RuPaul's Drag Race

Drag Race France Season 1 Episode 1 – Bonjour, Bonjour, Bonjour: Review & Power Ranking

June 29, 2022 by krisis Leave a Comment

Welcome to my review and power rankings of the first episode of Drag Race France Season 1 – “Bonjour, Bonjour, Bonjour.”

This episode was about getting to know our cast of 10 French queens in multiple ways – via their entrance looks, a photography mini-challenge, a talent show, and a Jean Paul Gaultier-inspired runway in front of Jean Paul Gaultier himself!

If you’ve been reading my RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 All-Winners season episode recaps, this series of posts won’t be covering the show in such full detail.

That’s not only because those recaps take entire days to write!

If Drag Race France sounds intriguing to you I’d like to urge you to sign up for WowPresentsPlus so you can watch the actual episodes as well as the many other worldwide Drag Race franchises! It’s $4.99 a month or $50 a year, which is a very reasonable price to pay for access to all Drag Race, ever. (Note that if you’re in the US you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see the US Franchise.)

When more English-speaking subscribers and viewers watch Drag Race France, it is a signal to Wow that we adore drag in every language and would love to see these queens invade their American content more often. (Also, perhaps they could increase their subtitling budget!)

Instead of a recap, first I’ll share my general impressions of the episode, and then I’ll present my Episode 1 Drag Race France Power Rankings. Will it turn out that my pre-season first impressions were totally en pointe or did I miss the mark?

Readers, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne! [Read more…] about Drag Race France Season 1 Episode 1 – Bonjour, Bonjour, Bonjour: Review & Power Ranking

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 7 – Legendary Legend Looks: recap & power ranking!

June 25, 2022 by krisis Leave a Comment

Welcome to my recap of the seventh episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 – Legendary Legend Looks, a design challenge of making a kissing cousin of an iconic RuPaul look that doesn’t have too close of a family resemblance.

What do you want from a reality competition TV show? Your answer may reveal if this no-eliminations All-Winners season is right up your alley or leaving you down in the doldrums.

Personally, I watch reality competitions for excellence. Whether that’s physical prowess on American Ninja Warrior, mesmerizing glass blowers on Netflix’s Blown Away, or the O.G. reality competition winner Kelly Clarkson on American Idol, I want to see someone plucked from relative obscurity and elevated to the height of their industry to show off skills that would otherwise go unseen. I also love

That’s not what everyone is looking for! Some people delight in the drama, the flubs, the flops, and the un-self-aware cringe of reality competitions, cheering when an ill-equipped underdog makes a deep run. This is a crowd who loves the gamesmanship of Big Brother and slow-moving train-wrecks like The Masked Singer.

I’m not saying this pair of preferences are completely mutually exclusive of each other. You can love a superstar talent and a crash-and-burn!

The thing is: this season of Drag Race is completely free of crash-and-burn. We’re watching a showcase of eight of the best-on-TV drag queens in the world whose camera skills have been battle-hardened by one or two passes through the Drag Race machine. Yes, there’s a competition happening, but without eliminations the show is much more about watching the process of drag excellence unfold than it is about the tops and flops of the week.

That’s everything I’ve always wanted from reality TV. No loveable underdogs. No shocking eliminations. Eleven episodes of excellence that hopefully ends with a deserving winner. Imaging getting to see Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood go head-to-head for an entire season of American Idol.

At the same time, I can understand how that is absolutely exhausting for someone who needs the spiciness of some cringe – or, at least some tough judges critiques – to liven up their reality TV.

Which side do you come down on? And, how did you feel about yet another challenge where no one was horrible.

Well, maybe one person was horrible, but we’ll get to that in a moment! Plus, at the end of the recap I’ll update my Episode 6 power rankings to show where the queens stand after another week of Legendary Legend badges. (Want to skip right to the power rankings? Go for it!)

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best drag queen… win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 7 – Legendary Legend Looks: recap & power ranking!

Drag Race France Season 1 – Pre-Season Power Rankings

June 22, 2022 by krisis 3 Comments

Welcome to my pre-season Power Rankings of the queens of Drag Race France, Season 1!

Ever since Drag Race set foot on foreign shores with Chilé’s The Switch Drag Race in 2015 and Drag Race Thailand in 2018, the international editions of the Drag Race franchise have exploded! We now have ten total country- or region-based versions of the show, with two more on the way.

I love Drag Race in all forms and I watch almost all screen media with subtitles, but I still find it challenging to keep up with non-English-speaking seasons of Drag Race. I think that’s because there’s so much to look at on an episode of Drag Race that sometimes also keeping up with the subtitles and trying to decipher the local references gets to be a big challenge.

(However, I have watched almost every episode of every international season except The Switch and the end of España Season 2.)

I’m excited for Drag Race France not only because I’m a bit of a Francophile but I actually speak French.

Well, not speak it, so much as know a lot of words and a fair amount of grammar after five years of school and a several-year DuoLingo streak which I got so depressed about breaking that I cannot bear to start again. I have the comprehension of perhaps a wise three-year old, but that’s partially because listening to someone speak on a random topic introduces too many unfamiliar words for me. If I know someone is speaking about a specific thing – like comic books or drag – I usually have better luck.

