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DragCon UK: Fans call event ‘disaster’ and ‘shambles’ after hundreds left to queue in freezing cold for hours - Ellie Harrison - 18/01/20

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DragCon UK: Fans call event ‘disaster’ and ‘shambles’ after hundreds left to queue in freezing cold for hours - Ellie Harrison - 18/01/20

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Similarly, in this article, Ellie Harrison comments on the poor service RuPaul gave to his fans during DragCon UK. Again, this puts RuPaul in a negative light and harms his star image.

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DragCon UK has been described as a "disaster" and a "shambles" by fans after hundreds of ticket holders were left to queue outside for hours.

Some had paid a lot to travel to London with their young families and faced queues of up to four hours to get into the event, at which RuPaul and the entire cast of Drag Race UK were in attendance.

Those attending the event, which appears to have been oversold, have been posting on social media from the DragCon UK site at Olympia London.

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Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

"Been queueing for 2 hours in the freezing cold with no explanation why it's taking so long!" wrote one attendee. "Been excited about this event for months and people have travelled from across Europe to be here. Give us an apology and a #RuFund."

"Standing out in the cold with hundreds of others. Not letting anyone in. Absolute shambles #dragcon," tweeted another.

A third said: "Okay, @RuPaulsDragCon is a total shambles. We've been queueing for two hours, haven't moved for one hour, no updates, no nothing! Cold, hungry, feet hurt, need the loo. And we paid a fortune for the tickets! #dragcon #dragconuk."

Another simply wrote: "I can't believe what a disaster dragcon is."

One person at the event shared a video of the crowd chanting: "We want a refund."

Another fan shared a clip of RuPaul dancing and quipped: "RuPaul knowing there's nearly 3,000 people outside but he still got paid. #DragCon."

The official DragCon UK Twitter account responded with: "Hey kitty girls, we know that some of you unfortunately had to queue outside the convention center. We apologise for the wait as Health and Safety required us to slow the flow of people coming in."

RuPaul launched Drag Race UK on BBC3 in 2019, with ten queens going head-to-head to be crowned series champion. The Vivienne (James Lee Williams) was the eventual winner, with Divina de Campo (Owen Farrow) as runner-up.

A second series has been confirmed to air in 2020.

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DragCon UK branded 'disaster' and 'shambles' after hundreds left to queue in freezing cold for hours

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DragCon UK has been described as a "disaster" and a "shambles" by fans after hundreds of ticket holders were left to queue outside for hours. Some had paid a lot to travel to London with their young families and faced queues of up to four hours to get into the event, at which RuPaul and the entire cast of Drag Race UK were in attendance.

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'Where's our Rufund?' Drag icon Ru Paul's London convention is branded a 'SHAMBLES' as furious fans break down in tears after queuing in the rain for hours with no guarantee of entry - Laura Fox - 18/01/20

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'Where's our Rufund?' Drag icon Ru Paul's London convention is branded a 'SHAMBLES' as furious fans break down in tears after queuing in the rain for hours with no guarantee of entry - Laura Fox - 18/01/20

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In this article, Laura Fox explains how fans were left disappointed in RuPaul's DragCon UK. This presents the brand in a negative light and highlights RuPaul as a poor organiser, negatively impacting his star image.

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'Where's our Rufund?' Drag icon Ru Paul's London convention is branded a 'SHAMBLES' as furious fans break down in tears after queuing in the rain for hours with no guarantee of entry

Fans had to queue for hours amid reports that the event has been overbooked

The DragCon UK event was held on Saturday at Olympia London in Kensington

Fans have taken to social media to share their anger after waiting to enter convention for up to four hours

Some attendees have claimed they have been refused a refund despite being warned they might not get into the event

An event spokesman said: 'Health and Safety officers advised us to temporarily halt the queue entrances today for an hour due to clogging of the aisles.'

'From there on out - we got everyone in as fast as possible under H&S's watch'

Furious fans have branded drag icon Ru Paul's DragCon UK convention a 'shambles' after being forced to queue for hours outside the venue amid reports the event has been overbooked.

Those attending the event being held today at Olympia London have taken to social media to share their anger after waiting to enter convention for up to four hours while the iconic star, 59, was meeting fans inside.

Some attendees claimed that they had requested refunds due to the length of the queue but revealed that they have been told that none would be given. An event spokesman told MailOnline entrances were closed off temporarily over health and safety concerns.

One person who attempted to attend the event claimed it was a 's*** show', and said: 'DragCON - absolutely shambles. It had been completely oversold - easily a thousand people outside not being let in.

They continued by saying they saw tearful children breakdown while standing in the queue, adding: 'It won't affect me losing £100 on a ticket but there were kids in the queue in tears who had these bought for them for Christmas.

'#LGBTQ+ teenagers who had saved up for tickets left completely devastated.'

The post also suggested that exasperated staff struggled to deal with the volume of crowds and others were too afraid to come and confront the angry ticket payers.

They said: 'People had been queuing for 4 hours+. Event organisers too scared to come outside. Staff on the doors nearly in tears because they were so fed up. 'Absolute s*** show'.

Others took to Twitter to express their outrage, with one tagging the event to make sure the organisers knew about the situation occurring outside.

They said: 'So we've been told that nobody has been let in for 2 hours because the venue is at maximum capacity! We've been told no refunds, doesn't look like we'll get let in today! Where's out RUfund? #DragConUK.'

Another complained: 'This is what happens when drag does mainstream. This is also what happens when you oversell tickets for the sake of money vs the integrity of your fans #DragConUK.'

While a third person said: 'As somebody who usually attends an event called 'dragworld' (a safe and enjoyable event) I can sit and say that this a s*** show.

'The fact that they thought Olympia could hold this many people... heads were empty: mind full of money #DragConUK.'

Another fan shared a clip of RuPaul dancing and quipped: 'RuPaul knowing there's nearly 3,000 people outside but he still got paid. #DragCon.'

A spokesman for organisers World of Wonder told Mailonline: 'Health and Safety officers had advised us to temporarily halt the queue entrances today for an hour due to clogging of the aisles and from there on out - we got everyone in as fast as possible under H&S's watch.

'We have met with the venue, security and H&S for tomorrow's event and are confident that the same issues won't arise.

'Thank you and we appreciate you. If your ticket wasn't scanned and you would like to return you are welcome to use your ticket to come tomorrow.

'If you can't make tomorrow, refunds will be honoured - please email help@rupaulsdragcon.com for further assistance.'

A spokesman for RuPaul has also been contacted for further comment.

Earlier in the day, RuPaul was joined by an army of Queens as he cut the ribbon to open DragCon UK in front of a crowd of excitable fans.

The presenter, 59, stood out in a red and pink suit as he joined veteran Drag Race judge Michelle Visage, 51, to officially open the conference which brings together some of the country's biggest and best Queens.

RuPaul cut a suave figure in a red suit with a pink tie scarf as he officially cut the ribbon on the pink carpet to kick off the DragCon.

The Emmy-winning presenter excitedly branded the scissors ahead of the opening, after reuniting with his longtime friend Michelle.

Michelle was effortlessly chic in a sparkling black dress with loose waterfall sleeves and her signature thick-framed glasses as she joined several others stars in attendance for the opening.

RuPaul officially launched his Drag Race in the UK last year, with its first ever British series seeing 10 Queens go head-to-head to be crowned series champion.

The crown was eventually awarded to The Vivienne (James Lee Williams), with Divina de Campo (Owen Farrow) as runner-up.

A second series has already been confirmed to air later this year, although it is yet to be revealed whether Graham Norton and Alan Carr will return as judges.

Several other stars were also in attendance for the opening, including Love Island star Samira Mighty who oozed urban chic in a green and blue gingham shirt, a crop top and baggy blue jeans.

Jessica Hynes also channelled her inner queen with a flamboyant black dress and an oversized brown faux fur collar.

Michelle was also a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing last year, but was sadly eliminated in Blackpool alongside her professional partner Giovanni Pernice.

RuPaul's Drag Race UK has also been nominated for The Bruce Forsyth Entertainment Award at the National Television Awards later this month, and will also compete for fans' votes to win the TV Judge prize.

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'Where's our Rufund?' DragCon UK is branded a 'shambles'

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Fans had to queue for hours amid reports that the event has been overbooked The DragCon UK event was held on Saturday at Olympia London in Kensington Fans have taken to social media to share their anger after waiting to enter convention for up to four hours Some attendees have claimed they have been refused a refund despite being warned they might not get into the event An event spokesman said: 'Health and Safety officers advised us to temporarily halt the queue entrances today for an hour due to clogging of the aisles.'

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RuPaul represents himself in his music as a drag queen; his songs reflect quotes from his Netflix shows and in his music videos, he is dressed in drag. His male look does not come into his music at all.

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Offstage, RuPaul's social media profiles work to represent him as the kind, caring and inspiring star fans see on his Netflix shows. Posting fun photos in and out of drag and cute close-ups from his home life, he allows fans a sneak peak into his home life, which they delight in in the comment sections.

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Over a thirty year career, the star has become a symbol for the LGBTQ+ community, paving the way to success and allowing the drag queens a voice to be heard by mainstream society. Through podcasts, his Netflix shows, DragCon, countless magazine covers and awards he has won, RuPaul has created an empire and is the leading light for the community. He has created a platform for the drag industry and has become an instantly recognisable face of drag for the world to see.

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RuPaul was immortalised in wax at Madame Tussauds and is currently residing at the New York branch. In his biography, they comment, 'RuPaul is considered to be the most commercially successful drag queen in the United States' and 'he has been credited with creating wider exposure for drag queens from LGBT culture in to mainstream society', highlighting his success as a star.

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Madame Tussauds New York | Celebrity Wax Attraction in Times Square

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RuPaul Andre Charles is an American drag queen, actor, model, singer, songwriter, and television personality.

Famous Facts

Since 2009, he has produced and hosted the reality competition series RuPaul's Drag Race, for which he has received three Primetime Emmy Awards, in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

RuPaul achieved international fame as a drag queen with the release of his debut single, "Supermodel (You Better Work)", which was included on his debut studio album Supermodel of the World (1993).

RuPaul is considered to be the most commercially successful drag queen in the United States.He has been credited with creating wider exposure for drag queens from LGBT culture in to mainstream society, thanks to his early-career chart success, and later, the successive climb in viewership of RuPaul's Drag Race.

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RuPaul Andre Charles is an American drag queen, actor, model, singer, songwriter, and television personality. Since 2009, he has produced and hosted the reality competition series RuPaul's Drag Race, for which he has received three Primetime Emmy Awards, in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

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Celebrity: Capitalism and the Making of Fame - Milly Williamson (2016)

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Celebrity: Capitalism and the Making of Fame - Milly Williamson (2016)

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Milly Williamson says, 'all celebrities have a value in common – to sell products, media and otherwise', supporting Dyer, Turner and Morin in this notion of the star as a commodity that can be mass-produced and sold.

Williamson, M. (2016) Celebrity: Capitalism and the Making of Fame. John Wiley & Sons.

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Understanding Celebrity – Graeme Turner (2013)

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Understanding Celebrity – Graeme Turner (2013)

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Graeme Turner says, ‘since the celebrity in turn will always need the visibility the media can provide, it is in their interests to be as cooperative as possible to maintain a continuing relationship’, suggesting that stars can accept interview offers and other press events in order to promote their brand and keep themselves at the forefront of people’s thoughts. By completing and participating in pseudo-relationships with his fans, RuPaul is able to continue to be seen as a down to earth, kind and caring star who communicates with his followers and is a nice person to interview. It promotes his shows as much as it benefits the interviewer.
Furthermore, like Dyer and Morin, Turner says, 'celebrities are developed to make money', suggesting that again, the star is a product, using their assets to benefit them and their team.

(See 'Interviews' and 'Social Media' for how RuPaul interacts with interviewers and his fans to maintain his star image).

Turner, G. (2013) Understanding Celebrity. Sage.

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Star Studies: A Critical Guide - Martin Shingler (2012)

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Star Studies: A Critical Guide - Martin Shingler (2012)

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Martin Shingler cites Richard Dyer who says some stars root their onscreen characters in their sense of self-image but some try to maintain distance between who they are normally and the characters they act on stage. In support of Abby Aguirre, for the case of RuPaul, it suggests that as his on stage and offstage personas are very similar, as interviewers have commented, he aims to connect the two identities for fans and suggests he is not putting on any kind of ‘act’ for them. He appears to be very comfortable in his identity and is not afraid for the on stage and off stage identities to come together.

(See 'How the World Fell Head Over Heels for RuPaul - Abby Aguirre - 15/04/19').

Shingler, M. (2012) Star Studies: A Critical Guide. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Similarly, Edgar Morin might agree with Sandoval as he says, ‘the star is a total item of merchandise; there is not an inch of [his/her] body, not a shred of [his/her] soul, not a memory of [his/her] life that cannot be thrown on the market’. This suggests that a star is always a commodity. Like Dyer, Morin suggests that a star can merchandise themselves in a way that society will be able to partake in and buy into. RuPaul has definitely created this star image and these characters that are easily marketable and can be replicated on a grand scale, hence his ever-expanding list of spin-off Netflix shows and DragCon events that are beginning to occur all over the world. He is a commodity which he and his team are happy to promote.

(See 'Promotional Material and Merchandise, 'Netflix Shows' and 'RuPaul's DragCon').

Morin, E. (1960) The Stars. New York: Grove Press

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Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society - Richard Dyer (2003)

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Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society - Richard Dyer (2003)

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Richard Dyer describes a star as using the 'self as a commodity'. This suggests they sell and use their identities for a profit or for personal gratification. In the case of RuPaul, as this Padlet shows, he has clearly commodified his assets for his own gain as well as to the benefit of other people. He has branded himself in a clean and totally polished way which has significantly impacted the drag community for the better. People who watch the show will see drag in positive light; a fun, loving and happy group of people who have come together with a shared interest in drag and costuming.

