Drag Race RuCap: "Reunited"

CLÁUDIO ALVES: RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 is almost over, with the finale airing next Friday. This week, however, was time to honor the traditional reunion in the form of an extra-large 80-minute episode. If you’ve been following the queens on social media, you know these bitches have plenty to say, from tales of thievery to bullying accusations and everything in between. Not that this was an especially inflammatory reunion - too many dolls are level-headed individuals for that to happen. Sanity prevailed, drama abated, and it was still an entertaining chapter. If nothing else, it gives us an excellent opportunity to reminisce about the season and our coverage. What say you, dear Nick? 

NICK TAYLOR: It was a good time! The reunion had a fun balance of pure shenanigans, rehashing tensions from the show, and even some serious political ruminations on what it means to be a drag queen in the wake of so many drag bans across the United States…

You bring up sanity prevailing for multiple queens, yet it’s also noteworthy to watch Ru redirect Luxx and Loosey away from a potential confrontation once it becomes clear no one’s gonna budge about Luxx’s “who should go home?” presentation. Ru’s fine with pushing buttons or asking about prickly moments, but he’s not aiming for a blow-up. I’d have happily watched even more of the reunion, and I’d have loved more screen time for some of the queens, but this was as purely entertaining as one could hope for.

We won’t do a full runway review of each queen’s outfits, but since everyone showed up with a year’s worth of polish and coin under their belt, let’s take a moment to shout out some of our faves. Malaysia Babydoll Foxx, with her Amy Rose wig and pink heart dotted on her nose, was probably my favorite look of the night, and I was mesmerized by Irene DuBois’ snake bone ensemble every time we saw it. Jax’s wig was a total toot, as was Amethyst’s. This is also the most Sugar and Spice have looked different from each other while still sticking to their “twin” theme, and the dolls were a cute touch.

The top four were uniformly excellent - Mistress Isabelle Brooks’s blue rhinestones were my favorite, but Luxx’s bow hair and Anetra’s shuriken earrings were so choice. And bless Sasha Colby for busting out Coco Montrese’s frighteningly deep blue contacts from season 5. Do you know if De Niro wore them at any point in The Irishman? I know we both didn’t care for Robin’s wig or Loosey’s awful nude illusion streaks through her jumpsuit, but I don’t think anyone looked actively bad.

CLÁUDIO: No disasters here, just some genius looks and some underwhelming ones. Though, I guess some people will describe Princess Poppy’s outfit as bad, especially if they don’t get the reference. However, she won the reunion with that cheap-ass Rebecca Glasscock cosplay, complete with shake-and-go wig. The cherry on top was her introduction, announcing she’s quitting drag in cheery deadpan. Iconique!

Another bitch whose referential lewk was an outright triumph was Salina. After getting negative review after negative review about her costumes, Miss EsTitties showed up in a beautiful recreation of John Leguizamo’s final gown from To Wong Foo. Chi-Chi Rodriguez is a Hollywood paragon of Latina drag excellence, a crowned queen whose fashion still stuns all these decades later. What’s more, the proportions were right, unlike many Salina outfits of yore. It’s sheer perfection and makes me excited to see what fit she wears to the finale proper.

Additional kudos to Sasha for referencing her incredible lipsync against Anetra with her outfit and Marcia for her drag evolution. Loved the Clueless chic, and although she’s still resistant to applying color to her face when it’s not in bruise-like patterns, I lived for how her cut crease almost reaches her hairline. Attagirl. 

NICK: We love improvement! We also love cutting to the quick, and the first thing Ru does once the queens are all sat down and properly arranged is grill Mistress about how much shit she stole from the werkroom. The bitch bobs and weaves around the question, teasing conditional answers (“is it more or less jail time if it’s premeditated?”) before throwing Anetra under the bus and copping to nothing.

It’s remarkable how fully Mistress holds court over the reunion. The tea is piping hot, the shade is bountiful, and she speaks intelligently about her time on the show and her experiences as an object of fandom bullshit. Given how unbothered yet terminally online many of the season 15 queens are, hearing her and several other contestants talk about handling the politics of queer internet nonsense was fairly insightful. Irene, Luxx, and the twins all come close to the second-most screen time, but if this was a proper challenge, Mistress would be the clear winner. She also delivers the absolute best burn of the reunion, dismissing the queens who think Jax beat her during the LaLaPaRuZa by pointing out none of them are in the finale with her.

