What follow are various rankings, evaluations, and streams of consciousness I have developed about the show. The regular seasons in which the named contestants competed are denoted by “S” followed by the season number; similarly, All Stars seasons are denoted with “AS” followed by the All Stars season number.
Oh yeah, I guess I should also say there are series spoilers, so watch out if you’re not current.
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On Tops and Bottoms
In this section, I provide lists of my favorites and least favorites in various categories.
FAVORITE QUEENS: TOP FIVE
Bianca del Rio (S6), Alaska (S5, AS2), Detox (S5, AS2), Manila Luzon (S3, AS1, AS4), Sharon Needles (S4)
FAVORITE QUEENS: HONORABLE MENTIONS
Raven (S2, AS1), Nina Flowers (S1, AS1), Trinity Taylor (S9, AS4), BenDeLaCreme (S6, AS3), Katya (S7, AS2)
LEAST FAVORITE QUEENS: BOTTOM FIVE
Serena ChaCha (S5), Gia Gunn (S6, AS4), Farrah Moan (S9, AS4), Kenya Michaels (S4), Mimi Imfurst (S3, AS1)
LEAST FAVORITE QUEENS: DISHONORABLE MENTIONS
Ra’Jah O’Hara (S11), Milk (S6, AS3), Cynthia Lee Fontaine (S8, S9), Tyra Sanchez (S2), Coco Montrese (S5, AS2)
Note: “least favorite” is really a proxy for “most annoying”.
TOP FIVE LIP SYNCS
Alyssa Edwards vs. Tatianna: “Shut Up and Drive”, Rihanna (AS2)
Brooke Lynn Hytes vs. Yvie Oddly: “Sorry Not Sorry”, Demi Lovato (S11)
Sasha Velour vs. Shea Coulee: “So Emotional”, Whitney Houston (S9)
Jinkx Monsoon vs. Detox: “Malambo No. 1”, Yma Sumac (S5)
Carmen Carrera vs. Raja: “Straight Up”, Paula Abdul (S3)
TOP FIVE SNATCH GAME PERFORMANCES
Alaska as Mae West (AS2)
Adore Delano as Anna Nicole Smith (S6)
Pandora Boxx as Carol Channing (S2)
BenDeLaCreme as Maggie Smith (S6)
Tatianna as Britney Spears (S2)
Kennedy Davenport as Little Richard (S7)
Chad Michaels as Cher (S4)
Yeah, I know there's seven and not five. Too bad.
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On Incorrect Judgments
In this section, I list the contestants and Snatch Game performances that I think are most mismatched with their evaluation. Specifically, I list the five most overrated and the five most underrated in each category. The referenced “rating” is not necessarily just how the judges evaluated the contestant; it may also include contestants or Snatch Game performances that have largely been forgotten in Drag Race discourse and lore, either for how good or how bad they were.
TOP FIVE MOST OVERRATED QUEENS
Pearl (S7): The most egregious case of the producers deliberately trying to create a season-long character arc. Pearl was dull and apathetic, completely undeserving of her placement as runner-up to Violet Chachki. In her lip sync against Trixie Mattel early in Season 7, Trixie was told to sashay away, even though she gave a much more engaging lip sync performance than Pearl. (When Trixie returned later in the season, the fact that she was not immediately eliminated was a clear indication that she had been prematurely eliminated.) Instead, the judges gave her tons of grace: she did not cinch her waist for any of her runway looks, whereas on the previous season, Adore Delano was read to filth for not cinching. Week after week, Pearl received free passes because the producers wanted to create the character arc of the “sleepy” contestant that “woke up” and came from behind.
Coco Montrese (S5, AS2): The crybaby of Season 5. Week after week, she had a piss poor attitude with which she continuously shot herself in the foot. Yet she was likely kept around to maintain the feud between her and Alyssa Edwards to generate on-screen drama. She was in the bottom two four times on her season, more than any other contestant in a regular season, after which she was finally eliminated. Her drag was a far cry from noteworthy, and she kept repeating to the judges that she would give more the next time. That characteristic followed her into All Stars 2 when, after she was eliminated in the first episode and was informed of a future potential for “revenge”, she responded with, “Oh, I’m not holding back”. Why did she not before when she actually had the chance? And, not surprisingly, she was not offered a chance to return later in the season.
