Drag Race Belgique

Drag Race Belgique Season 1, Episode 5 – Snatch Game & Night of 1001 Audrey Hepburns Runway

March 19, 2023 by krisis 2 Comments

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the fifth episode of Drag Race Belgique Season 1 – the first Snatch Game in Belgium, plus a Night of 1001 Audrey Hepburns runway!

I felt that this Snatch Game and accompanying iconic runway said a lot about the drag culture of Belgium.

Snatch Game was low on rude and uproarious jokes and heavy on studied character work. Even the worst queens of this panel presented better character illusions than the best queens of a typical Snatch Game in the United States!

Similarly, while queens on other franchises might take this runway theme as an opportunity to show off a “high glam” version of Audrey Hepburn, here five out of six queens presented near-exact replicas of some of her iconic looks. None of them were draggy for drag’s sake, and none amplified Hepburn’s petite frame with drag staples like exaggerated shoulder pads or giant hair.

As we have the chance to see Drag Race adapted to countries all around the globe, we must remember that the aesthetics of US Drag Race is heavily influenced by the pageant system. Critiques about proportions and “dragging things up” do not always apply equally in other drag subcultures.

From this season thus far I get the sense that Belgian drag values a much less exaggerated sense of femininity from its drag artists, which has been reflected both in the runways and the judging. It seems to be a season where smaller, more-thoughtful performances can thrive.

Snatch Game shook up my power rankings compared to last week’s acting challenge everywhere but the very top. While we maintained the same front-runner, spreading the wins around and putting a new queen in the bottom definitely shuffled the odds of who might wind up in the finale.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available as part with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

Drag Race Belgique Season 1, Episode 4 – “L’émission qui vous déshabille” acting challenge & “Ceci n’est pas un look!” runway Review & Power Ranking

March 12, 2023 by krisis 1 Comment

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the fourth episode of Drag Race Belgique Season 1 – “L’émission qui vous déshabille,” a scripted acting challenge spoofing real-life documentary Ni juge, ni soumise. It was paired with a “Ceci n’est pas un look!” runway celebrating surrealist painter René Magritte – plus, the library was open for a reading challenge.

If that sounds like a brainy episode, it was! But, it also showed how prepared the top group of queens remaining on this season are when it comes to surmounting any challenge thrown their way… except, perhaps, a reading challenge.

These Belgian queens seemed to be literally shaking in their boots when Rita Baga opened the library for the reading mini-challenge. Several of them seemed to be too nervous to even hold their prop glasses up to their eyes.

That made me wonder to what extent reading is baked into the culture of Belgian drag. Of course, there is a certain playful cattiness to most drag queens and drag scenes, and we’ve seen that on display in the workroom and in confessionals. Yet, reading tends to be a very direct, confrontational version of that cattiness. I get the sense that doesn’t come as naturally in Belgium as it does for queens other countries – like, for instance, New Zealand.

That stands in contrast to the acting challenge and the runway, which both seemed to capitalize on the cerebral qualities of the queens and Belgium’s appreciation for the arts. I wasn’t expecting much from a spoof of a documentary or a modern art runway theme, but this cast of queens came ready to impress.

My French is not good enough to have perfectly understood the acting scenes without subtitles and translations, but I got the impression that two of them went off without a hitch and were thoroughly amusing. The script relied on the broad humor of badly-behaved citizens facing off against a dour but impulsive magistrate, which means the queens all had genuine characters to act rather than simply spouting catchlines or delivering physical humor.

The same is true for the Magritte-inspired “Ceci n’est pas un look!” runway theme. On other franchises I’d expect perhaps one or two queens who really understood the assignment of capturing the thematic qualities of a surrealist painter in their fashions. Here, no one missed the mark entirely. The same was true on their bande dessinée runway on episode two.

It seems clear that the average drag queen in Belgium is expected to know her cultural references and appreciate the country’s artistic heroes. I find it refreshing to be watching a version of Drag Race where the queen’s references are not simply drag, reality TV, and fashion. I don’t think any other franchise has seemed so enamored with connecting drag to the fine arts.

