RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Reconceptualisation of Queer Communities and Publics

O’Halloran argues that RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) – as a reality television show which thrives on conflict as entertainment – provides a unique site of analysis for the concept of queer community. This is despite its distance from the now consolidated academic sense of queer as “anti-normative”. Challenging the assumption that there is a “common essence” among queer people, RPDR shows that difference (along axes of class, race, size and more) and antagonism can result in politically productive encounters with others. O’Halloran looks crucially at the example of the “Female or She-Male” controversy on Season Six as an example of how RPDR’s online, affective communities (e.g. via Facebook) can enable productive contestation and conversation around key issues such as transphobia and trans representation on RPDR.