Vanessa Vanjie Mateo (S10, S11): The meme. Because that’s about all she had to contribute to the show. Her entire personality consisted of yakking and being extra. Her style week after week consisted of a swimsuit-cut outfit with glitter across the top of her chest. She was heavily criticized at times for both of these things, but she managed to ride the producers’ “redemption story” arc to fifth place on Season 11. She should have been eliminated in her lip sync against Plastique Tiara…and then again in her lip sync against Shuga Cain. She definitely did not deserve to place higher than Nina West. Were it not for her hilarious “Miss…Vaaaaanjie” exit in the first episode of Season 10, she would not have been offered a chance to return in Season 11 at all.
BeBe Zahara Benet (S1, AS3): The original winner of the series. My opinion is that she only won her regular season by chance: she happened to be up for elimination against Ongina, and BeBe saved herself by giving a better lip sync. Even though Ongina was a better queen overall who could do more than “giving face” (BeBe’s self-proclaimed specialty), Ongina was eliminated and BeBe stayed. BeBe’s lack of versatility became apparent when she was very strangely offered a spot in the cast of All Stars 3. She did not excel and was merely safe week after week (“consistent”, as she called it). While I think the method of selecting the top two in All Stars 3 was terrible, I think BeBe’s exclusion from the selection was the correct decision.
Valentina (S9, AS4): The Season 9 contestant that viewers thought was beautiful in and out of drag. I don’t know, I don’t think she’s that cute as a boy. When she competed on Season 9, both viewers and the judges ate her up. But I was not particularly impressed by her. The judges’ clear favoritism toward her was perhaps most apparent when she wore a wedding dress for the White Party runway theme and somehow won. She also makes this list because of her elimination lip sync fiasco: you do not get to be a serious contender without preparing your lip sync. In All Stars 4, her delusional nature came to the forefront (“My process is what makes me a star”, “Me being eliminated doesn’t happen in my fantasy”), and her head got so far up her ass that Naomi Smalls had to bail her out and save Club 96 from being a complete disaster.
TOP FIVE MOST UNDERRATED QUEENS
Lineysha Sparx (S5): Lineysha was a stunning contestant who was ultimately eliminated because English was not her first language. She should have won the first challenge of her season with her gorgeous wallpaper dress instead of Roxxxy Andrews. The Snatch Game, which requires intimate knowledge of mainstream American celebrities, American-style humor, and improvisation within the English language, was her demise. No one on her season seemed to take her seriously because of her difficulty with English. Even RuPaul did not take Lineysha seriously, making jokes throughout Season 5 about her struggle with English, which was nothing less than painful to watch.
Mrs. Kasha Davis (S7): Mrs. Kasha Davis was a fun, campy contestant who embodies what I think of when I think of classical drag. Classical drag queens are first and foremost comedic entertainers, right down to the appearance (where you can tell that the queen is obviously a man dressed as a woman with overemphasized femininity). In my opinion, because Mrs. Kasha Davis hails from a more classical drag style, she was simply cast at the wrong point in the series. Beginning with the victory of Sharon Needles in Season 4, Drag Race eschewed convention and demonstrated the possibility of victory for contestants that did not necessarily embody the pathos of classical drag. By Season 7, Drag Race had become somewhat of an empire following the successes of Seasons 5 and 6. Contestants were more likely to consider themselves “artists” with a defined “aesthetic”, which seemed to almost become a requirement for success on the show (examples: Violet Chachki, Sasha Velour, Aquaria, Yvie Oddly). Mrs. Kasha Davis’ style of drag doesn’t need to operate at that level of sophistication, which is perhaps why she was eliminated when she was given the series’ evolution.
