Panama City and Panama City Beach
Although it's a reasonably trafficked vacation spot, Panama City Beach has a mid-sized year-round population of under 40,000 (Panama City Beach, the neighboring coastal town, is under 13,000, which explains why it's small enough to have a locals' Facebook page discussing concerns from wacky tourist antics to lost dogs). There are bayous and state parks in addition to white sand beaches. City Data reflects that the median age is just over 40, the median household income just under $40,000, and the mean housing price $226,974. Neighborhood Scout reflects that only 22% of Panama City residents are college graduates, so Jo and Casey's challenge to hold down jobs they feel they can live with and make enough money to keep food on the table is a realistic one. (Image source.)
Panama City and Florida Drag
Cleo's in The Legend of Georgia McBride is obviously fictional, but it can be useful to glance at real-world counterparts. To the right is Splash Bar, Panama City's main (and, as far as I've found, only) drag venue. It's a beachy bar around a tiki area; this vlogger caught a good chunk of a drag show that shows the kind of drag happening in the Panama City scene, drag that trends towards fairly realistic looks but also has a lot of tolerance for weird. Trixie Mattel, a Southern-inspired comedy queen, actually did a show here and has some interesting comments on how the particular kind of Southern culture in that part of Florida and drag culture intersected in a queen in RuPaul's drag race around the 7:35 mark.
Drag style varies around Florida, with Ft. Meyers' Rascals preferring queens who are perhaps a little messy but have high-quality audience interaction over more polished but distant styles. Miami "is a lot more high-enercy, there's a lot of samba and Latin music worked into the show, really bright colors as well," Joseph Brauer - a local I interviewed about the Florida drag scene - reflected. The style of drag most often seen on "Ru Paul's Drag Race" is closest to that found in Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Drag style varies around Florida, with Ft. Meyers' Rascals preferring queens who are perhaps a little messy but have high-quality audience interaction over more polished but distant styles. Miami "is a lot more high-enercy, there's a lot of samba and Latin music worked into the show, really bright colors as well," Joseph Brauer - a local I interviewed about the Florida drag scene - reflected. The style of drag most often seen on "Ru Paul's Drag Race" is closest to that found in Tampa and St. Petersburg.