'...and DON'T *bleep* IT UP!' -- the RuPaul's Drag Race thread

About time for this, I figure! Fifth season premiered yesterday.

condragulations

Quite right!

this show is kind of fascinating in a "gender is all performance!" way - everyone congratulating each other (incl the judges) on how well they achieve some kind of archetypal female-ness

Okay come on, I KNOW I'm not the only person on here watching.

I promise to start now.

Marilyn Monroe should've been in the bottom. She didn't do anything.

Yeah that was an epic flop. I like Ivy well enough but that made me go "Whuh?"

Jinkx, Alaska and Roxy were the best overall, but Jinkx just owned it period.

I like Ivy too and I think she was lucky she didn't have to lipsynch against Lineysha. I didn't expect her to do so well (but her Celia Cruz was unforgiveable).

Deep clusterfuck, that. Also what WAS Detox thinking.

um hi I just started watching season 5 online having never watched and omg I'm hooked

I'll be caught up in no time :D

Don't forget to watch Untucked, an essential part of this show!

Yeah I just figured that out...gotta love these bitchy girls. MORE drag homework? *twists arm*

Very good. Join us, join us...

Shanté, you stay!

Season 2 still the best so far, I think.

I just binge-rewatched season 3 over the weekend on Netflix and I might have to vote for that one. Then again I just like Raja a hell of a lot, so.

Yes for Raja and Manila. But the rest, not so interesting. Yara-Sophia maybe...

It actually came down to the right final four I thought, Alexis was a character in her own right. But yeah Yara (Xara?) was next level.

I still haven't seen season four! For some stupid reason it's not on Netflix -- it was for about two seconds and then went away again without explanation. (Already know who won, obv., but I'd like to see it happen.)

Wait what!! Can't you watch it on logo online or something? We can't in Canada but I thought you could in the US.
Season 4 was pretty good, although they tried to create too much unnecessary drama. But I'll let you see by yourself.

You can see the Untucked episodes from season 4 on the site but not the main shows. Since you can buy all the shows from iTunes maybe they want to go that route? Who knows!

Makes sense. If RuPaul had a dollar everytime she mentions iTunes...

Hey, house payments are probably up there. (And I don't begrudge Ru ANY success and trappings.)

I don't either. At least she's very upfront and funny about it.

Fun fact we learned during the All Stars season: Jujubee's real name is actually Airplane!

Hahaha yeah I remember thinking "Wait, what?"

I also love that Manila's real name is the none-more-Minnesota Karl Westerberg.

Lol wow

Almost caught up on S5 now yay!

Every single time Alyssa glams up for the runway all I think is JOAN COLLINS JOAN COLLINS JOAN COLLINS

I don't know why but I think I like Detox. Jinkx is great but I dunno if the unglam thing is going to hold out for her or not. I love her for it, but it could wear thin.

I will say this, have started following her on FB -- win or lose she seems to be having a blast and is booked for other live appearances and things and more this year already, so I like to think of her as winning already!

Meanwhile, it's a little surprising to see such a mostly white group at this point. Not that I think the show is biased, appears to be more luck of the draw season by season in terms of who survives.

that little edie impersonation was fuckin awesome in the last ep. too bad her fashion totally sucks.

I found s2 streaming on Amazon Prime, so yaaaay

Meantime:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/02/27/drag_race_grey_gardens_and_jinx_monsoon_why_the_queens_need_camp.html

I do have to quibble with some of the assertions there -- while Sharon's success in 4 is great, in 3 Raja was more than a little disruptive herself -- as was Manila really; if anything Alexis was the one let go at the end precisely for being full pageant.

I haven't watched all the seasons, but I don't get the impression that they are only seeking pageant or necessarily favoring that. And while I noticed the lack of "camp history" in the S5 girls, isn't there an argument that maybe a lot of queens are trying to let go of that, like that cliche of teens not wanting to know about older music? I mean, I'm bummed that they don't know who Little Edie is but maybe when they see Jinkxs win they go find out. And it doesn't mean they're any more terrible for what they don't know of their history. If anything, it's kind of fabulous that they all came to that same place *without* it.
I dunno. That article seemed a little too buttclenched.

