RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, Episode 6 – Hometown Hunnies: Review & Power Ranking

September 4, 2022 by krisis

Kia ora and welcome to my review and power rankings for the sixth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – Hometown Hunnies, where queens were challenged to create a spoof tourism ad for their hometowns.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen another episode of Drag Race where RuPaul seemed so incredibly over it, both in the workroom and on the runway.

Maybe that comes down to how the queens took the direction to create their spoof ads. All of them understood the challenge in an incredibly literal way and were initially planning straight-forward homages to their hometowns with little bits of humor. Ru sets them straight one-by-one in the workroom, telling each one of them to go back to the drawing board with limited time before their shoot begins.

We all know Ru loves to keep the queens second-guessing themselves, but the fact that she needed to correct everyone in the cast tells me there was some form of missed communication from production to the queens. Maybe that was intentional, or maybe Ru and the production team simply assumed the “spoof” aspect of the ads was implied right up until Ru’s walk-around.

I think there’s a little bit of a cultural aspect mixed in with that. I feel like if the US franchise asked a queen to talk about her home town, she would be more likely to assume it was mean to be a silly version and script it as such.

For Australia and New Zealand, I feel like there’s a lot more pride in wanting to make your town look good – especially on an international stage. Even though almost all of them do take an initially negative view of their hometowns (Beverly, especially), at first they all seemed mor- focused on explaining their places rather than telling a story about themselves.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this many awkward moments in a Drag Race judges’ critique that didn’t end in RuPaul screaming about H&M. It feels like the editors could barely piece together enough comments from the three judges to fill the time. Maybe that’s down to Ru’s openly hostile reception to most of the ads (again, stemming from poor direction). Or, it could’ve been the super-basic “Swimsuit Edition” runway prompt, which feels like it was originally intended for a mini-challenge or third ball look. To their credit, all of the queens took things in a conceptual direction with their swimsuits, but the prompt definitely failed to produce a gag-worthy moment – and, it gave the judges very little to discuss.

That leaves us with a fairly obvious Final Four, as predicted in last week’s “Bosom Buddies” Power Rankings (and the week before that in Snatch Game, and the week before that in Drag Brunch). The real question is who will graduate to the Top 3 in the finale after next week’s episode. Two of the choices seem very obvious, while the other one is still hotly contested.

If you want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 outside of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the home country of a franchise you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see that content.)

Readers, start your engines… and may the best Down Under drag queen win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, Episode 5 – Bosom Buddies: Review & Power Ranking

August 28, 2022 by krisis

Kia ora and welcome to my review and power rankings for the fifth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – Bosom Buddies, a classic Girl Group challenge of writing and recording a verse on a pop song.

I think fans all often overlook the fact that there’s a songwriter locked in a tiny room somewhere writing these girl group tracks on demand for Drag Race. It’s a daunting task! They have to come up with an idea that feels in-genre and on-trend, that can fit in a number of additional verses, but that’s not too good of an idea or else they’d want to sell it for use as an actual song!

I think “Bosom Buddies” joins the pantheon of the best Girl Group challenge tracks, presided over by the spectacular “Break Up (Bye Bye).” This song hits the perfect spot of a snotty, pop-punk Charlie XCX or Olivia Rodrigo tune that gives a nod to its grungy forebears likeAvril Lavigne and Veruca Salt. I would absolutely listen to it outside of the context of a Drag Race recap.

This episode included some tense interpersonal drama between Beverly Kills and Kween Kong. Beverly Kills was being young and overconfident to try to psyche herself up for a win, but that crossed the line to taunting the similarly-pressed Kween Kong and then later blaming her for snapping back.

I felt for Kween Kong in this moment. It feels like she is a queen who constantly has the expectations and assumptions of others piled onto her. I’m sure that’s down to many reasons, including being a queen of color in an overwhelmingly white space, and being such a handsome and masc-presenting man who performs in drag.

It was sad to watch this moment of reality show conflict become a trigger for Kween Kong, sending her into a spiral of negativity as she prepared for the main stage. I know some people would celebrate her turning out a strong performance after that setback. While I celebrate her success, I recognize it as a moment of sadness. This is a burden Kween has been made to carry many times over, both in and out of drag. She wants to access the same ease and joy as other queens around her, but she always has the weight of expectations, assumptions, and projections on her shoulders.

More than anything, I want for Kween Kong to never need to feel that weight again once she exits this season as an international star.

What did this Girl Groups challenge do for my Power Rankings? I’d say things have solidified even further from last week’s rank, but I’m sure some of you would have my #3 at #1 and my #5 at #4! Please sound off in the comments below if that describes you.

Readers, start your engines… and may the best Down Under drag queen win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, Episode 4 – Snatch Game: Review & Power Ranking

August 21, 2022 by krisis

Kia ora and welcome to my review and power rankings for the fourth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – Snatch Game!

