“It`s Not Personal, It`s Drag”: The Sassy Politics of RuPaul`s Drag Race

Felipe González Silva
2078621G
MLitt Film and Television Studies
Dissertation – September 2015
“It’s Not Personal, It’s Drag”: The Sassy Politics of
RuPaul’s Drag Race
Supervised by Professor Karen Lury
University of Glasgow
Word count: 14,840
Beneficiario COLFUTURO 2014
Abstract
After the success of reality competition shows such as Project Runway and
America’s Next Top Model in the United States, RuPaul’s Drag Race reached
the small screen to be the first TV programme of its kind to feature drag queens.
Through textual analysis and theories of queer and feminist studies, this thesis
joins the fundamental debates about drag and its role in society. With these
debates as a starting point, this thesis is dedicated to determining the position
of Drag Race within the tension between gay politics and queer politics that lies
in the programme’s construction of what drag is supposed to be. By focusing on
the relation of masculinity and femininity in drag, and on the role of sleaziness in
drag, this thesis argues that RuPaul’s Drag Race refuses to be located
unequivocally as a project of either gay or queer politics. This reading does not
only propose an innovative take on the programme but it also manages to
further problematise the distinction between the two “kinds” of politics.
Key words: RuPaul’s Drag Race, drag, gay politics, queer politics, femininity,
masculinity, sleaziness, gender, race
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Acknowledgements
I would like to show gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Karen Lury. Her
impressive knowledge and sensibility about television and academia in general,
along with her commitment to my project, helped me develop this dissertation
successfully. Her genuine concern was fundamental for the completion of this
text during a difficult time.
I thank Dave for his meticulous proofreading throughout the process, and for the
comments, ideas and invigorating words. Also, I am grateful for all my great
friends from the course. I am proud of all of us.
To Josh, for being the person who believes in me the most and for helping me
realize that I am capable of accomplishing anything I desire.
Most importantly, and despite the distance, thanks to my family who are my
greatest supporters in absolutely everything. You encourage me to keep going.
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Contents
Abstract
ii
Acknowledgements
iii
Contents
iv
Introduction
Research questions
Methodology
Considerations
1
3
5
6
Chapter 1. Conceptualising drag: Literature review
7
I. Introduction to drag
7
II. “Courtney looks like a girl. Very pretty but that doesn't impress me. It’s not drag!”
11
III. Overview: The literature of RuPaul’s Drag Race
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The gender of drag or the drag of gender
15
Discoloured and hyper-coloured identities: race and drag
17
The “real” fish: women and drag
19
Chapter 2. Femininity vs. Masculinity
I. Bearded femininities
“May the best bearded woman win”: a hierarchy of the beard
II. Beyond masculinity and femininity
Dissonant sway: dance and the limits of gender
23
24
26
29
33
Chapter 3. Sleaziness
I. “Oh my God Almighty! Someone has sent me a bowel movement!”
Authentic filthiness or masked purity?
Sleaziness, sashay away
II. The ghostly and outrageous femininity of Sharon Needles
III. Hello Kitty and the consumerist femininity
38
38
40
43
45
50
Conclusions
Recommendations
56
58
Index of images
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Works cited
Bibliography
Filmography
Teleography
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60
64
64
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Introduction
RuPaul’s Drag Race is a reality competition TV programme initially broadcasted
in the United States by the network Logo. As the name suggests, the show is
hosted by the internationally famous drag queen, RuPaul, and the term “drag
race” is a pun that originates from the motor racing competition but, in this case,
the competition is not between cars but between drag queens. During each of
its already seven seasons from 2009 to the present, RuPaul’s Drag Race has
featured from 9 to 14 drag queens fighting for the title of ‘America’s Next Drag
Superstar’ as well as a cash prize and other prizes given by the programme’s
sponsors. The contestants, who come from all around the United States
(including Puerto Rico), face weekly challenges that conclude with the
elimination of a queen from the competition until a winner is crowned.
Typically, in every episode (week) there are three explicit moments of
competition that affect the judges’ decisions about who remains in and who
leaves the competition. These are (1) the “mini challenge”, (2) the “main
challenge” or “maxi challenge” and (3) the “lip sync for your life”. The mini
challenge occupies about 3 minutes of the episode’s runtime but sometimes it
extends for a couple of minutes more. Some mini challenges are repeated
season after season while others have happened only one time. These
challenges usually give the winning queen(s) an advantage for the main
challenge. Examples of mini challenges are a photo-shoot (recurring), guessing
the price of items used to do drag (one time), a wet T-shirt contest (one time),
etc. Examples of advantages the queens earn after the mini-challenge are the
1
right to choose their team for a group challenge, the chance to pair up every
queen with something or someone related to the main challenge, and so on.
The main challenge, according to the judges’ comments every season, is
the most important factor in determining whether a queen stays in or leaves the
competition. As with the mini challenges, some of the main challenges are
recurrent throughout seasons while others have had unique appearances.
Some of the unique challenges have been to re-enact scenes from John Waters’
films, to perform in a musical, and even to act for the trailer of an imaginary film
called From Earth to Uranus. Other challenges are not only present in most
seasons of Drag Race, but they are loved and awaited by the fans year after
year. “Snatch Game”, a parody of the game show “Match Game”, requires the
queens to do celebrity female impersonation. This is probably the most popular
of all challenges. Other examples are The Ball (which has a different topic each
year: Sugar, Glitter, Bitch, etc.) and the transformation/makeover (in which
queens have to dress another person in drag).
After the winner of the week’s challenge is determined, the two
contestants whose performances are deemed the worst of the week have to
participate in a final challenge called “lip sync for your life”. This means that the
queens have to lip sync to a song in front of the judges and convince them to let
them stay. Usually one queen “sashays away” (leaves) while the other is given
another chance marked by RuPaul’s phrase, “shante, you stay”. However, there
have been occasions when both or neither of the queens have left the
competition.
2
RuPaul’s Drag Race has had a companion show since its second season.
This show is called Untucked and it shows the interactions between queens
backstage while they wait for RuPaul and the other judges to make a decision
about the week’s challenge. Untucked has aired on TV after Drag Race’s
episode every Monday—with the exception of season seven, when it became a
YouTube web series, uploaded every Tuesday. Untucked does not have a
direct (or spoken) influence in the competition, but it reveals more of the
narratives the show creates during Drag Race. In addition to that, a spin-off
called RuPaul’s Drag U premiered in 2010 and ran for three seasons until 2012.
In every episode three queens from past seasons are selected to do drag
makeovers to three women. Every episode results with a one-off couple of
winners (a queen and her pair).
The format of the show borrows known conventions from other reality
competition shows such as America’s Next Top Model, Project Runway and
many others (Edgar, 2011, p.137; Marcel, 2014, p.16).
Research questions
The study of drag in academia has had a range of focuses, from specific
objects of study such as certain drag queens at ballrooms and TV shows like
Drag Race, to more general debates about drag itself. Some authors look into
previous discussions and understandings of drag itself before moving on the
programme itself.
The publication of The Makeup of RuPaul’s Drag Race: Essays on the
Queen of Reality Shows (2014) brought nine new articles to the body of work
3
about this reality show which had only been the subject of four academic pieces
by the end of 2013. Some of these essays inscribed themselves into existing
debates introduced by other authors (Anthony, 2014; Kohlsdorf, 2014; Marcel,
2014; Mayora, 2014; Morrison, 2014; Simmons, 2014), while others introduced
new angles and subject matters dealing with Drag Race (Chernoff, 2014; Fine
and Shreve, 2014; Norris, 2014; Pagoni Berns, 2014). While many of these
authors do not directly reference earlier articles about the programme, it is
possible to track some general debates about topics such as gender, race, and
sexuality. It will be my task to find, acknowledge, and react to the arguments
they develop when they intersect with my own appreciation and ideas about the
show.
Taking into consideration the literature that I have begun to engage with
and my appreciation of RuPaul’s Drag Race as a rich site for academic
discussion, this text will focus primarily on ideas of queer politics and gay
politics on the show. More specifically, I will address the following research
questions: (1) How does the policing of queens towards an establishment of
desired drag practices by RuPaul’s Drag Race define, complicate, ease—or
simply negotiate—the tension between queer politics and gay politics? (2) If the
show were to be located closer to “gayness”, or gay politics, is it still possible to
find queer possibilities in such text as well? I will use the term queer politics as
understood by Greer (2012) as one of the functions of queerness. “Queerness
may be characterised as anti-assimilationist, in opposition to the mainstream
project of lesbian and gay politics” (p.3) That is to say, queer politics as a mean
of disruption of normativity and the refusal to become adjusted as a part of the
4
norm. Gay politics can then be defined as a project that seeks inclusion for the
subjects in question. For example, a specific project of the interest of gay
politics is the worldwide legalisation of same-sex marriage. This distinction
between gay and queer politics is a fundamentally strategic one. I do not intend
to argue that there is a strong and unmistakable line between the two; there are
in fact overlaps between them. However, this distinction allows this thesis to
debate with and identify assimilationist (gay) goals in contrast to disruptive
(queer) ones. In addition to that, such divergence harmonises with the equally
problematic tension between commercial drag vs. political drag which I will
address in the following chapters.
In order to answer these questions, I have identified several ways in
which the show can be read as a contested space for its version(s) of drag, its
meaning, and the value given to it. In this thesis I will focus on two of them. The
first is the tension between masculinity and femininity of drag, and the second is
the role of sleaziness and cleanliness of drag. In turn I will explain both in detail
alongside examples and discussion.
Methodology
With a view to discussing the research questions proposed above, I will
have recourse to textual analysis of the scenes, the challenges, and the
queen’s performances selected in association with a permanent and critical
dialogue with the pertinent academic literature introduced earlier. ‘Textual
analysis’, as explained by Alan McKee is an interpretation of texts “in order to
try to obtain a sense of the ways in which, in particular cultures at particular
5
times, people make sense of the world around them” (2003, p.1). In this
particular case, the objective is to approach the way in which RuPaul’s Drag
Race and its queens—as represented by the show—make sense of the world
around them. In addition to that, I will consider the show as a site of active
meaning production, and not solely as an interpretation. Another component of
the version of textual analysis I privilege is its noncompliance with “measuring
media texts to see how accurate they are” (p.17). In other words, my study and
projected conclusions will not attempt to argue whether, for example, the
representations of Asian-American drag queens in the show are “accurate” in
comparison to their “real-life” ballroom drag counterparts. Instead, “the
methodology I’m describing seeks to understand the ways in which these forms
of representation take place, the assumptions behind them and the sensemaking about the world that they reveal” (p.17). My goal is to look past
discourses of “truth” about media representations in order to move on to a
critical acknowledgement of powerful representations that allow us to engage
with current discussions related to gender, race, sexuality, age, ethnicity, etc.