Scarlet Envy (S11): Scarlet was incorrectly eliminated so that Ra’Jah O’Hara could be retained strictly to create drama in Season 11. Her bottom-two placement in the episode in which she was eliminated was questionable to begin with. Her self-proclaimed strengths lied in her acting abilities, which we only got to observe once, and for which she won a challenge. She should have been on Season 11 longer.
Ginger Minj (S7, AS2): It’s true that Ginger Minj placed highly in her season as one of the runners-up for the Season 7 crown. However, I say she was underrated because out of the Season 7 top three, she should have won. When she returned for All Stars 2, she was only around for three episodes before being inexplicably put into the bottom two in the “Herstory of the World” episode. As painful as it would have been, Alyssa Edwards should have eliminated Katya instead of Ginger Minj based on how the two of them performed in that challenge.
DiDa Ritz (S4): Technically, DiDa Ritz placed in sixth on Season 4 (although realistically, she placed fifth if we ignore the eyeroll-worthy mess that was the reentry of Kenya Michaels). While on the show, I found her personality quite charming. The judges (and even the other contestants) read her for her runway looks, which they claimed were unpolished. However, I never found substantial fault with her looks, and the judges had certainly accepted less from other contestants. Also, she gave one of the most energetic and entertaining lip sync performances in the entire series to Natalie Cole’s “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)”. After her time on the show, DiDa Ritz took a long break from drag and largely seemed to fade out of the Drag Race consciousness. Apparently, however, she has since begun performing again.
TOP FIVE MOST OVERRATED SNATCH GAME PERFORMANCES
Trinity K. Bonet as Nicki Minaj (S6): I still do not understand how she was safe after this challenge, even avoiding judges’ critiques entirely. She did not make a single joke in her performance. The most interesting thing she did was change wigs, but she followed that up by giving that as her excuse for not even having an answer to a question. And, as Bianca del Rio put it, “Wig changes! How original! Chad Michaels, how many years ago?”
Eureka as Honey Boo Boo (S10): All her answers were literally scribbles. In addition to delivering a one-note performance, Eureka avoided the need to be clever, quick, and witty—which is the entire point of the Snatch Game—by answering with scribbling. Yet the judges ate her performance up, and she was undeservingly in the top.
Raja as Tyra Banks (S3): Raja’s performance as Tyra Banks relied on two themes: “smising” and “I hate Naomi Campbell!” Each had enough comedic value for at most one joke, but both were repeated, making them both stale. In addition, both jokes were executed in an overexaggerated way: Raja drew blood underneath her eyes from too much “smising”, and she stood up and screamed, “Naomi Campbell is a ************** whore!” Raja still managed to be in the top, perhaps because no contestants were any good on Season 3’s Snatch Game.
Thorgy Thor as Michael Jackson (S8): I suspect Thorgy chose to do a male celebrity following Kennedy Davenport’s unparalleled success as Little Richard. But if you’re going to do a male celebrity, your performance had better be way funnier than the other contestants’. Thorgy’s was not. Yet somehow, the judges praised her and she was in the top.
Bob the Drag Queen as Uzo Aduba/Carol Channing (S8): Yeah, it was funny, but neither celebrity portrayal was legendary. Pandora Boxx did a much funnier Carol Channing. I think if Bob had focused more effort on doing only one of these celebrities, her Snatch Game performance could have been better. I suspect Bob won because her competition in the Snatch Game was pretty mediocre, and by that point, Season 8 was already “The Bob Show”. To Bob’s credit, however, this was the first time on the show that a contestant changed celebrities mid-Snatch Game. I think the fact that Bob delivered two celebrities in above-average performances is what makes her Snatch Game performance an icon of Drag Race lore.
TOP FIVE MOST UNDERRATED SNATCH GAME PERFORMANCES
Pearl as Big Ang (S7): Admittedly, if Pearl had been eliminated when she should have been, we would never have gotten this performance. Pearl’s Big Ang was hysterical, landing multiple jokes with excellent comedic timing. Honestly, I thought she surpassed Katya’s Suze Orman. Yet Pearl received no acknowledgment from the judges of her performance, being immediately declared “safe”.