(See 'Promotional Material and Merchandise).

Dyer, R. (2003) Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. 2nd edn. Routledge.

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RuPaul (RuPaul Andre Charles) (b. 1960) - Tina Gianoulis (2002)

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RuPaul (RuPaul Andre Charles) (b. 1960) - Tina Gianoulis (2002)

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Tina Gianoulis argues RuPaul has ‘given drag a new visibility’ through his shows and the construction of him as a star. His dual identities which are so polished has allowed the world to see drag in a new light. He has broken into the film, music and television industries and encouraged drag to be accepted for a mainstream reception. She says he has made the drag industry seem ‘less threatening’ to people and presented it in way that is accessible for the majority of viewers. This presents RuPaul in a positive light and shows the huge impact he has made for the drag community.

(See 'Reviews on the Show' for how RuPaul has made drag visible to mainstream society and how he has allowed it to be perceived positively).

Gianoulis, T. (2002) RuPaul (RuPaul Andre Charles)(b. 1960), GLBTQ.

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From the Love Ball to RuPaul: The Mainstreaming of Drag in the 1990s - Jeremiah Ryan Davenport (2017)

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From the Love Ball to RuPaul: The Mainstreaming of Drag in the 1990s - Jeremiah Ryan Davenport (2017)

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Jeremiah Ryan Davenport suggests RuPaul has fine-tuned the image of drag so well that it has allowed the world to see it clearly and in a positive light, so much so that it has ‘led drag characters to take center stage in the films Mrs. Doubtfire (Columbus 1993), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Elliot, 1994), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (Kidron, 1995), and The Birdcage (Nichols, 1996)’. He says RuPaul has created a ‘clean’ and ‘relatable’ image which has transformed the drag industry forever. Interestingly, Davenport uses female pronouns to describe RuPaul, looking at him from a female perspective (‘she and her team of collaborators turned her into a household name, musical performer, model, actress, and host of her own talk show’). This in turn highlights RuPaul’s significance as a female character and legitimises him as a celebrity. The article promotes RuPaul as a brand and suggests the magnitude of benefits it can have for the community.

(See 'Reviews on the Show' for how RuPaul has made drag visible to mainstream society and how he has allowed it to be perceived positively).

Davenport, J.R. (2017) From the Love Ball to RuPaul: The Mainstreaming of Drag in the 1990s (Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University).

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Year and Degree

2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Musicology.

In the first half of the 1990s, Western popular culture experienced an infusion of drag. The success of Jenny Livingston's seminal but highly problematic documentary of the Harlem Ballroom drag scene, Paris is Burning (1991), signaled an intrigue from popular and critical circles alike. The dance form "voguing," born of the same Harlem Ballroom scene, appeared before and after the film's release in music videos for Liz Torres, Taylor Dayne, Malcolm McLaren, and Queen Latifah. Madonna's song "Vogue" and its accompanying video and live performances capitalized on the dance's underground chic that had begun to bubble over into the mainstream. RuPaul's "Supermodel (You Better Work)" and the clean and relatable image she created for herself around it soon after catapulted her from the Queen of Manhattan to legitimate stardom. In doing so, she and her team of collaborators turned her into a household name, musical performer, model, actress, and host of her own talk show. RuPaul's rounding off of the edges of the drag queen image led drag characters to take center stage in the films Mrs. Doubtfire (Columbus 1993), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Elliot, 1994), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (Kidron, 1995), and The Birdcage (Nichols, 1996). Lady Bunny's Wigstock festival also became a documentary focus in Wigstock (Shills, 1995) during the height of drag queen visibility in film. This dissertation traces the emergence of drag into the mainstream culture of the 1990s. I argue that three separate subcultures dramatically altered the aesthetics and aims of drag: Downtown New York new wave, Harlem House Ballroom, and London New Romantic. I explore how each of these artistic nightlife cultures incorporated drag and queer performance as well as the ways that each garnered increasing attention for drag from new audiences and media outlets. Susanne Bartsch's role as a purveyor of drag to the worlds of fashion and art are also explored. Lastly, I examine the Hollywood films mentioned above and how drag and sexuality are treated in each, reflecting the approaches major studios, directors, and actors took in seeking a heterosexual audience for drag.

Daniel Goldmark (Advisor)
Georgia Cowart (Committee Member)
Robert Spadoni (Committee Member)
Francesca Brittan (Committee Member)

Davenport, J. (2017). From the Love Ball to RuPaul: The Mainstreaming of Drag in the 1990s. (Electronic Thesis or Dissertation). Retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/

Davenport, Jeremiah. "From the Love Ball to RuPaul: The Mainstreaming of Drag in the 1990s." Electronic Thesis or Dissertation. Case Western Reserve University, 2017. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. 09 Mar 2020.

Davenport, Jeremiah "From the Love Ball to RuPaul: The Mainstreaming of Drag in the 1990s." Electronic Thesis or Dissertation. Case Western Reserve University, 2017. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/

From the Love Ball to Rupaul The Mainstreaming of Drag in the 1990s.pdf (2.5 MB) View| Download

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OhioLINK ETD: Davenport, Jeremiah Ryan, PhD

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Year and Degree 2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Musicology. In the first half of the 1990s, Western popular culture experienced an infusion of drag. The success of Jenny Livingston's seminal but highly problematic documentary of the Harlem Ballroom drag scene, Paris is Burning (1991), signaled an intrigue from popular and critical circles alike.

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The RuPaul Effect: The Exploration of the Costuming Rituals of Drag Culture in Social Media and the Theatrical Performativity of the Male Body in the Ambit of the Everyday - Jorge Sandoval (2018)

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The RuPaul Effect: The Exploration of the Costuming Rituals of Drag Culture in Social Media and the Theatrical Performativity of the Male Body in the Ambit of the Everyday - Jorge Sandoval (2018)

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Jorge Sandoval argues that RuPaul’s drag race has commodified the world of drag, taking it out of what it used to be and making a profit from the ‘costumed male body’. He calls this the ‘RuPaul effect’ and paints the show in a negative way. It suggests RuPaul has placed himself as the unofficial ‘leader’ of the drag community and has created a show that flaunts drag in one light; as a competition. Sandoval presents information that suggests drag is not just one thing, it is many things and drag artists are being commodified for our entertainment. What began as theatre is now reality TV. However, one could argue that this is simply a natural progression for the industry. Other TV shows about singing and dancing, such as Britain’s Got Talent, could be argued to commodify singers and dancers yet the audience enjoys this as a television form, taking over Saturday night television screens. Sandoval is correct in saying RuPaul’s Drag Race has commodified drag but perhaps it was always inevitable and it is not necessarily a bad thing considering the number of people the show has supported.

It also connects to Adam Bloodworth's review of the show as Bloodworth criticizes the show for presenting the drag queens in a poor light. Sandoval similarly suggests the show represents drag as a commodity, putting a negative spin on it.

Sandoval, J. (2018) ‘The RuPaul effect: The exploration of the costuming rituals of drag culture in social media and the theatrical performativity of the male body in the ambit of the everyday’, Theatre Symposium, 26(1), pp. 100-117.

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T he commodification of drag by TV and social media-in other words, the commodified, queered, costumed male body presented through TV shows like RuPaul's Drag Race and all the social media coverage promoted by RuPaul's alumni and fan base on several online platforms-raises the concern of drag transforming from a traditional strategy for resistance into a trivialized and depoliticized representation of gender. Roger Baker, in his definition of drag, establishes "dissent" as a core characteristic of drag. He writes: "Drag is about many things. It is about clothes and sex. It subverts the dress codes that tell us what men and women should look like in our organized society. It creates tension and releases tension, confronts and appeases. It is about role playing and questions the meaning of both gender and sexual identity. It is about anarchy and defiance." ¹ Drag has been culturally attached to gestures of resistance when referring to gender politics, as in the case of the Stonewall Riots in 1969, ² and/or traditionally connected to theatrical forms such as drag queen performance or camp expressions in spaces considered theatrical. Theatrical drag, then, has historically served as a platform for the presentation of gender when other possibilities for expression were not socially acceptable. In her book Vested Interests, Marjorie Garber describes this situation: "The phenomenon of cross-dressing within theatrical representation, whether in the Dame and Principal Boy of the English pantomime, or in the popularity of films like Victor Victoria, Tootsie and Some Like It Hot ... or indeed in the mode-increasingly chic today-of female impersonation as theatre, may be not [End Page 100] only a commentary on the anxiety of gender roles in modern culture, but also-and perhaps primarily-a back-formation: a return to the problem of representation that underlies theatre itself." ³ Therefore, when considering the historically stigmatic position of homosexuality, professional drag done in nightclubs, gay bars, or street performances can also be considered a strategy for dissent. This was a strategy to normalize what otherwise would be considered deviant behavior. Esther Newton, in her book Mother Camp, talks about the professionalization of this subculture and the position that drag had in society: "Thus, insofar as female impersonators are professional drag queens, they are evaluated positively by gay people to the extent that they have perfected a subcultural skill and to the extent that gay people are willing to oppose the heterosexual culture. ... On the other hand, they are despised because they symbolize and embody the stigma." ⁴ Drag has been part of our lives in a variety of forms from the ancient times of Greek theatre to the mundane medieval carnivalesque traditions seen and still carried into the present day when men dress as women with exaggerated female features. Not limited to theatre but heavily ingrained as part of the weaving of social interactions, men creating the illusion of femininity through drag has been part of our lives. ⁵ These expressions range from female impersonators, as in Chinese and Japanese theatre, looking for an ideal of femininity that aimed for no ambiguity, to modern Westernized performances of gender where female impersonators mostly looked for a larger-than-life, idealized illusion of femininity. It is also important to mention that, in this variety of forms, the use of the female impersonator as a comic figure, as in the nineteenth century when men dressed as women onstage, overtly showed that the artifice of the action was no longer a carnivalesque element of street celebrations but an important theatrical device.

From the theatrical drag queen entertaining in night clubs or at events, to the campy expressions of gay social and cultural life, all expressions seem to converge in the fact of drag being an integral part of societal activity. ⁶ Baker describes such activity: "[The drag queen] emerges from the mists of time and threads her way through the histories of all cultures and nations. She is present at solemn religious rites and kicks up...

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Project MUSE - The RuPaul Effect: The Exploration of the Costuming Rituals of Drag Culture in Social Media and the Theatrical Performativity of the Male Body in the Ambit of the Everyday

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T he commodification of drag by TV and social media-in other words, the commodified, queered, costumed male body presented through TV shows like RuPaul's Drag Race and all the social media coverage promoted by RuPaul's alumni and fan base on several online platforms-raises the concern of drag transforming from a traditional strategy for resistance into a trivialized and depoliticized representation of gender.

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Is RuPaul Enough? Difference, Identity, and Presence in the Communication Classroom - Robert Carroll et al. (2016)

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Is RuPaul Enough? Difference, Identity, and Presence in the Communication Classroom - Robert Carroll et al. (2016)

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In this article, Robert Carroll et al. discuss the idea of gender as a performance. They ask graduate students, 'what gender is RuPaul?' Of course, none of them know how to answer this for fear of saying the wrong thing. RuPaul is a character who projects two very different genders to the world and it is up to us as an audience as to how we perceive this. They suggest he, 'destabilize(s) traditional assumptions about gender and sex', making him an Interesting case study. They conclude saying people need to be educated on gender and how to talk about it, in the modern age, RuPaul has been a leading light in allowing these kinds of conversation to occur.

(See 'Red Carpet Looks' and 'Magazine Covers' for how RuPaul presents his male and female looks).

Carroll, R.W., Redlick, M.H. and Hanchey, J.N. (2016) Is RuPaul enough? Difference, identity, and presence in the communication classroom. Communication Education, 65(2), pp.226-229.

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Is RuPaul Enough? Difference, Identity, and Presence in the Communication Classroom

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(2016). Is RuPaul Enough? Difference, Identity, and Presence in the Communication Classroom. Communication Education: Vol. 65, No. 2, pp. 226-229.

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https://people.com/style/met-gala-2019-rupaul-fiercely-sashays-red-carpet/

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https://www.eonline.com/photos/23469/2018-critics-choice-awards-red-carpet-fashion/820208

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https://hornet.com/stories/rupaul-cover/

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https://www.papermag.com/rupaul-cover-story-pride-drag-race-2438273547.html

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Interview Magazine Cover - September 2019

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Interview Magazine Cover - September 2019

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https://www.designscene.net/2019/08/rupaul-interview-magazine.html

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RedBubble also offers plenty of options if fans want to wear something related to the show.

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High quality Rupauls Drag Race gifts and merchandise. Inspired designs on t-shirts, posters, stickers, home decor, and more by independent artists and designers from around the world. All orders are custom made and most ship worldwide within 24 hours.

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Hippowarehouse Sashay Away Womens Fitted Short Sleeve t-Shirt

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Hippowarehouse Sashay Away Womens Fitted Short Sleeve t-Shirt

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In a variety of colours, this t-shirt is branded with the classic phrase from RuPaul, 'sashay away', for fans to buy.

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This Is What Happens When You Interview RuPaul And He Throws Some Serious Shade - Patrick Strudwick - 02/06/15

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This Is What Happens When You Interview RuPaul And He Throws Some Serious Shade - Patrick Strudwick - 02/06/15

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In an interview with RuPaul in his hotel room, Patrick Strudwick offers a view of the star in his opinion. He suggests he is dominant and assertive yet kind and friendly. He says, 'beyond the contouring, the sashaying, and the lip-synching, the show is really about triumphing. Its host is the ultimate winner', as RuPaul has helped so many people. Strudwick says, 'out of drag, it transpires earlier, he is about the most masculine man you could meet', showing his ability to uphold two characters, both male and female, yet his warm personality shines through for both.

