Two Decades Later, Zsazsa Zaturnnah Remains the Queer Icon the Philippines Deserves

What happens when a gay beautician swallows a magical stone from outer space? A queer icon in Zsazsa Zaturnnah is born.

First bursting onto the scene in Carlo Vergara’s graphic novel “Ang Kagila-gilalas na Pakikipagsapalaran ni Zsazsa Zaturnnah,” the character’s beauty, power, humor, and irrepressible spirit remain as resonant in 2026 as they were two decades ago.

At the heart of Zsazsa Zaturnnah is Ada, a gay man who transforms into the stunning superheroine after swallowing a magical stone. While the premise is fantastical, Ada’s experiences remain grounded in realities familiar to many members of the Filipino LGBTQIA+ community, including the search for love, struggles with homophobia, and rejection from society and family.

Vergara himself has spoken about why the character continues to endure. In a 2020 interview with When in Manila, he pointed to the story’s continuing concerns with LGBTQ+ issues, women, and love, noting that as long as the same problems persist, Zaturnnah’s relevance is unlikely to disappear.

Zsazsa’s transformation also reflects another major part of her cultural impact: her connection to drag. The character’s design drew inspiration from local drag queens and has, in turn, become an inspiration for performers herself. Across the years, that relationship between spectacle, femininity, camp, and queer identity has helped Zsazsa remain closely tied to the community she represents.

That connection has survived across every version of the character. From Vergara’s original pages to the live-action film starring Zsa Zsa Padilla and the theatrical musical, Zsazsa Zaturnnah has remained an important part of Philippine pop culture and a distinctly Filipino representation of the gay experience. Her stories also carry a recognizably Pinoy sense of humor, particularly the kind of “bakla” humor that turns pain, absurdity, and everyday struggle into something audiences can laugh at and process together.

“Siguro comedy…that’s how we deal sa mga problema, concerns,” Vergara said in the same interview. “So in a way, it’s a means for us to process things.”

Now, Zsazsa is preparing for another return to the stage. A revival of “Zsazsa Zaturnnah Ze Muzikal” is set to run at Shooting Gallery Studios from April to June 2027 under Wishbone Collective. The production brings together playwright Chris Martinez for the theatrical adaptation, award-winning lyricist and composer Vincent A. DeJesus as musical director, and director Chris Millado, former artistic director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Twenty years after her debut, Zsazsa Zaturnnah remains funny, flamboyant, political, vulnerable, and unapologetically queer. More importantly, she remains unmistakably Filipino.