CLÁUDIO: Mistress is a blessing on this season, and everyone calling her shade bullying should re-watch the early Drag Race seasons to grasp how downright cruel drag shenanigans can get. She’s old-school and unapologetic about it, with a shady attitude to match. I couldn’t love her more.

The next topic of discussion is the twins, whose presence in the cast feels like a producing stunt with mixed results. On the one hand, their fans flocked to the show, and their presence inspired many convos about modern drag, how all forms of being a full-time queen are valid even if your playing ground is online rather than at the club. On the other hand, the potential for drama quickly fizzled out as the remaining cast members accepted the twinks into their fold, seeming to find their shtick more endearing than annoying. There’s also the fact that neither Sugar nor Spice seemed invested in creating conflict, defusing most situations where they were involved. I sometimes find them obnoxious, but it’s hard not to be endeared to their good attitude. Having reached the end of the season, are you pro-twins or anti-twins? 

NICK: Oh, definitely pro-twins. As much as I think Spice outstayed her welcome by several episodes, their positivity is ultimately pretty charming, especially in a retrospective context. It’s much easier to enjoy their goofy lipsync routine and general insanity that way. It also helps that the other queens seem as alternately amused and baffled by them as I am. One fun thing about this cast is basically all of them seem promising in an All-Stars run, and I’d be very curious to see them again with a few more years’ of experience under their belts.

After them comes a discussion of the many eras of season 15. Some might call it Drag Race’s Eras era. It’s more a clip show than a full-on convo, really, so I wanna ask you Cláudio: what era are you in right now? Doing these recaps with you has put me in my “regularly writing” era in a way I haven’t been in years. I’ve also been in my Zoloft era for about two months now, which has been great, lemme tell you.

CLÁUDIO: Like Mistress at the season’s start, I’m in my chaotic era. My broke era had a resurgence, too, and my depressed era has been going strong for years. With the Erotic Thrillers write-ups continuing, I guess I’m entering my pervert era, though a demon twink we both know would say that’s not new. Every time I write era the world loses meaning, so let’s start our “enough of eras” era. Era, era, era…Cláudio.exe has stopped working.

Following that stroke-inducing lunacy comes some drama. Mama Ru talks about one of the season’s most stupifying trends - fighting for second-place. I guess when you’re competing against Sasha Colby that’s most you can do, but that doesn’t mean I’m overtly invested in these hubbubs. At the end of the day, two conflicts are relitigated. Who was second-place in the heaven challenge, Loosey or Luxx? And in the Snatch Game, Mistress or Marcia? My allegiances are with the BFA bitches in these cases, but Luxx makes a good case for why she was the rightful runner-up. Maybe that’s why Loosey doesn’t put too much of a fight. That’s not going to last. 

NICK: The reunion is an interesting scene for Loosey. I don’t think anyone who sees her attitude on the show as purposefully modified for the cameras would really have their minds changed. On the other hand, we saw some of her most sincere emotions from any point in the series, both courtesy of video chat cameos. Kevin Bacon gives a message of approval for her Wigloose! performance, and the Connecticut governor herself, flanked by members of the LGBT caucus, give a salute to the season’s four CT queens for repping the state so memorably and authentically before reaffirming Connecticut’s commitment to protecting the rights and liberties of queer Americans. The latter call moves Loosey to tears. She’s so touched to hear someone say she embodied her state and her drag so well, and the idea of her making such a profound difference blows her away. It’s a genuinely sweet moment for a queen who’s gotten the closest thing to a villain edit of anyone in season 15. 

Which leads me to another variation of the second-place question, one we’ve seemingly evoked for many of this season’s eliminated queens: who do we think will show up first on All-Stars? The generous treatment of Loosey in the reunion gives her some solid scaffolding for a Rudemption arc. Meanwhile, Irene DuBois’ centrality makes me curious how soon she’ll be back - she really made her runway photoshoots an event after every episode, and she was showcased a lot for someone who wasn’t there for almost anything being discussed. She was given the most room to make a case for herself of any of the early eliminations, and aside from her weak reads, she made a good case for herself. Aside from them, I’d be most excited to see Jax and Marcia come back after a season or two, though frankly I’d be excited to see almost anyone from this cast return.

CLÁUDIO: Honestly, I think they should give Irene the Miss Vanjie treatment and have her back next season, no questions asked. You can count on another vote for Marcia, but I still think we should let her drag mature for a little while longer. Going back too soon can be detrimental and spoil some of the image one has within the fandom - just ask fellow theater queen Jan.