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A drag queen in a blonde wig, heels, and a see-through leotard is dancing wildly on a podium in front of several hundred journalists, bloggers, and fellow queens. It is the ticketed, meticulously organised launch of RuPaul's Drag Race in the UK, an event that aims to find a British "ambassador" for the show.

With one backward roll, the contestant, Miss Cairo, who has already fallen on to the stage, cutting her leg, comes completely "untucked". Her genitals fling out near the faces of the audience. Some of us double over in hysterical laughter, others turn away in embarrassment, and, then - because what else can you do? - we cheer. This is perhaps not the start to Drag Race in Britain that organisers had hoped for.

RuPaul, judging the proceedings with Jonathan Ross and Katie Price, brings a hand up to cover his mouth. He laughs, but his eyes bulge, shocked.

Miss Cairo does not win, strangely - what more could we want from drag than blood loss and flying testicles? But it was a moment of unglamorous anarchy, unplanned, uncontrolled, and, perhaps, just a bit too unfeminine for RuPaul.

Out of drag, it transpires earlier, he is about the most masculine man you could meet. No one can travel to the heights of international fame from the dive bars of the drag circuit - with a career including hit singles, a chat show, a duet with Elton John, a role in a Spike Lee film, and seven seasons of a reality series with his own name in the title - without a whole handbag full of male-associated traits: ambition, competitiveness, and epic control freakery. You need a lot of testosterone to look that feminine - and make it rain money.

As the interview approaches, evidence of how RuPaul Andre Charles dominates to ensure success flutters into view. A publicist emails requesting I arrive at the central London hotel 10 minutes early. Another emails telling me to come five minutes earlier. This comes with the word "IMPORTANT" in the subject bar. Capitalised. One wonders how RuPaul's staff might capture your attention in a war zone.

As I enter his hotel suite with BuzzFeed's photographer, Lynzy, there are several minions lurking in a separate room from his. What do they all do? It is unclear. One types furiously. I decide there are probably no words coming out. Except, perhaps, "help me". Another glances at Lynzy before returning to me: "Oh. Are you going to take photos? No one told me that."

I had rung her colleague to inform them. When I suggest that our photographer could come in with me for the first few minutes to shoot Ru while we chat, she replies, "No. It's better if she comes at the end. Otherwise, if you just go in there and start taking photos..." The sentence does not end, so I finish it in my head: "...BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN."

They scurry. They usher journalists in and out in hushed reverence. As the previous hack leaves, I am called as if to line up for Queen Elizabeth II. Just before entering RuPaul's room, an assistant of some description stops me. We can see him through the doorway, sipping a glass of water. It seems IMPORTANT we do not disturb this.

RuPaul turns and walks towards us, a giraffe with an attitude, before extending his hand to shake. His mouth says hello, his eyes say "keep out".

We have seen this look on RuPaul's Drag Race. Most notably, in the latest series, in a deathly battle of will with contestant Pearl that has all the arse-clenched tension of a stand-off in a Western. Thankfully, no one has been shot, yet.

RuPaul is wearing a turquoise suit and huge square spectacles. His face, free of the tape that, in drag, pulls loose skin back by several decades, looks, if not his 54 years, then only a little less. We begin where we are supposed to: talking about Drag Race, which has been bought by the British version of the TruTV channel to air the most recent four seasons.

Rumours persist that there will also be a British version of the show, fronted by Jonathan Ross, and, possibly, Jodie Harsh. The UK edition will indeed happen, RuPaul thinks, or else "there will be rioting in the streets". I suspect he might start it himself.

Beyond the contouring, the sashaying, and the lip-synching, the show is really about triumphing. Its host is the ultimate winner. (Not least because Drag Race has proved a huge commercial hit and the biggest rater on its US channel, Logo TV, spawning a spin-off, Untucked, and being bought by numerous countries across South America, Europe, and Asia.) We see the contestants' vulnerability, often in gasping, weeping paroxysms, but rarely his. Surely, though, it must be there underneath.

"Well," he says. "Life is difficult. No one gets out of this alive. Years ago, I met and fell in love with [US Christian singer and TV evangelist] Tammy Faye Bakker. She was a Pollyanna-type character who only saw the positive sides of life - she chose to look at life's brighter sides, but that doesn't mean she wasn't aware of the darker sides.

"And it doesn't mean I don't see all the hideousness that's out there: It means I have to practice a balance. I say all this because I've had my dark nights of the soul; I've had adversity. I couldn't have made it this far without it."

When I try to press him on details, he replies, simply, "There is a shield of protection that has always been around me." It seems this shield has been constructed by RuPaul, and as our conversation progresses, one central story surfaces: how that shield operates.

It formed in childhood, growing up in San Diego with a single mother and three sisters after his father left.

"My family life was tumultuous - crazy hillbilly people," he says. "It was a war zone." Details are not forthcoming, but it has been documented elsewhere that he moved at 15 with his sister Renatta to Atlanta, where he learned the art of drag. He continues: "Navigating through that and keeping my equilibrium even as a child... I learned how to do that early on." He was, he says, a "sissy boy" but "didn't have any issues" with bullying. Instead, "the worst things that have ever happened to me have come from inside my own house". He taps at his head. What does his mind do to him? He does not specify. He answers instead:

"Sweet sensitive souls who realise through the process of living that the world is an illusion usually become very bitter, so to offset that you create a spiritual practice that keeps that balance going." But RuPaul worked in gay clubs in the 1980s and 1990s at the peak of the AIDS crisis, when horror befell many, the young dying suddenly all around. How did he cope then?

He says it was by having a "perspective of the Earth from 10,000 light years away and going, 'Right, that blue dot right there, everything happens there, don't take anything too seriously.'" He pauses.

"Yes, there's awful things there and you will encounter them but learn how to laugh and enjoy it. Have you seen those nature documentaries where the lion finally gets the impala? There's a certain graceful surrender the prey takes on, like, 'OK. There we are.'" His shield, it seems, is working even now.

But as we continue, RuPaul inadvertently gives glimpses into the intensity of pain he has endured. In another tangent, not obviously related to a question, he offers: "We live in a culture where we wanna make the world baby-safe so they don't hit their heads. But the way children learn is you gonna hit your fucking head, and it's gonna fucking hurt and you won't fucking do it again." Each utterance of "fucking" is so suddenly loud and aggressive it feels like blows from his past are surfacing. But again, unspecified.

He says he lost friends to HIV/AIDS.

"And I will continue to lose people. My point is that life happens. How it happens, the circumstances, it doesn't matter. It will happen, just like in nature. The strong survive."

Again answering a question that was not posed, he adds:

"My heart broken? Sure. It's gonna get broken a lot, but it's OK. That's just life. It doesn't stop Pollyanna looking on the bright side. Yes, you can focus on the darkness, it's there, and you can focus on light. But one will bring you joy and one will bring you pain. It's your choice."

This toughness re-emerges as we talk about the gay scene, and concerns over numerous venues closing.

"I was teenager in the disco era," he says. "I've seen it come and go. Yeah, things are gonna close. Gay people come and make things really pretty and rich people say 'I want that' and they take it and it's fine. I've had my party. And you young fuckers, if you wanna party, go make a party."

Warming to the subject, arms gesticulating widely, he says: "There was a part of me in New York years ago that thought, 'I've got to change this, I've gotta help them [the clubs].'" But then, he says, he thought: "Oh no, you do it. I've had my party." He segues into an anecdote:

"I remember once I had this place that overlooked the Hudson River, and I saw this guy on a sailboat and it had capsized and I went to the phone thinking, 'I've got to call someone.' But then I thought, 'What's the best thing I can do? You know what? I'm gonna pray for this person. I'm gonna send them loving energy.'"

He does not say whether the man survived.

Instead, he circles back to gay clubs closing. "There's a tendency to say, 'We must save the clubs! Save them!' No. If they were savable you bitches would've been paying money to go there and they would have made money and it would have worked. Let life be life. If you want to change the world, change yourself."

Days before our encounter, the world did change: The Irish people became the first to introduce same-sex marriage through popular vote. At the forefront of the campaign was Dublin-based drag queen Panti Bliss, building on her speeches about the oppression of homophobia, which went viral last year. They chimed widely because, like a Drag Race contestant, she spoke of how it feels to be subject to homophobic bullying every day. "That feels oppressive," she repeated after each example, building a devastating picture of the internal lives of gay people.

"I absolutely love the Panti explosion," says RuPaul. "I saw a picture of her after the Irish verdict. She really represents a new wave of drag, but in a way it's what drag has always been, which is politically pushing the culture forward. When you become the image of your own imagination, it's the most political thing you can do. When you decide to become a drag queen, which is contrary to everything this male-dominated culture is about, it is the most rebellious act."

As if to avoid any possibility of pomposity, he adds, "Drag at its core is about reminding the culture to not take itself too seriously."

Even in the bubble of Drag Race, politics is unavoidable, however. Earlier seasons used the word "she-mail" when a message from RuPaul was beamed to the contestants. Complaints from transgender activists eventually led to this being replaced. Did that criticism annoy him?

"My intention is always coming from a place of love," he says. "On paper, things can be interpreted however the reader sees fit. Drag is never about trying to put someone down. So if you need me to change a word, I'll do it, if that makes you feel better. Life is too short."

Tellingly, he explains that it was "the network" that changed the word "she-mail", before launching into a reference to The Witches of Eastwick to illustrate that "it's more important to laugh" in difficult situations.

This sudden switch of mood is also one of the devices key to Drag Race's success. Moments after two queens have lip-synched "for their lives" - in a glorious showdown of jumping splits and bravura dramatics that the songs' original singers couldn't have come close to - one will break down to reveal a great tragedy from her past. On one occasion, Roxxxy Andrews said her mother had abandoned her at a bus stop aged 3. Two contestants, Ongina and Trinity K Bonet, disclosed that they are HIV positive. Another, Pandora Boxx, shared her experience of attempting suicide after homophobic bullying.

As queens fight it out to become "America's next drag superstar" and attach each other with scalding put-downs, cameras dart between one semi-made-up fuming face and another. In the middle there is RuPaul, the totem, the house mother, graceful, still, bestowing nuggets of wisdom like Glinda, the Good Witch of the South.

"These people we put on the show have been through hell and high water," he says. "So all of those things are gonna come out, especially in the competition when they're sleep-deprived and pushed to their limits, because they have nowhere else to go. When Roxxy Andrews revealed she was left at a bus stop you think, 'What? What are you saying?' Every season so many things happen that we have no way of planning it." He admits, however, that they "produce the fuck out of the show".

Unlike many of the contestants, RuPaul's personal life is remarkably solid. For more than 20 years, he's been in a relationship with Georges LeBar, who owns a 50,000-acre ranch in Wyoming.

"He's so kind and funny," says RuPaul. "I remember praying, 'I want a sweet, sensitive man,' and I got an Australian who's just lovely." Will they marry?

"No, I don't stand on ceremony, I never want to conform to anything. We looked into it if we could get a tax break and stuff but not because... Is he devoted to me? Am I devoted to him? Oh, hell yes. [But] I never want to be like everybody else." Does he not support same-sex marriage though in general?

"Yes," he snaps, before doing a screeching impression of Elizabeth Taylor when she was asked if she would marry Jason Winters: "Married?!!" RuPaul omits the part where Taylor started howling like a wolf.

His publicist calls time on the interview as BuzzFeed's photographer enters the room. To lighten the somewhat tense mood, and, frankly, to try to squeeze out some more answers, I suggest that while the pictures are taken we try some quickfire questions.

He turns his head away.

"I thought we were done," he says, with deadly dismissiveness. There are many ways to throw shade.

The photographer starts to snap away, while I look at our interviewee from a few feet away and consider the exchange. I do not think I met RuPaul; I met "RuPaul", the construct, the shield. The real one, the inner Ru, was probably in another adjoining room. And why not? Why would anyone blood-let their vulnerabilities to a stranger in a hotel room in the course of 29 minutes? Even Grindr hook-ups don't go that far. Normally.

It would have been impossible to claw his way up by his glue-ons to become Queen of Drag Queens without diamond-solid protection mechanisms. To achieve what no one else has rarely hinges solely on "charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent" - as RuPaul's mantra has it - but also a willingness to, at times, embody the acronym therein.

This also applies to journalists. As he continues to face the other way, I ask the questions anyway. Has he ever used Grindr?

"Have I ever used what?"

Grindr, I repeat.

"NO!" he shrieks. If he could look like any man for a day who would it be?

"I met David Gandy last night. It would be interesting to see what reaction that would get from people. I could barely look him in the eye."

Which songs would he like at his funeral?

"'Achy-Breaky Heart'. 'Boogie Wonderland'. 'Why'd You Come in Here Lookin' Like That' by Dolly Parton." Would he ever let himself get fat?

"Probably not." What is his most embarrassing moment? He turns to me one more time, and replies, deadpan:

"Probably right now."
RuPaul's Drag Race will air every Monday and Tuesday at 10pm from 1st June on truTV, Freeview channel 68, Sky channel 198 and FreeSat channel 154. It's followed by RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, that contains never-seen-before behind the scenes content.

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This Is What Happens When You Interview RuPaul And He Throws Some Serious Shade

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A drag queen in a blonde wig, heels, and a see-through leotard is dancing wildly on a podium in front of several hundred journalists, bloggers, and fellow queens. It is the ticketed, meticulously organised launch of RuPaul's Drag Race in the UK, an event that aims to find a British "ambassador" for the show.