Snatch Game is one of the most-celebrated episodes of every season of Drag Race. That’s not only for the laughs and memes that it brings, but because it is the one challenge queens can prepare for the most. Even when RuPaul slightly changes up the format, Snatch Game is always a challenge about celebrity impersonation and being ridiculous.

I’ve come to appreciate that Snatch Game is also an interesting window into the national humor of each country and its drag scene. That was slightly muted in this panel of contestants, because only one of them chose to portray a New Zealand or Australian celebrity – and, that choice came with its own set of challenges.

Spankie Jackzon brought Barry Humphries to Snatch Game, who has been primarily known outside of Australia for decades as a drag character named Dame Edna Everage. This is down to Drag Race‘s rules around playing copyrighted characters. The idea is that as long as you claim to be playing the actor behind the copyrighted character that Snatch Game is a fair parody. The show wants to avoid legal trouble for portraying a character without legal release… sometimes saying inappropriate things.

While Humphries certainly wears drag to portray Dame Edna, who he created in 1955, to my knowledge he does not considered himself a drag queen. He happens to portray an over-the-top female character, which has links to British Panto.

In the case of Dame Edna as a drag character, I’m not aware of her having any connection to gay or queer culture or making commentary on same. She is simply a parody of a woman – at first a Melbourne suburbanite, but from the 80s onward a sort of self-made media mogul fitting for the time period. She became sort of daft but incisive response to the heartless conservative power-ladies of the Thatcher era

Adding another layer to all of that, Humphries lives publicly as a straight, cisgender male, and he has repeatedly and unapologetically made transphobic comments in recent years. It reached a point that a famous Australian comedy award named in his honor decided to retitle itself.

People of any sexual orientation or gender identity can perform in drag. However, performing in drag is not a shield for being deliberately cruel or offensive, or to protect your bigoted views.

I share this background not only to catch you up on the only actual Australian character on the panel this year, but also as a means of exploring Spankie’s portrayal of Humphries as Dame Edna. As an impersonation, it was perfect. I’ve seen a fair amount of Edna back in the day, and if you had told me this was the real deal making a guest appearance on Drag Race I would have believed you.

If you listen to Spankie’s answers, you’ll note a lot of slang about female genitalia and how Edna’s has aged. I haven’t watched Edna’s act recently enough to recall if this is a big part of it or Spankie’s own invention. However, what stuck out to me is that this is the sort of overt parody of womanhood that leads some folks to label drag performances as misogynistic.

Drag Race itself engaged in this sort of misogynistic commentary more often in earlier seasons, as well as language that we would now all label as transphobic. Comparing the sorts of things the judges would say on Season 1-4 to today reveals how different the dialog around queerness, drag, and transgender people has become.

Of course, I’m also writing about a regular challenge on a female impersonation show called “Snatch Game.” There’s always an element of transgression in drag.

What’s fascinating about that is we have no way of knowing how meta Spankie intended her performance of Edna to be. Was she intentionally leaning into the offensive aspects of an elderly, bigoted man playing an elderly panto dame, making outdated jokes? Was that also a commentary on Drag Race itself? Or, was this her literal interpretation of Edna, with no comedy attached? Or, yet again, was this Edna speaking with Spankie’s voice, saying things Spankie thinks are funny?

I have no answers for you. Nor am I trying to engender any negativity or blame towards Spankie! To me, this is one of those moments that is so fascinating about Drag Race, where it has become the very thing it is commenting upon. I think it’s important that we don’t just view the show as entertainment or as a showcase for drag art, but as a conversation about gender – and, one that sometimes can be uncomfortable or even offensive.

Last week, Spankie Jackzon conquered my Episode Three rankings. Has she held onto her top spot, or did someone else snatch the pole position from her? Read on to find out – and let me know if you agree (or disagree) in the comments below.

Readers, start your engines… and may the best Down Under drag queen win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, Episode 3 – A Bottomless Brunch: Review & Power Ranking

August 14, 2022 by krisis

Kia ora and welcome to my review and power rankings for the third episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – A Bottomless Brunch.

This is a paired comedy challenge meant to simulate hosting a drag brunch. Clearly it was a case of false advertising, as there was nary a breakfast or lunch in sight, but plenty of bottoms!

In my pre-season ranking, I mentioned that Hanna Conda had perpetuated racist tropes in the past, including some performances appropriating cultures in insensitive ways. That came to light in this episode in a workroom conversation, which confirmed my understanding that Hannah had already begun to take action to grow and make reparations before been cast on the show.

I’ve seen a lot of fans calling Hannah “the racist one” and comparing her to Scarlet Adams from Season 1, and I want to speak to that for a moment.

