RuPaul's Drag Race

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 8 – Grande Finale

March 30, 2024 by krisis

I’m back with one final post on the Drag Olympics of Drag Race! The RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Grande Finale combined a reunion with a Lip Sync Smackdown for the Crown.

While final episodes often included some form of performance or lip sync, the idea of a sudden death lip sync tournament in the Drag Race finale began in 2017 with RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9. That was our first season with four finalists – Shea Couleé, Sasha Velour, Trinity the Tuck Taylor, and Peppermint. We’ve learned since then that production shot multiple endings of the semi-final episode, including various eliminations, and that Peppermint wasn’t certain she would be included in the live finale until relatively close to the date of the show.

That could have become a one-time affair if not for winner Sasha Velour and her roses. Sasha undoubtably created the biggest Drag Race moment of all time – a meme that instantly spread across the internet, and which has been referenced by many mainstream shows including Saturday Night Live (twice!). The idea of a wig reveal to a downpour of roses has become part of the queer internet lexicon. [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 8 – Grande Finale

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 12 – Bathroom Hunties Power Rankings

March 25, 2024 by krisis

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 12 was called “Bathroom Hunties,” an interior design challenge with a heavy helping of improv. On the runway, the theme was “Chain Reaction” – and a few queens served imaginative chained-up looks different from anything we’ve seen before.

Drag Race occasionally serves these oddball “experiential” challenges that profess to be about giving the judges a live walkthrough of interior design. We’ve seen it before in “Queen of Clubs” on All Stars Season 4 (whispers “club 96″) and “Get A Room!” on All Stars Season 5.

What some fans – and queens – miss about these challenges is they’re not about design. The challenge is never to design the best room or create the most credible commercial. They’re either about improv or branding. Maybe both! The brief is basically “what would you do with an empty room,” in the same way that many of the marketing commercial challenges are “what would you do with a green screen.” Queens who get mired in painting the walls are missing the forest for the trees.

Of course, there’s also something to be said for the fact that Trixie Mattel is one of the very few queens to sell her own solo show with Trixie Motel – an interior design show! It’s not unusual for Drag Race to borrow from the success of their favorite alums to inspire challenges, and I think that was intentional here.

It was no surprise to see the two queens with the strongest brands easily win this challenge, although watching their process revealed some interesting things about them both. While they retained their spots compared to last week’s “Corporate Queens” drag seminars challenge power rankings, the rest of the semi-finalists shuffled their standings as they vie for the chance to be second-runner-up.

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best drag queen win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 7 – Haters Wedding Roast power rankings

March 23, 2024 by krisis

I’m back with more coverage of the Drag Olympics of Drag Race! RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Episode 7 – Haters Wedding Roast, a stand-and-plant stand-up challenge delivered from behind a wedding dais paired with a “Take Me Up The Aisle” bridal runway.

If you engage in a retrospective Ru-watch of Drag Race, it’s interesting to watch how the show transforms over the years from a competition where drag queens must occasionally be funny to a full-fledged comedy competition. At this point, the show is known (and memed) as much for its laugh-out-loud absurd moments as for its fashion. At this point, there’s no way to win RuPaul’s lasting affection if you’re not at least a little bit funny.

The peculiar thing about that transformation into a full-on comedy competition is that it hinges entirely on RuPaul’s sense of humor. What Ru finds funny is grounded strongly in references that are older than most of her competitors. Though she’s twenty years older than me, RuPaul and I have an incredibly similar set of comedy references – Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, 80s sitcoms like The Golden Girls, campy game show hosts and guests, and the deadpan early seasons of Saturday Night Live.

That’s a big reason why campy queens and old souls tend to do so well with RuPaul – they tap into her comfort zone when it comes to humor. Would someone learning to be funny today for the young consumers of now be funny to RuPaul? Would they do well on Drag Race? I’m never sure. I think we got a hint of this with Willow Pill, who has a darker, edgier kind of humor that’s right on the edge of Millennial and Gen Z. RuPaul ate that up. Yet, most times when we see anyone with a more youthful sense of ironic humor on the show, Ru is quick to serve them neutch and chop them down at the first chance.

