I watch reality shows. That's a thing that i do. I shouldn't have to qualify this, i suppose everyone in this day and age also watches reality shows
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"God, it was never about the outfits, it was about the sass."
Well fucking said. I'm mildly heteroflexible, but have been well steeped in the LGBTQ communities for like 20+ years now. My first roommate in 2002 decided to switch from F2M, and I was living with them through their process. I spent a lot of time out at drag shows and gay clubs, and your comment above is spot on. RP is definitely ol' skool drag. It's not new anymore. Their show is basically the glitz and glamour of drag, but it's not where most people start out at. I agree it made drag more acceptable, so like "Will n' Grace", it brought LGBTQ more into the spotlight.
The thing i find funny is that RuPaul isn't just oldskool drag, it's a very specific subgenre of oldskool drag, that kinda misses another corner of oldskool drag which is the corner that most appealed to me. I can't really complain about drag becoming mainstream, i think that's great, but it is a bit sad that it results in my own memories and experiences becoming deemphasized in the cultural consciousness.
I noticed this the other day too when someone on a forum made some bold statement about a style of music that i was involved with as a teenager. They completely misrepresented it, saying that it didn't exist until later, and that it came from entirely different roots than it did. They were totally and utterly wrong. But history is rewritten by the victors, so now that another genre appeared which is more broadly popular, they basically deleted the actual history that really happened and replaced it with a new narrative that better fits the present day perspective of what the genre is supposed to be. It's annoying.
Have you seen Dragnificent? It's on TLC, I think. Or was early on in the pandemic. It's a bunch of drag queens who go out and "rescue" women and show them how to be the beautiful human beings they are.
I love drag queens. I wish there were some in my area to hang out with!
I haven't, although a friend recommended it to me. I think it's a remake of a British show called Drag SOS, where a team of crack drag commandos head out in a bus to bring glitter and makeovers to small, rural towns. That one was pretty cute.
A lot of drag queens i met in person tended to be more abrasive and unfriendly than you might expect if you only watched the reality shows. I suspect this might be a generational thing, though. The sort of grumpy, cigarette-smoking, swearing-like-a-sailor form of drag seemed to be on its way out when i was in the gay scene, and perhaps it's now gone completely? I gotta say, it's been a lot time since i've been to a gay bar! Maybe something to put on the post-pandemic list.
I am totally with you that RuPaul is 1991..... maaaaaybe 1998 if you are being generous.
Ru is behind the times when it comes to what The Kids are doing now... and how they are expressing themselves. I think things like Dragula are way better than Drag Race! Its more out there, more boundary-pressing, more playful, and less obsessed with the idea of an Ultra Woman.
I think RuPaul is making an effort to not be completely stuck in the mud. Like this season on the US show they have a trans man who performs in drag as a woman, which feels subversive compared to the sorts of guys they usually cast. In general i think the UK show has been more progressive than the US show. This season in the UK they had at least two people who referred to themselves as "queer" and not gay, and one explicitly non-binary person who preferred they pronouns. Personally I hate the term "queer" and i think fussing over pronouns is stupid, but i also recognize that that's part of the new generation, and they're gonna do what they're gonna do, so might as well support them in it.
In the U.S. a lot of people prefer 'queer'... meaning gender non-conforming, non-binary, LGBTQAI+, and then some... as an umbrella term for accepting of everyone who is Not Cis Hetero without the added labels and definitions.
Then again, I'm cis-hetero so... like, I have no skin in the game and prefer to just call people... by their names!
Yes, i think i find queer uncomfortable because i am just of the age (or lived in the countries) where "queer" was a slur. Like, one of the worst. I and my friends totally reclaimed "faggot", "dyke", "trannie" and a half dozen other terms that Americans have deemed unfit to be published in this day and age, but "queer" felt worse, somehow, even after Queer As Folk came out. I wonder if it was an Australian regional thing.
RuPaul and his books were really formative for me as a nerdy androgynous presenting punkrock black girl in the California suburbs in the mid 90s. But like nearly all people who are blessed to get older and richer, he got conservative.
He knows it.
My son and I watched his Netflix show AJ and The Queen and it was a lovely and highly campy homage not just to the regional flavors and hardships of drag scenes around the US, but the ways in which it can save people and give them new family.
A few Ruisms I live by:
If they don't pay yo bills, don't pay them no mind.
I haven't watched that show, but reading the outline it sounds like i might like it!
I do respect and enjoy RuPaul as a person and an entertainer. I think even if in some ways he has homogenized drag, what he's done for visibility and representation was still really important. "Born naked and the rest is drag" - words to live by!
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Well fucking said. I'm mildly heteroflexible, but have been well steeped in the LGBTQ communities for like 20+ years now. My first roommate in 2002 decided to switch from F2M, and I was living with them through their process. I spent a lot of time out at drag shows and gay clubs, and your comment above is spot on. RP is definitely ol' skool drag. It's not new anymore. Their show is basically the glitz and glamour of drag, but it's not where most people start out at. I agree it made drag more acceptable, so like "Will n' Grace", it brought LGBTQ more into the spotlight.
Great drunken writing!
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I noticed this the other day too when someone on a forum made some bold statement about a style of music that i was involved with as a teenager. They completely misrepresented it, saying that it didn't exist until later, and that it came from entirely different roots than it did. They were totally and utterly wrong. But history is rewritten by the victors, so now that another genre appeared which is more broadly popular, they basically deleted the actual history that really happened and replaced it with a new narrative that better fits the present day perspective of what the genre is supposed to be. It's annoying.
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I love drag queens. I wish there were some in my area to hang out with!
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A lot of drag queens i met in person tended to be more abrasive and unfriendly than you might expect if you only watched the reality shows. I suspect this might be a generational thing, though. The sort of grumpy, cigarette-smoking, swearing-like-a-sailor form of drag seemed to be on its way out when i was in the gay scene, and perhaps it's now gone completely? I gotta say, it's been a lot time since i've been to a gay bar! Maybe something to put on the post-pandemic list.
Reply
Ru is behind the times when it comes to what The Kids are doing now... and how they are expressing themselves. I think things like Dragula are way better than Drag Race! Its more out there, more boundary-pressing, more playful, and less obsessed with the idea of an Ultra Woman.
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Then again, I'm cis-hetero so... like, I have no skin in the game and prefer to just call people... by their names!
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RuPaul and his books were really formative for me as a nerdy androgynous presenting punkrock black girl in the California suburbs in the mid 90s. But like nearly all people who are blessed to get older and richer, he got conservative.
He knows it.
My son and I watched his Netflix show AJ and The Queen and it was a lovely and highly campy homage not just to the regional flavors and hardships of drag scenes around the US, but the ways in which it can save people and give them new family.
A few Ruisms I live by:
If they don't pay yo bills, don't pay them no mind.
Find your tribe.
If it's not fun, don't do it.
You're born naked. The rest is drag.
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I do respect and enjoy RuPaul as a person and an entertainer. I think even if in some ways he has homogenized drag, what he's done for visibility and representation was still really important. "Born naked and the rest is drag" - words to live by!
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