RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Shifting Visibility of Drag Culture

By representing drag culture, Rupaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) transforms it. Moving beyond a reflective approach to representation, this chapter deploys a Foucauldian perspective to consider how representation functions as a productive force in RPDR. Specifically, it focuses on the material powers of representation via subjectification—how human beings are made into subjects. Here, the subject “America’s Next Drag Superstar” is articulated as a queen who undergoes a substantial transformation. Specific techniques of subjectification come to the fore as these transformations are guided, facilitated, and performed. Comparing queens Tyra Sanchez and Pearl, however, reveals that a shift takes place in this process: by the seventh season, entrepreneurial self-betterment and self-individuation emerge as dominant subjectifying techniques, often replacing earlier tactics of working together and helping others.

I explore contradictions between the subversive and mainstream dimensions of drag culture in RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR). I consider Butler’s (1990) gender performativity in terms of how drag is articulated by men performing femininity. I also interrogate authenticity (Hill 2009) for the way it contradicts the inauthentic spaces that drag occupies on RPDR. Additionally, I consider competition (Kavka 2012) and consumption (Silverstone 1999) as institutional and narrative aspects of RPDR. While competition and consumption imbue RPDR with purpose and legitimacy, they contradict drag culture’s fantasy and instability. I argue that while RPDR opens up unprecedented avenues of representation, it also demands identifying institutional strictures that constrain performativity. Ultimately, I interrogate the boundaries between drag as subversive and drag as mainstream in the context of RPDR.

RuPaul’s Drag Race continues to feature a diverse range of contestants. A key example of such diversity is “Puerto Rican queens”. Notable with regard to the queens who fall under this category, however, is a consistent emphasis upon their English language capabilities, and more broadly, a focus on their knowledge of North American popular culture. In both areas, queens from Puerto Rico are depicted as lacking, with jokes often made at their expense. Through an analysis of three key examples as they appeared in season three of the show, this chapter argues that both linguistic imperialism and stereotypes based on assumptions about Puerto Rican culture perpetuate the exclusion of those who come from the Global South.

Rosiello offers a first person narrative on the success of RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) Marketing Director who created the initial Logo TV viewing parties for the first five seasons of RPDR. He also produced the first five RPDR Tours for Logo TV and Absolut Vodka. This allowed him to witness, first hand, the immediate celebrity experienced by the contestants and offer behind-the-scenes stories and observations of both the show’s stars and their fan base. Rosiello explores the accessibility of the RPDR celebrity as compared to other reality show contestants and winners. His observations made are from an LGBTQ perspective and explains why he proudly earned the title of “Drag Whisperer.”

In this chapter, Castellano and Machado analyze RuPaul’s Drag Race’s fandom by monitoring the interactions that takes place on Brazilian Facebook pages and groups dedicated to the TV show. Their aim is to discuss its success in a local context marked by the radicalization of discourses on the issues of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer rights. In addition, Castellano and Machado evaluate the show’s influence on strengthening a richer drag queen scene in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, with the emergence of parties and night clubs specialized in the performance of these artists who are also increasingly attracting mainstream interest.

This research presents the way young Monterrey’s (Mexico) audiences perceive, accept or reject queer stereotypes within the reality show of RuPaul’s Drag Race by comparing and contrasting the opinions of three different segments of potential audiences: heterosexual men, heterosexual women, and homosexual men. Focusing on Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (2001) it is explained how homophobic attitudes in young people are being eased, leading the new generations to a more inclusive society. Also, Igartua’s and Muñiz’s Identification with Characters theory (2008) is used to explain how the audiences may crate gateways for empathy through the contestants. Overall, the main results show how heterosexuals have a better response to the show, while homosexual men show almost an instant rejection to it.

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.

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.

This chapter looks at how social media and other digital and experiential extensions of RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) are used by audiences, contestants, and the production team behind the series. Included in this consideration is how drag culture is particularly well positioned to push the boundaries of the new media environment in order to create a successful television franchise. The success of RPDR also demonstrates how these elements from social media to offline viewing parties that exist beyond the hour-long television show engage fans in ways that challenge the boundaries of the program itself. Ultimately, this chapter argues that the ability of RPDR to engage audiences and advertisers in platforms beyond the traditional television medium helped ensure the program’s success and longevity despite modest traditional ratings numbers.

Anthropologist and documentary photographer Claire Alexander offers a unique perspective on the ways in which the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) has influenced drag culture in the city of Perth, Western Australia. Using an ethnographic approach, Alexander explores the ideas and concerns of a group of local drag queens who entered the Perth drag scene at various stages in its development from 1983 to the present day. Alexander’s data indicate the value of using four critical lenses to explore how Perth drag has changed over the years, especially in its response to RPDR. Accordingly, the chapter draws primarily upon: participants’ personal history and inspirations; their general knowledge of drag history; perceived changes within the wider queer and non-queer community; and adaptations made by Perth drag queens to “new ways” of doing drag. Alexander draws from photographic images created throughout her research that depict queens local to Perth as well as contestants and winners of RPDR including Jinkx Monsoon, Yara Sofia, Milk, Latrice Royale, and Trixie Mattel.

This chapter examines the way that RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR), as a parody of reality TV can at once, reinforce neoliberal ideals, and destabilize cultural norms. Drag culture has a history of confronting the mainstream in physical, underground spaces. This chapter examines whether or not the shift of drag subcultures into television and online media spaces removes the political potential of that confrontation. Through a comparison of these three spaces and a discussion of the key term “mimicry” (as defined by Homi Bhabha), Daggett concludes that the relationship between these spaces is more entwined and complex than previously assumed in media research. The political potential of RPDR appears in all these spaces and has some correlation with the show’s growing mainstream popularity.