Whoever loses on Friday will be an automatic contender for All-Stars, but the one I’d be most excited to see return would be Anetra. Reserved queens are often short-changed by the edit, but the producing team seems really into the Vegas showgirl, regardless of her quiet persona. Moreover, many of her runways felt compromised by a lack of funds and seeing such queens return to All-Stars with a big budget behind them is always exciting. Even the winner would be an exciting returning queen, considering we now have precedent for an all-winners season. Girl, I love this top four so much my heart could burst.

Returning to the Loosey matter, I think  the archetype she’s got to strive for is the one embodied by Ra’Jah and Silky, whose AS6 stint completely redefined their images. It helps that the LaDuca bitch is already a viral sensation thanks to the confounding popularity of “Let Loose.” Speaking of which, when they go to commercial while the tune’s playing, I was delighted to see everyone lip-synching along to Loosey’s autotuned vocals. Mistress was serving face and the twins still can’t articulate a song to save their lives. Bless them. 

NICK: Cláudio, have you let loose today? I didn’t even bother naming any of the top four because obviously they’d be wonderful in an All-Stars season. I hope they get spread out like the top queens from season nine instead of bunched together like the season five girls. Every morning I wake up and wonder . . . . how different it’d have been if they split up Rolaskatox. Detox in AS4? Henny.

I can’t think of an elegant transition so I’ll just ask, what were your favorite LSFYL from this season? We can take Anetra vs Marcia and Anetra vs Sasha as the two givens. For my money the first one where both queen truly excelled was Jax vs Robin Fierce - both of them are so kinetic and heartfelt belting it out on stage, and the moments they play off each other are really beautiful. Salina EsTitties gave two of my favorite individual lip sync performances, blowing Amethyst completely off the screen to Janelle Monaé and delivering the season’s funniest lip sync to “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.” 

CLÁUDIO: Love all those you mentioned, with the Anetra ones plus Jax’s first bottom two placement making up my definitive top three. However, another pair of lipsyncs deserves mention before the reunion is over. I’m talking about Jax vs Mistress and Jax vs Anetra in the life-or-death tournament. Simply put, Aja’s sommersaulting baby is on another level and, while she was eliminated on a lip sync-themed episode, she never flopped or came even close to that. As Mistress eloquently explains, her face-off against Jax was a duel of two drag styles, equally valid and equally spectacular. As for Jax’s farewell performance, it was one of those moments where all the jokes about Drag Race being sports for gays felt as true as truth can be. Watching their showdown was like witnessing two top athletes competing at the top of their game, driven to despair and palpable exhaustion after many matches.

But what about the reverse side of that prompt? What were the worst lipsyncs of the season for you? Mine’s “Running Up That Hill,” mostly because it’s a song that I’ve loved for ages and have often fantasized about seeing on the Drag Race stage. What we got was no epic show, however, but a rhythm-less mess with no clear winner. As much as I love Salina, she and Loosey could have both gone home that episode and it’d have felt justified.

NICK: Bless you for shouting out Jax so much. Both of Spice’s lip syncs in the LaLaPaRuZa were double sashay worthy - horrible, horrible stuff, and I’m not even sure she did worse than either of her opponents. I would’ve been fine if either Malaysia or Salina went home for their renditions of “Single Ladies”. I will say the first two lip syncs of the season, where Amethyst sends home Irene and Princess Poppy, have grown on me ever so slightly, but man, what an underwhelming start to the season.

Speaking of Poppy, we gotta bring up the funniest exchange in the reunion. After Amethyst and Robin amicably rehash their former relationship, Ru asks the queens about any ongoing crushes between the cast. Aura Mayari, resident hottie, quickly brings up having a crush on Poppy. Apparently Poppy wrote “Aura, please fuck me” in a farewell letter, and Aura asks Poppy if she’s still interested and is immediately embarrassed she went there. Poppy says yeah, why not, it’s seven inches, and when Ru asks Aura if there’s anything else she wants to say, the bitch announces she got engaged! Some fantastic gay tomfoolery, hitting on a coworker on live TV before admitting you got a man. Maybe they’re open? Either way, it’s hilarious.