Nina Bo’Nina Brown as Jasmine Masters (S9): One of Nina Bo’Nina Brown’s few shining moments in Season 9, her Snatch Game performance as Jasmine Masters is one of my favorites in the entire series. Unfortunately, Nina’s self-deprecating attitude remains attached to her reputation in the Drag Race lore rather than her high points, so her excellence in this performance has been predominantly forgotten. She did, however, receive praise from the judges in the episode, which was well-earned.
Detox as Nancy Grace (AS2): I don’t know, I thought Detox’s Nancy Grace was funny. The performance was arguably somewhat one-note (“Where’s the body?”), but Detox did manage to interact with the other celebrities and land a great pun on the word “match”. I do not think she deserved to be up for elimination in the bottom three because of this performance.
Shea Coulee as Naomi Campbell (S9): Shea Coulee’s Naomi Campbell was funny, but Shea was only declared “safe”. As a thought experiment, I think it would be highly entertaining to watch Shea’s Naomi Campbell go up against Raja’s Tyra Banks in the same Snatch Game. I have no doubt that Shea would destroy Raja in such a match-up.
Ginger Minj as Tammy Faye Bakker (AS2): As Tammy Faye, Ginger Minj was only declared “safe”, but I thought she deserved more recognition. Unfortunately, she didn’t receive a ton of screen time as Tammy Faye; she was upstaged by Alaska (Mae West), Katya (Bjork), Alyssa Edwards (Joan Crawford), and Phi Phi O’Hara (Theresa Caputo).
An interesting trend is that almost every rating “mismatch” (i.e., overrated or underrated) occurred in the series starting in Season 5. I don't know if this is pure coincidence, but for the sake of argument, let's suppose that it is not. In my opinion, Season 5 was a turning point in the series when the emphasis on drama and “character arcs” began to define the show. In other words, Season 5 was when the show truly embraced its reality television nature. Season 4 was the last season in which the viewer could pretend that the show was truly about honoring good drag. Invariably, the effect of this change is that contestants who generate drama (Coco Montrese, Valentina) or can be fodder for the “most-improved” storyline (Trinity K. Bonet, Pearl) are kept on artificially long, even if their drag is poor. These contestants slip through challenges by being “safe”, are judged by more than the lip sync when up for elimination, or are given tons of grace.
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On Reveals
A “reveal” is when a contestant removes, unfolds, or otherwise changes part or all of their runway attire to display either a second distinct runway look or a hidden item. In order for a reveal to be effective, it must satisfy the following four criteria:
1. It must be executed properly. This is common sense; both phases have to be put together at the same level of effort that a single look would be. This also means that if a reveal involves gag items (e.g., rose petals, butterflies), they’d better do what they’re supposed to do. In their respective season finales, Sasha Velour succeeded at this; Asia O’Hara failed catastrophically.
2. It must be appropriate for the context. This is perhaps the most subjective of the criteria, because “the context” differs at the time of the reveal. But this essentially means that the reveal can’t be just anything. The second phase of the reveal must be aesthetically consistent with the first look, but it must also be relevant in some way—that could mean it “tells a story” in conjunction with the first look, or that it is connected in some way to the environment outside of the contestant. Alyssa Edwards’ camera dress from All Stars 2 violated this condition, because the cameras in her second look were irrelevant to anything. Asia O’Hara’s attempted use of butterflies in her lip sync to “Nasty” was a complete non-sequitur. By contrast, Roxxxy Andrews’ wig reveal, Sasha Velour’s rose petals, and Peppermint’s reveal in the Season 9 finale were all directly connected to the lip sync songs.
3. It must be timed correctly. An effective reveal has to occur at the climax of the runway presentation. If it occurs too soon, the audience has not had time to completely process the first look, and the contestant has played her joker preemptively.
4. It must not be obvious. If the audience knows it’s coming, it defeats the purpose of doing a reveal. A dead giveaway is if the first look is an enormous dress or is ill-fitting. (I’m looking at you, Season 10 finale.)
Below is a matrix evaluating a selection of reveals throughout the show in each of the four categories. A score of 0 represents “poor”, 1 represents “meh, okay”, and 2 represents “success”.
