RuPaul's Drag Race: Reviewed & Analyzed

I don't need to tell you that I love "RuPaul's Drag Race".  I've written about it before.  For a while I've been wanting to write a post, reviewing and analyzing all the queens who have been on the show, seasons 1-4.  We're now in a new season (the fifth), so I want to finish this up before another season passes and I have new queens to review.

Without further ado...

Most-Loved (By Me) Queens: 

These are the queens who I've enjoyed the most.

Ongina & Nina Flowers (s1), Pandora Boxx, Jujubee, Raven (s2), Yara Sofia, Alexis Mateo, Manila Luzon, Raja (s3), Jiggly Caliente, Chad Michaels, Sharon Needles, Latrice Royale (s4)

“Moment” Queens:
These are queens who had their moment on their respective seasons.  I liked them well enough, but they had one particular moment where their light really shone brightest.

Jessica Wild - Jessica was a great queen, but her best moment had to be her appearance as the chicken in the episode where they had to do a commercial.  Unlike Raven (who really sucked in this episode), Jessica went all out and her chicken character was hilarious!

Stacey Layne (Bryant) Matthews - Stacey never really impressed me, except when she was Monique on the Snatch Game.  The character couldn't have been a better fit, and thank God she ended up doing Monique instead of Anna Nicole Smith.  She stayed in character perfectly.

Dida Ritz - I thought Dida was an overall pretty sickening (good thing) queen, but her best moment was when she had to lip synch for her life and turned it out to "This Will Be" by Natalie Cole.  She worked it out and showed her true fierceness.  It was a great moment.

“BLAH” Queens

These are the queens who I neither hated, nor loved, nor loved to hate.  They were just blah and never left much of an impression.

Alisa Summers, The Princess, Victoria “Porkchop” Parker, Akashia, Jade, Nicole Paige Brooks, Mystique Summers Madison, Sonique, Venus D-Lite, Phoenix, India Ferrah

Less “BLAH” Queens
These are the queens who made an impression, and were fierce, but still don't fall into the "Most Loved (By Me)" category.

Morgan McMichaels, Sahara Davenport, Mariah, Delta Work, Carmen Carrera, Willam, Milan

Bitchy/Whatever Queens: 

These are the queens who made a lot of noise, threw a lot of shade, had huge personalities, but never made themselves all that likeable... at least not by me.

Shangela Laquifa Wadley - I know Shangela made a lot of noise on her season (especially with her dramatic return to the show after being the first eliminated on season 2), but she just didn’t really excite me on season 3.  She had her catchphrases and some decent moments, sure, but having heard so much about her (from friends who'd watched this season before me)olujhyi, I definitely expected more.  And for the record, I don’t consider her a Bitchy Queen as much as I think of her as a Whatever Queen.

Tatianna - Ugh, Tatianna.  She had a few decent moments, too (case in point: her Britney Spears impression on Snatch Game was pretty good), but she really bugged me throughout most of season 2.  She was bitchy, not always that fierce, and just relied on her fishyness.  Oh, and her dumb segment on All-Stars, “T with Tati”, was extremely stupid, too.  Whatever!  I’m so glad she didn’t make it into the top 3 like Rebecca Glasscock did before her.

Speaking of which…

Rebecca Glasscock - Rebecca Glasscock… just plain bitchy, and made it far but just never got me especially excited.  Whatever.

Phi Phi O’Hara - Phi Phi WAS bitchy, though I found I was more sympathetic to her than to Tatianna and Rebecca.  She was young, clearly putting up a front, and had some tender moments (for example, giving Chad her phone call so he could call his partner).  And then, as a queen, I saw her have some amazing – never mind fishy – moments on the runway.  However, she overall gave me a "whatever" feeling.  She deserved to be in the top 3, but I was just kinda bored by her at that point.

“AAAGGHHH” Queens

These are the queens who you just wanted to slap across the face and say "Snap out of it!"

Tammie Brown - Occasionally I found Tammie Brown inexplicably magnetic, but the same moment I would realize she's bat s**t crazy.  She has got some kind of bizarre drag, and I was happy to see her go (both times... how she made it on All Stars is beyond me).
Mimi Imfurst - She is just plain annoying!  A weird queen, a bad actress, a cry baby, and a general annoyance.
(Kinda but not really) Madame LaQueer - Reminded me of Mimi Imfurst in some ways.  Her acting skills were also brutal (remember when she tried a British accent... hers was almost as bad as Yara Sofia's, but 10 times less funny).