Considerations
To avoid confusion and to ensure consistency, in this text I will always
refer to the queens with the pronouns “she” and “her” regardless of whether
they are in drag or not. Throughout the show, these pronouns are more widely
used than “he”, “his” and “him” and its use does not follow a discernible pattern.
6
Chapter 1. Conceptualising drag: Literature review
I. Introduction to drag
Judith Butler’s central argument about her understanding of drag, as part
of her discussions on gender, developed in her book Gender Trouble: Feminism
and the Subversion of Identity in 1990. Butler references Esther Newton’s
Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America, which was the first book
dedicated to the study of drag. According to Esther Newton, drag unveils “one
of the key fabricating mechanisms through which the social construction of
gender takes place” (Butler, 1999, p.174). That is to say, Newton hints that
drag exposes the artificiality of gender expression and its social expectation for
some bodies to conform to and act in particular ways. However, Butler takes
this possibility further by arguing, “drag fully subverts the distinction between
inner and outer psychic space and effectively mocks both the expressive model
of gender and the notion of a true gender identity” (p.174). In other words, the
artificiality drag exposes is not only about an “outer” expressive space, which is
a body in drag, but also about the artificiality of a naturalized “inner” space,
which would be the performer’s “true” gender—out of drag. For Butler, then,
gender, and not only its expression, is itself artificial from the beginning.
The subject of drag and/or the subject of who does drag are also central
to the discussions encouraged in Gender Trouble. While Newton and other
authors referenced afterwards in this thesis would simplify drag queens’
identities as men who dress up as women (Newton, 1997 p.3), Butler
problematises the knowledge about this subject away from regularizing
7
assumptions. She argues that a drag performer is not merely a person from one
gender who plays an “opposite”-gendered self, but rather an unfinished product
of “three contingent dimensions of significant corporeality: anatomical sex,
gender identity, and gender performance” (1999, p.175). She further adds that
multiple tensions between sex, gender identity and gender performance arise,
in addition to the one-way street relation between sex and gender performance
that most authors identify (p.175). For example, Jinkx Monsoon (winner of
RuPaul’s Drag Race season 5; Jerick Hoffer out of drag), while presumably
being anatomically male, states that he identifies as “transgendered or
nongendered” (Ford, 2014), and performs as Jinkx who might or might not be
read as feminine—or beyond. Jinkx displays different kinds of potential as to the
dimensions he identifies with and poses as. To argue that Jerick is a male who
dresses like woman would wholly disregard the convoluted dissonances, as
Butler calls them, between this performer’s dimensions. This fluidity and
confusion is as an example that “reveals the distinctness of those aspects of
gendered experience which are falsely naturalized as a unity through the
regulatory fiction of heterosexual coherence” (Butler, 1999, p.175). Jinkx’s body
and expressions are not coherent to the expectations of heterosexuality
because she does not follow a pattern of male-masculine or female-feminine. In
addition to that, a simplified explanation of this queen’s existence (a man who
performs as a woman) would overlook her complexity.
In regards to the performance of drag, Butler moves on to explain that
drag generally parodies “the notion of an original or primary gender” (p.174).
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Butler is suggesting that the body out of drag is no more “authentic” than the
purportedly fake performance in drag.
Butler’s discussions about drag, and drag as a parody, led her to develop
her ideas in her subsequent book Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits
of Sex. Notwithstanding its status as parody, Butler warns that drag does not
equate with subversion “and that drag may well be used in the service of both
the denaturalization and reidealization of hyperbolic heterosexual gender norms”
(1993, p.125). Butler therefore complicates the analysis of drag by pointing out
its normative potential. What starts as a re-imagination of one’s gender
dangerously shifts into a new way of reproducing the privileged status of
heteronormativity. Despite this setback, Butler envisions moments when this
practice could truly be subversive: “drag is subversive to the extent that it
reflects on the imitative structure by which hegemonic gender is itself produced
and disputes heterosexuality’s claim of naturalness and originality” (1993,
p.125). Namely, drag brings to light how all gender is itself a reproduction of a
manufactured reality and never represents a “true” expression.
In Gender Trouble, Butler argues,
Parody by itself is not subversive, and there must be a way to
understand what makes certain kinds of parodic repetitions
effectively disruptive, truly troubling, and which repetitions become
domesticated and recirculated as instruments of cultural hegemony.
(1999, pp.176-7)
Here Butler is suggesting that parody (as enacted by drag) holds contradictory,
and sometimes unpredictable, promises that either unsettle or reaffirm sexual
hegemony—or both at the same time. The author does not offer a method to
identify which drag practices/identities do what. However, she exemplifies this
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unrest by citing the film Paris is Burning as a product that reflects the tension
between “appropriation and subversion” (Butler, 1993, p.128).
José Esteban Muñoz proposes a response for Butler’s “way to
understand” when parody (drag in this case) is subversive and when it is not,
while developing his concept of “disidentification” (1999). Although Muñoz’s
theory on disidentification is the centre of his text, at the moment I will focus my
attention only on the two kinds of drag the author identifies. The first type of
drag, Muñoz argues, is the “commercial”, or “corporate-sponsored” drag, which
“presents a sanitized and desexualized queer subject for mass consumption.
Such drag represents a certain strand of integrationist liberal pluralism” (1999,
p.99). That is, the queerness of the subject is moderated and conquered in
order to be turned into a palatable product for a public that otherwise would not
accept it. The potential for drag’s disruptive activity to agitate normativity is
supressed for the sake of being accepted and included. This can indeed be
related to Butler’s concern about domesticated parodies. The second mode of
drag, Muñoz recognizes as a “queerer”, and even “terroristic”, political type of
drag that “creat[es] an uneasiness in desire, which works to confound and
subvert the social fabric” (p.100). This drag does not strive for hegemonic
approval, but rather to question the foundations of that order.
In-depth engagement with the distinct types of drag Muñoz proposes,
along with a discussion with his theory of disidentification, will be useful for this
text when concentrating on my assessment of RuPaul’s Drag Race as a
predominantly sanitized drag space.
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II. “Courtney looks like a girl. Very pretty but that doesn't impress me.
It’s not drag!”
In the sixth episode of Drag Race season five, after the queens’
performances at the anticipated Snatch Game, the remaining nine contestants
return to the workroom in order to adjust their makeup and garments for the
next runway presentation. Before this process starts, the queens converse
about their impressions of the popular Snatch Game. Alyssa Edwards, who had
been chosen as the winner of the previous challenge, won immunity and was
therefore safe from elimination for this episode. Jade Jolie considers Alyssa’s
impersonation of Katy Perry unsatisfactory and for that reason decides to
confront her about the luxury of immunity in the face of defeat. Alyssa replies by
assuring the group that she “[does] not do characters”. Jinkx Monsoon steps
into the conversation to remind Alyssa about the inevitability of RuPaul’s Snatch
Game every season. This, however, serves as a catalyst for Alyssa, and later
Coco Montrese, to criticize Jinkx’s runway outfits. Coco argues, “She’s all
comedy and no glamour”. A while later, Jinkx decides to express her anguish to
Alaska. “I have dealt with this my entire drag career, you know? It’s getting
frustrating to have to defend a style of drag that’s completely valid.” Then, she
adds that she was not taken seriously when she started to do drag. “I don’t want
to have to keep explaining myself.” Jinkx’s discontent originates in the
accusations made by some queens who argue that some versions of drag are
not legitimate.
Coco’s allegation is not unique within RuPaul’s Drag Race and certainly
not in “the real world”, just as Jinkx suggests. Examples of similar accusations
11
abound in the series. Some of these contestants who have condemned others’
drag were Alexis Mateo about Raja (season three), Phi Phi O’Hara about
Sharon Needles (season four), Gia Gunn about Milk (season six), and Kennedy
Davenport about Pearl and Miss Fame (season seven). Although all these
accusations differ from each other, the tension about the meaning and
boundaries of drag is a constant of the series. These confrontations display a
certain anxiety about the goals and ideals of drag. Which practices are
perceived as acceptable and which are not? This anxiety also extends to the
judges and, more generally, to the TV programme itself. The core of RuPaul’s
Drag Race appears to lie in the definition of drag. What does drag mean? In
addition to that, more questions can be asked: What does drag do? Who can do
drag? Is there “good” and “bad” drag? What are its limits and limitations? What
are its intentions? Is it unavoidably linked to political proposals? Can drag be
divided into categories/types?
As I have said above, the academic study of drag goes back to Esther
Newton’s book in 1972. The first element of her definition characterises drag
and “female impersonation” as identical practices (Newton, 1972). Although it
may seem an adequate equation, female impersonation is only one possibility
of drag and, therefore, drag cannot be reduced to “impersonation”. This is not
only evidenced by literature I will reference later in this section, but also by drag
queens themselves. During the first episode of the series, Drag Race season
one’s runner-up, Nina Flowers, states that she strives for an androgynous
persona rather than for “femininity”. Second, Newton classifies drag queens as
“professional homosexuals” (1979, p.3) despite admitting to having encountered
12
a heterosexual drag queen during her investigation (1979, p.7). By failing to
consider performers who identify as non-gay and/or not as males, Newton
simplifies and homogenizes the complexities of drag. However, Newton was a
pioneer in the field of drag studies, but she also provided a set of stereotypes
and generalizations which still shackle some academics’ understanding of drag.
Some authors, such as Hopkins (2004, p. 137), contribute with an
essentially indistinguishable definition from Newton’s since he also uses the
terms “drag” and “female impersonation” interchangeably. Other authors do not
replace one term with the other, but nonetheless insist that drag is about
performing “as women” (Mann, 2011, p.794). Moreover, there are authors who
define drag as an activity exclusive to gay men who perform as women (Taylor
and Rupp, 2004; Berkowitz et al., 2007) although some argue that not all drag
queens are female impersonators (Rupp et al., 2010).
