Dee W. Ieye will host a Tupperware party unlike the ones your grandmother used to attend.
The Women’s Center and the LGBT Center are collaborating to bring students a Tupperware party featuring drag queen Dee W. Ieye. People can stop by the Women’s Center to see Ieye’s Tupperware show, whether they decide to buy products or not.
“I actually encountered her over the summer,” delfin bautista, director of the LGBT Center, said. “A coworker friend invited me to her house for a Tupperware party with a drag queen.”
Kevin Farrell is the real person behind Ieye. He said that he was an actor in Hollywood who created the character Dee W. Ieye for a charity event that raised money for people with HIV and AIDS.
“Oscar was an actor friend of mine (who worked for Tupperware) and saw me play as Dee,” Farrell said. His friend convinced him to enter the house party business.
The show can be thought of in more of a theater or stand up way, Farrell said.
“Her persona is a Southern trailer diva,” bautista, who uses they/them pronouns and the lowercase spelling of their name, said.
During Ieye’s show, she sings a cover of the famed Dolly Parton song “Nine to Five,” but reinvents it to talk about drag and Tupperware.
Farrell said he wanted to include that song because he modeled Ieye after Parton. Ieye is a country girl and a bit “trailer trashy.”
When bautista attended the show, they said Ieye’s performance began with a brief recounting of the history of Tupperware home parties and how it became a business for women and by women.
Farrell said he thinks about 30 percent of his business consists of events that have a fundraising aspect.
Ieye’s Tupperware party for the Women’s Center has a suggested donation of $5 for students and $10 for non-students at the door. Emily Dacquisto, program coordinator for the Women’s Center, said that money will support the Tom and Jan Hodson LGBT Support Fund. The emergency money is used to help OU students that have been cut off from their families, bautista said.
At some shows, Ieye may have women in their 80s and others in their 20s. Farrell said he wants the Tupperware business “opening up to new generations.”
Farrell said he’s helping groups of women to sell Tupperware: He has worked with college students and retired people alike.
“Given a lot of what is happening on-campus and around the world, we need opportunities to be silly and to laugh and … to be politically incorrect,” bautista said. “This will hopefully be an opportunity to do some inappropriate self-care through laughter and through drag.”