What does this cerebral episode mean for my Power Rankings compared to last week’s “Festival Realness” design challenge? One queen descended precipitously due to some factors out of her control, while a pair of winless queens jostled to secure a spot of runner-up to our clear front-runner.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available as part with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

Drag Race Belgique Season 1, Episode 3 – “Festival Realness” Design Challenge Review & Power Ranking

March 5, 2023 by krisis 1 Comment

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the third episode of Drag Race Belgique Season 1 – “Festival Realness,” a combination ball and design challenge with just a pair of looks and a loosely-defined brief (and one of my all-time favorite songs as a lip sync).

It’s always fascinating to see the first design challenge of a season and that’s doubly true for the first design challenge for an entire franchise. Will the constructed looks trend haute couture or plaintive and practical?

I think the Festival Realness results fell somewhere in the middle of that range, partly because the brief was so vague. How exactly do you combine the pragmatism of a festival look with runway-ready fashion? I think the solution is likely something fantastical like you’d spot at Burning Man, but all of these looks are fairly conventional in form and function save for one (and it’s no coincidence it was the winner).

If the Festival Realness looks weren’t surprising, the outcome of the episode certainly was! From shocking top placements to an indecisive three-way lip sync, everything about the judging this episode was a little puzzling. What did that mean for my Power Ranking compared to last week’s comedy challenge? Honestly, it involved lot of guesswork on which way the judges would lean in the future after tonight’s unpredictable results.

I recently went on a diatribe in my write up of the US franchise’s lip sync Lalaparuza about how I find lip syncs to be a dull form of entertainment that I eschew both as a drag fan and as a potential drag performer. However, if there is ONE SONG that I have lip synced to more than ANY OTHER SONG in my life, it is Technotronic’s “Pump Up the Jam.” I’ve previously told the story of how I carried my boombox out to the curb of my grandparent’s house to choreograph my own performance in the middle of their tiny side street every evening after seeing the group open for Madonna on her Blonde Ambition tour.

I think my nightly pre-teen dance routine probably could’ve beaten two of the queens in this lip sync, if not all three. “Pump Up the Jam” is all about its non-stop thumping beat and rocking your body the entire time. None of these three queens lived up to that for me.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available as part with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

Drag Race Belgique Season 1, Episode 2 – “Les Incontournables” Review & Power Ranking

February 26, 2023 by krisis 1 Comment

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the second episode of Drag Race Belgique Season 1 – “Les Incontournables.” This is an advertising challenge for famous Belgian foods, paired with a bande dessinée runway.

It’s a drag and marketing communications and comic books crossover en Français – literally the most on-brand possible thing on the planet for me! If the mini-challenge had somehow been about databases instead of leafblowers it would’ve felt like they were directly tapping my interests as inspirations for the show.

(Dear Drag Race: If you are listening, I am available for appearances on Down Under!)

This was an intriguing episode both because of the commercials the queens created and the resulting judging.

I felt as though the commercials for Belgium’s Les Incontournables (“the unavoidable”) said a lot about the talents of Belgian drag artists and the nature of Belgian humor. Everyone was incredibly capable in the commercials, with no queen that seemed in over their head. That is never the case on US Drag Race, where it seems like there is always someone flummoxed by learning lines or playing to a camera.

Was that down to the level of experience of this cast? Or, was Rita Baga a kind and nurturing director as a former contestant? We’ve seen both Brooke and Nicky coach queens through acting challenges before, and I don’t know if either of them have managed to produce such a smooth set of performances.

Les Incontournables commercials also each had fully-formed story arcs that were less about punchlines (even when packed with goofy moments) and more about storytelling. I never expect the same level of quick, quippy humor from US Drag Race on international versions, partly because that’s largely driven by Ru’s short attention span. However, there was something that felt quite cerebral about how the queens tackled this challenge even compared to neighboring Drag Race France.

That cerebral quality spilled over to the runway, where the queens tributed their favorite comic characters in a “Hors des Cadres” theme – meaning “out of frames,” or breaking their characters out of their panels. Some queens went for literal interpretations that allowed them to mime their characters in real life, while others adapted high fashion versions – but, they were all very smart.