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RuPaul on Identity in the Trump Era: ‘Don’t Pick Battles With Your Allies’ - Daniel D'Addario - 12/06/17

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RuPaul on Identity in the Trump Era: ‘Don’t Pick Battles With Your Allies’ - Daniel D'Addario - 12/06/17

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Daniel D'Addario interviews RuPaul on his identity and how it fits into today's society. A short video accompanies the interview and RuPaul is presented in a positive light, showing how he has overcome his demons and will not let anyone tell him what or who he should be. RuPaul answers a question about if he thinks the drag queens shown on DragRace have influenced people in a good way, saying, 'they are learning how to navigate their lives in this courageous, creative, colorful, no-excuse way, and I think that definitely has an effect on young people', presenting his tv shows to have a positive effect on communities and struggling individuals. He comes across as natural and caring in the interview.

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RuPaul on Identity in the Trump Era: 'Don't Pick Battles With Your Allies'

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TIME interviews RuPaul about the latest season of Rupaul's Drag Race and how drag culture responds to shifting politics.

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How the World Fell Head Over Heels for RuPaul - Abby Aguirre - 15/04/19

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How the World Fell Head Over Heels for RuPaul - Abby Aguirre - 15/04/19

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Abby Aguirre interviews RuPaul and describes him as 'otherworldly'. She says, 'Indeed, a conversation with RuPaul can leave you with the sensation that there is infinite wisdom to be wrung out of just about everything, provided you shed your earthly hang-ups and get hip to the glorious freedom of category collapse', suggesting what it feels like to be around him. It puts a spotlight on him as a drag queen and him when he is just being himself, no drag attached and how similar these two personas are. Aguirre paints him to be a down to earth person and totally genuine, promoting his star image.

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IT'S A DEWY, not-quite-spring morning in March, and I'm lingering outside a soundstage on the Warner Bros. lot where RuPaul will be photographed for Vogue, waiting to behold him in full drag.

This studio is where Judy Garland filmed A Star Is Born, and it is now where RuPaul is shooting AJ and the Queen, a forthcoming Netflix series he created with Michael Patrick King, the head writer and executive producer of Sex and the City. (Ru is a down-on-her-luck drag queen named Ruby, traveling cross-country with an eleven-year-old orphan named AJ, played by the young actor Izzy G.) I've already asked to observe the pre-shoot transformation-who on God's green earth wouldn't?-and received a no from Team Ru that was polite but ironclad, as though I'd requested the nuclear code: "Ru's glam process has been kept very private throughout his career." So I've settled for a glimpse of the final butterfly.

I'm not sure which Ru to expect. Will he be an outsize Barbie-superhero who fell to Earth, à la RuPaul's Drag Race, or a throwback incarnation of a nineties runway glamazon? Golf carts full of crew members cruise by, and I scan them for signs of a blond bouffant. Then, with no warning, a honey-smooth, startlingly assertive voice rings out from within the soundstage: " The titties aren't gonna get any higher than this! "

I make a beeline inside. Most of the studio consists of a nightclub set, which itself gets a constant makeover: Because AJ and the Queen is a road story, its drag numbers are set in different clubs across the country. Right now, however, all bodies are hovering around a small cloth backdrop. Annie Leibovitz is standing on top of an apple crate, peering through her camera lens.

If you approach Mother Ru from the side, as I did, the first thing you will need to process is the eyelashes. The skull-to-eyelash ratio is so physiologically improbable that it's a good 30 seconds before I realize that Ru is not dressed as any of his familiar alter egos. Rather, he's a modern facsimile of Queen Elizabeth I, clothed in a billowing gold-brocade skirt, a corset, and a halo of red dreadlocks.

He knows which side is his good side. He knows how the light is hitting. He knows to lower the lashes to half-mast and let them hover there as the camera clicks. And when, after a while, Leibovitz suggests he remove his headpiece, he knows to object.

"It becomes something else without the piece," Ru says, gesturing to the rest of his puffy-sleeved costume. "The piece sells everything else."

"Your hair becomes a crown," Leibovitz says gently. The exchange goes on for two minutes. Finally, RuPaul puts his (combat boot-clad) foot down. Remove the piece, and he is no longer in character. "Everything here is overdone," he says, motioning again to his look, and then to the surroundings. "The only natural thing about any of this is the light."

It occurs to me that RuPaul has just offered up a definition of camp. ("The essence of camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration," Susan Sontag wrote in "Notes on 'Camp.' ") More remarkably, he and Leibovitz have just unwittingly re-created one of the photographer's most memorable shoots.

You see, twelve years ago, when Leibovitz took official portraits of Queen Elizabeth II in full regalia at Buckingham Palace, one of America's most well-known portrait photographers asked England's longest-reigning monarch to remove her "crown." (It was a tiara.) A BBC film crew captured the exchange.

Leibovitz: "It will look better-less dressy-because the garter robe is so. . . ."

Queen Elizabeth II: "Less dressy? What do you think this is?"

The queen of the United Kingdom did not want to take off her headpiece. And here in beautiful downtown Burbank, neither does the Queen of Drag.

WHEN RUPAUL FIRST sashayed into the national consciousness, in 1992, with the release of his single "Supermodel (You Better Work)," there was nobody like him in mainstream culture. There were androgynous pop stars (David Bowie, Prince, even Cher), but none who bent gender nearly as far. And there had been a few drag characters in major films- Some Like It Hot, Tootsie-but RuPaul's use of drag was new. "Drag was not the goal," explains Lady Bunny, the drag artist and founder of Wigstock, the drag extravaganza held in New York's Tompkins Square Park every year from 1985 to 2001. "Escaping something was the goal. Ru did drag with the nerve to say, I'm pretty."

And yet, if you were a thirteen-year-old girl in suburbia when RuPaul hit, as I was, and mesmerized by the swagger, as I was, chances are good you spent zero seconds unpacking the politics of his pop-stardom. It was only when I rewatched the "Supermodel" video last month that I fully appreciated its air of satire-how it takes the diva antics and the fantasy of the fashion world to a subversive extreme. In one scene, RuPaul flirts with a camera while draped upside down on the hood of a taxi. In another, he frolics in the fountain next to the Plaza hotel in a bodysuit and a boa. When he rattles off the names of supermodels ("Linda, Naomi, Christy"), in what I now recognize is a parody of Madonna's "Vogue" ("Greta Garbo and Monroe, Dietrich and DiMaggio"), the covers of spoof magazines flash across the screen. Among the titles: Swish, Ms. Thing, and Drague.

TWO DAYS AFTER his Vogue shoot, I meet RuPaul for coffee at a hotel in West Hollywood. He arrives looking nothing like Britain's queen: a six-foot-four string bean in black jeans, a black turtleneck, black ankle boots, a pale trench coat, a vintage Gucci belt, and a black biker's cap. At 58, he is ageless. If he is wearing any makeup, it's not enough to cover his smattering of freckles.

We settle into a corner table. When a waiter arrives, RuPaul orders "regulah cawfee," in an exaggerated New York accent. "You're gonna make the coffee hot," he adds, in non-question form. "You don't want to do an Americano, do you?" the waiter replies. RuPaul starts to decline, then changes tack: "Let's do an Americano. You know, the universe offers clues, and if you're listening, you just say: Yes, that's what I want."

It is difficult to describe the aura of civilian RuPaul. Michelle Visage, a close friend, Drag Race judge, and cohost of RuPaul's podcast, uses the word otherworldly. So does Mally Roncal, the makeup mogul, adding that he is a "fierce angel." Isaac Mizrahi says he is "almost like a prophet," one who is "constantly flying a little higher than everybody else." Michael Patrick King likens him to "an Egyptian cat"-but also "an encyclopedia," and I know exactly what he means. Spend a morning with Ru and you will believe it possible that he is an alien-anthropologist sent to conduct an ethnography of the American subspecies. In telling me his life story, he will cite-and this is an extremely abridged list- Bewitched, Coty cosmetics, Yardley cosmetics, the history of wheat-pasting concert flyers, Dolly Parton, Clash of the Titans, the films of John Waters, the technology of early camcorders, The Wizard of Oz, Issa Rae's Insecure, Maureen Dowd's Are Men Necessary? and Steamboat Willie.

Indeed, a conversation with RuPaul can leave you with the sensation that there is infinite wisdom to be wrung out of just about everything, provided you shed your earthly hang-ups and get hip to the glorious freedom of category collapse. Only then will you see that the advertising slogan "Do you have any Grey Poupon?" is also shorthand for a certain kind of code-switching. That the supermodel moment of the 1990s was a residual effect of the feminist movement of the '60s and '70s. That pop stars are not merely pop stars but reflections of the secret selves of the consumer.

"I am a drag queen who understands camp and who understands how to comment on what's happening within the Matrix," RuPaul tells me. He means the culture at large and the masses who consume it. "My job, our job as drag queens, has always been to remind you that this outfit you're wearing, or this label you put on yourself, is just a label. Drag queens are the shamans or the witch doctors or even the court jesters-to remind you what is really real."

RuPaul Andre Charles was born in San Diego in 1960. His mother, Ernestine Fontinette, who went by Toni, worked in the registrar's office at San Diego City College. His father, Irving Charles, was an electrician. Toni believed her son would be a star-a psychic told her so before he was born. "The psychic said, 'It's a boy, and he's going to be famous,' " RuPaul says. "So I grew up knowing that."

Toni and Irving had moved to California from the South-"Ru" was a play on roux -during the Great Migration. Their marriage was tumultuous. They separated when Ru was five, divorced when he was seven. Toni fell into a depression, and his twin sisters Renetta and Renae, seven years older, became the adults of the household, looking after "Ru-Ru" and his younger sister, Rozy.

Despite her depression, Toni, "a very fiery, world-weary person," says Ru, retained a sense of humor. When he asked why she gave all four children the same initials (R.A.C.), she told him that it was because they were "real-ass crazies." Toni was also accepting of her son. "There was no shade to me playing in makeup, wearing my sisters' clothes, doing whatever I wanted to do," he says. "I never had to 'come out,' because I was never 'in.' It was understood that Ru was Ru."

The twins taught Ru-Ru about Diana Ross and Cher. When Renetta attended the Barbizon School of Modeling, she showed him how to walk a runway. Monty Python's Flying Circus was pivotal. He was drawn to the irreverence-and to the nudge-nudge, wink-wink way the show seemed to break the fourth wall. Ru thought," There's my tribe."

By the time he was thirteen, RuPaul was carrying a Magic Marker at all times so that he could write "Bowie" on everything that wasn't moving. "We can't articulate our feelings at that age," he says, tears in his eyes. "But we can point and go: That's me right there." Ziggy Stardust represented, to him, nothing less than freedom. "A person who isn't shackled by societal conformity, who can color your hair, wear makeup," Ru says. "My God, so much freedom."

In the summer of 1976, RuPaul moved to Atlanta with Renetta and her new husband, Laurence. Ru enrolled in the Northside School for the Performing Arts and saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show, went to his first disco-and saw his first drag performance: Crystal LaBeija singing Donna Summer's "Bad Girls." (Don't judge, but he thought it was Donna Summer.)

His own music career officially began with RuPaul and the U-Hauls, an art band he formed in the early eighties. Soon he was making guest appearances with the B-52's-esque Now Explosion, and fronting a New Wave/punk band called Wee Wee Pole, combining a loincloth, a Mohawk, thigh-high wader boots, and football shoulder pads for a look he named "gender fuck."

He created more personae: Starrbooty, inspired by the over-the-top Blaxploitation films of the 1970s, and another he calls "street-hooker Soul Train dancer." By this point-the late eighties-RuPaul was living off and on in New York, go-go dancing at the Pyramid and other downtown clubs. In August of 1989, he was crowned, on the underground scene, the Queen of Manhattan.

Two years later, while living in the Meatpacking District, surviving on free popcorn and seltzer water from the Film Forum, he recorded his first demo. In 1992, on the day of his thirty-second birthday, he released "Supermodel," which he'd written with his friend Larry Tee. The single rose to No. 2 on the Billboard dance-song chart, and designers like Isaac Mizrahi and Todd Oldham featured it in their runway shows. "How smart of him to take this word that has just been adopted into the O.E.D.," Mizrahi recalls, "and do this insane song about it, and turn it on its ass, and then turn it back on its head." Kurt Cobain declared it one of his favorite songs of the year.

By 1994, RuPaul had become the first drag queen to land a major makeup deal, as the face of MAC Cosmetics in a campaign that declared: "I am the MAC girl." ("What better way to show the power of makeup than if a six-foot-four black man can look like a supermodel?" he says.) Then came The RuPaul Show on VH1, which ran for 100 episodes and placed him on the cusp of the mainstream. As he explains it now: "I said: I'm RuPaul, Supermodel of the World. And the world said: Yes. You. Are. "

THE SECOND REIGN of RuPaul has already lasted twice as long as the first one-and shows no signs of weakening. It began, of course, with the 2009 premiere on the Logo network of RuPaul's Drag Race, yet another perfectly executed piece of satire, this time of our reality-TV era. The series, now in its eleventh season and on VH1, took what had been a subculture and exploded it, minting drag-queen stars, mainstreaming idioms, remaking Ru into a kind of self-help guru-and winning nine Emmys along the way.

Because this is 2019, RuPaul also has a successful podcast, "What's the Tee?," through which he broadcasts Ru-isms, teaching the good people of RuWorld how to "listen to the universe's stage directions." Come May, he will preside over the fifth RuPaul's DragCon in Los Angeles, the massive drag-culture convention he created with his friends and collaborators, the producers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, in the mold of Comic-Con. (The festival is now bicoastal, with a second convention held in New York every September.) And he will debut a makeup collection he designed with Roncal, whose Face Defender he swears by.