Related but I think better expressed post, linked off the official site

http://www.newnownext.com/drag-race-jinkx-monsoon-snatch-game-little-edie/02/2013/

Oh and in checking Twitter Alyssa DID apologize to Ms. Perry.

Also this exchange is interesting (notice it's everyone else BUT Jinkx and Michelle who get riled up -- and as Michelle notes, in noting the obvious, there's always editing).

https://twitter.com/JinkxMonsoon/status/306550634079977473

This is better than what they showed on the show:

http://www.newnownext.com/jinkx-monsoon-little-edie-rupauls-drag-race/02/2013/

My Top 5 Snatch Game contestants from all seasons:

1. Sharon Needles as Michelle Visage
2. Pandora Boxx as Carole Channing
3. Tatianna as Britney Spears
4. Jinkx Monsoon as Little Edie
5. Alexis Matteo as Alicia Keys

Only three eps in (S5; no previous exposure to the show). Anyone care to rank the hottest queens out of drag? So far from S5 I'm into Lineysha and, oddly, Ivy.

xpost I just watched the S2 Snatch Game, Pandora's Carol Channing was hysterical, so good.

Lineysha's gorgeous. Ivy's not a crazy answer either, that bone structure really is something else. I was thinking about her terrible Marilyn and found myself wondering why the hell she didn't do Joan Rivers. Eh. Hindsight

Yes she would've been a great Joan Rivers!

Yeah, I know this is probably the exact rongest angle to take on the show, but I'm finding it very interesting navigating my impressions/levels of attraction to certain contestants when they're in drag vs. when they're not in drag.

Alyssa's *almost* attractive but it's like her lips are too big for her and she keeps tripping over them when she talks. Beautiful eyes though.

Coco's blue contacts freak me out. I keep expecting them to shoot lasers

Haha Alyssa looks like Will Arnett in AND out of drag.

Hottest out of drag:

S1: Jade
S2: Tyra, Raven
S3: Raja, Carmen, Mariah
S4: PhiPhi, Lashauwn
S5: Lineysha

xp otm

Well, actually, in drag he often reminds me of Hugo Weaving.

xpost elmo otm! Defnitely Will Arnett out of drag. In drag as mentioned upthread I just get constant Joan Collins, lol

*haven't...but excited to see laganja dance

LAGANJA ESTRANJA PERFORMS | "Life On Mars" by David Bowie | Choreographed by Easton Blake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwAGkNqZesg

this season has also been promising purely for getting rid of Silky so early

not strictly RPDR content but ive never used ilx for this and prob never will again -- promoting my friend's stuff!

episode 1 of the olly mary show just went up -- she is a montreal queen who just started (but has been a pro MUA for like 10 years so the looks are On Point af). disclaimer my gf worked a lot on this too so i am biased but i think it's a lot of fun! they have... 6-10 episodes coming 1/week for the next little while! here's the first! please watch it (even if small and volume near zero) to help make it do good <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e90TuwHBH68

i have caught up on these 3 eps and am enjoying it way more than i expected

i didnt rate the cast of this allstars at all but watching them now i’m like “aw shoot girls” theyre pretty endearing

i forgot how much i loooove yara sofia and her cuckoo bananas energy. inject her into my veins!

and all these lipsyncs are magic

also: ginger minj is still delusional. even if she wasnt in the losing team she would not be yhe top! because her runways look was flatout cursed. ruched pantaloons are for NOBODY.
NOBODY.

