Mainstreaming the Transgressive: Greek Audiences’ Readings of Drag Culture Through the Consumption of RuPaul’s Drag Race

This chapter attempts to map Greek audiences’ construction of drag culture through the consumption of RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR). It seeks to explore the narratives of Greek gay and straight people about drag culture, in a cultural context where homosexuality is still understood as a discomforting at best, abnormal sexual identity at worst. Deriving from a social constructionist perspective of sexuality and gender, informed by the Foucauldian approach to sexuality as a discourse of (self-) governmentality, this chapter looks at the narratives through which Greek audiences account for the transgressiveness of moving continuously between male/female sexualities. In this light, the accounts collected, reflect diverse, though culturally specific and value laden responses both to RPDR as a text but also to the contestants as professional drag performers.