After this we get two sets of Q&As, one with fluff questions from RuGirls past and a couple from the queen’s mothers. Gotta admit, I’d be a bit embarrassed if my mom asked why someone was mean to me on TV. Loved seeing Asia O’Hara again, and I loved Sasha Colby’s answer to her question about who her favorite drag queen is. Still, the clear peak is when DeJa Skye asks Robin about buying a flatscreen from her, which leads into Robin sharing her history of working in drag at Best Buy. Phenomenal. 

CLÁUDIO: Loved seeing the past season queens who’re currently struting their stuff on Ru’s Las Vegas show. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I felt mortified by the mothers’ intervention. If that was me, I’d have dug a hole right into that stage and hidden until the reunion was over. Yikes. Good on the girls for keeping their composure. 

All those interrogations are a prelude to one of the reunion’s best bits - a revisit to ‘Reading is Fundamental,’ full of unaired shade and some new zingers from the reunited cunts. Since the mini-challenge was so mercilessly cut down by the 40-minute edit, getting to watch some of the trashed material felt like justice. My favorite bit was Salina’s brick comment about Mistress. As for worst reads, I’d have to go for another one targeting Mistress. This time, it was Loosey, whose life expectancy joke felt like it crossed a line separating drag-appropriate abrasiveness from actual meanness.

This matter brings another thing to mind. Had season 15 never suffered through those edited-down episodes, do you think it’d have been more popular with the fans? I don’t mean to repeat the same points we’ve already made about the editing issues in RuCaps past, but, in retrospect, one can pinpoint a massive quality shift once the episode’s enlarge.

NICK: There’s no way it wouldn’t be, right? The restricted runtimes palpably limited every element of the show. It’s a tremendous failure of production, and I hope there’s a lost 60-minute cut we’ll get to see someday. Conversely, I wonder if the limited screen time is part of why this top four seems so impressive. Yes, some of it comes down to the editing flattering them while other girls were visibly short-shrift in the early going. Even so, for their pussies to pop so severely in such limited conditions is an achievement for all four of them, and for most of the season’s queens.

It also helps when the queens are out here posting the runways they never got to walk down RuPaul’s stage. This is still their moment to shine, and if the show’s stopped doing challenges to resurrect eliminated queens, they’re gonna do their damndest to show us at home what we missed out on. Irene DuBois’ had the most time to run that racket, and her photoshoots have been the most consistently creative and unique of anyone this season.

I love her approaching Tie Dye to Die For runway as a French aristocrat, as well as her Hot Topic realness for Rip Her to Shreds. She, Marcia, and Malaysia had some of their best outfits for “Everybody Say Glove!”, though who smoothed Malaysia’s face so severely?  Amethyst’s runways were consistently entertaining, my favorite being her Miss Piggy-disco ball dress look for the Money Ball. I wanna hear you gag, Mr. Costume Designer, so I’ll quickly shout out Jax’s slick as hell revamped racer and Aura’s Rip Her to Shreds! runway before passing you the baton.

CLÁUDIO: I’ll always drag for Marie Antoinette drag, so Irene’s tie dye look was bound to make me smile. Extra points for the bloody reveal and the untucked bulge serving gender-fuckery along with Ancien Régime femininity. I also found it fun how two separate queens went botanical for two very different runways, with Irene embodying a Venus flytrap for the Beautiful Nightmare runway, while Robin pulled out the theme for her puffer lewk.

While we got to see Aura’s Beyoncé look at the reunion, Irene and Spice deserve applause for their efforts too. I’m pleasantly surprised by the latter, whose replica gown is both very different from Sugar’s planned runway and working on a more grown-up milieu than usual.

Irene would have slayed the glove category had she still been in the competition, while Aura might have gagged the competition to death in her top 4 gown. It’s such an interesting spin on her penchant for black, rendering it in a cascade of rooster feathers reminiscent of Kameron Michaels evil queen getup for season 10’s feathered runway. And yet, the whole thing feels uniquely Aura.

The queens also revealed two discarded themes - production always asks for more runways than they’re going to use, allowing for some showrunning flexibility. The monochromatic one’s a bit boring, but I’d have enjoyed the checkered prompt. 

NICK: Monochrome would be more fun if it was also Power Rangers, is all I’m saying. Now I feel like waltzing down memory lane for the runways we got to see on the show.