like

that look was like…Labyrinth On Ice from like 1987 Slovenia or something

i dont even know what it was but it made me angry and i would fight that look

she was fucking funny doing that weird richard simmons character though lord

ok, finally caught this episode and lol at the double post outrage towards ginger's outfit. I thought surely it can't be that bad, she's obviously wearing something kitsch, ironically...Holy fuck! it was bad, the love child of a piñata and those toilet roll holder dolls, inexplicably popular with 70's grans. She couldn't even move properly in it. I'm going for the ' (ham)burglar trapped in sensory play area window' look....stunning, love, just stunning!

other good lol at trinity winning the challenge and everyone completely passing it over, to the point where, when she lost the lipsink, ru saying something like 'you are safe, you survive for another day' and trinity's like 'didnt I win this 'effing main challenge..fml'.

the lipsynches have been very, very good

Gonna say it again, Drag Race España is the sleeper hit of the franchise this year from where I sit. Beats the pants off of Down Under and today was some honest to god perfect TV melodrama and emotion, and it was the roast episode even! Makeover episode next week.

I watched five episodes of Espana yesterday while hungover and it was excellent - it has the heart and warmth of the early original seasons but the scale and inventiveness of the later era.

Last night's episode was great !! Great challenge, amazing runway. I was sad to see the eliminated queen go, but she was the worst in the challenge. The other queen up for elimination shouldn't even have been near the bottom for her runway alone, but I thought she did good in the challenge too.

So much love for this week's lip-sync assassin !!! How she hasn't been in an All Stars season yet when some of them are on their third time is beyond me.

Yeah you’d think she’d have more of a prominent place after all this time. As it stands she’s almost as invisible as Tyra Sanchez.

Also per Untucked how come we didn’t get the tailgate party outside that one clip!

I think at this point THE PIT STOP is what I look forward to the most each week and the actual episode is just sort a formality that I have to watch before I can get to the good stuff.

I never disliked Monique Heart but I did always kinda find her a bit hollow and a bit too performative (sometimes gratingly so), and I was amazed at how at-ease and effortlessly charming she was this past week. All of the queens this season have had such incredible chemistry with Trixie (except maybe Manila which kinda surprised me but even she was still great).

multiple times over the last week I have simply thought about "Sheryl Canning" and started laughing.

Yeah I need to catch up on those but what I caught of Monique's episode was a treat!

Envy Peru on Drag Race Espana of course ruled.

Trinity’s Beyonce was beyond belief, she was fkn robbed. who cares about normcore tryhard Jan.

and yes Pit Stop is life

Monique is so great as a guest on anything. I love her, she’s hilarious. Her and Monet together is guaranteed lols

Odd little episode, like it wanted to be more serious in the challenge instead of having that be the side talk. Which is not bad! But still.

The lip sync assassin bit was top notch though!

Meantime the grind never ends: Drag Race Holland Season 2 starts up August 6. (Wonder why no Canada…yet)

Yeah it's like they punished the bottom girl for making one funny face, because it had to be SERIOUS. I would be confused too when they usually want so much overacting and making Ru laugh.

My BIL works in Canadian tv (not DR though) and it got pretty detailed by COVID lockdowns. Hilariously though he has a friend who does work on the show and through that connection was able to get his first shot in March much earlier than me as an “essential worker”.. so something must have been filmed/is filming!

Cool!

My BIL is a little bit safer this year because of the power of drag 🤣
I did mean derailed up there, oops!

I was wondering if it's actually an advantage to do well enough in your original season to get to the finale but not win, so that you can double dip into being an All-Star. Judging solely by how much I see them, Alaska > Jinkx, Trixie and Katya > Violet.

that episode genuinely felt like an attempt to gaslight the audience. In no world was the winning queen the deserved winner.

the winning team is … These losers!
because the WINNER is… HER from that losing team!

WE HATE EVERYONE

it was an interesting challenge though, i just think the concept needed to be cooked slightly at the brainstorming stage

ru’s critique of scarlet was omg burn ward.
i mean, i dont disagree in a way but it was so BITCH FIX YOURSELF as to feel unfair & personal
and scarlet just blew right by it & went home to write her manifesto

If you ask me, we should be on the third week in a row of Trinity being the winner.

