RuPaul's All-Star Drag Race 2012

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I am only half alive when RuPaul isn’t on the air. I have barely survived over the past few months, eating flavorless food and breathing stale air.

 

 

 

But all that changed on Monday night.

 

 

 

Ru’s back, bitches!

 

 

 

This season is different: Ru has brought back twelve of the top queens from the past seasons. We have Nina Flowers, and Pandora Boxx, and Shannel! We have Yara Sofia, and Manila Luzon, and Latrice Royale!

 

 

 

Naturally I have my favorites. I love Manila (though I notice many of the queens on the show aren’t crazy about her; I suspect she’s pretty high-intensity in person). And Chad Michaels is a consummate professional, and I never before realized how very beautiful (both as a man and as a woman) Shannel is. And Nina Flowers is as funny and energetic and engaging as ever, and Latrice is herself (as always).

 

 

 

I’m not a drag queen myself; I have no impulse to dress as a woman. (I only wish I had that much fashion sense.) But I love the energy, and commitment, and bravery that the queens on the show have. I love their humor. I actually think I learn a little something about color and design when I watch them put their outfits together. So I suppose this counts as educational television too.

 

 

 

Also, I think there’s a deeper subtext here, about performance as a natural human act. Don’t we all construct characters and perform them for other people? Don’t you portray one person on the job and another at home? Don’t you act differently with your family than you do with your friends?

 

 

 

I thought so. Me too.

 

 

 

So: if you’re going to create yourself as a character, make yourself a memorable character, or a beautiful character. Or (preferably) both.

 

 

 

There’s a moment in the Mahabharata when Yudisthira, a prince in exile, is sent into exile with his four brothers. By the terms of a wager they’ve made (and lost), they must spend a year in hiding. Yudisthira asks his father, the god Dharma, what to do. And Dharma says: “Let your disguise be guided by your most secret desire.”

 

 

 

So Yudisthira, a gambler, becomes a teacher of gambling. His brother Bhima, a glutton, becomes a cook.

 

 

 

And their brother Arjuna, the greatest and most powerful warrior in India, becomes a woman.

 

 

 

And he goes on, after exile, to win the war.

 

 

 

You go, girl!

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Television preview: "RuPaul's Drag Race," season four

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I am in withdrawal right now: RuPaul is on hiatus until next month, when Drag Race resumes.

 

 

RuPaul’s shows are delicious, and funny, and entertaining, and enlightening, and I will tell you why.

 

 

Drag, for some, is just peculiarity: people dressing up, outrageously; men dressing as women, women as men, et cetera.

 

 

But it is so much more.

 

 

As we have seen on past seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race, there are lots of reasons to dress in drag.  Here are some:

 

 

-        As entertainers.  Why not?  Lots of Drag Race contenders have been drag entertainers.  That’s often how they pay the bills.  Take Manila Luzon, naturally funny, naturally entertaining.

-        As a political statement.  Stacy Layne Matthews, a plus-size contestant from the American South a season or so ago, is an example.  She was great – funny, engaging – but she was mostly there because she was a) black; b) Southern; c) heavy; d) young; and e) generally unaffected by the tidal wave of pro/con gay / Southern / body-conscious opinion in California and New York.   I liked her a lot, especially her chutzpah, and the fact that she was working against a lot of deeply-felt feelings and prejudices.

-        As a statement about gender.  I liked Nina Flowers so much: this funny charming queen was also a stocky muscular tattooed little man.

-        As a career / personal statement.  Take first-season winner Bebe Zahara Benet.  She was absolutely perfect – lovely, very self-possessed – and I was rooting for her, and I loved that a Cameroonian won the competition. But she’s a model: she dresses, and poses, and looks perfect for the camera.  Personality-wise, she is less than thrilling. I like her, but I do not find her stimulating. 

 

 

Is any of this important?

 

 

Not really.

 

 

Bring on the new season!

 

 

(You can see the new competitors here.  Take a look.  I have.  I already know who I like.  We’ll just have to see what happens.)

 

 

Can I get a Ru-ha?

 

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