drag

Krisis covers RuPaul's Drag Race, international Drag Race, Dragula, and more in their incredibly in-depth essays and recaps on Drag.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 10 – “50/50’s Most Gagworthy Stars” and Night of 1000 Beyoncés runway Review & Power Ranking

March 4, 2023 by krisis 1 Comment

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the tenth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – “50/50’s Most Gagworthy Stars.” It’s a spoof of the inimitable Barbara Walter’s celebrity-focused interview specials on 20/20, her Friday-evening news magazine show. Plus, a long-awaited and much-requested “Night of 1000 Beyoncés” runway.

This episode’s challenge impressed me on a conceptual level. I love when Drag Race invents new challenge formats and rumixes old ones.

We’ve had queens host their own interview shows before, as with Season 6’s infamous interview of Georgia Holt and Chaz Bono. However, this talk show boasted multiple formats and multiple celebrities (even if all three of them are long-time friends of the show).

The idea of having queens out on a golfcart and in a kitchen segment was a brilliant way to get them out of the interview chair, and to reflect the range of opportunities that today’s queens receive post-show. Drag is as mainstream as it has ever been even as conservatives try to outlaw it as a way to attack transgender people across dozens of statrs. Queens need to be ready to be visible and vulnerable on either side of these goofy segments of cooking, driving a golf cart, or exercising.

I wasn’t as impressed with the queens themselves as I was with the challenge concept.

Look: interviewing is hard, especially when your subject ranges from easily-distracted to actively-hostile to the idea of being interviewed. Anyone who has a chatty friend with a huge personality knows this feeling. You need to toe a fine line between investigative journalism and improv comedy to keep the conversation on track without it turning into a monologue.

Of the entire cast, it was evident that only Loosey LaDuca had the chops to manage that sort of chaotic situation. While Loosey had the easiest interview subject in Frankie Grande, I have no doubt she would have done just as well with Charo or Love Connie. However, even more than Loosey, Sasha Colby showed an ability to think on her feet to create TV alchemy.

What does that mean for our Power Rankings as the field tightens from eight queens down to seven? Unsurprisingly, our solid Top Four hasn’t changed since last week’s Crystal Ball even if there has been some slight shuffling. The real contest at the moment isn’t about who will make it to the finale, but who will manage to hang on for a fifth place finish!

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best drag queen win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 10 – “50/50’s Most Gagworthy Stars” and Night of 1000 Beyoncés runway Review & Power Ranking

Drag Race Sverige Season 1 – Pre-Season “Meet The Queens” Power Ranking

February 28, 2023 by krisis 2 Comments

We’ve only had two weeks to get acquainted with the queens of Drag Race Belgique, but it’s already time to launch the third Drag Race season of 2023 – again, in a new country! We’re flying north from Belgium to Scandinavia, where Drag Race Sverige will debut in Sweden on 5 March, 2023! That means it’s time to meet the queens of Sverige for my pre-season Power Ranking.

What exactly am I ranking before the season even begins? Usually I watch the “Meet The Queens” interviews of the cast, but Sverige didn’t produce any! That puts me at a major disadvantage for pre-season ranking, since I can’t tell much about how the queens do on camera without being able to control their own edit. Instead, I’ll scroll these artists’ social media feeds and closely examine their promo looks.

It’s not much of a “get to know you,” but that’s all I get before I make my totally blind, no-spoilers try at ranking their chances to win the show.

Remember: my Power Rankings are for fun. I don’t write them to criticize these amazing drag artists. The point of these posts is to give these performers the thousands of words of attention and analysis they each so richly deserve for their art – all while trying to predict what their drag and their editing says about their placement on the show.

Some of those predictions come from watching 15 years and 30+ seasons of Drag Race, but ultimately it comes down to the camera presence and quick wit of each queen.

Or, perhaps we could say it has to do with their Charisma, Uniquness, Nerve, and Talent.

If you want to watch Drag Race Sverige when it premieres on 5 March you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch it anywhere outside of Sweden. WowPresentsPlus also features the many other worldwide Drag Race franchises (though note that generally each franchise is blacked out in its home country, since you’re meant to watch it on local television.

Läsare, start your engines. Och må den bästa Drag Queen vinna!

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!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 9 – “The Crystal Ball: Episode 200” & Crystalized Eleganza design challenge Review & Power Ranking

February 25, 2023 by krisis 4 Comments

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the ninth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – “The Crystal Ball: Episode 200,” a ball with a Crystalized Eleganza design challenge that nods to Kennedy Davenports iconic “I had crystallized” runway for the “Death Becomes Her” theme.

This episode is a celebration of all things Drag Race, which is really no different than any other episode of Drag Race. Ever since that “Lip Sync Extravaganza Eleganza” spoken word lip sync challenge back on Season 5 (10 years ago this month!), the Drag Race juggernaut has become increasingly self-referential. The show is constantly high on its own supply, which only works because it has featured so many incredible drag artists over the past 14 years and 199 prior episodes.

However, it’s that weight of history that makes it increasingly hard for each season to stand up to all that came before. It’s not like every American Idol contestant has to occasionally sing in the style of a past contestant. Do Project Runway contestants occasionally have to remake the garments of past competitors? Do housemates on Big Brother speak exclusively in quotes from past housemates?

I don’t know, because in the realm of reality TV these days I mostly only watch British shows about painting that are borderline meditative.

My point is that the more you self-reference, the more reductive and insular you get. It’s the reality-TV version of inbreeding. You want more “walk that fucking ducks” and fewer repeats of “proportionizing” and “Miss Vanjie.” Those things were hilarious to the audience the first time around, but they produce less and less positive nostalgia from every hit.

At the same time I don’t want the show to encourage repeats of past bits, I also want it (and, in particular, Michelle) to drop the “We’ve seen it before” critique for things that aren’t deliberate copies. In 199 episodes just of this main franchise we have seen a lot of concepts and gags. For every innovative plunging dress with a crystal spine like Anetra’s this episode, we’ve seen a dozen beauty pageant looks and people coughing up things on the runway.

I think that kind of repetitiveness is fine. Let’s judge these queens on the originality of their total package of drag without harping on them for imitating one little design element or runway beat of a past queen. I think that’s just another function of this show’s self-obsession.

If that sounds like a lot of complaining, perhaps it’s because I’m worn out on these hyper-speed episodes and I didn’t like many of the looks in this ball. Oh, and that was a terrible lip sync to one of my favorite Lil Nas X songs!

That lead to some minor shuffling in the ranks compared to last week’s rank of the Lalaparuza, but it’s still the same four queens in line for the finale and the same few queens wrestling over who will be the next out. The only real surprise is the one queen who seems to be improbably floating in the middle of those two groups at the moment.

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best drag queen win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 9 – “The Crystal Ball: Episode 200” & Crystalized Eleganza design challenge Review & Power Ranking

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!