Queens who didn’t deliver on “All Stars” like I wish they had: 

Self-explanatory.

Latrice Royale & Nina Flowers

It was really a shame; considering how much I lived for these queens while they were on their respective seasons, I really expected more from them on AS.  In Nina’s case she had a brutal partner (Tammie), but Latrice had no excuse.  Oh well!  That's what separates fierce queens from All Stars.

Queens I wish were on All Stars:

Ongina

Queens I wish were NOT on All Stars: 

Shannel (even more so than Tammie & Mimi, because at least they were eliminated quickly... only Chad could carry Shannel that far).

Winning Queens I didn’t get too excited about:
BeBe Zahara Benet & Tyra SanchezDon't get me wrong - both of them are fierce queens, and I'm not saying they didn't deserve to win, because I think they probably were.  Both of them were fierce, funny, and delivered consistently.  However, they just didn’t excite me in the way someone like Latrice or Jujubee did.

Most-Deserving Crowned Queen

Sharon Needles – I wasn’t always a Sharon Needles fan during season 4.  First I didn’t know what to make of her, and then even when she was consistently amazing, I was still more excited by Latrice (mostly personality-wise).  But as it became clear that Latrice wouldn’t – and didn’t deserve to – win, I was rooting for Sharon.

Runner-up: Raja – Raja was just so incredibly fierce.

FAVOURITE QUEEN OF ALL

If it wasn't slready clear...

Miss Latrice Mothaf**kin Royale – Latrice hands-down gave me the most joy, happiness, laughter, and emotion of all the queens to grace the runway.  I realized – especially during “All Stars” – that she wasn’t the fiercest queen of all.  She had her rough moments, bad wardrobe choices, etc., but she was the realest queen on the show, and I loved her.

FIN.

RuPaul's Drag Race: Start Your Engines

I'm kind of shocked that I've only referred to "RuPaul's Drag Race" once so far on this blog.  Then again, I suppose it's a somewhat recent obsession.  My best friends J & W have been into it for a while and I tuned in to an episode with them here and there, but it was season four where I really caught my RPDR stride.

You can click the link to the wiki page above to learn about the show, so I won't waste your time with that.  I'd like to discuss this show beyond the details...

What is it about RPDR that appeals to me so much???

The campiness.  I realize that I love camp.  There, I said it.  And I ain't talkin' 'bout summer camp (though I loved it, too), I'm talkin' about what dictionary.com defines as "something that provides sophisticated, knowing amusement, as by virtue of its being artlessly manner-consciously artificial and extravagant, or teasingly ingenuous and sentimental".  It may seem over-the-top to some, but that's what I love about it.  Extravagance, hyperbole, silly, cheesy to the point of almost hating it, but then loving it anyway.

Let me tell you, RPDR is dripping with camp.  I mean, it's a drag queen competition after all, but it's so campy you find yourself giggling against your own will.

The humour.  Campiness is humour on its own, but the drag queens' individual senses of humour are pristine.  Whether it's poking fun of each other, which it usually is (and by the way, it's not called "poking fun", it's called "reading" or "throwing shade"), commenting on pop culture, or just being themselves, I'm laughing for the better part of the show.  And they're full of brilliant slang and one-liners: "sickening", "the shade of it all!", "loca", "halleloo", "werrrkkk", "eat it", the list goes on.

RuPaul.  It's unfair that RuPaul be stuck in the middle of these reasons, but they're not in any particular order, really.  RuPaul Charles is perfection.  In and out of drag she is funny, witty, stunning, fashionable, sweet, cute, honest, real, silly, and everything in between.  She is a true queen.  Her own classic lines on the show are amazing, too: "Hello hello hello!", "Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman... win!", "If you can't love yourself, how in the heellll are you gonna love somebody else?  Can I get an amen up in here?"  I love RuPaul.

