Rupaul's Drag Race

image from logotv

Isn't Rupaul just fantastic...

My friend sent me this video two weeks ago and I immediately began watching season 5. [I usually start watching a TV show from season 1 and finish the whole thing, but because this is a reality competition show I thought it would be fine to start at season 5. I just felt like I had to justify my season choice decision. Because these things are important]. 

I admit, before watching Drag Race, I have had little to no contact with drag culture, except watching Priscilla Queen of the Desert. I absolutely loved that film, it is basically the only Australian film I would actually recommend to anyone [ouch]. I never realised that the reason I loved Priscilla so much is because drag queens are so beautiful and brave and stunning and rhinestones and glitter and ughuhgugh. 

Image from dailymail

Anyway, so I got sucked into Rupaul's Drag Race and finished season 5 in a day. Then I found out that there was Rupaul's Drag Race Untucked which was a 20 minute program showing the queens backstage bitching. The shade of it all.

The reason why I love Drag Race is because it is the ultimate reality TV show. I heart reality TV, I think it's so trashy and superficial and unintentionally campy, which are all great things. But Drag Race takes it to a whole new level. 

Drag Race has elements of all the competition reality shows (mainly ANTM and Project Runway, but also Idol) as the queens are put through series of challenges that test their skills in walking the runway, sewing runway outfits, designing things from floats to magazine covers, singing together, dancing together, basically any sort of obstacle Ru could through at them, he did. And it is so exhilarating.

Also, because the show is about drag queens, the unintentionally campy nature of reality TV just becomes plain camp. Plain, delicious camp. Plus, Ru and the producers are so aware of it, and they take it further by exaggerating and exaggerating the conventions of reality TV to the point where Drag Race doesn't become an escape, as other reality TV does, because it makes you so aware of how scripted it is.

For example, the show follows a very tight script where almost everything Rupaul says is either a catchphrase, drag lingo from Paris Is Burning (which I now have to watch) or a reference to one of his songs. Plus, the product placement in Drag Race is hilarious. Ru is always plugging his music, available on iTunes, or asking the girls to enjoy an Absolut Cocktail in the Interior Illusions Lounge.

So, look, I'm just fangirling right now, but this is seriously a fantastic show. I have learnt so much about drag culture just from this show, and watching families come together in support of their sons is really touching. Many a time have I cried. I have also been shown a way of how reality TV can become more than just reality TV. ahhhh. TV.