Then, we came to the judging.

It felt quite upside down to me, with at least one obvious high and one obvious bottom ignored for critiques. But, it was also exceedingly kind. I wasn’t expecting that, especially after the often-picky judging on France. The judges gave positive comments after each commercial aired and applauded after each set of critiques. They also pulled back on reading one queen’s runway after she gave an emotional explanation. Queens in the bottom got plenty of encouragement, and even one top queen merited a specific warning of what to do differently in the future.

I love the positive, affirmational quality of this style of judging. It didn’t feel nice just for the sake of being nice. It felt like everyone was acknowledging that the artists up on the stage are humans who are working incredibly hard, and treating them fairly matters more than making a salacious television show.

I wonder if the puzzling judging and the kindness are two sides of the same coin. One thing I’ve learned from living in New Zealand is that giving and receiving criticism can vary widely across different cultures. Maybe some of the drag elements we are used to critiquing on other international franchises are simply not part of what a Belgian judge would ever call into question. Maybe the tone of some Drag Race critiques is incompatible with the vibe of reality TV in Belgium.

The unexpected judging means my Power Ranking from last week’s talent show has had some major flip flops, which has shuffled my pre-season ranking even further! I don’t mind that at all. Honestly, I think it’s quite fun that so far it feels like Drag Race Belgique is departing from the easily-calculated formula of Drag Race success.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available as part with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

Drag Race Belgique Season 1, Episode 1 – “Bonjour Iedereen” Talent Show Review & Power Ranking

February 19, 2023 by krisis 3 Comments

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the first episode of Drag Race Belgique Season 1 – “Bonjour Iedereen.” This episode introduces us to 10 queens, explains the Drag Race format to new viewers, and has the cast perform one-minute Talent Show segments and show off their “Belgicolours” on the runway.

Each new international Drag Race franchise brings its own flavor of production and judging, and especially of drag. Drag Race, Drag Race UK, Drag Race Canada, and Drag Race Down Under are all wildly different despite all being English-speaking franchises (and three of them being hosted by Ru).

As a result, I was not sure what to expect from Drag Race Belgique despite being obsessed with its neighboring (and language-sharing) Drag Race France when it aired last year (plus, loving the part-Francophone Drag Race Canada, which might be my favorite of the franchises).

My first impressios of Drag Race Belgique is that Belgian drag feels like it has much less to prove than French drag. Even the most austere and fashionable of these 10 queens were a little bit weird and goofy compared to the most competitive members of the French cast. This first episode may have felt the least cutthroat of all of the franchises, save perhaps Canada.

Also, I had no idea Belgian drag would be so humourous, or that the humour would be quite so surreal! I’d describe the majority of these Talent Show acts as deliberately comedic, and all of them had at least a slight edge of absurdity to them. Compare that to España, whose last Talent Show felt like queens were competing in an intergalactic tournament with their very lives at stake!

I see a potential downside of this franchise being that when the humor misses the mark things may seem underwhelming. That could be because the queens simply aren’t funny, or because their humour is are low key and it doesn’t translate well out of the Belgian idiom. Some of these Talent Show performances felt like they may have required us to be in on the joke as viewers, and I can’t tell if that was a Belgian thing or just down to the intensely unique perspectives of each queen.

I’m impressed with Rita Baga on her first Drag Race hosting outing. She’s not trying to be something she’s not by coming off as austere and full of glamour. Rita is our beloved Quebecois alien actress and a dedicated weirdo, but she’s also always authentic. I think she balanced her silly side with clear, incisive commentary as the head judge on the panel. She also showed a fair amount of sympathy for the queens as competitors.

If you came into “Bonjour Iedereen” looking for American-style haute couture and back-breaking stunts, it’s likely you only found one or two opportunities to TOOT along the way.

However, if you treat watching this franchise in an education about how drag can be different all over the world, it was a charming introduction with a strong cast of characters.

How did the performances from this strong cast stack up against my Pre-Season Power Rankings, based only on Meet Queens Interviews and social media? I think I nailed the bottom of the pack, but there were many surprises in store at the top of the ranking to shake things up heading into this season.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available as part with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!