![]() ![]() Now that Drag Race has been on the air for over a decade, young queens auditioning for the most recent seasons were likely to have grown up watching the show. The rivalries and shade of it all make for fun TV, as do, of course, the unforgettable performances, but the hero’s journey of overcoming one’s demons, transforming the pain of alienation into something special and profound, has always been the real buy-in for me. TikToker Danielle Barrett recently spoofed the serious conversations that go down in the werkroom to very funny results even though longtime viewers have seen a million of them by now, the queens’ stories about trauma and resilience are integral to the Drag Race experience. I wasn’t alone in feeling burned out and increasingly bored with Drag Race, whose subversive, irreverent beginnings had since gone comfortably mainstream.ĭrag Race at its best is all about bringing artists working and living on the margins to the center. Not too long after that, though, I’d more or less fallen out with the series. Screaming my head off while watching former Drag Race stars Sasha Velour and Shea Couleé lip-synch to “ So Emotional” in a gay bar with my friends four years ago has got to be one of the biggest pop culture highlights of my life. It’s been delightful - and surprising, honestly - to enjoy Drag Race so much this year. The franchise’s second UK season, which awarded its top prize to Scottish queen Lawrence Chaney last month, was a critical hit and a memeable bonanza the bizarre (and bizarrely catchy) “ UK Hun?” is one of the best things the Drag Race universe has ever given us. Season 13 is drawing to a close not too long after Drag Race UK had audiences gooped and gagged the world over. There’s Kandy, mouthy and hilarious Rosé, another perfectionist New York City queen Symone, a small-town Arkansan turned Angeleno who has stunned the judges with showstopper looks and inspired cry-laughing with her pronunciations of certain words alone and Gottmik, the show’s first trans man contender, a makeup artist from Arizona who’s since shown the world (and herself) that she’s also a killer comedy queen. ![]() RuPaul will crown America’s next drag superstar on April 23, and she’ll be selecting from the strongest top four the franchise has seen in years. While a couple of the remaining contestants have avoided ever being in the bottom, Kandy’s redemption makes her own journey that much more exciting to watch, and that much more affectingly human. This was her third time in the bottom two, but Kandy was too confident (“fuckin’ delusional,” as she put it in her interview with RuPaul last week) to let a few near losses stand in the way of the finale. I cried happy tears watching her burst into an ear-to-ear smile, twirling with joyful abandon. But Kandy’s was by far the more triumphant performance, punctuated with a mid-routine release of confetti. Both queens gave it their all in a lip sync to Cher’s “Strong Enough,” turning lyrics like “You gotta go” into fun, shady moments. ![]() It immediately became clear that Bronx-bred Kandy, who had a panic attack while filming the gossipy backstage bonus show Untucked, wasn’t ready to go home. ![]() But they both had the chance to redeem themselves with the traditional tiebreaker - a lip sync for their lives. Neither their relatively one-note performances in the acting challenge nor their looks for a “Haute Pocket”–themed runway impressed the judges Olivia’s minidress was kind of boring, and Kandy’s fit, god love her, was just a big old mess. On Friday night, the hilarious and enigmatic Kandy Muse and sweet, smiley Olivia Lux found themselves at risk of elimination. Earlier this month I was self-isolating in my room - PMS’ing, cranky, hitting the same pandemic wall we all are - when a scene from the current season of RuPaul’s Drag Race shook me out of my funk with a moment of ascendant joy.īy Episode 13 of what’s been, by this point, an unusually long season (no complaints here - I’ve loved every minute), we were finally down to the top five. ![]()
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