No one can remove the harm they’ve done through their racist actions, whether they are overt and intentional or passive and the result of unconscious bias. However, they can take action to reduce and remove those behaviors, and they can apply themselves to being educated about other cultures without asking Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) to do all of the emotional labor on their behalf.

I understand that fellow white/Pākehā fans who are strident in their labelling of Hannah as “the racist one” feel they are doing their part to confront bigotry. However, in this instance I think you and I both need to consider stepping back from our label-makers to observe Hannah’s behaviors and to listen to how her community is receiving her (both in general, and in specific when it comes to Kween Kong on this episode).

Even if you have done years of anti-racism work yourself, if you are white/Pākehā it’s not for you to accept or decline Hannah’s apologies or approve or reject her reparative behaviors. And, if you haven’t done any anti-racism work, Hannah’s LinkTree offers several good starting points from an Australian perspective.

Just as I’m telling you not to accept or decline Hannah’s apologies, it’s not down to me to say she has done “enough” on her anti-racist journey to be crowned as a representative of the Drag Race franchise.

I think it’s important that we’re all aware that this is a part of her history. For some BIPOC fans and community members, that history might be too hurtful to allow them to appreciate Hannah’s art. We need to leave space for them to have that feeling and to take cues from it, just as we should make space and take cues from BIPOC folks who are welcoming her anti-racist education.

Kween Kong raises a good point here – that in Samoan, there is no word for “sorry.” True apologies come in the form of actions, not words.

Finally, having now lived in New Zealand for half a decade, I can tell you that racism presents itself differently in Australia and New Zealand than in North America. I have seen overt, vile, casual racism in NZ that I’m familiar with from the states. I’ve also seen insidious, baked-in cultural bias stemming from a much-more-recent history of white colonialism in NZ.

No racism is “better” or “worse” than any other racism, but trying to apply an American understanding of racist actions or reparations to an Australian or Kiwi isn’t always going to be effective. That’s especially true with issues related to Indigenous and Aboriginal peoples. In learning about NZ’s Treaty of Waitangi and the modern Waitangi Tribunal, I realized I had no framework as an American to apply to the issue. I had to listen carefully to expand my own understanding of race and racism.

I think if I can boil all of that down to one statement – both for Hannah and for us as fans – it is “listen and learn.” We should all be quick to confront bigotry when we spot it and to hold people accountable for it. The process of disassembling that bigotry and changing behaviors and thoughts in the longer term is something much more complex – and much harder to label.

We all need room to be able to grow and improve as kinder, more-accepting human beings, but we can’t make people accept us if they’ve been harmed by our past behavior.

Last week, Hannah Conda sat atop my Episode Two rankings. Has she maintained her top spot despite another week without a win? And, has Kween Kong bounced back in the standings after a strong showing in this episode? Read on to find out – and let me know if you agree (or disagree) in the comments below.

Readers, start your engines… and may the best Down Under drag queen win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, Episode 2 – Cagey Queens: Review & Power Ranking

August 7, 2022 by krisis

Kia ora and welcome to my review and power rankings for the second episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – “Cagey Queens” – a particularly wretched acting challenge.

Despite living in New Zealand for five years, I haven’t seen a single lick of New Zealand TV – so, I couldn’t tell you if this prison skit is a spoof of anything specific about Down Under television.

(In fact, there have been some well-regarded Aussie prison shows to pull from – namely, Prisoner and its modern reboot Wentworth – but I can’t say whether it references either.)

Just based on what I’ve absorbed from conversational context, it feels like a more apt acting challenge would be a Soap Opera spoof of Home and Away or Neighbours, a high school drama, a parody of Xena, a nature programme, or even a badly-imported reality TV show.

(Too meta?)

Yet, here we are with a prison script that sincerely has no plot and no jokes. Much like the “here’s some leaves” design challenge last episode, it feels like these Aussie and Kiwi queens are being given nothing to work worth.

In the immortal words of India Ferrah: “Girl… prison, honey.”

Yet, once again this cast somehow managed to shine despite that. Aside from two queens who were particularly lost in this scene, everyone delivered something ranging from a decent performance to laugh-out-loud comedy.

Pair that with a particularly-strong insect-themed runway and it feels like the cast made good episode by sheer force of will. They certainly weren’t aided by a downright surly Michelle Visage, or the typically-hilarious Lucy Lawless as a guest judge. She gets the chance to say maybe two sentences throughout the entire episode.

This criminally bad acting challenge has shaken up the power rankings significantly from my Week One rankings – with one low queen on a meteoric rise and another queen seemingly doomed to be the next out no matter what she does. Do you agree or disagree? Sound off in the comments below.

Readers, start your engines… and may the best Down Under drag queen win!