'...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

The added sound effects during the stunts such as the crash noises timed to the death drops, they were so distracting and really highlighted how obviously pre-recorded the whole set-up was

sure... but the finale’s always been pre-recorded since they first started doing it “live”. this isn’t really the format to be craving that kind of authenticity.

Oh yeah 100%, I still miss the days where it was the last scene of the last episode in the same set etc and I think this season has been such an obvious construction of narrative that I'm just being sensitive to the artifice of that

idk i think the in-studio finales were a bit anti-climactic. 3 judges & a few crew clapping for the winner always felt a little sad lol

the show seems *straighter* than it has ever been and I think it has lost a lot of the magic it ever had.

Several articles (and possibly people in this thread) have suggested that this the VH1 influence. They want things to be a bit cleaner. Which is why they don't do the puppets anymore, I read. No more glory holes.

xpost Yeah, that always made Raja's win a bit anticlimactic. And made the season 4 reveal that there WASN'T going to be a final decision on the runway that much more of an honest surprise.

I think the live ones are anticlimactic as well in a different way though. You can tell they film alternative results and so everyone's energy seems off

Also all my boyfriend has spoke about today is how nobody at all was able to give Yvies mirrors a polish before she walked out and how distracting the greasy marks on them were

I assume we have all seen Simpsons Drag Race on Facebook btw?

Some blick-and-you-miss-'em cameos (Jiggly among others):

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

My new coworker is a Drag Race fan, so at least we have something to talk about when things are slow!

Did anyone watch the Jaymes Mansfield video with Contrapoints? It's great.

Speaking of Jiggly, did you guys see the Vulture list where they rank the most powerful queens ? The whole thing is very questionable, but I wonder when or how Jiggly became more "powerful" than Sharon Needles ? They don't explain the ranking below 20 so maybe I missed her big breakthrough.

They don't explain the ranking below 20 so maybe I missed her big breakthrough.

They do, it's alphabetical by first name.

Ooops sorry, didn't see the extra layers!

Alaska and WIllem going IN on that disgusting article on their podcast last week is crucial listening.

I just remembered Jiggly was a regular character in Pose.

xpost -- yeah that was a hell of a thing.

Any link to said episode?

here you go dawling https://megaphone.link/HTX2514271013

or spotify link

the ep is Hot Goss #3

https://open.spotify.com/show/2pJvYcYBD6A4MPkWagUtb7

WERQ QUEEN YAAASSS thankyew.

S12 and All-Stars S5 just announced.

I would carp that calling basically half the queens who have ever been on RPDR "all stars" is a bit rich, but whatever gets Shea Coulee more screen time is fine by me.

Quite!

Is there a confirmed lineup of All Stars?

Sorry to interrupt, but is there a Pose thread on this board? Surprised that I haven't seen one. Does it have a weird title or something?

The UK line-up has been announced. Good luck finding a queen from north of the border or over 30 among them. I was hoping for a Blackpool Pier eyeshadow-to-the-brows Lily Savage throwback to be in there somewhere too.

No confirmed lineup of All Stars 5 yet, but some educated guesses are posted on the RPDR wiki...

https://rupaulsdragrace.fandom.com/wiki/RuPaul%27s_Drag_Race_All_Stars_(Season_5)

If that's accurate, then I'll make the obvious joke: I hope that you-know-who picks that queen and throws her out of the competition again.

Sorry to interrupt, but is there a Pose thread on this board? Surprised that I haven't seen one. Does it have a weird title or something?

I've been wondering about that myself. Given the second season just wrapped, it's kinda overdue.

So Race Chaser's been on a hell of a roll -- the Manila guest appearance the other week was great, but this latest one with Alessandra Torresani is next-level genius. If she didn't have her own podcast I say she should just join this one!

https://megaphone.link/HTX5936455511

Another must-listen Race Chaser the other day with Delta Work -- got into a LOT of backstage stuff from recent seasons. Delta takes over the episode and it's practically a monologue -- and she admits she can talk a little too much -- but still:

https://megaphone.link/HTX7409826732

Meantime, this happened last night:

In the press room at the @TheEmmys, I asked @RuPaul to address the diversity or lack thereof in his show @RuPaulsDragRace. And... pic.twitter.com/kL1EYxJQXK

— Danielle Young (@RhapsoDani) September 23, 2019

I admit I don't even want to watch that clip. However, Delta's hour-long monologue is in itself Emmy-worthy.

Delta's right that it's impossible to know the target that's on RuPaul's back at this point in her career. But she also seems basically right that what she's selling when, say, she hugs Plastique Tiara in the workroom and tells everyone they're "family" is not coherent with the seemingly closed-off person she seems to be in real life.

Trudat.

I hedged with a lot of "seem"s there.

apparently the UK Drag Race is very good! I'm not in the UK atm so I can't watch it. If I catch a way to let you (and I) see it i'll let you know. Please do the same.

Just saw the first episode -- thought it was pretty good! No spoilers for now but it's interesting catching the at times subtle differences between the American version and this one. (One of the biggest ones -- zero prizes! The grand prize as such is getting your own WOW+ series in Hollywood.)

Its good in a way that the original hasn't been for a long long time. But its not great. The show wants to translate American styling on to a British heritage. I thought it was very telling that they were all pretty and under 35 and there were no Lily Savage type end-of-the-pier queens. Alan Carr was worse than when Twiggy did ANTM - no real insight or critique and clearly there because Britain doesn't have enough high-profile gays to choose from.

Also that lip synch, yikes. I would have sent them both home - one being truly awful shouldnt let the other one away with not knowing the words at all

That said i feel a lot more enthused about watching it than i have in a long long time. One of the queens has already been gaining negative traction outside the show for being an open and proud Tory and she seems to be one of the strongest contestants so that might pan out curiously.

Interesting, which one?

btw, if you're not within the iPlayer zone you can watch this on WOW TV's subscription service. First month is free, then it's $3.99 a month, I think. I am happy to support them, and also could not get any downloads of episode 1.

MAGA Chipz

That fits.

MAGA was my favourite. I enjoyed this and I haven't enjoyed a DR for a few years now. Ru looks heartily sick of the whole thing though and her abilities to pretend that she's enjoying herself at straining at the seams.

yeah MAGA seemed like the most convincingly talented out of the lot of them based on one episode, it's unfortunate

Second episode was much better but fuck me the script for "Downton Draggy" was painfully unfunny even by the standards of the acting challenges that are always dismally unfunny in this show

It hasn't occurred to me until lately that it's possible, if not quote plausible, that the acting challenges are always written terribly so that it's a lot easier to separate the stars capable of transcending the material from the ones who need to be fed good jokes.

That'd be some 4D chess, and we're talking reality TV writers here. Fun to think about, though.

One can dream. Good episode all around otherwise though I will miss Scaredy; still, pretty evident in the lip sync why she went.

Hilarious follow-on from last week this morning -- on Race Chaser/Hot Goss, they got hold of a Gothy Kendoll nude somehow and Willam was, how you say, verrrrrrrry loudly appreciative of the package on display. There was a line in there about how Gothy really shouldn't worry about his teeth.

I will miss Scaredy

I certainly will not.