Within the queer community, many use these terms without knowing the history and meaning behind them. Ballrooms were started in the late 1970s by Black and Latinx people as a way for the queer community to have safe spaces and be their authentic selves without fear of judgment from the world at large. Famous terms like “shade,” “read,” “hunty” and “werk” come from spaces in the queer community like ballroom culture, a space that is primarily Black as well as queer. Drag queens have a specific vernacular that is part of drag culture and queer culture as a whole.
#Drag queen makeup mainstream tv
The degree of authenticity is limited by the fact that this is a TV show, not a conversation.Ĭommercialization rears its ugly, wigless head in another aspect of drag race: the language. The degree of authenticity is limited by the fact that this is a TV show, not a conversation. Instead, it’s a combination of the authentic representation of the queer experience and the repackaging and smoothing that mass media puts on uncomfortable topics like homophobia and HIV. These experiences, genuine and authentic as they may be, are being commodified for the mainstream.Īt the end of the day, this isn’t the queens being real. As many of the queens say, the real drag happens in the off-air dressing room, not the Werk Room. However, it’s important to take a step back: This is a reality TV show.
On the surface, these vignettes seem like poignant insights into the lives of queer people, and in some sense, they are.
Queens talk about their experiences with HIV positivity, moments in queer history like the Stonewall riots, their personal battles with religion and growing up with homophobic parents. Kim Chi has two left feet and vertigo.”) and teary moments take place. While the queens get ready for the runway or sew dresses out of recyclables, some of the most memorable banter (“Go back to party city where you belong!”), shady confessionals (“This is sad. The parts of drag race that really resonate with viewers, however, are the scenes that take place in the Werk Room. In terms of reach, 1.3 million people tuned into MTV to watch the season 15 premiere. Each episode’s loser is decided by a Lip Sync For Your Life, and the queen that does not objectively slay harder sashays away. At its core, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” is a weekly reality competition show where drag queens compete in maxi challenges and a runway.
Drag has evolved into a way for people to explore different aspects of gender or completely deconstruct the binary and is now a form of artistic self expression more than anything else. First, drag is an art form that started as primarily gay men dressing up as women and exaggerating feminine gender signifiers through padding and makeup.
Despite bringing what was once a crime onto the cultural mainstage, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has veered from representation and education into the commodification of queer culture for the mainstream, in turn, illustrating how the media machine as whole lacks nuance in its representation of queer culture.įor all of you normies who aren’t aware of what drag is or why it matters so much, pull your head out of the sand and get on Twitter. But, now that Aura Mayari has won a challenge and Marcia Marcia Marcia has put on some makeup, I can rest easy and talk about the franchise as a whole. Season 15 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” is currently airing and because of that, this article has been at the bottom of my to-do list.
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