In spite of the fact that these authors begin their theoretical frameworks
by committing to a definition of drag that serves as foundation for their research,
most of them do not problematise those definitions. Of the aforementioned
authors, only Taylor and Rupp briefly propose drag as a “third gender” (2004,
p.130), but they do not develop this idea or its implications. On the other hand,
a few authors, such as Ramey Moore (2013), reflect upon the meaning of drag
before discussing their specific object of study. Moore argues, “A number of
scholars of drag, transvestism, and cross-dressing seem to take the nature of
drag as a cultural given, and elide specific definitions of what it means to be 'in
drag'” (2013, p.18). Those scholars explicitly mentioned are Charlotte Suthrell
(2004), Esther Newton (1979), and Claudine Griggs (1998). For Moore it is not
13
sufficient to work with a superficial explanation of drag. Moore urges that drag is
not reduced to a formula of “man” dressing up “as woman” and performing.
After a discussion that includes ideas from Judith Butler, he suggests that drag
might be “a performative act which attempts to re-inscribe new, altered,
transgressive, or, most importantly, parodic gender identities within the context
of performance” (2013, p.19). I suggest that Moore’s proposed definition is not
solely relevant because it considers the “progressive” or queer possibilities of
drag, but also because the author does not join scholars who make
assumptions about the bodies, experiences, and goals that (re)shape drag.
Even though Moore attests for the constant mobility and complexity of drag, he
moves away from easier definitions that hold assumptions at their core by not
reinforcing the “(gay) men in “women’s clothing” blueprint.
III. Overview: The literature of RuPaul’s Drag Race
Considering how recent the programme is, the literature specific to
RuPaul’s Drag Race is wide ranging and accounts for numerous approaches,
methodologies, particular objects of study, and so on. As stated earlier, Moore
(2013) is the only author who, while writing about Drag Race, extensively
discusses the meaning of drag. The remaining authors either focus exclusively
on the show’s vision of drag without engaging with more general discussions, or
privilege other elements (such as gender, performance, etc.) rather than drag
itself.
A first group of authors discuss RuPaul’s show focusing on gender and
gender performance (Edgar, 2011; Moore 2013; Marcel, 2014). Some research
14
has also been carried out about race and ethnicity (Strings and Bui, 2013;
Anthony, 2014; Mayora, 2014; Morrison, 2014); about the relationships of
women (including trans women) to the show and their position within it
(Chernoff, 2014; Norris, 2014); drag in a ‘post’ race, feminism era (Kohlsdorf,
2014); pedagogy (Fine and Shreve, 2014); drag language and speech codes
(Simmons, 2014); and an examination of the judging and its supposed
arbitrariness (Pagnoni Berns, 2014). Due to space limitations I will primarily
engage only with some of these authors’ articles.
The gender of drag or the drag of gender
While Eir-Anne Edgar (2011) concurs with Butler about drag’s uneven
promise of gender disruption, she suggests, “Drag Race arguably produces a
more normalizing view of drag performance” (p.136). Edgar explains this
normalising view by exemplifying the way queens from the first season are
policed and rewarded by the judges. For instance, Edgar makes a parallel
between Nina Flowers, whom I have previously mentioned, and Rebecca
Glasscock. The author argues how Nina, due to her androgynous look, has a
harder time pleasing the judges in regards to her enactment of “femininity” while
Rebecca’s performance and appearance conform to the judges’ expectations
better (Edgar, 2011, p.137). Despite this, Edgar asserts that drag queens,
including those featured in Drag Race, are occasionally able to undermine not
only drag’s simplified formula of “man in women’s clothes”, but their own gender
definition and experience by being “a layered construction of genders” (2011,
p.141). Later, she adds, “The individual is neither this nor that, but both; this
15
layering collapses the constructedness of the gender binary into a wonderfully
queer and messy reality” (2011, p.141). That is to say, drag and its blurring of
genders have the potential to agitate normativity and its constraints. While
Edgar’s assessment is well founded, it focuses only on the first season of the
show. RuPaul’s Drag Race has evolved in certain ways as well as reaffirming
some of its foundations year after year. This will be part of my focus later in this
text.
Moore (2013) extends his “new” definition of drag into the evaluation of
Drag Race. He concentrates on the “radical agency” that, according to him,
Butler argues is sometimes found in the practice of drag. The author explains
this by mentioning how the contestants of the show are able to create their own
masculinities, femininities and any gender expression through their bodies
(Moore, 2013, p.24). Although Moore is more critical of the narrow definitions of
gender and drag, he does not consider the potentially normalising effects of
RuPaul’s Drag Race that Edgar suggested in her earlier article. Moore selects
the fifth episode of the second season, ‘Here Comes the Bride’, to sustain his
thesis. In this episode the contestants are asked to perform as both characters
in a photo-shoot of a newly married couple. This means they should get in drag
not only as the brides, as they usually would, but also as the grooms. Moore’s
point revolves around the idea that for the queens, performing as grooms
(which would be their normative obligation) is just as challenging as performing
as brides (2013, p.23). In addition to that, the author stresses that the
masculine identity chosen by the contestants is not “themselves” (Moore, 2013,
23). While Moore’s thesis is provocative, the textual evidence provided is not
16
sufficient, and it is uncertain if the way the challenge is set opens up
possibilities for other moments of the show or if it is solely a glimpse of
queerness in an ocean of normativity. In other words, the author does not
examine, or imagine, the possible implications—if any—of this challenge to the
series in general.
Marcel (2014) attributes RuPaul’s Drag Race’s limitations to the
“formulaic nature” of its genre, reality TV, which moderates the representations
of drag queens by simplifying their identities and stories (p.26). However, the
author celebrates the programme overall for featuring “positive” representations
of drag queens in the televisual space that used to completely neglect them
(p.26). Again, similarly to Moore (2013), there is no examination about the
effects of those representations.
Discoloured and hyper-coloured identities: race and drag
Strings and Bui (2013) also recognize the obstacles that some
contestants have to face due to their assumed racial and ethnic identities. The
authors choose the third season of the show to argue that contestants are
allowed and encouraged to question gender rules but at the same time, are
expected to remain faithful to their racial “truths” (2014, p. 823). The authors
use examples of performances made by Alexis Mateo, Yara Sofia (Puerto
Rican queens), Shangela (black queen) and others, who were rewarded with
challenge victories only when they conformed to the ethnic and racial
stereotypes that the judges hoped to see. Although much of the evidence
provided to support this thesis is convincing, Strings and Bui do not concede
17
any exceptions – found in the show – to the arguments the authors offer. While
RuPaul’s Drag Race’s “racial commodification” (2013, p.824) can be alleged,
not every decision made by RuPaul, the other judges or the production can be
fairly attributed to the same cause. For example, suggesting “Alexis Mateo
makes it further in the competition (…) arguably because of her effective ability
to appropriate the markers of femininity without attempting to transgress her
racial/ethnic identity” (p.827) is a supposition that discounts other explanations.
This racial commodification, while probable, is only one criterion among many
others to judge and eliminate queens from the competition (for example, the
runway fashion, the quality of the performance, etc.)
For Mayora (2014) there is a tension between the normative restrictions
RuPaul’s Drag Race sets in terms of apparent racial identity and the
possibilities it paradoxically enables: “the popularity of the show both
complicates
and
cements
the
notion
of
homonormativity
and
gay
cosmopolitanism” (pp.106-7). Mayora develops the idea of this two-way street
by focusing on the queens “who had a difficult time covering either because of
their accent, their skin color, or other features that marked them as Latinas”
(pp.110-1). In other words, the Latina queens had to endure an extra challenge
during the competition because they were asked, explicitly or not, to become a
conventional product which could be easily sold to a mainstream audience.
Mayora’s reflection on the reality show is in line with Strings and Bui’s
arguments in the sense that the visible “others” in the competition are
understood to face struggles that the white queens do not. However, Strings
and Bui argue about the dangerous racial constructions of the show, while only
18
Mayora considers the potentiality to “disidentify” within that alleged repressive
context.
The “real” fish: women and drag
According to Norris (2014), RuPaul’s Drag Race makes a clear division
about two types of “fishy” 1 contestants: “those who look like dazzlingly
impersonations of women, and those who could essentially pass as cis*women”
(p.33). Later she adds that the former, aided by the show, are at the top of the
hierarchy while the latter are dismissed. For Norris, these distinctions and the
values granted to one or other of the queens affect both trans and cis women
by reinforcing “established standards of beauty” (2011, p.34). However, despite
its shortcomings, Norris suggest that the show “has begun the transition from a
purveyor of homonormative misogyny and trans*phobia into a safer and more
accepting space for LGBTQ identity expression” (p.44) The author arrives at
this conclusion by developing a timeline from season two to five, focusing on
one queen at the time, and by evaluating the representation, or “edit”, they
receive from the producers (Norris, 2011, p. 35).
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Chernoff (2014) recognizes the
negative possibilities the show boosts from time to time, but argues that
RuPaul’s Drag Race is potentially “queering the body (…) for cis women”
(p.149). In order to provide evidence for this, the author takes a close look at
the makeover challenge from the first season. The queens of season one are
1
According to RuPaul, the term “meant that you were so real that your between-medown-there would smell like something that would swim around in the ocean” (Brumfitt,
2013). She also adds that it is now used as a compliment among drag queens and it is
associated with “passing”.
19
asked to makeover a female fighter into their “girly” drag version. The
conclusion the author arrives is that, during the makeover challenge,
“masculinity and femininity are divorced from male and female bodies, but
norms about appropriate gender (or appropriate gender-bending, or gender
inversion) still guide the competition” (p.154). In other words, RuPaul’s Drag
Race manages to step out of its own normative constraints for a period of time
by complicating the creation and readings of different bodies and expressions,
but then the show returns immediately to its regularizing practices. For example,
one of the queens, BeBe, is recognized by RuPaul as a more “authentic”
performer of femininity than Michelle (BeBe’s makeover partner) even if BeBe
identifies as male and Michelle as a female (p.155). But then, Ongina is
condemned for the excessive “masculinity” of her look—expressed by her
decision to not wear a wig, not tuck (conceal her male genitals), and wear a
pantsuit; all signs considered not feminine (p.157). Chernoff’s thesis will be
particularly significant when analysing episodes from different seasons in which
RuPaul and the show seem to “break” their own rules for a brief period of time.
In addition to that, I will examine the implications of these small yet valuable
fissures.