Ru divides his time between L.A. and Wyoming, where his husband, Georges LeBar, owns a 60,000-acre ranch. LeBar is from Perth, Australia-he inherited the ranch from an American grandmother-and he is even taller than RuPaul. (Six-foot-seven!) When Ru is at the ranch, he tells me, "I usually wear fabulous Westernwear: denim concoctions, turquoise jewelry, gorgeous hats, Italian cowboy boots." The couple do not have kids, nor plans to have any. "I like peace and quiet a lot," Ru says. When Ru has time off, they like to travel-often to Las Vegas to see the latest big residency on the Strip (Cher, Jennifer Lopez), to New York, or to Paris. (Ru jokes that his Aussie mother-in-law pronounces the Champs-Élysées "Chomps Elsie.")

Georges, who has never given an interview and declined one here, met Ru on the dance floor at the Limelight in 1994, and they have been together (mostly) ever since, aided by the fact that they keep the relationship open. "I love him too much to try to put shackles on him," RuPaul says, again with tears in his eyes. "Love is free. It's not that sort of romantic surface thing we all bought into. He is my most favorite person that I've met." Besides, he adds, "Gore Vidal said you should never pass up an opportunity to have sex or be on television."

Which brings us back to AJ and the Queen. It's based on the 1941 Preston Sturges comedy Sullivan's Travels, a favorite of both RuPaul's and King's-which they discovered when they met for the first time, in King's office, where a movie still hangs on his wall. (That, right there, is what you call a cosmic stage direction.) When fashion designer Zaldy, responsible for RuPaul's looks for Drag Race, saw the script, "my jaw dropped," he tells me. There are love scenes, for one thing, but also the kind of drag numbers that will require "performancewear"-for, say, flying through the air on a harness.

There's another element of surprise, King tells me, one that longtime RuPaul fans might find shocking. The series shows Ru's character getting into and out of drag. "You've seen Ru, and you've seen Mama Ru," says King. Here "you see him midway."

The day before I met Ru for coffee, King had shown him the first completed episode of AJ and the Queen. Ru had been nervous about what it would reveal. "In my career, I've been able to show certain angles. I've been able to paint on a face and edit what I presented," he explains. "I thought by doing this acting project, I would be exposing myself to the world: the raw, unfiltered self." He goes on: "But what I found out yesterday was that I was exposing myself to myself. I got to see the parts of me that even I didn't allow myself to recognize or acknowledge. I had thought, I'm going to be naked to the world. No, I was naked to myself."
In this story: Watch RuPaul's 7 Rules for Rocking the Red Carpet:
Produced by Lauren Beyda for Portfolio One.
Costume Designer: Shana Albery.
Costume Construction: Shana Albery.
Creative Producer: Kathryn MacLeod.

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How the World Fell Head Over Heels for RuPaul

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IT'S A DEWY, not-quite-spring morning in March, and I'm lingering outside a soundstage on the Warner Bros. lot where RuPaul will be photographed for Vogue, waiting to behold him in full drag.

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RuPaul is the first ever drag queen to land a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame - Lucy Wood - 19/03/18

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RuPaul is the first ever drag queen to land a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame - Lucy Wood - 19/03/18

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RuPaul has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, suggesting his celebrity status.

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Serving a look in head-to-toe red tartan on Friday, RuPaul Charles went down in history as the first ever drag queen to land a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

You better work.

It may have taken until 2018 for drag artistry to finally be recognised by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, but the Drag Race host called his award 'the most iconic moment in my professional career'.

To accept the honour and finally unveil his star, 57-year-old RuPaul was joined by his husband Georges LeBar, his three sisters and the school teacher who he credits as his original inspiration, Bill Pannell.

Admitting that he was 'overcome with emotion' by the nod to his impact on the industry, RuPaul said: 'As a kid we'd come up here to Hollywood Boulevard.

'I'd look at all the stars and dream that one day, I could be one of the stars on Hollywood Boulevard. I feel like I'm being knighted.'

Legendary actress and known LGBTQ+ supporter Jane Fonda was casually on hand to present the accolade, while fans lined the streets of Hollywood Boulevard to thank Ru for his work in bringing drag into the mainstream limelight.

Fonda, whose image as Barbarella on the cover of LIFE Magazine was his original drag inspiration in 1968, announced: 'I think it should be three sizes bigger than any other star on the walk of fame.'

Ru is now considered to be the most commercially successful drag queen in the United States. 2016 saw him scoop an Emmy for his work on RuPaul's Drag Race while, more importantly, many consider him to have pioneered queer representation on mainstream television.

But the whole thing obviously kinda pales in comparison to Ru's real recent career highlight. He was left in tears earlier this week after receiving a personal message from his own number one idol, Judge Judy.

Recorded as a surprise for his CBS Sunday Morning program, the clip saw Judge Judy say: 'When I think about RuPaul, I think about three words, 'talented', 'brave' and 'always honest'.

'He knows who he is, he understands life, so I'm glad you're celebrating him this morning.'

Condragulations RuPaul, you are the winner of this week's challenge. Take a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics and a cash prize of 100,000 doolahs.

Got a showbiz story?

MORE: Shangela admits she was disappointed by All Stars 3 final twist: 'I really wanted to win'

MORE: Netflix will stream season ten of RuPaul's Drag Race every Friday

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RuPaul is the first ever drag queen to land a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame

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Serving a look in head-to-toe red tartan on Friday, RuPaul Charles went down in history as the first ever drag queen to land a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. You better work.

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RuPaul has won many times. Amongst his 6 Primetime Emmy Award wins is MTV awards, GLAAD Media awards and Critics' Choice Real TV Awards.

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RuPaul on IMDb: Awards, nominations, and wins

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RuPaul's shows have won 6 Primetime Emmy Awards from 2016-2019, showing his success in the industry.

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RuPaul on IMDb: Awards, nominations, and wins

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How RuPaul's Drag Race Fueled Pop Culture’s Dominant Slang Engine - Lexi Pandell - 22/03/18

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How RuPaul's Drag Race Fueled Pop Culture’s Dominant Slang Engine - Lexi Pandell - 22/03/18

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In this article, Pandell shows how RuPaul's phrases have entered our everyday conversations. She notes a comment from an interview with RuPaul who said he never thought he or his show would ever become mainstream but now it has. Words such as, "work," "gagging," "eleganza'' and "hunty"' are common slang terms today.

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Drag's position in pop culture changed in the 1990s. Vogueing-the stylized dance based on fashion shows and magazine poses-was the first trend to get snatched. Inspired by dancers in the underground gay scene, Madonna hired drag ball regulars to teach her how to do it and released her song "Vogue" in 1990. (It's long been considered an unforgivable theft, even though it launched careers for several queer dancers.) Paris is Burning premiered in 1991; two years later, RuPaul Charles blossomed from the underground NYC club scene with his hit song "Supermodel (You Better Work)," which cemented Ru's status as the world's most famous queen.

Because drag lingo mixes so many subcultures, it can be hard to parse which terms came from where. "Reading," for example, can be traced back to African American women in the 1950s; "kiki," an onomatopoeia for laughter, specifically comes from the queer black and Latinx community. Regardless, it was easy to think for a long time that drag's specific, unique influence on language would remain unknown to most who used it.

Young, cis women seem to have been seduced by it the most. That alone is little surprise: That demographic is known for leading the charge on linguistic trends. Drag has a language of resilience and snark, even as it embraces its feminine side. It can be emphatic or emotional or guarded. It's giving you side-eye or props or a scoff.

For those reasons, it's also boomed online. Internet culture loves conveying meaning in a pithy, interesting way and, as Leap puts it, "drag language appeals to affect." It's the same reason emojis have become popular: It carries a certain depth, it's evocative, and it's funny. In the age of the meme, drag lingo goes far.

And all of this comes at a time when gender fluidity is not only becoming accepted, but cool. "I think that people are attracted to the freedom of it," says Jeremy Calder, a drag performer and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado's department of linguistics. "A lot of people may be embracing gender nonconformity because of the freedom it represents. One of the manifestations of that is the drag queen, and language is definitely a part of it."

Is it problematic? Well ... yas. Drag isn't just about queerness or femininity, but about race and marginalization. For all of the camp associated with drag, it's a nuanced art and a political statement with a lot of complicated history behind it. "There's something positive about normalizing something that was once seen as shameful," says Calder. "On the other hand, it can erase the origin. Misappropriation comes when people lose sight of its history, and when it becomes a commodity that the originators don't benefit from."

It wouldn't be the first time that a vocabulary of resistance has been co-opted because it's sparkly. As bell hooks put it in her essay "Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance," "Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture. Cultural taboos around sexuality and desire are transgressed and made explicit as the media bombards folks with a message of difference no longer based on the white supremacist assumption that 'blondes have more fun.'" As with hip-hop culture, there is a danger in erasing the people who created it-and now, the secret language that bound drag performers together decades ago is used by people who don't know them, don't remember them, and don't care about their legacy.

Language isn't the only thing for which drag culture is responsible, but not credited-like the sudden popularity of lip syncing, long the bread and butter of queens trying to make a buck on the club scene. Or the contouring trend that many believe was pioneered by the Kardashians, but which began with queens trying to emphasize or diminish certain features of their face. But language is a particularly slippery, resilient thing.

"There's always been a reinventing of terminology because of appropriation by white or straight communities," Barrett says. "Terms repeatedly borrowed from young African American speech, for example, lose their ability to convey African American identity. So they come up with a new word. Drag queens will come up with another way of saying the same thing that's new and innovative and a clear marker of drag identity."

So cling to the lingo if you want to-but, like a lizard dropping its tail, it's already regenerating, starting with the queens in the clubs, on the pageant circuit, and talking amongst each other online. Gag today, gone tomorrow.

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How 'RuPaul's Drag Race' Fueled Pop Culture's Dominant Slang Engine

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Drag's position in pop culture changed in the 1990s. Vogueing-the stylized dance based on fashion shows and magazine poses-was the first trend to get snatched. Inspired by dancers in the underground gay scene, Madonna hired drag ball regulars to teach her how to do it and released her song "Vogue" in 1990.

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RuPauls Drag Race account on Fandom.com is a place for fans to comment on the show and discuss recent events. One fan writes, 'which of the season 12 queens are fishiest in your opinion?' sparking a debate in the comment section.

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dragreactions on Instagram posts memes from the show and with over 36.8K followers, it is clearly a popular page. The two accounts mentioned are among hundreds like it, showing RuPaul's celebrity status.

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rupaul_daily posts regular RuPaul themed content and edits to over 17.8k followers. From looks from the show to headshots, the mega-fan posts all things RuPaul and has even been noticed by RuPaul on several occasions.

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RuPaul and a variety of guests discuss a range of topics from Dirty Dancing to what's hot right now, promoting the show as well. It highlights RuPaul as a leading light for the drag industry as he has his own podcast - he is a symbol for drag.

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Blue Apron knows that when you cook with incredible ingredients, you make incredible meals, so they set the highest quality standards for their community of artisanal suppliers, family-run farms, fisheries and ranchers.

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Jayfaytel has created a meme which fans can enjoy and share with their friends. It is a screenshot from the show with a popular drag queen pictured with the caption suggesting she will create drama. The drag queen herself is known for her drama in the show and the meme provides a humorous angle on the queen. As it can be shared, it promotes RuPaul and his star image as fans can enjoy the meme and be reminded of the show.

jayfaytel on Instagram

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In this meme, heyqueentv has created a funny photo based on the idea that drag queens are known for wearing a lot of makeup. The meme shows a photo a drag queen from the show wearing a lot of makeup so the meme is instantly funny for those who have seen the show and even those who have not. It promotes RuPaul's show and the drag industry as it can act as free advertising for his show for the heyqueentv's hundreds of followers.

heyqueentv on Instagram

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Unlike the Instagram reaction to RuPaul's promotion of his masterclasses, people had a different response on Twitter. All the comments are positive and supportive of RuPaul and his work. One comment reads, 'just loving on you, you're so inspirational', showing his fans' love.

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28/02/20
RuPaul has retweeted a fan's post about her love for the show with a collection of photos underneath it. It adds to his star image as people love him and clearly care about him a lot and by retweeting, it shows he is in touch with his fans and wants to make them happy. It shows he appreciates the love his fans show him and paints him in a positive way.

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01/03/20
RuPaul tweets about his masterclasses, like he did on his Instagram page, promoting his work and encouraging fans to go and watch.

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02/03/20
Like his Instagram page, RuPaul posts daily, tweeting about his shows, supporting his friends and retweeting comments from fans. In this tweet, he has posted a quote from Sven Goran Eriksson with a funny GIF attached. This connects with fans but still allows him to send positivity to his followers on his account, in keeping with his brand,

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PinkNews on SnapChat - Jinkx Monsoon Explains Why Drag Race is Excluding Trans Queens - Reiss Smith - 05/03/20

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PinkNews on SnapChat - Jinkx Monsoon Explains Why Drag Race is Excluding Trans Queens - Reiss Smith - 05/03/20

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PinkNews, a LGBT+ news story on SnapChat interviewed season five winner, Jinkx Monsoon, who came out as non-binary after her win. In response to people's criticisms about Drag Race not being inclusive enough, she says this might be because the majority of the crew are all 'queer people' so perhaps they would not know how to help trans contestants to 'tell their story properly'. She does say she wants the show to be more inclusive in the future, however.

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RuPaul makes history as first ever drag queen to cover Vanity Fair - Steve Brown - 21/11/19

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RuPaul makes history as first ever drag queen to cover Vanity Fair - Steve Brown - 21/11/19

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RuPaul made the cover of Vanity Fair in 2019, becoming the first drag queen to do so. It promotes his star status and highlights him as a leader for the drag community.

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RuPaul makes history as the first ever drag queen to cover Vanity Fair.

There's not a name out there who will not know the name RuPaul or have never heard of RuPaul's Drag Race and it's no surprise.

Hosting 11 seasons of US Drag Race, four All Stars seasons and this year's Drag Race UK, RuPaul has become a household name.