They gave their Golden Boot, and we’ll name ours soon, but what about the Golden Shoot? Or is it so obviously Anetra’s Crystal Eleganza gown she made for the ball? I still can’t get over the jagged outlines on her arms and the crystal spine - she made it on set!! Bitch!!! Second prize for on-site ingenuity surely goes to Luxx Noir London, both for her crystal fairy and for the House of Visage zebra print moment. You could reasonably pick almost any of her looks as her best - her flowing gold Metallica moment, her mall goth casts, her fiery Bob Mackie/Beyoncé leotard - but if I had to choose just one, it might have to be the fairy.

Sasha Colby offers too many choices. Pam Anderson in Space is maybe the sexiest anyone’s looked all season, but the ingenuity of her baseball glove runway made me scream when I first saw it, so I don’t think I can pick anything else in good conscience. For Mistress, I’m proposing a tie between her beach ball runway and her Destiny’s Child collaboration, on the grounds that her sense of humor melds perfectly with her fashion sensibilities. The body is always right, no matter the proportions, and the mug is a thing of beauty.

I’d say Malaysia Babydoll Foxx ruled two of the categories outright, being one of the only girls to understand the assignment with her spin on a Ghost/Fairy Aromatisse for the Beautiful Nightmare runway, and the magnificent beehive hair and lemon printed comforter/jacket for the Puffer Please runway. Aura won looking the best she did all season, with her chic black tie die serving as an unexpected reflection of her heavy metal granny character. Lastly, Jax’s Who Is She runway remains a personal favorite, along with her strutting her Mortal Kombat self for Metallica.

CLÁUDIO: My top three looks of the season are pretty set in stone. Like you, I single out Luxx’s brilliant take on the glove runway and Anetra’s crystal spine extravaganza.

That said, my Golden Shoot goes to the best offering of what might have been the season’s most collectively disappointing runway. I’m talking about the Beautiful Nightmare theme, where a number of queens showed how limited their imagination can be, or, alternatively, how shackled they are to their perceived brand. Sasha Colby is one of the rare exceptions, coming up with the witch look to end all witch looks. Her mug beat to ghoulish effect, she’s a witch and her broom, the dark woods, and a seductive apparition all in one package. I haven’t stopped thinking about this fashion-gasm since that episode and will proudly crown her my champion.

And now, for the reverse side of that coin, we must contend with the worst lewks. Honestly, I strongly disagree with the three nominees the show singled out, finding that none of them even represented the bottom of their queen’s catwalk fits. My selection would still touch on Marcia, though not for her tie dye-less tie dye fantasy. Instead, I must reiterate my hatred for Princess BFA’s shockingly inadequate Beyoncé homage. Poppy deserves flack for her half-hassed Metallica runway, and Amethyst’s House of Visage design is sickening in all the wrong ways. Dishonorable mentions for Anetra’s collection of bodysuits with shit glued on top, Loosey’s poop bag hippie chic, her flat-bellied pregnant Beyoncé, and Salina’s deflated bucket hat from the first runway.

NICK: You’ve picked an unbeatable bottom three and some killer alternates. If I could make a lineup without any of them, it’d be  Aura’s House of Visage design, Loosey’s half-assed sea monster swimsuit, and either Robin Fierce or the twins for their Beautiful Nightmare flops. How did so many queens bungle that runway? Still, congrats to Salina for finally winning something on Drag Race.

After this silly interlude comes the frankest, most politically lucid moment of the reunion, as Ru asks the queens how it feels to travel and perform in the wake of increasing opposition to drag performers in certain corners of America. Aura Mayari, the only cast member based in Tennessee, talks about doing a benefit with Maren Morris. Irene chimes in to remind them that these bans are designed to target trans people even more than drag queens, and Sasha Colby pivots off that to talk about her experiences as a trans drag artist. For this alone Sasha almost inevitably gives the most insightful testimony, as she describes her anxieties on the road, wondering what would happen if she’s accosted in the bathroom by someone who sees her as not belonging. It’s harrowing, yet the queens build off this open agony into a message of hope and community. They have to be doing something right to get bigots nervous, and the queer community is stronger than any of those ugly fuckers trying to make being queer a crime.

CLÁUDIO: As much as I think Drag Race tends to be too toothless in its approach to political topics, and how its deflecting of past contestants’ critiques stinks of hypocrisy, this was a lovely and necessary segment. It felt urgent in a way the series rarely does, and it better framed just how political the finale might be in terms of cultural subtext. Crowning America’s Next Drag Superstar in a paradigm where drag itself feels at risk is powerful stuff. If Sasha wins, her trans womanhood further underlines a statement against reactionaries who’re using drag to attack trans people, and, eventualy, the entire queer comunity.