Homogenised identities: The “post” generation
By linking information about RuPaul compiled from her autobiography
and interviews she has given in the past, Kohlsdorf (2014) attempts to locate
Drag Race as a landmark piece of the alleged “post” feminist and race era
20
(p.68). The author argues that RuPaul’s incursion into (reality) television
compromises the revolutionary possibilities drag can have:
In order to maintain wide viewership and marketability, the identities
of the contestants are packaged as exotic and policed into dominant
understandings of drag queens when they disrupt or challenge binary
expectations of race and gender, which has a clear connection to
RuPaul’s sanitized and safe fame (2014, p.69).
That is to say, Kohlsdorf argues that drag queens’ identities, by entering
television, are stripped of their imaginable disavowal of fixed race and gender
“certainties”. Apparently, then, contestants need to conform to the precise
parameters of acceptable drag, like RuPaul herself. Kohlsdorf gives examples
across the first five seasons of the show in order to argue that the production of
Drag Race, with RuPaul in the lead, reminds both the queens and the audience
about what identities, practices, expressions of drag are adequate and which
are not. The author maintains that some queens were dismissed from the
competition for displaying undesirable characteristics in the eyes of the judges.
For instance, Victoria Parker for her “fat positivity” (p.76), Ongina for her “boy as
a girl” drag (p.79), and even Monica Beverly Hillz for coming out as a
transgender woman (p.83). Even though Kohlsdorf provides solid arguments to
sustain his thesis, he disregards the possibilities of exceptions to the rigid, and
often normative, restrictions set by RuPaul’s Drag Race on the contestants. For
example, the author mentions the controversial season four winner Sharon
Needles, who could be understood as a queen who tried to break some of
those barriers in the show (p.82), but he rationalises her victory by linking it to
an off-show performance that might not be relevant to RuPaul’s decision
whatsoever. Also, Kohlsdorf proposes a clear-cut distinction between ‘bar and
21
ballroom drag’ and ‘TV drag’ (p.83). However, he does not offer a thorough
evaluation as to how and why ballroom drag is more “authentic” than TV drag,
nor consider the differences between and within the audiences of the two
representations of drag. Later in this text I will engage with Kohlsdorf’s article
closely to discuss the queer possibilities that are, at the same time, enabled and
disabled by the show.
22
Chapter 2. Femininity vs. Masculinity
The introductory section of this thesis identified a prevalent academic
view of drag as a (temporary) transformation of a male body to a female one
through performance. Similarly, as Kohlsdorf (2014) mentions, there is an
obsession with such transformation in RuPaul’s Drag Race. There is, therefore,
an initial, and perhaps unavoidable, tension between what is constructed,
perceived and policed as either male or female (and in addition to that, as
masculine or feminine). In this first textual analysis section I will refer to
moments when there is a tension between masculinities and femininities, which
arise due to choices made by the production. Such choices open up a
discussion about the boundaries between these binary categories because
there is a certain crossover between masculinity and femininity. In other words,
in each of the cases cited in this section there are specific elements in the
queens’ performances that do not quite fit the expectations of a transformation
from fixed understandings of masculinity to those of a fixed femininity.
The moments when the contestants have been required to perform
anything other than “pure” femininity in the eight seasons produced so far
(including seven regular seasons and one season of All Stars) have been
scarce: four in total. Once in season two, once in the All Stars season (as a mini
challenge) and twice in season seven. The episodes in question are “Here
Comes the Bride” (season two, episode five), “Queens Behaving Badly” (All
Stars season one, episode three), “Shakesqueer” (season seven, episode
three), and “Prancing Queens” (season seven, episode ten). The first two
23
examples are episodes that require the queens to perform masculinity in order
to win a challenge. The main challenge of “Here Comes the Bride”, as
mentioned in the introduction, is a photo-shoot of the “wedding” of each queen’s
male and female side, while “Queens Behaving Badly” features a minichallenge in which queens needed to take a “selfie” of them “serving butchmale realness”. The queens are asked to wear a beard for their runway look in
“Shakesqueer” (a portmanteau of Shakespeare and RuPaul), and to dance to
music mash-ups while being in “half man half queen drag”. While the other two
episodes deal with masculinity and femininity separately, both “Shakesqueer”
and “Prancing Queens” call attention to a performance that pretends to mix
what is considered masculine and feminine in a single body. Although the
former pair of episodes could be highly relevant to my thesis, I will only focus on
the latter pair due to space constraints. In addition to that, the exposed play
between femininities and masculinities, and the place of beards in drag will
allow me to connect to later sections of this thesis in order to create a concise
central argument that directly engages with my research questions.
I.
Bearded femininities
Facial hair has been almost completely absent from Drag Race despite
the fact that there are a number of fairly popular drag performers around the
world who wear a beard. To date there has been only one queen who has
decided to wear a beard on the runway: Milk in season six. Milk makes this
decision on her first day of competition as an addition to the “Toga party” look
she created for the runway. She receives mixed comments about her decision
24
to wear a beard. The positive comments view her choice as brave. Santino, on
the contrary, associates the beard with a purported lack of femininity. For the
judge, therefore, having a beard somehow cancels out femininity regardless of
other characteristics that may fit into this category (the dress, for instance). It
appears that the sum of “feminine” elements is not enough if there is an
allegedly alien element in the formula. Milk’s drag is accepted as legitimate but
not so much as feminine, and therefore, insufficient for success.
A season later, the “bearded and beautiful” runway theme was
introduced for the third episode of the series after the “Shakesqueer” challenge.
The theme does not include directions about the dress to be worn; the only
requisite is to wear a beard. Some of the contestants receive favourable
commentary about the incorporation of the beard to their looks, while others are
subjected to disapproving critiques from the judges. For instance, Michelle
Visage congratulates Kandy Ho, who had issues with her makeup in the first
episode when the judges perceived her contouring as resembling a beard, for
applying makeup in a way the judges found acceptable.
Image 1. On the left, Kandy Ho’s beard runway look celebrated by the judges vs. her
first runway look on the right. The darker contouring, Michelle argues, appears as if she
“contoured on a beard”.
25
Michelle suggests that Kandy’s success in fixing her beard-like contouring for
the beard episode is an irony. Likewise RuPaul makes fun of Kandy for “fixing”
her contouring for this challenge in particular. In summary, Michelle’s comments
and RuPaul’s laughter are an unsettling happening. Their expectations of and
reactions to the presence or lack of a beard naturalize feminine bodies and
expressions. This is made evident by realising that, for the judges, a beardless
femininity is indisputably a “real” femininity. Kandy’s failure to comply with the
standards of femininity reproduced by the show is turned into an object of
ridicule when that (queer?) element is temporarily legitimized and encouraged
by a challenge. Michelle underscores her attention on Kandy’s contouring even
during the beard runway category. Her “Fu Manchu” type of beard, especially
tailored for the runway, is applauded while “bad” contouring would be spurned.
Thus, Kandy’s beard can be seen as an allegory for the usual treatment of
queerness on RuPaul’s Drag Race because such transgressions are only
acceptable insofar as they remain within the stipulated limits. In other words,
Kandy’s beard represents the caged limits of queerness that are otherwise
rejected if they spread to the rest of her body.
“May the best bearded woman win”: a hierarchy of the beard
Another queen whose beard was at the heart of the judges’ critique was
Kennedy Davenport. Main judge Carson Kressley argues, “It just looks like she
had some old pubes laying around and she glued them and that was it”.
Although beards are chosen to be the centre of the challenge, it is not safe to
assume that they are going to remain unregulated. Not every beard will be
26
considered desirable by the panel. In the beginning, as seen with Milk in the
previous season, beards are not considered suitable until that possibility is
opened. However, that disruptive (and potentially queer) element is monitored
and controlled. Chernoff (2014) previously argued that in season one, Drag
Race’s play with femininity and masculinity does not escape “norms of
appropriate gender” (p.154). In this case, the beard constitutes that playful
element between masculinity and femininity, but its presence does not assure a
total disregard of normativity.
Carson compares Kennedy’s beard to pubic hair in order to express his
discontent about it. Contrastingly, the judges acclaim Violet’s beard as she
“look[s] very elegant and pretty. And that’s hard to do with a full beard”, Kat
Dennings assures. The comments made by the judges reveal an anxiety about
introducing an alien, “masculine” element into femininity and the purported
arduousness of mixing the “feminine” with the “masculine”. Adjectives such as
“elegant” and “pretty” do not seem to be widely used for a beard and for that
reason Dennings finds it difficult, and perhaps ground-breaking, to equate facial
hair with elegance. The audience does not receive a detailed explanation of
why Violet’s beard is complimented while Kennedy’s receives a negative
assessment.
27
Image 2. On the left Violet Chachki wearing one of the judges’ preferred beard after the
“Shakesqueer” challenge vs. Kennedy Davenport’s “pube” beard for the same runway.
Conceivably, we could imagine that Violet’s is preferred because it is
groomed and even, while Kennedy’s is patchy. However, what interests me the
most is the language used to express approval and disapproval about the
contestants’ facial hair. What makes the judges maintain that a boundary set
between femininity and masculinity was transiently overcome or not? Linked to
the idea that some expressions are not feminine enough (Milk’s toga party look,
for instance), a beard is only accepted and celebrated when the judges
consider that it is passing as a “feminine” beard. It is no accident that Dennings
uses both adjectives “pretty” and “elegant”, which are used throughout the show
to mark successful performances, because these are considered to bridge the
boundaries that the “alien” element – the beard – embedded in these bodies in
drag. Contrarily, the use of the phrase “pubic hair” to refer to a beard marks
Kennedy’s attempt as deviant and asserts its non-belonging nature. A sanitized
and desirable beard for the judges would not be likened to pubic hair.
In addition to that, it is imperative to reveal the possible connections
desirable and undesirable beards have with race. Strings and Bui (2014)
pointed out the explicit racist demands and consequences, translating into
28
positive and negative judging, the non-white contestants usually suffered in the
third season. For example, Shangela was rewarded for playing an over-the-top
stereotypical black woman during a stand-up comedy challenge (p.825).
However, I argue that there are more implicit race issues in the show (that may
or may not fall on non-white contestants). For example, during her runway
voiceover, Violet explains that her look is “1956 Dior haute couture”. As argued
by Richard Dyer (1997), throughout history whiteness has been predicated as
an ideal and it has been associated with beauty in contrast to non-white people
(p.70). With this I do not mean to argue that the judges celebrate Violet
because she is white while Kennedy is criticized because she is black. The
point is that the high-class, groomed chicness of Violet’s Dior, as a clear symbol
of whiteness, is what is identified as beautiful whereas Kennedy’s unruly “pubes”
and lack of “nobility” credentials are not. Kennedy’s beard is criticized,
supported by implicit racist and classist discourses, the suggestion being that
the performance of femininity is incompatible with the wearing of a beard.