Which brings us to the queens of Drag Race France Season! This debut season features 10 queens as judged by Drag Race Season 11 queen Nicky Doll. Unfortunately, the show did not produce a “Meet The Queens” segment for these amazing drag artists. They only released a set of promo photos and a one minute reel of them posing in their promo looks.

That means my initial pre-season Power Ranking will be more of a first impressions based on their promos as well as a quick scan of their social media. (I swear, Spoilerinas, I have not seen any pre-season tea on this one!)

Will any of my predictions be accurate based on just a few seconds of content from each of these queens? We’ll find out when the first episode airs on Saturday (though my episode coverage won’t come until next week).

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

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 6 – Total Ru-quest Live: recap, songwriting analysis, & power ranking!

June 18, 2022 by krisis 1 Comment

Welcome to my recap of the sixth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 – Total Ru-quest Live, a “girl group” challenge of constructing throw-back pop songs that would fit in 20-years ago… but with your own unique twist.

At this point in the evolution of Drag Race, it’s fair to ask this question: Does anything matter more than making RuPaul laugh?

This isn’t the case on every reality competition show. Some involve fan voting. Others involve a clear, objective set of success criteria. Others still feature a more-balanced panel of judges, where thwarting the tastes of the most-famous judge can sometimes yield an underdog storyline (see: Simon Cowell).

On any of those shows, some things could matter more than making RuPaul laugh. On Drag Race, nothing matters more.

On Drag Race, there’s no way to win other than to make RuPaul love you. There are no objective criteria for challenge wins, as we’ve seen many times before. The easiest way to secure a win for the week is to amuse RuPaul. That’s a surer bet than designing the most over-the-top costume (e.g., Utica losing the ball to GotMik), delivering a flawless performance (e.g., Jan losing the Madonna/Michelle week to Gigi), or doing more tricks in a lip sync (e.g., anyone versus Simone).

The question of making RuPaul laugh comes with a second implicit question that is much more difficult to answer:

Does making RuPaul laugh matter outside of Drag Race?

That’s a much trickier question. RuPaul loves to point out that “drag will never be mainstream,” but his references used to align much more closely with mainstream tastes. With every obscure Diana Ross reference he dispenses, it’s clear that Ru’s status as a tastemaker is receding. Even eternal mega-stars like Cher or Madonna eventually fall behind the 8-ball of the ever-changing face of pop-culture and have to rely on nostalgia to drive their success.

Nowhere is that more evident than in an episode like this week’s. Ru awarded wins to a pair of outright comedy performances when other queens were delivering smoother pop songs. Ru isn’t looking for a pop songstress – he never has. He’s looking for a queen so far outside of the mainstream that she can make the mainstream notice her.

Even if Ru is laughing at different things than everyone else, she’s laughing for the right reasons.

Which two queens turned out those Ru-larious performances this week versus a pair of powerful popstresses? Read on to find out! Plus, at the end of the recap I’ll update my Episode 5 power rankings to show where the queens stand after another week of Legendary Legend badges. (Want to skip right to the power rankings? Go for it!)

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best drag queen… win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 6 – Total Ru-quest Live: recap, songwriting analysis, & power ranking!

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 5 – Draguation Speeches: recap & power ranking!

June 11, 2022 by krisis 1 Comment

Welcome to my recap of the fifth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 – Draguation Speeches, a challenge that mashes up comedy with inspiration and a touch of personal branding.

This is a fascinating challenge because there is nothing quintessentially “drag” about it, yet it is perfectly representative of the direction of the show in 2022.

Drag Race constantly finds new peaks of cultural influence, and with that higher profile all of its contestants have a higher profile than ever before. Drag Race winners used to compete to score a club tour sponsored by Absolut Vodka.

Now, winning queens are getting the opportunity to appear on stage at the Emmy awards, walk the runway for Fenty and other fashion brands, and attend the Met Gala. Peppermint, the only Season 9 finalist to not yet have her own crown, just hosted the GLAAD Awards!

Of this cast of winners, five host ongoing podcasts (Jinkx hosts two!), Raja has hosted Fashion Photo RuView for almost a decade, Viv has anchored several Netflix YouTube shows, Monét had her own talk show, Jinkx has written and produced multiple one- and two-woman shows, and Shea has appeared in multiple features in Vogue – among many other appearances and accolades.

That’s the genius of this challenge. Draguation Speeches are not about a skill critical to the foundations of your drag, but the skill of translating your drag into different contexts. A show that started as an (even-more) queer spin on Project Runway is now a public-facing finishing school that turns former bar queens and Instagram influencers into in-demand LGBTQAI+ spokespeople.

If no Drag Race queen has been invited to receive an honorary degree and deliver a commencement address, it’s only a matter of time.

(Actually, Sasha Velour delivered a commencement address to The Center for Cartoon Studies’ class of 2020!)

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Drag Race challenge without the added requirement of making Ru laugh! Which queens manage to be both inspiring and hilarious? As it turns out, Ru and I are split on the decision. Read on to find out about our disagreement. Plus, at the end of the recap I’ll update my Episode 4 power rankings to show where the queens stand after another week of Legendary Legend badges. (Want to skip right to the power rankings? Go for it!)

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best drag queen… win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 5 – Draguation Speeches: recap & power ranking!