of gay bashings, poverty and evictions that real-life drag queens suffer -- which may be part of its point. Imagine, Wong Foo' suggests, a world where people stopped judging one another and simply surrendered to the silliness that's dormant inside us.” The Austin Chronicle's Alison Macor shared a similar sentiment, writing "For some, the film's unabashed sentimentality and fairy-tale quality may go too far, but To Wong Foo is such a delight that it's easy to overlook the few awkward moments. Calling To Wong Foo campy doesn't do the film justice: The film camps it up but still allows us to believe in the characters. Snipes and Swayze are so successful in exploring their feminine sides that all of their future roles should be played in drag.” Emanuel Levy concluded though the film "is not as outrageous or funny as [Priscilla]...it still offers some rewards as mainstream entertainment," and that “ultimately, the comedy comes across as a celebration of openness, alternative lifestyles and bonding, all life-affirming values that in the 1990s are beyond reproach — or real controversy.” Accolades Swayze and Leguizamo were nominated at the 1996 Golden Globe Awards, for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. Legacy To Wong Foo is considered groundbreaking for being the first real mainstream Hollywood production to depict drag queens. Rita Kempley of The Washington Post wrote that in comparison to previous films that featured cross-dressing like Some Like It Hot or Tootsie, "The heroines [in To Wong Foo] aren't cross-dressing to escape the mob or to prove a point, they're just being true to their nature." In a 2019 retrospective piece about the film, writer Naveen Kumar noted "the film’s language and understanding of gender variance is undoubtedly limited as a product of its time" and that the film "[blended] iterations of queer experience that tend to have clearer distinctions in the real world, and for which we have more nuanced language today." Among the film's language and concepts that are now considered problematic is the terminology used by the characters to describe the differences in queer identities. Of the leads being in drag for the duration of the film, some critics said this was an intentional part of the film's camp element. Kumar added, "That To Wong Foo’s drag performances remain completely unbroken throughout the film’s entirety heightens the movie’s extreme emphasis on