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

(alfred) Soto voce: https://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/rupauls-drag-race-recap-season-10-episode-13-queens-reunited

Ready for Asia's Drag Race. Ready for Ru's Ru-tirement. This show as-is is harmful and stale and Ru doesn't seem to be aware just how much so.

Um, I think we're still at the point where the show's benefits are outweighing any harm.

I'm speaking in terms of the show itself, not the online actions of its fanbase. "Stale" is a separate issue that's worth bringing up, tho.

i found the discussion between ru and the vixen to be very interesting in that it encapsulated the widening generational divide in how to deal with serious structural problems within society. ru saying “i swallowed discrimination to get here” and the vixen essentially saying “fuck that” sits next to, like, debates about appropriation or no-platformimg vs “debate”... it would perk the interest of middle aged male columnists if they had any idea

otm

i love when Ru loses his shit. He hasn’t been that loose & fired up since the S2 reunion with Tammie Brown “i dont see you walking children in nature”

Asia was pretty otm, but Sarge is right, it def showed up the gap in thinking, generationally, between Ru & Vixen

otm [2]

For many people, but esepecially younger generations, enduring tone-policing, bullying and outright abuse in order to 'make it' just doesn't cut it anymore. There's nothing empowering about smiling and nodding while you're forced to endure horrible behavior from someone who wields so much control over your life. Ru needs to crawl out of his ass and try to understand this new context Drag Race has found itself in, instead of fighting it. If behaving like a "professional" meant Vixen sitting there and apologizing while Eureaka wasn't reprimanded as well, then they can keep it and she had every right to walk out of there.

I don't think many writers would touch on this issue because honest self-relfelction is hard, especially when it's about your career trajectory.

My next post is a SPOILER for tonight.

Has an attempted stunt ever backfired as sadly as those butterflies did?

For the record, the moribund nature of this thread this season matches my own feelings about the show at this point.

It’s dead.

That...was not a good ending.

And yeah I was all "Was something supposed to happen?" when Asia did those moves.

A statement from Asia.

murdering butterflies in a failed lip sync stunt is some of the funniest shit to ever happen on this show. not for the butterflies obviously but....

For the record, the moribund nature of this thread this season matches my own feelings about the show at this point.

It’s dead.

When I first saw Asia’s costume I assumed her boobs were going to shoot fireworks or something. Even if the butterflies had ‘performed’ they would have been pretty invisible on a stage like that. Really bad idea (though the audience reactions were hilarious).

Poor Asia. She was my favourite out of the final four, and she messed that up so badly. I cannot imagine why she thought that would be a good idea. Where did she get it from? Is this a thing people do?
I really hope they bring in a "no live animals of any kind" rule after this. As if they ever thought they would need one.

More than two queens lipsynching at one time is always a disaster, imho. And that final lipsync was bad. Kameron and Aquaria both looked wound up and desperate, and Eureka was way out of her league.

Interesting that they had picked a song with three singers for the final lip synch. It’s almost as if they knew...

Absolutely.

Eureka's reveals were fine, and everything, during "If." But I clocked her not knowing the lyrics multiple times during that song. It was rigged to feature 3 queens at the end.

wow yeah that was underwhelming. Filming all the queens "winning" and then not revealing it til the finale actually airs sucks ALL of the energy out of the room bcz we are left with these weak-ass feigned reactions, ugh.

Interesting that they had picked a song with three singers for the final lip synch. It’s almost as if they knew...

Exactly what I thought too. And that way the audience at the taping only knows about one queen who doesn't win.

They haven't ever come up with a satisfactory way to wrap up seasons. Either they capture a genuine reaction in a studio vacuum, or they pre-tape multiple canned possible endings that are ragingly false.

This is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

Asia’s butterflies trying to decide who’s going to fly first pic.twitter.com/yffBcexic9

— ces (@cexargaga) June 29, 2018

the final episodes are never good

it’s surprising to me that they’ve never tried a live show

I think its too expensive for a show like this.. I think its low production value is part of its selling point to the network

Well also you can tell ALLLL the edits that go into the finales, every time.