And now, the Mama Ru has made history as the first ever drag queen to cover Vanity Fair for their January issue - out now.

While covering the publication, RuPaul says that although a 'superficial aspect' of drag has becoming mainstream, 'true drag' never will.

He says: "A superficial aspect of drag is mainstream. Like, the 'Ooh, girl' or 'Hey girlfriend!' or 'Yaaas.' That's mainstream culture.

"But true drag really will never be mainstream. Because true drag has to do with seeing that this world is an illusion, and that everything that you say you are and everything it says that you are on your driver's licence, it's all an illusion.

"Most people will never in their lives understand what that is. Because they don't have the operating system to understand that duality."

Now Ru is preparing to release his first ever scripted Netflix season, AJ and the Queen.

Co-created by Sex and the City's Charles and Michael Patrick King, AJ and The Quee n is set to arrive on the streaming giant on 10 January 2020.

The scripted series sees Ru star as Robert Lee, aka drag queen Ruby Red, who goes on a cross-country roadshow after being swindled by hustlers only to find himself landed with a 10-year-old street kid named AJ (Izzy G.) who stows away in his van.
Watch the trailer below:

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RuPaul makes history as the first ever drag queen to cover Vanity Fair

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RuPaul makes history as the first ever drag queen to cover Vanity Fair. There's not a name out there who will not know the name RuPaul or have never heard of RuPaul's Drag Race and it's no surprise. Hosting 11 seasons of US Drag Race, four All Stars seasons and this year's Drag Race UK, RuPaul has become a household name.

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In comparison to example 1 comments, these comments are totally different. People comment heart emojis and loving things. Even celebrities are commenting here and people he's worked with before, showing their support for him and his husband.

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Interestingly, comments on RuPaul's Instagram page do not seem to be all-loving and positive. As shown below, the top comment under the image reads, 'nothing you say matters unless there's a God damn camera rolling', which has thirteen likes. This suggests some people do not believe RuPaul's character onscreen and offscreen and still think he is acting, even when the 'cameras are not rolling'. Despite this, the other comments surrounding it are more positive and supportive of RuPaul.

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02/02/20
Here, RuPaul shows his feminine side as he is dressed in drag and is wearing makeup. It shows the glamourous side to his life and reminds followers of his style.

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Overview of @rupaulsdragcon Instagram Page

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Overview of @rupaulsdragcon Instagram Page

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This shows how he makes the most of promoting his fellow drag queens and supports them in their work.

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On screenshotting this page, they had 387K followers, suggesting the magnitude of RuPaul as a brand and how many people still interact with his spin-off shows. On the page, he promotes drag queens that have appeared on his show, tagging them and encouraging people to view their content. It also posts videos with different speakers from the drag community and showing how drag, and ultimately RuPaul, brought them all together.

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23/2/20
RuPaul promoted DragCon on his personal Instagram page, suggesting qualities about his star image; it shows that he wants to excite his fans and keep them guessing. By posting an advert for DragCon, it suggests he wishes to engage with his followers in the hopes of selling more tickets and promoting his brand.

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01/03/20
This post shows his family side as he poses for a photo with his husband. The caption reads, 'Christmas on the Champs-Elysees', suggesting a happy time for the star and promotes his jet-setting lifestyle, whilst keeping in touch with his sensitive side.

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27/02/20
In this post, RuPaul presents his wisdom in a quote above a photo of him in drag. It is a powerful image and a reminder to his followers to be true to themselves and not to care what people say.

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28/02/20
RuPaul posts daily, sometimes even a few times a day. It shows his connection to social media and his love of spreading and sharing his images and words of wisdom with his loyal followers. From reposts from other Drag Race accounts and other queens to shout-outs about his own shows and trips down memory lane, his Instagram is a collage of who he is as a star. This image in particular highlights him as a male star and his success in being a man in the drag world, with the caption, '#selfexpression'.

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Why RuPaul Is My Hero  - Marissa Lucchesi - 14/12/15

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Why RuPaul Is My Hero  - Marissa Lucchesi - 14/12/15

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Marissa Lucchesi comments on RuPaul's life and he drug addiction. She says, 'having fought his way from drug addiction and poverty, RuPaul worked extremely hard and gained recognition with his music and comedy sketches. Now RuPaul continues to be a role model for all of us, putting out wonderful albums, fun music videos, and entertaining the masses with his fun, quirky, and unapologetic sketches and appearances.' It shows how some fans wholeheartedly believe that despite his past, RuPaul has battled his demons and won, becoming a beacon in his industry.

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"RuPaul's Drag Race" is an inspiration to us all, drag queen or not.

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You can see how his style changes from the classic, blonde looks to a more edgy, raw style. He transitions from a Barbie look to his own identity, which is reflected in his album covers.

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Torimeku has drawn RuPaul in a model-esque style, with extremely long limbs and extreme hair. It presents him as a superstar and promotes his feminine look.
https://twitter.com/rupaul/status/418753549321773056

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Darkodordevic has drawn RuPaul in a mermaid looking style, with a trident in his hand and long, billowing, golden locks. The caricature looks confident and proud, embodying RuPaul's personality.
https://www.deviantart.com/darkodordevic/art/RuPaul-The-Golden-Queen-413303950

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Tara Jacoby has drawn RuPaul as one person in his male and female looks. She has embodied his character and his identity in one person, presenting him as a star with depth and personality. His signature female hair had to be drawn, of course.
https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/magazine-feature/6913496/rupaul-tips-to-slay-every-day-rupauls-drag-race

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Jealous of My Boogie - The RuMixes (2009)

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Jealous of My Boogie - The RuMixes (2009)

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From a young boy growing up in Georgia to a superstar drag queen, RuPaul has come a long way from his impoverished and drug-ridden roots. His rough start in life empowered him to create a name for himself and he now uses his experiences to help and advise other people.

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Now in the USA and the UK, RuPaul's DragCon brings together drag queens from all over the globe, to celebrate their work and promote Drag Race as a show. Spearheaded by RuPaul, it allows him to sine as a leading light for the drag community and shows his major influence in the scene. It also allows fans to experience him and his brand in real life and promotes a physical relationship between RuPaul and his fans, rather than an online one.

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RuPaul - The Realness Official Music Video

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RuPaul - The Realness Official Music Video

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This song suggests that you have to believe in whatever you think is real. It argues that you should not listen to other people's ideas of what 'real' is but find your own and form your own identity from it.

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RuPaul - The Realness Official Music Video

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Enjoy the video? Subscribe here! http://bit.ly/1fkX0CV Official music video for RuPaul - The Realness Featuring RuPaul and the top three from season 8 of RuPaul's Drag Race Naomi Smalls, Kim Chi and Bob the Drag Queen.

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RuPaul - Cover Girl feat. Bebe, Nina & Rebecca (2009)

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RuPaul - Cover Girl feat. Bebe, Nina & Rebecca (2009)

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The infamous, 'Covergirl'. The song behind every one of RuPaul's catwalks and the tune most people think of when they are reminded of RuPaul's Drag Race. It is from his album, 'Champion', featuring alongside, 'LadyBoy' and 'Tranny Chaser'; both equally suggestive of his brand and background.

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Is ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ the Most Radical Show on TV? - Jenna Wortham - 24/01/18

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Is ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ the Most Radical Show on TV? - Jenna Wortham - 24/01/18

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Wortham comments on RuPaul's career, from a young mindset to the bright lights of New York.
RuPaul began his career in the clubs in Georgia, making his appearance as a gender-bending act. Moving to New York in the 90s, he battled drug addiction but was making a name for himself on stage. Tommy Boy Records gave him a record deal, kickstarting his music career. His past allows him to be seen as an authentic character as he has grown from it and recreated himself, transitioning into the icon he is today.  The article presents his progress in life.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/magazine/is-rupauls-drag-race-the-most-radical-show-on-tv.html

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Is ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ the Most Radical Show on TV? - Jenna Wortham - 24/01/18

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Is ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ the Most Radical Show on TV? - Jenna Wortham - 24/01/18

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Wortham says that he is 'beyond categorisation' - Charles creates a new type of identity for his community. He suggests he does not fit the mould that society has imposed and simply creates his own. She also comments that the show was not an 'easy sell' initially. People did not instantly take to it but as society has evolved and changed, they are far more accepting of it and the ideas it promotes.

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RuPaul Charles. Credit... Graeme Mitchell for The New York Times

Feature

The reality-television competition that began nine years ago has evolved to reflect an era fixated on gender and identity - and the boundary-pushing spirit of its star.

RuPaul Charles. Credit... Graeme Mitchell for The New York Times

On a soundstage deep in the hills of Los Angeles one morning last August, RuPaul Charles and several drag queens made their way to a set that had been transformed into a simulacrum of the reality-TV show "The Bachelor." Lacy strands of lights dripped down plastic boxwood hedges, and a row of white fluted columns framed a velvety red strip of carpet. A hot tub bubbled quietly in a corner. The contestants arranged themselves onto a set of bleachers to be appraised by the dashing bachelor, who in this scene was played by the actor Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, best known for his role on the Lifetime television drama "UnREAL." They were filming the latest season of the reality competition show "RuPaul's Drag Race," and the day's challenge was meant to showcase the competitors' acting abilities. The challenge, called "The Bitchelorette," was a parody of the farcical dynamics that play out on "The Bachelor" each season. The goal was not to win Bowyer-Chapman's heart but rather to see who could perform - satirize, really - stereotypes of femininity with enough humor to impress the judges.

This was an "all star" season, meaning the eight contestants had all appeared in previous seasons. One queen was dressed like a Barbie doll, her makeup exaggerating her features so that her eyes, lips and rosy cheeks resembled an anime character. Another, dressed in an ice-blue peignoir, petted a stuffed lap dog with one hand and preened with the other. A queen wearing a purple halter dress and a fringe wig clutched a martini glass and wobbled dramatically in her hot pink heels.

The camera crews started filming. Charles, dressed in an expertly tailored light pink suit, stepped onto the set as the fun-house version of Chris Harrison, host of the "The Bachelor." Bowyer-Chapman beamed, gamely playing the part of an anxious suitor. Instead of long-stemmed red roses, he would hand out bulging purple eggplants, a nod to their popular use as suggestive emoji. Charles asked Bowyer-Chapman if he was ready to begin the ceremony. Suddenly, the two froze, and their eyes locked. Charles whispered into Bowyer-Chapman's ear, and in one smooth sweep, Bowyer-Chapman scooped up all 6 feet 4 inches of Charles and strolled away. The departure sent the queens into a choreographed frenzy. The martini drinker pretended to faint. Another queen whipped out an oversize flip phone and screamed at her agent. One pulled out a paper bag and breathed heavily into it.

The director called cut, and everyone broke into boisterous laughter, including me. The footage would be assembled into a short film and played for the judges, who would grant the queen whose performance they deemed the best with an automatic slot in the competition's next round. Part of me wanted to be offended at the over-the-top interpretations of "female" behavior, but I was defenseless against the sheer silliness of it all, and the way that it slyly highlighted how our culture coaxes us to treat finding love as a competition.

Bowyer-Chapman, a die-hard fan of the show who is a frequent guest judge, later told me that he felt the scene was cutting commentary on both the racial discrimination of "The Bachelor," which has never had an African-American star, and the way television warps people. The contestants "became caricatures of themselves in ways that were the polar opposite of what usually happens on 'Drag Race,' which is about finding the authenticity of yourself and showcasing it," he said. The show reveals, Bowyer-Chapman argued, that regardless of gender and orientation, "we all have more in common than not."

Drag has been featured in popular culture for decades. Movies like "Kinky Boots," "Tootsie," "The Birdcage" - even "Mrs. Doubtfire" - have showcased men, some gay, some not, who dress and perform as women. But most tended to treat drag as high jinks. Nothing about the inner lives of queens has hit critical mass quite like "Drag Race," not even the 1991 documentary "Paris Is Burning," which followed the black and Latino drag ball circuit in New York during the 1980s. "It is a popular movie, but it didn't reach everyone the way a weekly television show does," said Lady Bunny, a drag queen in her 50s who is often regarded as one of the legendary figures of American drag culture. "Many people have never had any interaction with a drag queen, and barely know what it is," Bunny continued. "Anytime Middle America gets a taste of a community that they're not familiar with, it does normalize the L.G.B.T. experience."

Charles has said that he feels he is beyond categorization - he's black but he's not; he's gay but he's not. These days, when someone says that, it's usually met with a polite eye roll, the kind reserved for out-of-touch elders. The personal politics of this moment are almost entirely defined by naming. There's space for every pronoun, every hyphen and every politically correct portmanteau. But Charles belongs to a different generation, one that fought so hard for visibility that they feel they've earned the right to eschew all political decorum and enjoy the anarchy of reinvention, co-opting and bending language beyond recognition. When "Drag Race" first began, it seemed like a fun window into an underground culture, but over the nine years it has aired, the show has evolved to reflect America's changing relationship to queer rights and acceptance.

Drag, to Charles, is about the perversion of our understanding of gender, and by extension, ourselves. "We queens take on identity, and it is always a social statement," Charles explained to me. "It's all nudge, nudge, wink, wink. We never believe this is who we are. That is why drag is a revolution, because we're mocking identity. We're mocking everyone."

Anyone familiar with reality television will recognize the premise of "Drag Race": Loosely modeled on "America's Next Top Model," hosted by Tyra Banks, the show features 12 (or so) contestants who gather to compete for the title of America's Next Drag Superstar and a cash prize that varies per season but can be as much as $100,000. To determine who will advance to the next round, the queens are given elaborate challenges, like creating haute-couture runway looks from scratch or starring in music videos. "Drag Race" is entertaining in the way that every show that structures itself around transformation is: There's a pleasant thrill that comes from watching a bland room metamorphose into something out of Architectural Digest, or the creation of an impossibly elaborate meal in under an hour, or a generic-looking man morphing into a gorgeous and statuesque woman.