100%

I often find the judging to be weird and opaque, but I thought it made a lot of sense this week. Even with the little connection between Kylie and Ra'Jah, their whole conversation was mainly about Scarlet's two moms finding love with each other, which had nothing to do with the topic of motherhood at all. Although I thought A'keriah should have won. Mind you, I thought A'keriah's Prince performance was really unfairly slated last week.

i still don't understand what made rupaul uncomfortable... listening to ginger talk about how she couldn't shit for like 2 minutes sure made me uncomfortable

ok that sketch was like 900 years long wtf

v glad for winner this wk
but if Jan hurts herself in any way as a result of this show it will be on their heads, man they are fucking with her

also Peppermint was on Pitstop this wk and trixie reminded her of this MAJESTIC hilarity with Bob from last year’s pitstop ie “It’s fashion”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBJwONPe6NU

That acting challenge was both 900 years long and also maybe the most excruciatingly boring challenge in RPDR history, I cannot BELIEVE they actually aired that

It was so bad. The runway was fantastic, though.

yeah that was a killer runway

i am bummed pandora didnt get a bit more love, i thought she was really great this week in challenge & runway

Unfortunately the challenge was so horribly written that even Pandora and Ginger couldn’t really elevate it beyond merely amusing. I actually dug the “I’m your biggest fan” choice Eureka made there, and can’t really imagine it being read any other way that would’ve been better so A+ producer-thwarting on her part there by refusing to give them any alternative takes. Willam would’ve been proud.

It's often been the case that the actual rehearsal/filming footage of these things is way more watchable than the actual final result, and boy did it show.

i always hate the rehearsal moments where michelle gets to michellesplain, in the cuntiest way imaginable, the *dumbest* things

like what a lisp is lmao

thanks michelle

they keep throwing pandora softball after softball and it's like why are you still here and yara is gone

fucking rupaul's rigged race

i truly dislike michelle, she's just not even cunty in a fun way, just a bitch who thinks she's smarter than she actually is

Race Chaser/Hot Goss wondered yesterday if the ‘game within a game’ involves Snatch Game

Also Drag Race España final tomorrow! Say it again, that’s been a great first season and a real treat.

i like that bob and thorgy in the pit stop said pandora seems like she doesn't want to be there at all, agree 100%

also that ryan murphy thing was fucking embarrassing, probably the worst acting challenge

Now that I know how onerous the contract terms are with regards to being called back for later shows, I wouldn't be surprised if Pandora didn't want to be there. (It would also explain why they brought Bianca in to do basically nothing so that they could reset her timer). I know that "contestants treated badly in reality TV show SHOCKER" is not exactly headline news, but other shows don't have that veneer of "we're all one big drag family."

I've been rewatching some of the early seasons, and it seems obvious now that one of the reasons they don't do so many sewing challenges any more is that they just take too long. It's obviously much easier and quicker to give everyone an hour or two to learn a song or some terrible dialogue and let them get into drag that they brought with them, rather than have them make things from scratch.

Which, a pity, I love all that sewing work.

Anyway, I would like to coin a new term after yesterday's episode: "Jangst."

(So when is this game-within-a-game starting anyway, because now there's more people gone than are still in it!)

yeah wtf they are def dragging that out

lol pun intended i guess

The game within a game -- everyone's eliminated one by one and then they have to start all over again, thus stretching the show out through the rest of the year, in time for the new regular season to start in the New Year.

haha

I'm hoping the game-within-a-game is rock paper scissors just to see Ginger's face

I think another reason for scrapping the sewing/design challenges is that they are a lot harder to edit into the production narratives. You can make it seem like eg someone's jokes have bombed by using the rattlesnake sound effect and a cut to Michelle Visage looking stony, whereas you can't really disguise a good or a bad costume the same way.