They should have done the lipsync to this version of the song at least.

https://youtu.be/UlPsybmaNmA

Yeah, the sheer number of costume changes and the like prevent a fully live show

what a trainwreck that was.

and a butterflywreck.

I will say though despite finding Aquaria super bland and devoid of charisma and largely uniqueness, I was genuinely surprised at how great her lip syncs were. She had a lot of subtle touches that felt really smart.

Yeah same

This season was a lot of charismatic queens with no follow-through, and some extremely talented queens burdened with profound unlikeability

I didn't like Miz Cracker at first but she ended up being one of my all-time faves

the best thing about that finalé was Gus Kenworthy.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/connorgarel/rupauls-drag-race-the-vixen-eureka-respectability-politics?utm_term=.oaKlvPyBA#.imAD3YeQk

^^^^ a pretty unapologetic takedown

RuPaul’s racial philosophies, which include a classic white American “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” maxim and a generational distance from the queens who compete on her show, are indicative of her deep-seated respectability politics. The “advice” she offered the Vixen was just a stone’s throw away from the notorious language once espoused by Bill Cosby, or Charles Barkley, or Ronald Reagan — exhortations to black personal responsibility and rules of behavioral comportment; it implied that the Vixen, in her loudmouthed navigation of the world and her insistence on addressing racism, is lacking in self-discipline and respectability.

Too often the burden of civility and amenity falls on the backs of those enduring oppression. For RuPaul to demand that the Vixen engage in a culture of silence, to expect her to choreograph her anger in order to appear less dissonant, less threatening, is to rob her of her voice for the sake of disproving the white myth of black inferiority. There is no “right” way to comport oneself in the midst of inequity. Such archaic criticisms directly contradict everything the art of drag itself stands for. When has protest art, or protest at large, ever been courtly?

(Also floats the idea of giving Ru the axe and replacing her with Asia. Like that'll happen.)

One thing I've seen repeated in all these pieces is that RuPaul is promoting a culture of silence and I think that's totally misreported just to fit their narratives. When Ru said that the Vixen could chose to not say anything, she was clearly refering to the drama between Aquaria and Miz Cracker. The Vixen didn't have to bring it up, but she decided to stir the pot.

I could accept that. I can not accept Ru's reaction to Asia in the reunion, though. Ru tends to conflate two seemingly similar but very different narratives of being a star and being the star of your own life. I can see the first of those two requiring you to casually throw people in your life away if they do not serve your needs, but I'm damned if I think it makes sense for the latter of those narratives.

Mm. And good piece there too.

Now that Drag Race Thailand is on WOWPresents Plus I may take the dive there -- but in a little bit, it was almost six months of DR stuff in general this year and I need a breather.

Oh I agree, Asia was completely right. A lot of Ru's reactions were problematic and made me cringe. (x-post)

I just got around to reading this in the print paper: Jinkx Monsoon on RuPaul's influence on her life and career:

https://www.thestranger.com/queer-issue-2018/2018/06/20/27819501/how-rupaul-changed-my-life

Willam and Alaska have a new Drag Race recap show called Race Chaser and they are starting w S1 now that it’s finally available

This week’s ep includes a brief but hilarious interview with Shannel & she confirms that her headpiece falling off during the lipsync was 100% staged <3 And she throws majestic casual shade at Alaska & it’s EVERYTHING

They also have a regular recurring Tammie Brown segment <3

http://foreverdogproductions.com/fdpn/podcasts/race-chaser/

Oh jesus. This will be a must listen.

it’s very enjoyable, Willam & Alaska have good chemistry

Yeah this has been fun, caught every episode so far -- can't wait until they hit their respective seasons, but they've already been sharing a LOT of new behind-the-scenes stuff.

Where is season 1 available, please?

solarmovie dot net

Thank you.