In 2009, the year that the first season of "RuPaul's Drag Race" was broadcast, the buzziest reality shows on television tended to be the most melodramatic and cattiest - "Survivor" or "The Hills." "Producers were just looking for the nasty side of the human experience, and I definitely didn't want to be a part of that," Charles told me. Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, founders of the production house World of Wonder, talked him into it. The trio had been collaborating since the 1980s, when Barbato and Bailey were in an electro band called the Fabulous Pop Tarts. Charles appears in one of their videos in a skin-tight leopard dress. They produced Charles's VH1 variety show in the 1990s. "I knew they loved drag the way I loved drag, and they would celebrate the art of drag," Charles said. Tom Campbell, head of development at World of Wonder, told me that the idea for the show was to create a competition that would groom the next generation of drag superstars by replicating all the major milestones of Charles's career - model, television personality, performer. "This was his turn to give back and create his legacy," he said.

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'80s Lady: RuPaul Charles in New York City. Credit... Jon Witherspoon

At first, "Drag Race" wasn't an easy sell. "Everyone felt like it was too much," Barbato said. Even when Viacom's L.G.B.T. channel, LogoTV, picked it up, Charles had to fight to realize his vision for the show. According to Charles and the producers, in the first season Logo resisted including a queen named Tammie Brown, who called to mind a cross between Marlene Dietrich and Prymaat, the matriarch in the "Saturday Night Live" sketch "Coneheads." Charles felt it was important to reflect the oddballs of drag, a staple of the culture.

Despite airing on a niche cable channel, the show found a loyal audience that included an elite coterie of celebrity fans who appeared regularly as guest judges, including Lily Tomlin, Debbie Reynolds, Vanessa Williams, Margaret Cho, Amber Rose, Rosie Perez and Khloé Kardashian. It was the most-watched show in the history of Logo. Last year, the show moved to VH1 and grew significantly: The ninth season averaged nearly 1.2 million viewers per episode, more than double that of Season 8, according to data collected by Nielsen. In 2016, Charles won an Emmy for host of a reality show, and in 2017, he won again and the show picked up two more. Time magazine recently named Charles one of its 100 Most Influential People of the year.

"Drag Race" has become a staple of modern television for the way it skewers expectations and attitudes about gender, much as a show like "black-ish" works to challenge stereotypes about black families in America. That isn't to say contestants on "Drag Race" don't bicker or trade petty insults, as in other reality-TV shows, but the program doesn't leave viewers with the same existential dread about the future of humanity as, say, any of the "Real Housewives" franchises. In Season 5, for example, a contestant named Jade Jolie criticized her competitor, Alyssa Edwards, for having back fat. In a cutaway reaction, Edwards cocked an eyebrow, recoiled in disbelief and managed to completely defang the insult with a single word: "Backrolls?" - signaling that the word was both ludicrous (she is rail-thin) and so untoward that it could not be taken seriously. Some five seasons later, "backrolls" still pops up on the show as a kind of venomless meta-reference.

Each season is imbued with a sense of optimism in the face of relentless adversity; Charles believes that is central to the gay and queer experience. "There is a sisterhood here," he told me. "It has to do with the shared experience of being outsiders and making a path for ourselves." The camaraderie Charles describes is evident: Even after their season ends, "Drag Race" contestants work together, live together, travel together. Their Instagrams are full of photos of one another. The kinship feels real, and it's what initially caught my attention and endeared the show to me.

Amid the glitz and glamour of drag, the show doesn't obscure the violence and terror that accompanies the life of the marginalized. On the first season, a contestant named Porkchop described being shot at while standing outside a gay bar. In Season 8, Kim Chi, a shy Korean-American queen known for elaborate outfits, talked about hiding her colorful drag persona from her parents out of fear of shaming them. Trinity K Bonet talked about living with H.I.V. Last season, Cynthia Lee Fontaine revealed that if not for a last-minute change in her schedule, she would have performed at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando the night of the mass shooting there; one of her friends, Martin Benitez Torres, unaware of the change, came to see her and was killed in the massacre. When I asked Charles if there was a deliberate decision to infuse the show with overt political messaging, he shook his head. "It's inherent in our experience. We don't have to do much to infuse a consciousness into the show. It is such a part of our story, and we walk with it."

As "Drag Race" matures, it continues to find a broader and younger audience. Charles told me that some of the most dedicated viewers are women, especially teenagers and women in their 20s and 30s. "There is so much programming by social media, and how you have to construct your sense of self in line with how everyone else is constructing their sense of self. I think they see our show as a handbook for a navigation, and think, How can I rig this conveyor belt where I don't have to go down that thing?" That awakening feels familiar to him because he went through it himself at 13. He looked like a girl, with sharp cheekbones, a soft brow and a red Afro that he let grow so big that it flopped down. "When I first started doing drag in clubs, it was like the blurry picture that people had of me became clear," he told me. "Some of the queens were kicked out of their homes, bullied or ostracized from society, and here they are looking gorgeous and confident. I know that's what kids are relating to. They're having a great time, but they've overcome the pain too."

Charles thinks these new fans who follow him and the queens on Instagram or who show up at live events for the show are embracing the spirit of drag and the freedom it offers. "They are shifting the balance of masculinity and femininity. And that makes me so optimistic." I was slightly skeptical that so many young people were watching the show, but as we sat over breakfast at Palihouse in West Hollywood, I noticed a middle-aged woman hovering with a nervous grin, waiting for her moment to approach. As Charles stood up, unfolding his lanky frame - sheathed in a slightly iridescent emerald-green suit - and leaned down to pick up his brown leather handbag, the woman rushed over. She wanted a photograph. "It's not for me, but for my kids," she explained. Her children were 9 and 5, she told Charles. "They watch you every week," she gushed. "They love you."

The story of Charles's name goes like this: His mother, Ernestine - friends called her Toni - was thumbing through the July 1960 issue of Ebony Magazine, where there was a spread of the singer and piano player Fats Domino's new $200,000 home in New Orleans. A photograph of Domino enjoying a cocktail with the architect who designed his new home, Albert J. Saputo, as well as his wife and Domino's friends Louis Diamond and Ripoll Roberts, caught Toni's eye. She drew an arrow to Ripoll's name and wrote "boy" underneath. Ernestine was Creole, and she wanted her next child's name to reflect her heritage. She changed "Ri" to "Ru" to symbolize roux, the base of Louisiana dishes like gumbo. A psychic had told her that her unborn child would be famous, and she was determined to give the baby a name meant for a marquee.

A few months later, in November 1960, that boy was born. His full name was RuPaul Andre Charles. His parents were living in San Diego at the time, having moved with their twins, Renetta and Renae, from Louisiana during the second wave of the Great Migration. Charles's parents traveled to the farthest coast, the literal end of the country their ancestors were forcibly brought to, only to discover that the mythos of the West - that it was a land of fresh starts - was far more complicated for black people, who still faced discrimination. "She was heartbroken by this world," he told me, with tears in his eyes. His parents were poor, and Charles's mother suffered from a debilitating depression throughout his youth. "My folks, and other folks in the South, had such traumatic experiences. I was able to dissect and deconstruct some of my feelings. I could afford to do it. They couldn't afford to do it."

In the summer of 1976, Renetta and her husband, Laurence, moved to Atlanta and invited Charles, who was 15, to join them. "It was like my bar mitzvah," Charles told me. "Southern culture has always had a place for eccentrics. I was ready to bust out and become who I am today." Those years imbued Charles with confidence. He enrolled at a performing-arts high school, where he took drama and theater. Atlanta's night life was a Warholian village of underground clubs, art shows, D.I.Y. movie shoots and warehouse parties. Under the governance of Maynard Jackson, the city's first African-American mayor, Atlanta was also a boomtown for African-Americans, creatively, socially and economically. He had never seen so many black people in one place - he didn't even know that many black people existed.

He saw his first drag performance: Crystal LaBeija, an icon in drag-queen history, was singing Donna Summer in black fishnets and a bustier. Charles was floored. He used Renetta's sewing machine and drafted the first iteration of his new persona, blending the new-wave punk aesthetic of Bow Wow Wow, the goth freakiness of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and jungle prints. A favorite look was a jock strap with football shoulder pads, fishnets and knee-high wading boots and dramatic eyes, all finished with a pile of hair whose volume rivaled Tina Turner's. He started bands, made music videos with friends, appeared on public-access variety shows and worked as a go-go dancer. He papered downtown Atlanta with handmade posters of himself that read, "RuPaul Is Everything," and "RuPaul Is Red Hot."

Although drag has a long cultural history in America, it remained largely underground till the late 1980s. During the 1920s, the height of speakeasy culture in America, illicit venues and establishments that catered to gay clientele frequently hosted drag performance. By the 1940s and 1950s, postwar America had become more conservative, and the gay community was more heavily policed: A "pervert inquiry" in government agencies led to dismissals of federal and military personnel suspected of homosexuality. Cross-dressing was a punishable offense; in New York, men wearing fewer than three pieces of clothing could be arrested. But with the end of McCarthyism and the beginning of the sexual revolution, by the late 1960s and early 1970s, the United States was home to about 500 regularly performing drag queens, with several, like Divine, reaching cult status. When Charles settled in Manhattan in the late 1980s, drag was a full-on cultural phenomenon in the city, and Charles was determined to be at its center.

At 28, Charles became a fixture as a dancer at downtown clubs like Pyramid, Tunnel and Limelight. His popularity and career exploded when he teamed up with a D.J. named Larry Tee for the roving underground party Love Machine. It quickly became a trendy scene - even Liza Minnelli made an appearance. By then, Charles had transformed his look from what he called "fright drag" to something much more glamorous. The B-52s asked Charles to appear in their 1989 video "Love Shack," which was shown regularly on MTV; four years later, Charles released the album "Supermodel of the World" on Tommy Boy Records, a label that had introduced acts like De La Soul and Queen Latifah. The album featured the song "Supermodel (You Better Work)," in which he gave models runway advice like "shantay," a word Charles described as casting a bewitching spell. The song became a club anthem. The designers Todd Oldham and Isaac Mizrahi used it in their runway presentations during fashion week, and a cover of it appeared in "The Lizzie McGuire Movie." In 1993, it was nominated for best dance video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Charles landed a regular modeling contract with MAC Cosmetics - the advertising campaign featured him in full glamazon drag, alongside the tag line "I am the MAC girl." He had become the most successful queen of his era.

I asked Charles if his mother ever got to see him perform. She did, once, in 1993. She was on her deathbed at home, suffering from cancer. She and Charles watched a Kurt Loder segment on MTV News around the release of "Supermodel." It showed Charles prancing around a mall in New Jersey before a recorded voice-over declared him a "supermodel of the world." His mother turned to him, he recalled, and said, "Nigga, you crazy." But Toni could also see that the psychic's premonition - that Charles would be famous - had come true. "I could see her thinking, It's happening," he told me.

For two years, he hosted, accompanied by his close friend Michelle Visage (a regular judge on "Drag Race"), "The RuPaul Show," a kind of variety program featuring pop-culture celebrities like Cher and Eartha Kitt. It was the first national show to have a drag queen as host. He released 10 more studio albums, but none were as successful as "Supermodel." Then Bailey and Barbato, his World of Wonder co-producers, urged him to pitch the reality-show competition that would become "RuPaul's Drag Race." "We thought, Everyone is ready for drag - it's mainstream now," Barbato said. "Distribution is part of the reason it hadn't been realized as a cultural phenomenon."

Since "Drag Race" first aired in 2009, the conversation around identity and gender has shifted tremendously. For all the show has done to challenge its audience's notions of masculinity and femininity, it has shied away, until the most recent season, from any serious discussion about the ways the drag community intersects the trans one. There have been trans queens on the show, but the topic is a touchy one in the drag community. For most drag artists, the point is the performance; it is not their sole identity. But for those queens who identify as trans or nonbinary, their stage persona is not necessarily a performance. The centerpiece of the show is the contestants' transforming themselves into queens, and then, after each competition, taking off their wigs and removing synthetic breasts to reappear as men. For years, "Drag Race" prioritized entertainment over any nuances of the culture. Much of the queens' vernacular, body language and movements come from the drag world's - especially white queens' - interpretation of black femininity. I've always been uncomfortable with that phenomenon, despite how much I enjoy the show. In his essay " 'Draguating' to Normal," the academic Josh Morrison argues that by using the bodies of women, people of color and other marginalized groups, "through an often loving, well-intentioned impersonation of them," drag "unintentionally does them discursive violence."

A few years ago, the show hit a third rail. On "America's Next Top Model," Banks would send the contestants a video message called "TyraMail" when she wanted to communicate with them; "Drag Race" had a version of this called "She-Mail." There were also challenges in which contestants were shown body parts and asked to guess "female" or "shemale." Some viewers complained on Twitter, and trans activists and writers started a public campaign advocating against the terms "she-mail" and "she-male," arguing that they were transphobic. Charles and his producers initially defended their position. Charles tweeted, "Orwell's book 'Animal Farm': The rebels eventually forgot the purpose of the revolution." But eventually the show dropped the term. Carmen Carrera, who competed in the show's third season and came out as transgender after her season aired, wrote on Facebook that although she didn't think the show meant any harm, " 'shemale' is an incredibly offensive word, and this whole business about if you can tell whether a woman is biological or not is getting kind of old." For Charles, the controversy represented the antithesis of drag, which he sees as a subversive, countercultural reminder not to take the world so seriously. But for members of the trans community, language isn't a magic trick. Stepping into an identity other than the one you were assigned at birth isn't a performance - it's a confirmation and a correction.