The homage it pays to "Paris is Burning".  You already know that I've been deeply moved by the documentary "Paris is Burning", and I love how much respect is paid to this film and the culture it documents on RPDR.  Occasionally episodes have ball-like competitions, categories ("Executive Realness"), vogue-offs, etc., but more than that there are subtle PiB lines regularly inserted into the show... "Cheesecake", "overgrown orangutangs" (misspelled on purpose), "touch this, touch all of this", "you own everything, everything is yours", etc.  Ru is cleary committed to honouring the queens who came before (and not just those from PiB but also queens like Marsha P. Johnson) and it shows, and I love spotting the references.

The anthropological side of it.  I realized that it's not just the humour, the entertainment, the competition, Ru and the queens, etc., or rather those things become even more interesting by way of looking at the show anthropologically.  I'm a gay woman.  I'm part of the gay community so in that way I feel that gay men's worlds intersect with mine, but drag culture is a whole other chestnut.  I don't feel totally separate from it, per se, but I clearly am not and could not be a true part of it, as much as other drag queens or other gay men can be.  I don't consider this a bad or sad thing, nor does it make me feel excluded.  However, it does make the experience of looking in at this world very fascinating. 

And that brings me to...
The gender play.  I spent some time in university thinking a lot about gender and the performance of gender and the illusion of it, but I haven't dedicated much thought to it since.  However, RPDR brings those thoughts back to the forefront of my mind.  I mentioned to my friend W. that sometimes the queens do things or say things that seem more feminine than anything I could ever do or say.  That led to an engaging conversation between the two of us about what femininity is, and how real or important it could possibly be based on the fact that some make-up and a dress on a biological male makes me perceive him as more feminine than me.  Very interesting...

The joy.  When I talk to people about the show, the word that always comes to mind is "joy".  I feel joyful when I watch RuPaul's Drag Race.  It's about fun and wittiness, camp and performance, music and fashion, queerness, creativity, comraderie, and more!  The queens are fun and good-spirited (most of the them/most of the time), and it's a happy show!  That's really what I love about RPDR.

Give it a try!  Let me know what you think!!


Posts to come... the disappearance of the physical book and what it means in terms of first impressions.
Currently reading... Lennon Revealed by Larry Kane & High Fidelity by Nicholas Hornby

suGar & grAvY on some hot topics

Surprised, but I love it!

Always good to see someone using their power for good.


In other news, I saw Precious last night.

Precious... Precious... Precious...

Let's just say - when the film ends, the impact doesn't. The emotion in that movie! It was incredibly done, the acting was FLAWLESS, the writing was out of control... I don't even know what to say. I'm not even sure I am important enough to rate such a spectacular film, but if I was.

RATING = 4.9/5.0

One never knows when the Homosexual is about.

Stirring the Pot

An incident occurred at a Waterloo restaurant/cafe/bar that has been considered (perhaps rightly so... it's hard to say since I wasn't there) homophobic. Students, activists, friends, and people in general have responded strongly, and there has been a lot of media attention as well.

Wilfrid Laurier University's Student Newspaper: The Cord

Waterloo Region Paper: The Record

Toronto Queer Paper: Xtra

Plus - The Facebook Group

What do you think?

Pried

My mom's picking me up from KW in an hour to take me back to my home sweet home: Toronto, ON. I love Waterloo, and have definitely made a home for myself here. In fact, these past 2 months - working, partying, chilling - have been unreal. That being said though, T.O. is just such a sick city - I love the house that I grew up in, the neighbourhood I lived in, and my close proximity to downtown. It'll be good to rage there tonight.

It's also PRIDE Weekend, so I've gotta rep it. Let me let you in on a little secret though: I hate Pride. Perhaps hate is too strong a word, but I don't really care. I strongly dislike Pride. An introvert like me (believe it or not) has a tough time navigating Pride. So many people, so many possibilities, but worst of all - SO. MUCH. HYPE. ...and you know how I hate hype. And so many people come into the city to celebrate, which is awesome, don't get me wrong, but suddenly they all think they own the city. It's lame. Too many landespedes.

I do enjoy the celebration of being proud to be who you are though. I just celebrate my pride every day, so there being a weekend for it just seems a little redundant... but I know not everyone feels that way. I mean, it's a pretty spectacular week with a lot of cool events and all.

I'm not a pessimist either, it's just...

It's not my scene.