Brooke Lynn Hytes’ reveal in the Season 11 finale clearly violated the “not obvious” condition, but I gave her a pass because it was deliberately tongue-in-cheek. What was revealed, however, was a bit disappointing given the explicit call-out, which is why she scored poorly in the “appropriate for context” category.
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On All Stars
This section specifically discusses All Stars seasons 2 through 4. All Stars 1 doesn’t count because it was terrible and was obviously structured so that Chad Michaels could win a Drag Race crown.
All Stars operates differently from a regular season in that (usually) the top two queens have a lip sync battle, and the winner chooses which contestant to eliminate. Of course, the other idiosyncrasy about All Stars is that the rules related to elimination are arbitrarily discarded or modified from time to time. I suppose the premise behind employing this elimination methodology is that the returning competitors have the experience of a regular season (and substantial exposure outside of the show) and thus are qualified to decide whom to eliminate. RuPaul gets to outsource the hard decision.
This structure is highly conducive to reality television’s vice of overdramatization. Contestants’ incentives get distorted because they tend to focus on working and mining inter-contestant relationships rather than soberly evaluating challenge performance. Alternatively, a queen in the top may choose to eliminate a strong competitor who happens to land in the bottom to cause a stir. The uncertainty of the elimination policy that each top queen will follow is what generates viewer interest.
I do wonder how much of a hand the producers have in deciding the fates of All Stars contestants. It makes great reality television when a strong contestant, or even the frontrunner, is suddenly and unexpectedly eliminated (e.g., Naomi Smalls eliminating Manila Luzon, Detox eliminating Alyssa Edwards). It makes great television for a contestant to back out of the competition (Adore Delano, BenDeLaCreme). And it makes great television to portray one contestant as the villain (Phi Phi O’Hara, Gia Gunn).
For all of the shortcomings of the All Stars format, All Stars 2 was the best season in the entire Drag Race canon, even accounting for the reality television bullshit. The contestants competed at such a higher level than on any other season, yielding a highly entertaining season featuring high-quality drag. It’s fun to watch contestants do well. By contrast, All Stars 3 was dominated by the reality television-esque aspects, perhaps because the majority of the cast were mediocre queens who were inexplicably offered a spot in the All Stars cast (Milk? Thorgy Thor? Aja? Trixie Mattel? BeBe Zahara Benet?). Correspondingly, All Stars 3 was one of the worst seasons in the Drag Race canon.
One final discussion about All Stars. I am opposed to regular season winners being offered slots in All Stars, unless the cast were comprised exclusively of regular season winners. If a regular season winner is entered back into the fray, she is at risk of being usurped. There is a risk of spoiling the “illusion” of a regular season winner. What does it mean, for instance, that BeBe Zahara Benet, the original winner of Drag Race, was beat out by two other contestants in All Stars 3? Does it lessen the value of her crown? I think it might, and that is why regular season winners should not compete in All Stars.
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On Redemption
Excluding All Stars, only a handful of queens have had the chance to return to a second regular season to compete again. These contestants include Shangela (S2 and S3), Cynthia Lee Fontaine (S8 and S9), Eureka (S9 and S10), and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo (S10 and S11). My opinion is that if a queen is asked to return, there had better be a compelling reason to bring her back. In addition, when she returns, she should not be artificially kept around just to create a “redemption” story arc. Finally, the judges should hold the returned contestant to the same standards as the other competitors. In other words, the rebuke of, “You were on here before, so you should be twice as good as the other queens” is absurd.
Shangela, Eureka, and Vanjie had at least mildly defensible cases for being brought back. Shangela was quite a character in the first episode of Season 2 and it was a shame to see her go so early. Eureka was prematurely eliminated in Season 9 due to an injury. And Vanjie became a hysterical internet meme sensation after her elimination in the first episode of Season 10. I still do not understand why Cynthia Lee Fontaine was brought back after a lackluster run on Season 8, much less why she reentered in the second episode of Season 9, avoiding the Lady Gaga challenge.
