You’ll pardon the phrasing, but we’re going to be completely straight with you, darlings. We honestly weren’t sure what to make of this series as little dribs and drabs of information trickled out. Certainly, no one can accuse us of not being Ru fans. And if Miss Thing wants to drop a Netflix series less than two months from the pub date of our book about Drag Race, well then. Who are we to argue with any of that? But the story sounded incredibly hokey and we weren’t convinced Ru was the best fit for a streaming narrative series – not because we doubted her acting, but because we weren’t sure she’d be as committed to the drag side of this role, ironically enough. But the trailer dropped yesterday and instantly changed our minds.
That actually looks like a lot of fun, not least because Ru is serving us classic Ru. Sorry to this man, but sometimes he’s tried to wander away from the things that made him most famous and this feels like a full-on embrace. We wonder if he can, after all these years of success, tap into what it’s like to be a struggling queen working the small-time circuit, but this trailer sure makes it feel like Mama’s coming home.
RuPaul stars as Ruby Red, a bigger than life but down on her luck drag queen who travels across America from club to club in a rundown 1990’s van, in order to recoup the savings recently stolen from her. She’s paired up with AJ, a recently orphaned, tough-talking, scrappy 11-year-old white girl stowaway. As these two misfits, one tall – one small, travel from city to city, Ruby’s message of love and acceptance winds up touching people and changes their lives a little for the better. This fun, outrageous series explores ideas of family, friendship, love, and loss. Together they help each other navigate the heartbreaking past, the challenging present and a hopeful future as Ruby and AJ travel the USA searching for a little happiness and the very best breakfast waffle. Part Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Part Touched by an Angel. Oh, and RuPaul performs a killer musical number in every drag club.
And check out that lineup of Drag Race alums:
Chad Michaels, Latrice Royale, Valentina, Eureka, Bianca Del Rio, Trinity, Jujubee, Pandora Boxx – that’s a hell of a lineup. Ru gets dragged (pun intended) a lot by a handful of Drag Race alums for not living up to their idea of her, but it’s hard to deny that she tries to help the careers of “her girls” in ways big and small. We’re happy for all the queens – many of whom really stepped up their game, going by their work in the Drag Race challenges. Latrice has clearly come a long way from “Get those nuts out my face.” But it is KILLING US that our book on Drag Race is completed at this point. There’s an entire chapter devoted to the sketch comedy challenges on the show, how they pay homage to a long line of acting drag queens, and how they serve as an actual vocational school for the queens, who all wind up learning some of the rudimentary basics of acting, many of whom have already taken those skills and carved out some impressive IMDB listings for themselves. It’s got plenty of examples to support our points, but this show would have made the perfect capper to the chapter, showing just how much Drag Race is Mama Ru’s Vocational School for Queens.
[Photo Credit: – Video Credit: Netflix via YouTube.com]
Previous post:
Tilda Swinton in Loewe at the Marrakech International Festival Next Post:
Andrew Scott, Ed Westwick and Richard Madden at the “1917” London Premiere
Tilda Swinton in Loewe at the Marrakech International Festival Next Post:
Andrew Scott, Ed Westwick and Richard Madden at the “1917” London Premiere
-
Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez at The American French Film Festival Premiere...
-
Ella Purnell and Hailee Steinfeld at the ARCANE Season Two World Premiere
-
Antonia Gentry and Madison Bailey at the TIME CUT Los Angeles Special Screening
Please review our Community Guidelines before posting a comment. Thank you!
