Rupaul's Drag Race

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guys! i'm writing an op-ed/essay about rupaul's drag race and i just want to pick everyone's brain (who watches the show):

what do you qualify as good drag?

sorry this isn't a sex topic haha! any help is appreciated!
 

cnkckfil

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I stupid love RuPaul's drag race. This is a hard question for me because there is so many different types of drag categories. Camp, fish, glamorous, goth are a few that come to mind.

I think I view good drag as those performers that have successfully created a passable feminine illusion within the aimed drag category they are attempting.

Just my opinion, I am sure others will be vastly different.
 

Dutchstud

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RuPaul has gone too far in clownesqueing what real drag once was. For me drag is not about the most female looking male. On the contrary, for me it must remain visible it is drag indeed.

Think at the original French La cage aux folles. That is drag as drag is meant. Or Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. RuPaul is miles away from that path, with his commercialized serially produced "drag" shows.
 

headbang8

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Good drag? For me, drag ceases to be drag if the wearer intends to pass as a female performer. Drag plays with sexual/gender stereotypes, and sends them up.

When I wear a suit, I often joke that it's corporate drag, and I mean it. I go OTT. The tie knotted properly, the best watch dusted off and taken out of its box, cuff links, dangerously sharp pressed creases in the collar of the shiny white shirt, Brooks Brothers boxers. I even once used moustache wax. A tie is archetypal corporate drag—and I play the tie game pretty well. But what makes it drag, is its artifice. It's artificial, not real. Deliberately.

If you'll pardon the expression, I'm probably in a different camp from @Dutchstud. The clowniness of drag makes it merrier for me, and makes the social satire more vicious. The late Phyllis Diller described her stage costumes as female clownface, and later acknowledged that this parody of femalehood was both a comic and political statement. Who is the spiritual heir to Diller? IMHO, the incomparable Bob the Drag Queen.

But I can't stand RuPaul's Drag Race.

It sucks in the same way all reality TV sucks. Fake emotions. Contrived crisis. Invented enemies. And I find the humour mostly just plain nasty instead of witty, cutting and too-true vicious. I can certainly agree with @Dutchstud on one thing: give me the Priscillas any day.
 
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yandrsupreme

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But I can't stand RuPaul's Drag Race.

It sucks in the same way all reality TV sucks. Fake emotions. Contrived crisis. Invented enemies. And I find the humour mostly just plain nasty instead of witty, cutting and too-true vicious. I can certainly agree with @Dutchstud on one thing: give me the Priscillas any day.
I just think Drag race is promoting negative stereotypes and it exploits the queens' trauma and emotional scars for ratings. As far as stereotypes... it portrays gay men as a bunch of short tempered, catty bitches with a low level of professionalism. This show could have EASILY been produced in the mold of a Dancing With the Stars / Star Search type of model, and it would be far more enjoyable. I don't blame any queen for going on it, because i'ts the only game in town. But Rupaul is an opporotunist, she doens't do this to promote acceptance, she does it for her bank account.