Additionally, I can argue that there is an element of sex – symbolised by pubic
hair –that Carson cannot welcome as acceptable. This element, overtly
displayed on Kennedy’s face, clashes with the demure and stainless qualities of
white femininity that the show prefers.
II. Beyond masculinity and femininity
While “Shakesqueer” introduces a “masculine” element to a supposed
unity of femininity created by drag, “Prancing Queens” challenges the queens to
be feminine and masculine at the same time—quite literally since their
29
costumes and makeup divides their bodies vertically with equal “masculine” and
“feminine” sides. The remaining six competitors are grouped into three pairs,
and each couple is assigned a mash-up dance routine. The couples are Pearl
and Kennedy (“Charleston Twerk”), Trixie and Ginger (“Country Robot”), and
finally Katya and Violet (“Tango Vogue”). Before the live dancing in front of the
judges, every queen walks down the runway with their half queen half man
looks, while their voiceover explanations play for the audience. The runway
walk is interesting for two reasons in particular.
Image 3. Katya wearing her Flamenco Vogue attire during the “Prancing
Queens” episode. Her “half man half queen drag” look divides her body into two
“opposite” genders.
First, all of the contestants walk and stand on the runway in such
positions that let the audience see one side, the other, or both at the same time.
Also, the performance of one side is distinctively different from the performance
of the other side. For example, Trixie, when walking from the right to the left,
reveals her “feminine” side and thus plays a cheerful and sweet Country
30
character to the judges. Then, when she reaches an end of the runway, turns
around to reveal her “masculine” side, which is a man who pulls out and
frantically shoots and imaginary gun.
Second, the voiceovers of some of the queens remind us not only about
the tensions between masculinity and femininity but also about the discussions
of the “nature” of gender that drag is capable of unmasking. For instance, Pearl
explains that for her “masculine side [she] painted on more beard than [she] is
capable of growing”. Similar to Moore’s (2013, p.23) discussion of the season
two episode, “Here Comes the Bride”, Pearl did not choose to be herself for her
“masculine” dancer half. The gender binary is greatly supported by biological
discourses that divide men and women into two categories for their purportedly
different physical, emotional, physiological characteristics from each other.
However, Pearl’s reality is that she cannot grow a beard regardless of her
official biological status of male. This reality, in Pearl’s eyes and probably for the
audience and the judges as well, prevents her from performing an “authentic”
masculinity that successfully contrasts with her feminine side. The voiceover
continues to add, “for my female side I’m going for a classic roaring twenties
look”. Here, Pearl is not explaining the mechanics crucial to enact femininity
even if her male body is normatively not able to hold femininity. In the previous
nine episodes of the season Pearl has “proved” to the audience and the judges
that she can paint, dress and perform femininity, and now it is her turn to “prove”
that she can perform masculinity—regardless of her “original” male body.
“Nature” is assumed to be the determiner of reality. But, in this example, a
31
normative discourse of gender seems to be more powerful than what we
consider “natural” – Pearl not being able to grow a beard.
In addition to that, Pearl’s half queen half man drag can be seen as a
form of disidentification, as explained by Muñoz (1999). “Disidentification resists
the interpellating call of ideology that fixes a subject within the state power
apparatus.” (p.97). Namely, Pearl and the other queens are performing a form
of femininity while at the same time refusing to identify firmly to a category. It is
a process of both identification and rejection (p.108). Muñoz later adds, “The
‘woman’ produced in drag is not a woman, but instead a public disidentification
with woman” (p.108). The queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race are able to unmask
the normative link between woman and femininity by themselves also being
producers of femininity. In addition to that, the performance of masculinity adds
another layer of disidentification—with masculinity. Pearl identifies (literally half
of her identity for the challenge) as a male, but at the same time disclaims this
identity by rejecting the “natural” relation between her biological male body with
masculinity. Butler argues, “gender parody reveals that the original identity after
which gender fashions itself is an imitation without an origin” (1999, p.175). In
other words, drag as a gender parody exposes the misunderstanding of gender
as “natural”. Drag is not imitating an original because there is not an original.
Pearl’s drag, by having to paint a beard to reach what is believed as masculine
and by somehow naturalizing her ability to perform femininity, parodies the
“myth of originality” (p.176).
32
Dissonant sway: dance and the limits of gender
In his article, Edgar (2011) identifies a tension between what is seen and
what is allegedly known of drag queens (namely, their “true” gender). The
author explains, “The tension comes from the queerness of the individual who is,
simultaneously, a layered construction of genders. The drag performer plays
with this tension and in those moments exposes and subverts conventional
gender expectations” (p.141). This tension, brought by a subject that performs
and lives multiple gendered realities, is further problematised by the gender
play of performing “man” and “woman” at the same time, and suggests space
for queer possibilities. Furthermore, the apparent indocility of the dance
stresses these possibilities even more. After the runway presentations, Michelle
Visage introduces pair by pair the dancing sequences. The first dance is the
“Charleston Twerk”. The dance starts with the two contestants facing each other,
one of them showing their male side (Pearl) and the other showing their female
side (Kennedy). After the first step, they swap positions and now we see female
Pearl and male Kennedy. During the first steps of the dance, they keep
“opposite” gendered sides. For example, during the Charleston parts, the male
figure always leads and supports the female figure. However, the twerk bits are
less gendered. This is evidenced through some of the steps, which are
individual; the dancers do not depend on each other.
Then, as the dance
progresses, the gendered line begins to blur intensely. The two identities blend
because the queens’ relative position to the camera (and the camera position)
varies greatly. It is always possible for the audience to see both sides of the
performers, but in the beginning of the dance, the shots usually frame the
33
dancers so as to focus only on one side of each. Later, during a twerk
movement, we can see both of their male sides doing a sexual wheel barrel
step. The dancing steps, therefore, create and play with different “kinds” of
couples (man-woman, woman-woman, man-man, etc.). This transgression is
made more overt due to the speed of the movements and the angles that the
camera offers. Their previously fixed gendered performances are questioned
and parodied.
Image 4. Kennedy Davenport (left) and Pearl (right) dancing the “Charleston Twerk”. In
this particular shot, we see both Kennedy’s masculine and feminine side while we only
see Pearl’s feminine side. The rapid movements and the camera position allow the
spectator to (re)imagine the perplexing dynamics of gender.
The second dance, “Country Robot” proves to be similar to the first one
in terms of gender distribution as framed by the camera. The dancers each
assume a male (Trixie) and a female (Ginger) identity in the beginning. Trixie
plays a drunkard male while Ginger plays a sweet woman disgusted by her
behaviour. The dancing incorporates both “masculine” and “feminine”
movements that are sometimes played indistinguishably by one of (or both)
34
their identities. Finally, Katya and Violet are in charge of “The Tango Vogue”
dance. While showing her female side, Violet is half sat down on a chaise
lounge with her “feminine” leg spread to one side. She is seductively looking at
Katya, who is showing her “masculine” side. Katya has a rose and she
approaches Violet to hand it to her while tango music plays in the background.
After doing some steps where they change their side back and forth, they start
dancing towards the camera and thus showing their male and female sides at
the same time, even more overtly than in the other two dances. The “illusion” is
explicitly broken and they are not either female or male, but both or something
else. Butler explains,
The moment in which one’s staid and usual cultural perceptions fail,
when one cannot surety read the body that one sees, is precisely the
moment when one is no longer sure whether the body encountered
is that of a man or a woman. The vacillation between the categories
itself constitutes the experience of the body in question. xxii-xxiii
This vacillation between categories is materialised by the dance we witness and
its product is as uncertain as the possibilities drag sometimes enables.
Although it is implied that viewers of RuPaul’s Drag Race “know” the gender of
the contestants, drag has a way of snatching gender norms and its
performances to reveal the unnaturalness of those norms. We may or may not
be coming across transgressive gender performances, but to a certain extent
we can always discover its artificiality.
In spite of the playfulness of the camera to create and convey gender
experiences that exceed normative understandings of identity, all three dance
routines end in such a way that the potential queering of the presentation
seems to vanish. The final step (clearly framed for the audience) of the
35
Charleston Twerk ends with (male) Pearl kneeling in front of (female) Kennedy
while she lays one of her foot on Pearl’s upper leg. Then, at the end of the
Country Robot, (female) Ginger manages to neutralize (male) Trixie by
smashing a beer bottle on her head. Finally, (male) Violet ends the dance by
dramatically pushing (female) Katya onto to the chaise as she (Violet) climbs on
it. Namely, the fruitful confusion of the mash-ups appears to dissolve. The
energetic chaos of their performances allows any viewer to envision and enjoy
limitless expressions of gender, only to be drawn at the end to safer notions of
identity and desire. RuPaul’s Drag Race enables the possibility of creating and
representing bodies that resist not only fixed identities but also gender legibility,
but it surrenders those possibilities by assuring the audience, at the end, that
one way or another each dancer performs a certain gendered experience we
can read and are familiar with. Similarly, gay politics’ interest is about fighting
for the inclusion and the granting of equal rights for the LGBT community
without shaking the foundations of the very structure that oppresses it. Queer
politics, again, in its “anti-assimilationist” quality (Greer, 2012, p.3), is suffocated
by the show’s insistence on returning to heteronormative reproductions of
identity.
36
Image 5. After finishing dancing the Country Robot, Ginger Minj (right) knocks down
Trixie Mattel (left) by “breaking” a bottle on Trixie’s head. Although this last dance
movement re-establishes normative female and male roles, this shot allows the
audience to see both sides of Ginger. Queerness may have smacked down, but some
of its pieces still remain.
37
Chapter 3. Sleaziness
Heteronormative gender rules, both within and outside drag, not only
prescribe categories to which subjects should be attached, but also set rules
and limits on those categories that divide bodies into desirable and nondesirable objects. RuPaul’s Drag Race is not the exception. Together with the
expectations of femininity required to award the contestants the title of
America’s Next Drag Superstar, the queens are required to perform and look
certain ways that are deemed “glamorous”, “beautiful”, or “fishy”, by the judges.