This Haters Comedy Roast included two sets that were legitimately hilarious for audiences of all ages. That gave us a tiny but critical shuffle to the rankings compared to last week’s Strictly Come Prancing power rankings. What does that mean for next week’s finale? I think we have a clear powerhouse pair of potential winners, but also a black horse (wonk wonk) who could come through and surprise them both.

I’ll be back next week to congratulate our winner and reflect on my predictions and power rankings for the season!

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

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best international drag superstar win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 11 – Corporate Queens & DragCon 1980 runway Power Rankings

March 18, 2024 by krisis

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 11 was called “Corporate Queens,” which required the queens to balance a buttoned-up drag seminar with stand-up comedy. On the runway, the theme was “Flashback: DragCon 1980” – offering a dragged up look that would fit a Drag Convention in the early 80s.

This is the point in a 14+ queen season where things can start to… well, drag. Even though there’s tiny bit of tension here about who will make the cut to Top 4, the fact that we have two queens with no decisive solo wins in the Top 6 makes it feel like we ought to hurry through the next two eliminations rather than savouring the drama.

What wasn’t a drag to me was this absurd “Corporate Queens” drag seminar challenge concept. Many people might have preferred a traditional roast for a comedy challenge over this. For me, it was a lot more reflective of the sort of weird branded gigs these queens are going to have the opportunity to book in the real world.

The success of queens like Trixie, Monét, Courtney Act, and even Tia Kofi has shown that you have to be able to bring the power of your drag out of the nightclub and into corporate settings if you want to score the kind of bookings that expose you to the broader audience of the non-queer mainstream.

That said… I do think “Drag in the Workplace” is a pretty tough nut to crack, from a comedy perspective. It certainly wasn’t an easy challenge!

The result was that we have an even-more solidified front-runner than we had last week in the Werq the World “Power” performance power rankings, but the rest of the queens are still jockeying for the other three spots in the finale.

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best drag queen win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 6 – Strictly Come Prancing Power Rankings

March 16, 2024 by krisis

I’m back with more coverage of the Drag Olympics of Drag Race! RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Episode 6 – Strictly Come Prancing, a choreographed partnered dance challenge with a “Business In The Front, Party In The Back” contrasting runway.

I am not a dancer, but I love dancing – both doing it myself as watching other people do it! I grew up dancing all the time in my living room, at parties and weddings, and on the sidewalk in front of my grandmother’s house with my boombox blasting “Pump Up The Jam.”

As an adult I’ve discovered I have no head for learning choreography (as divined by working with my competitive dancing sister-in-law to try to learn the American Foxtrot). I’ve never taken a proper dance class, but I leap at the chance for any gym class with a hint of choreography.

Even if I’m no dancing queen myself, I am very well-acquainted with this week’s guest-choreographer Janette Manrara (and her dance partner, real-life husband Aljaž Škorjanec)!

I fell in love with Janette’s dancing from the moment I first glimpsed her on So You Think You Can Dance Season 5. She executed everything flawlessly, but with a casual air that reminded me of the chic Italian women of the 80s at all those parties and weddings. I’ve rewatched her routine to “Ruby Blue” with Brandon Bryant so many times I can play it back perfectly in my brain! And, she is one of the few (only?!) celebrities who I personally follow on Facebook, where I’ve kept up with her transformation from reality show contestant, to professional dancer on Strictly Come Dancing (the UK’s Dancing With The Stars), to becoming a co-host and media personality in the UK.

Manrara has been on both sides of dancing competitions – as the contestant and the pro – and she brought a no-nonsense approach to instructing our queens without a whiff of for-the-cameras drama.

The result was a predictable winner and an obvious eliminated queen, without many surprises in the middle. That did lead to one key change from last week’s Power Rankings for Seven!: The Rusical, which might make a real difference heading into the finale in two weeks!

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

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best international drag superstar win!