Shangela and Cynthia Lee Fontaine were not kept around for any longer than reasonable. Coincidentally, Cynthia placed the same in both of her seasons—tenth—which demonstrated that she was definitively not a remarkable candidate. Eureka and Vanjie, however, were kept alive for far longer than appropriate or tolerable. Vanjie in particular received multiple lifelines and reduced critiques from the judges; it was almost as if the producers desperately wanted her to be the season’s runner-up, but eventually decided that it was not justifiable.
On multiple occasions during Seasons 10 and 11 respectively, Eureka and Vanjie received criticism from the judges that they were not performing as well as they “should” have been. That a queen was on the show before and was given the opportunity to come back in no way implies that she should be better than the other contestants. Competing on part of a season does not somehow endow a contestant with any additional skills or talent. The judges’ comments on this expectation very much hearken of a reality television overdramatization rather than a rational evaluation of the contestant’s performance.
In a strange way, the last four regular seasons have been “connected” by returning queens. Seasons 8 and 9 had a continuity through Cynthia Lee Fontaine; Seasons 9 and 10 through Eureka; and Season 10 and 11 through Vanjie. I hope that this is not a longer-term trend and that a Season 11 contestant is not brought back to Season 12.
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On Drag Race’s Existential Crisis
Drag Race was a revolutionary show when it debuted. It was a gay-focused show produced by gay people for the gay community to consume. No such show had ever enjoyed as much enduring success as Drag Race achieved. Gay men are stereotypically ignorant of sports; this is not just their sport, but their Olympics. Each week, gay bars began to count on the revenue bump that Monday nights brought from screening the episodes.
But that has changed in recent years. Drag Race proved to be unexpectedly successful outside of the gay community. As a result, in Season 9, the show migrated from Logo—an obscure television network with a history of LGBT+ programming—and began airing on VH1. Episodes started airing on Friday evenings rather than Mondays, a change which upset many gay bar owners because it cut their expected Monday night revenue and instead pooled it with the revenue that would already have been made on Friday. Advertisements for Drag Con that aired during commercial breaks featured teenage girls and young women talking about how great Drag Con is. Greater portions of episode screen time were devoted to contestants explaining concepts that gay men do not need explained: coming out, bullying, conversion therapy, mental health. In short, the show’s target audience has shifted from gay men to straight teenage girls. Drag Race seems somewhat uncertain of this transition, as commercials for Nasty Pig are juxtaposed with the sanitized Drag Con commercials. Drag Race appears to be facing an existential crisis, unsure whether to stake its purpose in representing the queer community or to garner as much profit as possible.
This crisis is almost certainly compounded by the shift in the social consciousness’s understanding of gender from binary to a spectrum. Historically (i.e., during World War II), drag’s purpose was to provide entertainment for soldiers. (One could make the argument that drag was an essential component of national security during the War.) Its entertainment value arose from its comedic nature of a hypermasculine military man presenting himself as a hyperfeminine woman. The gender mismatch provided amusement to the sex-starved male soldiers as a way to cope with the traumatizing effects of war.
I’m no drag or gender studies historian, but I suspect when the show aired in 2009, drag was still thought of as an activity requiring a clear transition from “man” to “woman”. In the early seasons of Drag Race, many of the contestants introduced themselves by their male names first.
Fast forward to 2019 (or sooner, really). Questions that may have been comparatively meaningless a decade ago find themselves at the forefront of the discussion. Is drag more than just presenting oneself as a woman? What does it mean to present oneself as a woman? Who is eligible to practice drag? What does “drag” mean when practiced by non-male-identifying people? What place does drag have in a world in which former show contestants have declared their gender identity as women, yet continue to practice drag? (I almost certainly offended tons of folks by phrasing my questions in such ways, but I don’t have the proper language sensibilities on subjects explicitly dealing with gender identity.) Drag Race is caught in the middle of these questions and has provided tenuous, if any, answers. RuPaul has been repeatedly criticized for her allegedly anti-trans positions, and she has back-pedaled on some of her statements. Drag Race appears to possess a high degree of cognitive dissonance around issues of gender and what “drag” means in the 21st century.