This section will be dedicated to a particular moment in which a “dirty”, sleazy
performance
became
the
norm
in
opposition
to
those
“glamorous”,
heteronormative assumptions that govern the programme. In this chapter I will
also evaluate the position of a queen who was crowned as the winner of her
season despite her uneasy relationship with femininity: Sharon Needles.
I. “Oh my God Almighty! Someone has sent me a bowel
movement!”2
The ninth episode of the seventh season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, “Divine
Inspiration”, makes an obeisance to drag icon Divine 3 . This homage was
extended to film director John Waters, who worked extensively with Divine.
2
Line from Pink Flamingos (1972).
Divine is one of the most notorious drag performers in the world. She starred in
multiple John Waters’ films starting with Roman Candles (1966) till 1988, the year of
her death, in Hairspray. Both Divine’s persona and appearance deviate from
“traditional” femininity. Her exaggerated makeup, violent and mischievous behaviour,
weight, and rejection of “good manners” locate her at an extreme distance from more
easily palatable performers, such as RuPaul herself.
3
38
Waters was invited as a guest judge. RuPaul introduces the guest judge as
“The Sultan of Sleaze, The Baron of Bad Taste”. Next he explains the episode’s
maxi-challenge to the remaining seven queens as a “Rusical (another
portmanteau of RuPaul + musical) based on some of John Waters’ most iconic
scenes”: two of them from Pink Flamingos (1972) and one from Female Trouble
(1974). For instance, the reinterpreted scene Miss Fame, Violet and Pearl had
to enact for the musical was the notorious scene from Pink Flamingos in which
Divine’s character eats dog excrement. “Good” Divine (Pearl) and “evil” Divine
(Miss Fame) battle in order to convince a troubled Divine (Violet) to either to eat
it or not. Although the version of the scene written by the production does not
require Violet to genuinely eat faeces, as Divine does in the original film, this
challenge stains the sanitised space of RuPaul’s Drag Race with the inclusion
of metaphorical faeces in an otherwise sparkling TV studio space.
Coupled with the acting challenge, RuPaul asks the contestants to wear
their “ugliest dress ever” on the runway. Asking the queens to wear an “ugly”
dress not only asks them to share their opinion on what is ugly, but it also
engages them in debates on the construction of beauty as a performance, and
the value given to that performance. In other words, by granting the status of
desirable to an “ugly” performance—even if only temporarily—the supposed
“truth” value of beauty is unmasked. As mentioned earlier, Butler suggests that
drag can expose the artificiality of gender (1999, p.174) and so the same could
be applied to discourses of beauty—which in turn reinforce heteronormativity. If
beauty, not unlike gender, is brought to light as artificial, we can contest
39
repressive normative models that render some bodies as undesirable due to
their “ugliness”.
The queens walk down the runway with their interpretations of the
“ugliest dress ever”. As in any other episode, the judges applaud some of them
while others are criticized for not wearing outfits considered suitable for the
theme. After the queens walk down the runway and the musical scenes are
played, the panel discusses the queens’ appearances on camera. The acting is
evaluated mainly based on how believable the judges consider it rather than in
terms of “filth”. In addition to that, the criteria for the assessment of the dresses
are not overt. The concept of “ugliness” is fundamentally taken for granted. For
example, about Violet, RuPaul argues: “That was the ugliest dress”, but we are
not given an explanation as to why. Some judges give vague clues about why a
dress is considered by them to be ugly or not. Demi Lovato remarks on the
colour scheme of Katya’s dress, while John mentions how “flattering” Pearl’s
dress shape is, and therefore not ugly.
Authentic filthiness or masked purity?
It is imperative to question whether this musical (and the runway walk) is
yet another performance in a line of challenges that range from lip syncing to
spoken word of a flight-safety video for a fictitious airline run by drag queens, to
acting for an imaginary telenovela. Is Divine’s challenge one in which
sleaziness is yet another non-disruptive component of the performance?
Regardless of how we answer this question, I argue that the recognition and
canonization of sordidness in drag, or any other performance or gender
40
expression, enables possibilities to question the rules and ideals set on drag by
RuPaul as well as discussions that contravene what is desirable and what is not.
Placing Divine as a model or icon undermines RuPaul’s sanitised
pedestal by acknowledging and praising a character who does not wish to “pass”
as a woman, a character who does not wish to be smoothly incorporated into
society and, finally, a character who is competing for the title of “filthiest person
alive” and not America’s Next Drag Superstar. In addition to that, the fact that it
is Drag Race itself that celebrates that antihero adds to the tension between
gay and queer politics within and beyond the show because it is, at the same
time, restraining and applauding Divine’s unruly sleaziness. By turning Divine
into a mainstream product—namely, normalising Divine’s identity— the show
risks stripping her of her queer, sleazy, nonconforming, and disruptive
possibilities. But simultaneously, her presence can queerly corrupt the
parameters of the show.
Also, the palatable is thrown into question when what was previously
undesirable is actively demanded and rewarded (namely, being “indecent”). “In
a John Waters film, nothing is sacred, and clearly attitudes toward
masculinity/femininity, beauty/ugliness, gender/sexuality, and a host of related
topics are all valid for exploration” (Schaub, 2010, p.249). The transposition of
Waters’ upsetting characters and situations to the relatively tame space of Drag
Race provides the means to perturb (or imagine the perturbation of) the rules of
the show and its version of drag. Additionally, what is desirable can also be
altered by taking into account the audience’s impressions and recreations of the
programme. I will provide an example for this later.
41
This parallel “reality” of the show, for a portion of one episode, manifests
not only during the challenge, but also in the way RuPaul expresses herself.
Some of her deep-seated catchphrases that signal pivotal moments of every
episode, such as the introduction of a new challenge and the departure of a
contestant (Anthony, 2014, p.61) are slightly changed in “Divine Inspiration”.
After announcing the challenge, RuPaul dexterously changes her usual phrase
“so good luck, and don’t fuck it up”, into “so good luck and, by all means, fuck it
up”. Later, right before the runway presentation, she uses “filthiest” instead of
“best”: “Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the filthiest woman win!” The
original intention of this catchphrase is for the audience to understand the “real”
journey the contestants live in front of the viewer, which is the movement from
an “original” male identity to that of a female one, for purposes of entertainment
(Edgar, 2011, p.139). Nonetheless, the modified catchphrase directs the
audience to “filthiest”. By this point we have already naturalised that we are
going to witness a female performance, but now we are set to focus on how
“filthy” they can be. Notwithstanding the “reality” or “falsity” of their identities,
what is relevant here is how powerful catchphrases are in the (re)construction of
the show’s own “reality”. To “not fuck it up” represents a piece of advice and a
warning that can be considered useful in order to be successful in a competition,
whereas to “fuck it up” would mean the exact opposite. However, when “failing”
becomes a means for success, the possibilities of subverting the desirable, or
any other performance or product, are innumerable.
Every role in the Rusical scenes requires the contestants to enact
behaviours that drift away from the sanitised performances that are usually
42
expected from the queens. For instance, the challenge winner, Ginger Minj,
plays the part of Edie from Pink Flamingos in a scene where her outrageous
love of eggs reaches its peak and her body ends up covered in them. In order
to play Edie, Ginger wears an ill-fitting, white, silky sleeping robe that reveals
about one third of her breasts. Throughout the season, she shows herself to be
proud of her body, wearing garments that “flatter” her body shape. In contrast,
her performance as Edie is not concerned with “flattering” dresses that conform
to normative versions of the desirable, but instead with Edie’s disregard for
discourses of hygiene and “good” behaviour. Ginger’s version of Edie (as well
as the original) sits in a baby cradle whose size she prominently surpasses. Her
robe is not only ill-fitting but it is also dirty, perhaps from the eggs she constantly
eats in her cradle and perhaps because it has been left unwashed for an
unknown yet certainly long period of time. Her long and bulky black hair is
dishevelled, and also looks unwashed, not unlike her face and rest of the body.
Her voice is low and gravelly, and her temperament appears short as her selfabsorption on egg eating makes her prone to intense bursts of anger; “all I want
is eggs”, she repeats over and over. Her anger and excitement cause her to
break raw eggs on top of her body. Although Waters argues that Edie has
certain “loveliness”, her obsessive behaviour for food and her utter disinterest in
beauty or cleanliness locate her far away from the regular demands of the show.
Sleaziness, sashay away
After the challenge’s winner and the bottom two are selected, the show
goes back to its “normality”. The bottom two have to lip sync to a song by Demi
43
Lovato. The “dirty”, “sleazy” elements of the episode have been taken away and
now Pearl and Miss Fame have to perform in such a way that RuPaul and the
judges will find suitable to let one stay in the competition. Demi Lovato, as a
pop icon, serves as part of the show’s cultural capital. Pop culture references
are repeated throughout the series and that is a way of creating and
reproducing desirable models, icons, and heroines. “RuPaul's Drag Race relies
upon and makes reference to a preceding queer history as a method of
validating permissible drag constructions” (Edgar, 2011, p.134). So, although
Divine is named as a huge influence for drag queens, there are other, more
permissible icons that dominate the narrative of the show, and ultimately define
the construction of the programme. In fact, Divine’s legacy only occupies a
place on RuPaul’s Drag Race for the duration of one challenge while other
icons such as Diana Ross, Madonna and Cher are part of the foundation of the
show and reappear season after season. It appears that the show brings up
those elements that could be considered queer but at the end of the episode or
challenge, RuPaul’s Drag Race makes sure that its “normality” is re-established.
The order by which it is governed is restored, not unlike after the dancing
routines of “Prancing Queens”. Every week queens are challenged to perform in
one or other way, but one performance seems to be “truer” than the rest. The
contestants may play different characters every week and try to excel at
different arts (dancing, singing, among many others), but there is still a kind of
desirable, acceptable model required for the queen to be elected America’s
Next Drag Superstar.
44
If the legacies of Divine (the “first drag superstar”, according to RuPaul
himself) and John Waters are infinitely important for drag queens, then why are
those characteristics that in fact make Divine and Waters special excluded from
the show so conspicuously? Why are filthy, unsettling performances not
celebrated and/or encouraged as a possibility for any queen of any season?
Sanitized performances and performers of the show are usually those preferred
by the judges of the programme. The most prominent exception to the
immaculate versions of drag revered by RuPaul is Drag Race’s fourth season
winner, Sharon Needles.
