When you’ve recapped and reviewed a reality show for as long as we’ve been doing Drag Race (FIFTEEN YEARS AND A BOOK, BITCHES), especially when it’s a reality show as locked into its format as this one, there’s no way for us to avoid repeating things we’ve said many a time before. So let’s get this out of the way right now: We won’t tell you how you’re supposed to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race, but we know from experience you will have a much better time of it if you completely abandon the idea that it’s a legitimate competition. It’s not. It’s a variety show with cash prizes.
We point this out, as always, because of the show’s clear and obvious shenanigans. In this case, only half the queens arrived and competed, they’re all voting on each other based on a rating system, they’ve reinstated immunity (“for a future elimination,” which makes it sound like queens can save them up and use them when they want), and no one went home this week. All of these factors will no doubt provide a great deal of drama as the season progresses, which is entirely the point of them, of course.
We’ll see how each of them play out before rendering any judgments, but we have to say we kind of enjoyed the rate-the-queens segment. First, it seems like the judges gave more pointed critiques in order for the queens to have something to base their ratings on, which can only be considered a good thing, since the judging has gotten increasingly timid in recent seasons. Second, it was fun to see the queens critique all of their competitors instead of having them all dogpile one queen for being weak (although that happened anyway).
It was a leisurely, enjoyable opening to the season, removing almost all of the tension and just giving the queens the space and time to introduce themselves. Charlize was great, the talent show is always the best way to assess the new crop, the queens are hungry (and a couple of them are rough), and the production looks as high-end and dazzling as it ever has. Before we get to the girls, we’ll just repeat another point we’ve made before: it’s sometimes extremely cringeworthy how dated the references of this show can be. Drag is an extremely referential art form and Drag Race is a show almost entirely populated with young competitors. It’s increasingly rare to have anyone in the competition who’s old enough to understand or remember the references being thrown at them. In this episode the challenge was based on a show that went off the air a decade ago and was introduced using clips from thirty years ago, while the judges made references to such Baby Boomer cultural stalwarts as Lucille Ball, Evelyn “Champagne” King and Nichelle Nichols, most of which prompted confused looks from the queens. You can argue that drag queens should have an encyclopedia-like knowledge of pop culture history (we don’t agree at all), but the judges routinely fail to meet the queens on their level. We’re not suggesting that any of the judges retire, but it sure would be nice to have at least one permanent judge whose references are a little more current. Now let’s see how the new girls did. We’re going to skip any talk about that piss-poor “modeling” challenge. There was a time when the show got real fashion and celebrity photographers with impressive resumes and skills to photograph the queens, which intimidated the hell out of them. Asking them to vamp in front of a Ring camera felt too low-rent to comment on.
Q
Q is adorable. It might be our first impulse to dismiss the pretty white twink in the competition, but she does not rest on that mug. Her drag is exquisitely hand made and her talent number was hilariously well done. She’s polished, pretty, funny, and the bitch can sew. One to watch.
Xunami Muse
Xunami failed to make an impressive showing. Her entrance look was dowdy as hell and we still can’t get over those sensible slacks in a matte gray. Girl, that is so not drag. Her performance look was equally underwhelming and as the judges noted, the number was pretty flat.
Amanda Tori Meating
It can be so easy to point at each new queen and say “This one is a Willow, that one is an Anetra, the one over there is giving Luxe and this one’s serving up Crystal Method.” And we don’t even think we’d be wrong in those assessments; not because the queens are copying anyone, but because the show likes to cast certain types. But we’ll try and take each one on their own merits. Regarding Amanda, we’ll say this: the other queens are dumb for counting her out. The judges loved her personality and performance. Makeup can be improved easily, but you can’t fix your energy on the fly. She can only go up from here. We thought she was fun and cute.
Morphine Love Dion
The ones who come in all “I’ve got the face, I’ve got the ass, these other girls are trash,” like they shit ice cream tend to be the ones who do the worst in things like the Snatch Game or any improv or comedy challenges. We won’t argue with Morphine about her face and ass, which are both sublime, but we are waiting to see more from her before we begin to believe any of her self-flattery. Having said that, we think her costumes are distinctly unflattering to her. As the show has loosened up its definition of drag over the years (away from pure gender illusion drag), we tend not to see as many “You need a waist cincher and more padding” critiques as we used to, but given the kind of drag she does, we hope Michelle busts that one out at some point.
Sapphira Cristál
PHILLY REPRESENT! We are never going to pretend that we’re anything but fully in the bag for our hometown girl. It helps that she’s fabulous and talented. While we can’t say we loved her entrance look (fun but way too bulky), her performance was insane. The other girls couldn’t even pretend to be jealous. Everyone knew she slayed it. We were happy to see she didn’t just do some straight-up piece of conventional opera. She kept things drag.
Mirage
Okay, yes. She’s giving Anetra. She even mentioned her in her song. Even so, that heel-clacking bit was a whole lot of fun and her energy can’t be beat. Everyone acted like her drag was trashy, but we found it to be pretty polished overall. Her entrance look was fantastic and everyone seemed to trash it for some reason. This isn’t the Miss America pageant, ladies. Tacky is a virtue around here.
Dawn
Here’s the thing about her: She’s going to have to work to prove to the judges that she’s something other than Willow 2.0. We don’t doubt she’s capable of it, because her performance skills are strong, the bitch can sew, and her makeup skills are INSANE, but even she must know she was cast because of the resemblance. Having said that, we don’t think she has much to worry about. She’s very much her own thing and she looks amazing. Her performance was weird and funny.
The runway category was “Ru-veal Yourself,” and we’ll be honest: we’re kind of thrilled that the results felt so spotty. It can be such a letdown when the queens all debut in costumes that clearly cost thousands of dollars. We want to see these girls work for it a little. We think part of the reason the judging has gotten so stale in recent years is because it’s hard to find anything bad to say when someone’s standing in front of you in a very expensive costume made by an award-winning costume designer.
Morphine’s reveal was cute, but a little low-rent. Her towel had strings hanging off it and her bathing suit looks very department store. Dawn is off doing her own thing. We didn’t love the costume, because it really was more costume than drag, but her reveal actually worked. Amanda’s skin suit reveal was fun, but really rough in its execution. Her makeup is a mess, but more to the point, it doesn’t make any sense. With the yellow arms and legs, it would have worked better with a yellow face. Also the wig is terrible and those shoes are hilariously wrong for the costume. Xunami’s is just sad. Girl, that is not how you make a first impression on Drag Race.
Q’s look was a pure stunner. Mirage is delivering really standard showgirl drag, which is not going to help her get past the Anetra comparisons. We didn’t love Sapphira’s look. We hope she’s not stuck in some sort of “Grande Dame” drag style. While it makes sense given her skills, she has the potential and the looks to deliver sickening Ru-level drag.
Q and Sapphira lip-synced for the win to Beyonce’s “Break My Soul” and it felt like it was over before it even started. While we wouldn’t call it a particularly exciting lip sync, Sapphira was uniquely suited to it, not just because of any resemblance but because she could effectively mimic the kind of throat and mouth movements Bey does to get her sound.
So we’re THRILLED to see a Philly queen come in and sweep through the first episode like the champion she is. More, please.
Legendary Children: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life, a New York Times “New and Notable” pick, praised by The Washington Post “because the world needs authenticity in its stories,” and chosen as one of the Best Books of The Year by NPR is on sale wherever fine books are sold! It’s also available in Italian and Spanish language editions, darlings! Because we’re fabulous on an INTERNATIONAL level.
[Photo Credit: MTV via Tom and Lorenzo]
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