RuPaul's Drag Race Reflection

Latrice Royale and Dida Ritz Lip-Sync

            Strings and Bui’s article offers critical context for one of my favorite shows. The authors highlight the racialized constructs that dark-skinned contestants on RuPaul’s Drag Race are expected to uphold in order to succeed in the competition. This construct appears as what is considered a “protocol” of racial “realness,” or “authenticity.” At the same time, the objective of the show is meant to play with the fluidity of gender roles as drag queens. The light-skinned queens are encouraged to step outside the confines of gender and race, while the dark-skinned queens succeed only if they do so with gender while simultaneously personifying the “naturalized” racial stereotypes to which they have been pigeonholed by the judges. The third season seems to have set the height of this standard for the show, which is why I think it would be interesting to apply the same analyses to later seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Similar situations have arisen throughout the seasons. The “clique” notion of Heathers vs Boogers in Season 3 seems to have resurfaced in Season 5 with “Ro-Laska-Tox,” the clique named for three light-skinned queens, Roxxy Andrews, Alaska Thunderfvck, and Detox Icunt, at least until Michelle Visage, one of the judges, heavily chided them for forming the group (possibly due to the criticisms the show received from the third season).

An instance where a dark-skinned queen was encouraged to fulfill racialized roles is in the case of Latrice Royale from Season 4. She was regularly applauded for playing the role of a stereotyped black Southern Baptist woman, with hands lifted in the air, clapping, and singing “Jesus is a Biscuit/ Let him sop you up,” as if in church. In the “Frock the Vote” episode, the contestants were asked to create a character as presidential candidates and stand at podiums, answering questions in the style of a political debate. Chad Michaels, a 40-year-old white queen plays Chad “the Lady Pimp” Michaels, a funky, 70s-inspired character who was “one of the first transgender dancers on the Soul Train.” Latrice Royale plays a more somber, no-nonsense candidate. While the judges loved Michaels’ “joke character” as a “fully-realized human being,” Latrice was critiqued that “she didn’t have a character” and ended up on the bottom, at which she had to lip-sync in order to stay in the competition. The lip-sync was performed to the song “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” by Gladys Knight. Latrice’s performance echoed the high energy dancing one might see in a black Southern Baptist church, while Dida Ritz, the other drag performer, danced like a pop “superstar… performing to an arena.” One of the on-looking queens even commented that “Latrice was taking me to church!” She stayed in the competition while Dida Ritz was asked to go home.