II. The ghostly and outrageous femininity of Sharon Needles
RuPaul’s Drag Race season four was first broadcasted in 2012. In
honour of the supposed Mayan predictions of the end of the world, the first
challenge of the season was titled “Rupocalypse” (another portmanteau,
combining RuPaul + apocalypse). Besides having an apocalypse-themed
photo-shoot, the episode includes a main challenge which consists of creating a
“post-apocalyptic couture” garment for the runway. This challenge proves to be
fitting and favourable for Sharon Needles as she describes her drag persona as
“beautiful, spooky, and stupid”4. Sharon’s drag and her place in the show are
immediately questioned and feared by many of the other contestants of her
season due to her eerie theatrics and aesthetic. For instance, Jiggly Caliente
says, “I feel like I need to pray the rosary when I’m talking to [Sharon]”, while
4
Emphasis is mine.
45
Sharon explains that occasionally she glues bags full of rubbish to her body
when doing drag.
Sharon designs a long sheath dress that covers her body from the neck
to the ankles—while covering her arms as well. Since she retrieves the
materials for her outfit from a horde of “zombies” (drag queens from past
seasons), the fabric of her dress is worn out and its brown colour has different
tones spread unevenly around her body. She is also wearing shoulder pads that
match the colour of the dress and long strips of torn fabric adorn her arms.
Sharon decides not to wear a wig and, instead, she covers her hair so as to
appear bald, while lines of a material that resembles barbwire are wrapped
around her head horizontally. Her makeup is completely white, but her cheeks
and the sides of her face are covered in bruises and open wounds. The pale
colour of her lipstick and her white contact lenses complement her “lifeless” look.
Finally, as she walks down the runway in a zombie-like manner, she “bleeds”
abundantly from her mouth. Sharon is chosen as the winner of the challenge.
46
Image 6. Sharon Needles drenched-in-blood “post-apocalyptic” runway look. Her
makeup, garment, props and behaviour upset the literally sanitised version of drag.
Sharon’s look decidedly refuses to reproduce many of the desirable elements
associated with effective performances throughout the show. For example, the
“blood” she uses as a prop for her costume taints her face and her dress but
also the idea of a spotless femininity that the show so insistently attempts to put
forward. In addition to that, she is not only dirty but she also has the
representation of physical injuries on her face that mark her as unapproachable.
Normative femininity is welcoming while Sharon’s version of femininity is, at
least in this episode, hostile.
It could be argued, however, that the same runway theme allows those
kinds of momentary disobedience to normative femininity—similarly to Divine’s
challenge—only to return to the more traditional rules with which the queens
and the audience have been familiarised. The task at hand provides the tools
and grants permission to perform as characters, such as zombies, that fairly
easily deviate from narrow conceptions of femininity. Nevertheless, it would be
disingenuous to simplify Sharon Needles’s spookiness and queer possibilities to
47
a single challenge that helped with the endorsement of her first performance at
the show. This can be explained with two mains points.
First, the assessment this contestant receives from the judges qualified
her success precisely in terms of the “filthiness” she exuded, and never in terms
of her “feminine realness”, especially in comparison to the other two queens
who receive favourable feedback from the judges. For example, Elvira (from
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark) remarks, “I love the blood and this is a whole
different take on drag queens”, and Mike Ruiz adds, “You didn’t survive the
apocalypse”. On the contrary, The Princess, who also receives some reassuring
feedback, is told that her outfit was not good enough because she did not have
“dirt” on it. Sharon is lauded both due to the execution of her concept in fashion
and performance, and to the “dirt” and blood that covered her face and dress, in
contrast to her less tarnished fellow contestants.
Second, Sharon’s insistence on being a scary and somehow off-putting
queen extends throughout the season. Although she is sometimes asked to be
“more glamorous”, her vision remained almost unchallenged. This is particularly
significant taking into account that main judge Michelle Visage expresses, “I
want to see [Sharon Needles] in girl drag too” from the very first episode even
after celebrating her post-apocalyptic runway look. Episode after episode, there
is a prevailing attitude from some of the contestants and a handful of judges
who found her “too spooky”, or who warn her not to rely on “shock value”.
Because of this, she does police aspects of her persona and performances in
response to the judges’ critiques. Norris (2014) claims that throughout the
seasons queens should “either adapt to the expectations of the series or get
48
sent home” (p.34). However, this is not always the case. Sharon manages to
shrewdly avoid this heavy policing, and therefore her overall aesthetic does not
change. While struggling against that criticism, she finds moments to value the
words, attitudes and ideals associated with normative femininity as laughable
and unattractive to her. Having an extensive knowledge about these attributes
enables her to perform in such a way that can be considered within the limits of
femininity without losing her ability to mock them. For example, during a wet Tshirt contest mini-challenge she plays “sexiness” with her whole body –
including the fake breasts she received for the challenge – to attract the male
audience only to spit water on them.
After winning four main challenges (a record number of wins for all seven
season so far), Sharon makes it to the finale with Phi Phi O’Hara and Chad
Michaels. When explaining to RuPaul what it would mean for her to win the
competition, she argues,
Being the holder of that crown would show that you don’t have to fit a
certain mold to make it in any industry or in any desire that you want.
And for any gay kid out there or just weird kid that gets picked on just
know, you know, when in doubt freak them out. Do whatever the fuck
you wanna do, and if anyone ever boos you offstage, that is simply
applause from ghosts.
Sharon’s aspiration about being a leader for bullied children due to their “weird”
identities seems to be in line with a project of gay politics where, again,
acceptance and inclusion are keywords correlated with success5. However, she
still sees a legitimate possibility in “freaking out” anyone who does not agree
with how they are, and even to embrace booing. Sharon’s (queer) project
5
In addition to that, since the beginning of the season, Sharon affirms that she wishes
to receive RuPaul’s “seal of approval”. This adds to the potential normalisation of her
queerness by being accepted by the sanitised icon RuPaul is.
49
considers an empowerment that is not always based on approval. She
encourages the audience to experience their lives happily and freely without
having to conform or homogenise their particularities with the norm. Sharon
Needles sees being a permanent outsider as a plausible way of shielding off
violence and rejection. However, Sharon could also be seen as another sellable
product regardless of her disdain for more traditional versions of femininity (and
any other identity expression). It is possible to turn her eeriness into a
commodity which much of the audience would be interested to pay for in the
form of live shows, T-shirts, phone cases, music albums, etc. This, nonetheless,
cannot force us to underestimate queer possibilities that lie within her
performance and that menace the fragility of the regularizing and violent effects
of gender6. Sharon Needles can be positioned in the middle of the frequently
irresolvable tension between gay politics and queer politics.
III. Hello Kitty and the consumerist femininity
In sharp contrast with Divine’s sleaziness and Sharon’s spookiness, in
the 11th episode of the seventh season the queens are asked create a
character “that Hello Kitty would like to call her new BFF [best friend forever]”.
Each contestant receives a huge Hello Kitty-like white foam head to transform
into the character they invent, along with a white jumpsuit that covers most of
their body, and white gloves.
6
I argued that by relating Sharon Needle’s win to performances outside of the show,
Kohlsdorf (2014, p.82) makes an assumption that might not be right. In addition to that,
the author misses the opportunity of engaging with this controversial character and her
overall position on RuPaul’s sanitised world.
50
When Violet Chachki walks down the runway with her Hello Kitty
character, we hear a voiceover with the introduction of Hello Violet. Violet uses
quite a “girly” voice:
Hi. My name is Hello Violet and I’m Hello Kitty’s new BFF. My
nickname is Lavender Trinket and everyone loves my onesie and my
shoes. One extra special thing to know about me is that I love to look
in the mirror. I dream of becoming a fairy or maybe even a model
and that’s why Hello Kitty and me would be the best friends forever.
Hello Violet has wide eyes and mascara on her eyelashes. Her lips are pink and
she has a small mole next to her mouth. She is wearing a small periwinkle Afro
with a violet ribbon on one side of her head. Hello Violet is wearing a lavender
wrap dress made with a silky, see-through fabric. The dress is accessorized
with a lavender belt adorned with a violet pattern. Finally, she added lavender
ribbons on her feet.
Katya, with a harsh voice and “Russian” accent:
My name is Hello Katya and I’m from the magic land of Siberia.
Everyone loves my bad breath. One extra special thing to know
about me is that I am the sweatiest woman in show business. I feel
like my socialist side will balance out Hello Kitty’s decadent
capitalism. That’s why Hello Kitty and I will be best comrades forever.
Her character does not look as “clean” as Hello Violet—Katya herself is saying
that it has a bad breath—and that is evident because we can see her big,
uneven yellow teeth coming out of her mouth, striking a contrast with her big
red lips. Her yellow teeth are probably meant to be caused by the cigarette
Hello Katya has in her mouth. Her eyes also have painted eyelashes and
eyebrows, but their look is much more severe than Violet’s, given their straight
lines in contrast to rounder eyes of Hello Violet. Hello Katya has a dishevelled
curly blonde wig that can be only partially seen because she is wearing a red
51
headscarf and a red ribbon on one side. She is wearing a sheath dress with a
colourful asymmetric pattern, and red shoes. Finally she is holding a small
Soviet Union flag.
Image 7. Challenge winner’s character Hello Violet (left) reproduces the
discourses of appropriateness that RuPaul approves of. Contrastingly, Hello Katya’s
(right) brusque attitude and “dirty” appearance earns her a spot in the “bottom two”.
While each queen walks down the runway as their Hello Kitty character,
the original Hello Kitty is standing on a side of the runway reacting to the
contestants’ voiceovers. As Violet describes her character and shows her
costume, Hello Kitty seems happy and excited. On the other hand, she looks
terrified and uncomfortable when Katya describes hers. In addition to Hello
Kitty’s reactions, some of the judges (especially RuPaul herself) feel troubled
and did not fully approve of Hello Katya, whereas they celebrated Violet’s
version. RuPaul asserts, “I actually appreciated that [Violet] was a little tamed
with her Hello Violet because you are dealing with such an iconic brand”. Then,
in support, Michelle adds: “There’s absolutely no way Hello Kitty is allowed to
hang out with this Russian hooker.” Violet is chosen as the winner of the
challenge, while Katya is put on the bottom two to ‘lip sync for her life’ against
Kennedy. Katya is eliminated. Along with the Hello Kitty characters, the queens
were asked to create a look inspired by Hello Kitty. The judges struggle
52
understanding Katya’s “concept” of the dress and the execution of it. For
instance, fashion designer and guest judge, Santino Rice, reviewed Katya’s
garment poorly.