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On Self-Aggrandizement
As time elapsed, Drag Race’s focus seemed to shift from empowering the next generation of drag queens to an exercise in self-promotion for RuPaul. The most egregious such instance was the Season 5 dance challenge that featured a storyline about RuPaul’s life. Beginning in Season 6, RuPaul’s entrance in drag was preceded by a dramatic, extended build-up before “Covergirl” played, priming the viewers to get ready to focus on her. Challenges featured explicit marketing of RuPaul’s side projects; namely, her music.
The melding of RuPaul’s music side projects with Drag Race has been frequent and uncomfortable, to say the least. The source of the discomfort is that RuPaul often attempts to put her Drag Race catchphrases to music—catchphrases that have no inherent rhythm. The resultant songs end up being awkward, stilted compositions centered around phrases such as, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else?”, “Category is”, “Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent”, “Oh No She Betta Don’t”, “Everybody Say Love”, among others.
The show has always had its blatant sponsorship and product placement (think Absolut Vodka in the early seasons). But the explicit product call-outs used to be generally tongue-in-cheek; RuPaul may repeat the name of the sponsor and add a goofy grin. When it comes to her music, however, RuPaul seems to take her self-promotion quite seriously. And it’s almost sad to watch, because her music is just…not good.
I suppose it also may be appropriate here to discuss the abundance of music that comes out of contestants after their time on the show. It’s a fairly predictable formula: you release an album after your time on Drag Race. You also get featured on a bunch of other contestants’ records. It's just what happens. Most of these contestants have zero musical talent, so the music is absolute garbage. Also, most of the musical releases revolve around the same note of drag-specific content, so the music's appeal and relatability outside the drag community is limited. It’s somewhat unclear who the target audience of this music is aside from other drag queens. It all seems like a desperate cash grab and a mimicry of the recording artist model established by RuPaul.
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On the “Inner Saboteur”
At some point in the second half of the series, RuPaul began harping on the narrative of contestants overcoming their “inner saboteur”. Whatever challenges or setbacks the contestants encountered during their season (or even prior to the show), the show frequently features RuPaul trying to define these struggles in terms of an “inner saboteur”. For many contestants, that might be relevant, because queer people have swum upstream against the predominant current of society their entire lives. They, more than most people, perhaps are more susceptible to negative self-talk, especially in the heat of a stressful challenge. But there are other contestants for whom the narrative is much simpler: I made a mistake in one of the challenges, full stop. The viewers may see a flash of confusion dart across the contestant’s face as RuPaul asserts that they messed up because of their “inner saboteur”. “Um…okay, sure…” is the general sentiment this contestant conveys.
I only have two things to say about this. First, and I suppose I’ve already revealed this opinion, is that not every contestant’s struggles can be shoehorned into the “inner saboteur” narrative. Attempting to do so is misguided at best and trivializing at worst, classifying a variety of completely unrelated personal issues as equivalent. Second, this discussion almost seems like a continuation of the self-aggrandizement discussion, because the inner saboteur narrative “stems from RuPaul’s own brand of new-age spirituality mixed with a pro-capitalist-bootstraps message”. RuPaul’s continuous reiteration of the concept frames her as some self-proclaimed guru. That she has been able to overcome her own inner saboteur seems to entitle her with the idea that she is wise enough to counsel others—and to claim that if she can make it, then anyone can. The argument between Asia O’Hara and RuPaul in the Season 10 Reunion episode clearly revealed RuPaul’s arrogance on this subject.
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In Conclusion
I have to keep reminding myself that RuPaul’s Drag Race is a reality television show. So perhaps on the one hand, there is no need for me to have such strong opinions on so many aspects of an artificial world. But, on the other hand, it is a show that has directly created dozens of contestant’s careers and literally changed their lives. In addition, many of the contestants’ stories and journeys are pretty intense and may contain the potential to inspire, educate, and empower viewers. These characteristics lead me to think that perhaps the show is a cultural force whose reach and effects are worth pondering indeed.
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