Moving on, the last big segment of the reunion concerns the top 4. We get to see unaired footage and highlights of what the showrunners consider each queen’s highest point in the competition. For Anetra, it’s her Talent Show performance, while Luxx gets applauded for the first design challenge. Mistress gets to revisit her Daytona Wind star turn, and we get to see some delicious line-readings whose cutting feels stupid in retrospect. Finally, Sasha Colby’s Pamela Anderson realness gets the biggest reaction of all, with RuPaul declaring she’s amazed by this bitch - quite a statement from the self-titled queen of drag.

Those were the moments the show chose to highlight, but were there more deserving triumphs? More importantly, what’s the instant you fell in love with each of the final four?

NICK: Oh, that’s a tough question. I’m not sure when I realized “ah yes, these are the final four”, but all of them impressed me as competitors pretty quickly. Mistress was absolutely the one who grabbed me the most when she introduced herself. Her candor throughout the pilot, both to the other queens and in her confessionals, was such a reliable treat. Maybe the part that truly gagged me was after seeing Mistress carrying herself in the pilot episodes with the poise and attitude I associate with pageant queens of an older generation only to learn she was twenty-four during filming. I’m in awe of her star power.

I agree with the judges on Anetra’s first big moment. Her talent show is just endlessly rewatchable - I watched it right after typing that sentence, and I might be watching it again whenever you’re reading this. Flawless. Luxx’s confidence was pretty infectious from the jump, but I believe I became fully in the tank during the second challenge. She’s hilarious in that awful wig, and her Metallica runway looked like liquid gold flowing across her body. Sasha was the only one I’d learned of before the show started, giving her Expectations the other three didn’t have, but seeing her in the dress she wore for her Miss Continental crowning was jaw-dropping. She looked like a work of art, and you know what? She is. 

CLÁUDIO: I share many of the same favorites as you, though I guess it took longer for me to fall in love and believe each of them absolutely belonged in the finale. Like you, I knew about Sasha before and was already a fan of hers from seeing lipsync videos. That being said, I’m not sure I was completely sold on her ability to succeed in the restrictive Drag Race format until she killed it as the neck-snapping Goddess. It was also surprising to see such a loose and funny side of her, being more familiar with dramatic performances and sheer fierceness. 

Anetra was a standout of the Talent Show, but she only really became winner material during the LaLaPaRUza, which she demolished despite technically losing two out of three lipsyncs. With Luxx, her 50/50 dynamic with Love Connie was the moment of revelation. She’s so much more than just a hyper-confident fashion queen - this brat is an entertainer!

Mistress took her time to settle in my mind as something more than the season’s prime narrator. However, her ability to succeed in the girl group challenge after the genre-picking drama was very impressive, as was her Daytona Wind win. Honestly, she probably won my heart with her runways, acing old-school Texas pageant drag without looking antiquated. They really are a perfect quartet to end the season. Next Friday, whoever wins, we all win.

NICK: I can’t fucking wait. Prissy kissness, Cláudio!

CLÁUDIO: Prissy kissness, Nick!

Previous RuCaps:

• Episodes 1 & 2: "One Night Only"
• Episode 3: "All Queens Go to Heaven"
• Episode 4: "Snatch Game"
• Episode 5: "House of Fashion"
• Episode 6: "Old Friends Gold"
• Episode 7: "The Daytona Wind 2"
• Episode 8: "LipSync LaLaPaRUza Smackdown"
• Episode 9: "The Crystal Ball"
• Episode 10: "50/50 Most Gagworthy Stars"
• Episode 11: "Two Queens, One Joke"
• Episode 12: "Wigloose: The Rusical!"
• Episode 13: "Teacher Makeovers"
• Episode 14: "Blame It On the Edit"

Comments

[Finbar McBride]

To be honest, this program grew tired years ago. Yet, we cannot allow this celebration to fade away.

In the United States in 2021, 191 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced targeting transvestites and transgender youth. Though the lessons of RuPaul’s Drag Race are now 15 years young, the right wing prevaricators of hate have failed to learn their lessons. They continue to demonize children struggling with identity issues and criminalize those who cross dress.

I don’t agree that this show is politically toothless. Being seen allays the fears of the unknown. The love and laughter evident in this landmark piece of television can only help to erase ignorance and promote acceptance.