Although the judges present arguments unrelated to the sleaziness of
Katya’s character as justification for their decision to have her “lip sync for her
life”, I can argue that her “filthiness” was a defining factor for her elimination.
Normative conceptions of gender do not only defend a binary understanding of
gender as well as heterosexuality as the only legitimate practice, but also
reproduce very specific characteristics which bodies are supposed to follow. In
relation to business and reality TV, Marcel (2014) argues, “the formulaic nature
of the maturing reality television genre of contest shows almost requires the
reduction or elimination of elements which producers (including RuPaul) would
consider not ‘commercial’”. Even though there are other factors that could have
contributed to the decision to eliminate her (namely, the unsatisfactory review of
her garment), Hello Katya’s yellow teeth and sweatiness do not fit into
heteronormative ideals for the beautiful female body. She is “dirty”, and
therefore undesirable, not unlike Kennedy’s “pubes” beard.7 Hello Violet, on the
other hand, looks “cleaner”, allegedly sweeter, and more approachable. For this
reason, RuPaul, while thinking about the Japanese brand, decides that Hello
Katya might not be the best option to be “Hello Kitty’s new BFF” because she
7
Similarly, although to a different extent, season six contestant Adore Delano finds
herself in trouble throughout the season due to her “unpolished” look. In the first
episode of her season she explains that she defuses those labels by affirming: “I’m
polish remover”. Even though Adore is constantly criticised for her “unrefined” looks,
she reaches the top three of the competition while constantly refusing to fully adapt to
some of the normative beauty standards demanded from the panel.
53
does not conform to normative conceptions of hygiene and therefore cannot be
turned into as sellable a product as Hello Kitty is.8
These conceptions of cleanliness are not, however, disconnected from
questions of race. Dyer (1997) calls attention to the “lists of the moral
connotations of white as symbol in Western culture” (p.72). Among those, he
identifies cleanliness, virtue, simplicity and chastity (1997, p.72). These
connotations of white are used as judging indicators when RuPaul, and the
panel in general, describe some Hello Kitty characters (Hello Violet, Hello Pearl
and Hello Ginger) as successful while others as unsatisfactory (Hello Kennedy
and Hello Katya). For instance, Hello Violet not only presents a “clean” persona,
as I mentioned earlier, embodied in the aesthetic simplicity of her dress and
accessories in shades of violet, and with no trace of sexual desire (chastity), but
also falls in line with the virtue of whiteness – understood as “absence of sin”
(p.75) – due to her innocence and compliance with rules. Conversely, Hello
Katya’s suspicious accent along with her nicotine addiction, sexual behaviour
and body odour locate her in a territory that RuPaul cannot regard as safe for
Hello Kitty’s uncontaminated whiteness. Hello Pearl, on the other hand, is also
praised by the judges but not without a reminder about the danger of the
8
An element that complicates the character of Hello Katya and its place in the show is
the fact that its image started to be commercialised shortly after the episode aired on
television. The art website redbubble.com began selling t-shirts, tote bags, stickers,
pouches and greeting cards with the image of Hello Katya. All of these items, except
the greeting card, have been more popular among buyers than those of Hello Pearl
and Hello Violet (the other two queens’ characters featured in the website). If,
according to RuPaul, Hello Katya’s image is decidedly unsuitable for consumption due
to its indocility, how are we to understand its commercial success on the website?
Although this store represents a small sample of the retail industry, it is possible to
imagine consumer behaviour that deviates from the more narrow assumptions that link
it to the tameness of Hello Kitty. Finally, Hello Katya’s purported rejection of capitalism
adds another layer of tension between the queer and the commercial.
54
sexuality that emanates from her reference to Madonna (expressed by her
minimal outfit that only included a black bathing suit, jewellery, and a long
blonde ponytail). For Michelle, while successful, Hello Pearl would not be able
to be Hello Kitty’s new BFF due to the absence of chastity in her character.
Once again, normative characteristics of beauty are being reproduced by the
show in terms not only of gender but also race.
Muñoz develops his idea of commercial drag by arguing, “the sanitized
queen is meant to be enjoyed as an entertainer who will hopefully lead to social
understanding and tolerance” (p.99). This kind of drag, more in line with gay
politics, is supported by a commercial base that at the same time tries to foster
the un-problematised inclusion of queer subjects. In other words, for
commercial drag, consumerism and inclusion seem to be tied to one another.
This means that sanitising oneself and one’s practices for a large audience
would bring acceptance. Such sanitisation occurs at different levels explained
previously. Its rule extends from ways of “taking care” of the body, to accepted
gendered practices, going through limits and ideals set by questions of race,
gender, class.
55
Conclusions
RuPaul’s Drag Race proves to be a contested space perpetually moving
around what can be considered queer politics and what can be considered gay
politics. In other words, the TV programme ought not to be located
unequivocally on one side or the other. This ambivalence is evidenced both by
the production’s treatment and evaluation of diverse drag practices, expressed
in the challenge design and the assessments by the judges, and by the effects
on the queens’ subsequent performances. The show’s evolution throughout its
now six years cannot be described as a steady and “progressive” move towards
a more problematised understanding of gender performance, but rather as a
convoluted – and sometimes illegible – road with an abundance of exceptions,
ambiguities and setbacks.
For example, the introduction of elements such as the beard in a
performance of femininity does not automatically situate Drag Race as the
epitome of transgression. Considerations about the way beards are presented,
policed and celebrated has been necessary in order to engage in a discussion
about the discourses of appropriateness that inevitably value certain beards
over others. Although the study of drag seems to privilege gender as the central
determiner of the academic dialogue (including this text), questions about class
and race have proved to be inseparable from gender. It was not possible or
desirable to separate those identity markers when evaluating the tension
between gay politics and queer politics that inhabits the show. Race, age and
class haunt drag performances as much as normative conceptions of gender
and have clear repercussions not only as part of the competition but also more
56
broadly in the lives of the performers and in the audience. The beards, the “half
queen half man drag” and other performances have allowed me to examine the
way in which the show negotiates the ideas of what drag is supposed to be and
the limits that still imprison it on occasion.
However, it would be inconvenient to ignore that sometimes, even within
normative confines, there is a certain queerness to be found. Moreover, those
confines are sometimes what enable queerness to thrive. For example, I offered
the example of the Hello Kitty episode in which Katya bore the brunt of
discourses of “appropriate” femininity and cleanliness (related at the same time
to race and class) that labelled her performance unsuitable for consumption –
and therefore unsuitable to continue in the competition. In spite of this setback,
Katya’s sleazy presence left a trace in the uncorrupted territory of Drag Race,
along with its exaltation of the refined and perfectly white Hello Kitty, which
could open the way for other queer performances in the show’s future.
Additionally, this character’s repercussion also extended to the audience and
their endorsement of Hello Katya, exemplified by the increased sales of the
products with her image on it.
RuPaul’s Drag Race almost simultaneously queers the “normal”,
sanitizes the “filthy”, resists and conforms to normativity, and so on. Its constant
struggles and negotiations about the limits of drag and its subjects make the
show a fascinating text that does not surrenders to a simplified conclusion on its
influences, effects and possibilities. Just as Butler argues, when examining
Paris is Burning, that drag “is one which both appropriates and subverts racist,
misogynistic and homophobic norms of oppression (…) This is not first an
57
appropriation and then a subversion. Sometimes it is both at once” (1999,
p.128). Both Paris is Burning and RuPaul’s Drag Race have such quality of
creating and inhabiting ambiguous, and apparently contradictory, spaces of
their extraordinary performances. Drag Race allows gay politics and queer
politics to both collide and collaborate in the most unexpected ways.
Recommendations
Considering the influence the audience can have on the way we the
show is created and understood, there remain an array of aspects related to
RuPaul’s Drag Race which have yet to be explored. To date there has not been
any research done on the way the public consumes the show. Although textual
analysis holds an immense value that from time to time provides clues about
the way the audience sees the show, it is also necessary to do research
focused on the audience. As a gay man and fan of the show, I recognize and
imagine the significance of a show determined to reaffirm a sense of community
formed by people who “do not fit” seamlessly in society. This project of
acceptance and inclusion is, once again, tied to some of the goals gay politics
has. On the other hand, and as great as I consider the worth of those values, it
is also indispensable to find and encourage the transgressive, queer
possibilities that can come with drag. The show’s insistence on putting forward
mainstream elements of music, film and television can potentially threaten
those non-conforming possibilities. Would Drag Race, therefore, become too
“safe” by pushing the mainstream in up to the point of suffocating queerness?
Who is the audience composed of, and how do they read and interact with the
58
programme season after season? Are the textual analyses made of the show
compatible with the audience’s reading? These questions about the audience
are not only as relevant as they are regarding any other film, TV programme,
play etc., but they offer an additional layer that can be researched due to the
massive participation of fan interaction in social media (particularly Reddit).
Such further studies would strengthen academic conversations about the show
itself and about the related political/social proposals and influences it creates by
maintaining strong scholarly dialogue between different angles and methods.
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Index of images
Image 1. Kandy Ho – Season seven, episode three. Kandy Ho – Season seven,
episode one, p.25.
Image 2. Violet Chahcki – Season seven, episode three. Kennedy Davenport –
Season seven, episode three, p.28.
Image 3. Katya Zamolodchikova – Season seven, episode ten, p.30
Image 4. Kennedy Davenport and Pearl – Season seven, episode ten, p.34.
Image 5. Trixie Mattel and Ginger Minj – Season seven, episode ten, p.37
Image 6. Sharon Needles – Season four, episode one, p.47
Image 7. Hello Violet (Violet Chahcki) – Season seven, episode eleven. Hello
Katya (Katya Zamolodchikova) – Season seven, episode eleven, p.52
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Filmography
Paris is Burning. 1990. [Film]. Jennie Livingston. USA: Art Matters Inc.
Pink Flamingos. 1972. [Film]. John Waters. USA: Dreamland.
Female Trouble. 1974. [Film]. John Waters. USA: Dreamland.
Teleography
RuPaul’s Drag Race. 2009–. Logo Television Network.
RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked! 2010–. Logo Television Network.
RuPaul’s Drag U. 2010–2012. Logo Television Network.
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