The controversy speaks to how quickly the culture has changed over the past 10 years. When I was on the phone with Lady Bunny, I used the word "queer." Bunny let out an exasperated sigh. "Oh, God, do I have to say it, too, now?" During her youth, which is still recent history, "queer" was a slur - what "they'd say right before they bashed you in the head," she reminded me. The boundary-pushers of Charles and Bunny's time reveled in making a mockery of identity politics and political correctness; ours is defined by sharpening categories as a means to demand inclusion and recognition. (Facebook now has more than 50 options for listing gender identity, including pangender and agender.)

Throughout my conversations with Charles, I got the sense that he is a sensitive person who is actively trying to evolve with the times. "Every season the girls come and they challenge me. A new nose contour technique or a new way to see themselves and identity, and it helps me stay on my game and stay engaged in the conversation." Last season, midway through the show, a queen in her late 30s named Peppermint revealed she was transgender, the first time being trans became a significant part of a character's narrative arc. Peppermint talked openly about her transition with Charles and the other contestants. Peppermint had auditioned twice for the show, and she didn't mention her transness. "I was always careful to separate my trans identity from my drag career," she told me in a phone conversation. When she finally made it onto the show, she was asked if she would feel comfortable speaking about it. She has gorgeous features and deep dimples, but on the show, she described how her figure and hair, which were perceived as masculine, invited critiques from people who felt she should transition further or appear more feminine. "I came to terms with my womanhood, even if I naturally have a beard growing in," she said. "Men don't own gender and gender performance. We all can turn gender on its head."

Peppermint noted the ways the popularity of "Drag Race" has bolstered an entire community, and in turn, an entire economy. In the '90s, she recalled, it was only lucrative to be a drag queen if you were one of the chosen queens - Lady Bunny, Candis Cayne, Miss Understood and, of course, RuPaul. She reminisced about doing drag seven days a week to pay the rent. "Really, only 10 or 15 queens were benefiting," she said. "And now the show has given so much exposure that it gives everyone a chance to earn very good money and recoup all the investments that we've put in over the years - you know, the money we've spent on glitter and rhinestones."

Jack Halberstam, a professor of English and gender studies at Columbia University and author of the book "Female Masculinity," a study of the history of diverse gender expressions, told me that we're in a watershed moment for gender visibility and equality, and he doesn't want to play down the importance of a mainstream drag show on television. Even now, gay life on television is limited - typically it's a side plot or narrative device. Representation still matters. But he raised an interesting point: "Notice that there's no 'RuPaul's Drag Kings,' " Halberstam said - meaning the culture of drag where people, usually gay women, dress up as passable versions of men. "It's as equally raucous and raunchy, with lip-syncing and costume competitions. We still have this idea that femininity is malleable, and masculinity is a protected domain of real power and privilege. It is not transferable or attainable. The public has no appetite for artificial masculinity."

I tried to imagine a version of the show where contestants won prizes for making fun of male archetypes and stereotypes, and demonstrated that male identity can be deconstructed as easily as whipping off a toupee and a soft prosthetic penis. It was impossible.

Charles's dressing room on the set of "Drag Race" is actually two rooms: One for his suits, the other for his gowns. In the room with gowns, there were tables full of costume jewelry and impossibly large (and tall!) stiletto heels; there was a table devoted to makeup, and on racks, an enviable number of ball gowns in all sorts of materials and shades - pink sequins, purple plaid taffeta, black tulle. Charles made sure I noticed the size of the mirror - it was at least seven feet tall, purchased specifically to accommodate his height. Charles loves clothes. He has a staggering number of shoes and bespoke suits, which were handmade by the Los Angeles label Klein Epstein & Parker. Each includes a custom label: The words under the collar read, "Born Naked," and inside, "The Rest Is Drag," an adage that Charles coined.

Charles frequently described his relationship to drag as "the Superman to my Clark Kent." The first time he stepped into his drag persona, Charles felt fully alive, electric with a power to command attention and desire. One day his therapist told him he could be Superman regardless of his attire. "She said, 'The power you feel in drag is available to you 24/7,' " he told me. That realization, he said, is what he is trying to relay in each season of the show, to both the queens and the viewers. Charles is rarely in drag these days - only for special occasions, and during the judging and elimination rounds on the show - a shift that he made about a decade ago. For Charles, the confidence and fun of drag is a state of mind, not an outfit change. But he is always keenly aware of the power dynamics (the ones Halberstam noted) that favor men, even when they are taking on female personas. "We never forget the fact that we are men in a male-dominated culture where masculinity is a currency that is valued more than gold. For men to do anything with femininity, to use femininity as a palette, it's basically an act of treason in our culture."

During a break in taping while I was on set, Charles rounded up people for a game of dirty charades, which he loves so much that he keeps a list of clever ideas on his iPhone that is several swipes long. Empty director's chairs were dragged into an approximation of an audience around the giant stage where the show's contestants usually walk the runway. About half a dozen crew members arranged themselves accordingly. Charles, impeccable in his petal-pink three-piece suit, leapt onto the stage, lit by fuchsia lights, and signaled the start of the game. He used his hands to simulate the whirring of an analog film camera, and then held up three fingers, indicating a three-word movie title. He pinched his forefinger and thumb to indicate that the first word was short. He curled his hands into soft fists and raised them to his mouth. He mimed licking himself, and then spun around and squatted, reaching his hands around and motioning as if he were pulling something from his ass. The group, including me, burst into laughter. Someone yelled, "That Darn Scat!" and Charles slapped his thighs and released a peal of laughter so distinct and delightful - like a throaty giggle - that as a child his older sisters regularly tickled it out of him.

No one wanted to try and top that performance, so Charles cycled through several more R-rated versions of movies and songs like "It's the Hard-Knock Life," "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Blue Lagoon." After each round, there was wild applause. I had the discomfiting sensation of catching a glimpse of something deeply private, like walking in on someone in a state of undress or using the bathroom. I had seen more than 100 episodes of "Drag Race." I had watched Charles play the matriarch and patriarch, dispensing wisdom, jokes, admonishments and pep talks. Here, he looked carefree as he moved seamlessly between impersonations of a tough biker, a coquettish flirt, a naughty schoolgirl. Onscreen, he was always slightly removed, distant, ruling the show with a steely reserve that bordered on conservatism. The contrast between that Ru and the Ru pantomiming masturbation onstage was so disorienting it made my head spin. Watching him shape-shift onstage, I finally understood what he was trying to get at, how he refuses the outward ways in which people try to characterize him - and really, all people.

Charles has been with his husband, Georges LeBar, since 1994, when they met on the dance floor at Limelight. On their second date, they flew from London to Düsseldorf on Elton John's private jet. They married in early 2017, 23 years after they met. The couple split their time between Los Angeles and Wyoming, where LeBar, a ruggedly handsome man somehow taller than Charles, has a 60,000-acre ranch. When they can, they take quick trips to San Francisco, New York or Maui. One time they took a helicopter from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon, had lunch and took a boat down the Colorado River. "Having money is great when you have an imagination," Charles told me. I asked him if LeBar likes that sort of thing. "He loves luxury and doesn't give a [expletive] about culture," Charles replied. "He doesn't know who the Kardashians are. He doesn't know who Lil Yachty is. He couldn't name a Taylor Swift song." It's a reprieve from the celebrity status of Charles's world.

But Charles thrives on that culture. He is working on a scripted television series for Hulu with the director J.J. Abrams based on his own life, and he recently appeared in the fourth season of "Broad City," as Marcel, the manager of a haughty Brooklyn restaurant where Ilana works, who encourages her to be mean to the customers as a tactic to pressure them into spending money. Ilana eventually pushes back against Marcel's tyranny and realizes she is more successful as herself - the ultimate Ru message. "We wrote this character with Ru in mind," Abbi Jacobson, the creator of the show with Ilana Glazer, told me. "There's a [expletive]-it mentality of being and owning yourself, and experimenting with yourself," she said of his appeal. Jacobson and Glazer watched "The RuPaul Show" when it aired during the 1990s and remembered the fun freakiness of the cast and characters. At the time, Glazer was also watching the sitcom "Saved by the Bell," which featured model-looking teenagers; the show made her feel "ugly and fat," she said. "It was such a relief to change the channel and see Ru dancing and partying in the margins, and making space for his identity. He elbowed his way into the room in such a way that includes so many more people than him, and that representation trickled all the way down to these two little weird Jewish girls."

I arrived at a Midtown Manhattan convention hall early on a Sunday morning in September to find the new drag economy, the one that Peppermint noted, at work. In 2015, Charles and World of Wonder created RuPaul's DragCon, a multiday convention about all things drag. Charles had mentioned to me it several times - he is nothing if not media-savvy - as the future of his empire and a way to widen the culture of drag beyond a television show and nighttime acts.

Tables were laden with items for sale: intricate corsets, leather gloves, beaded jewelry, sequined pasties, gel breastplates and elaborate bouffant-style wigs in every shade of pastel. There were makeup counters and queens giving attendees makeovers. One aisle was marked "backrolls." Past winners and former contestants paraded the halls, with everyone holding court in their best looks. Ginger Minj was dressed as Snow White, while Bob the Drag Queen looked like a cute clown in a blue tulle top and yellow party hat. Nearby, a queen named Detox lounged near the kind of bubble pit usually reserved for children at a fast-food restaurant. There were local queens, too, as well as children like Lactatia, a 9-year-old drag queen from Montreal (born Nemis Quinn Mélançon Golden), who strutted the convention floor in an iridescent hologram three-piece suit and a cotton-candy-pink bobbed wig. Peppermint was there, too, resplendent in a sheer polka-dot caftan.

Hordes of young people swarmed around the queens, eager to have their photos taken with them. There were long lines of men and women excited to take photographs with Charles, who was holding court in a section reserved for the V.I.P.s who bought special badges. There were people dressed as mermaids, muppets, cartoon characters and ghouls. There was a queen dressed as a sea captain being half-eaten by a shark. The atmosphere was the freakiest I'd ever seen in Midtown during the daylight. I flashed back to a conversation with Charles when he told me about the early days of throwing wild, gender-bending parties in New York. People came out for the simple sake of experimenting. They dressed weird and let loose on the dance floor - the only place such liberation was possible back then.

At one point, I spied a pack of children, of indeterminate gender, outfitted in suits and dresses. They could have been dressed for the occasion, or just in their daily wear. Amid of sea of six- and seven-foot queens in stilettos, they stood out, doll-size and adorable. Their cuteness drew gasps and oohs, but I also couldn't help thinking that we were also captivated by them for another reason: They felt like a glimpse of a future - and maybe even, someday, the new normal.

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Is 'RuPaul's Drag Race' the Most Radical Show on TV?

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Feature The reality-television competition that began nine years ago has evolved to reflect an era fixated on gender and identity - and the boundary-pushing spirit of its star. RuPaul Charles. Credit...

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RuPaul's Sissy That Walk Official Music Video (2014)

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RuPaul's Sissy That Walk Official Music Video (2014)

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In this video, the finalists of RuPaul's Drag Race season 7 bop away to the punchy beats of 'Sissy That Walk', by RuPaul.

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RuPaul's Sissy That Walk Official Music Video

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RuPaul still emphasises his flamboyant style even when dressed as a man. It suggests he owns his identity and his vibrant look translates into his drag.  A blazer and bright trouser combination suits his age and his persona. He has clearly created a very strong brand image by keeping consistent with his fashion.

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He still emphasizes his drag and his flamboyant style even when dressed as a man.
https://rtvwarriors.wordpress.com/2016/09/10/rupauls-drag-race-all-stars-2-episode-3-recap/

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https://www.bustle.com/p/will-the-rupauls-drag-race-uk-finale-be-the-same-as-the-us-version-19349590

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https://dbknews.com/2019/10/07/rupaul-drag-race-uk-season-one-premiere-recap/

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'When Pearl asked Ru if there was something on her face'.
This meme, created by a fan, presents the show in a humorous way and allows fans to laugh and share the photo and build the community.
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/661466263991752909/?nic_v1=1aTJcvdVKN65sPcdYlJMAxoicbtHkBOpYME8qDPdHlzHcNioNKTVQVl5iDKi%2BEmolc

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https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/1266706119493063/?nic_v1=1aAvx%2FrBaCpf3onXqztFxqmOzgak15ho%2FcmirnzxIdZ9agzrz1GqESiOYijB%2FRi5Es

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https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/44402746310422460/?nic_v1=1a01XWXNa3uKcCTXtBZPNVspj2hQwLwfkrcj5k%2FhT3TEpDvCRwc4Ln4pCBRYo8AdIh

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https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/687573068080813639/

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RuPaul’s Drag Race Has a Race Problem - Garrett Schlichte - 15/02/18

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RuPaul’s Drag Race Has a Race Problem - Garrett Schlichte - 15/02/18

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Garrett Schlichte comments on the racial aspect of the show, commenting on interviews with various ex-stars. He suggests that black contestants are judged differently to their white counterparts on the show, as winner of season 2, Tyra Sanchez comments, 'white queens are always the favourite'. This puts a spotlight on the show and perhaps highlights a bigger issue. The show is very keen to represent both sides but maybe the audience does not see everything that really happens behind the scenes.

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This post is part of , Slate's home for coverage of LGBTQ life, thought, and culture. Read more here.

"I'm devastated because I don't quite see Kennedy taking drag to an all-star level quite like I thought Thorgy could," bemoaned Milk, a contestant on Season 3 of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, on last week's episode.

Her comments came during a confessional-style interview as a reaction to Thorgy Thor's early elimination from the drag-competition show, a spinoff of RuPaul's Drag Race. In this top-talent iteration, however, it is fellow contestants, not RuPaul, who have the final say on who is eliminated each week.

"I think I would have chosen Thorgy to stay, I find Thorgy's concepts and her looks much more exciting," Milk said, this time directly to Kennedy Davenport's rhinestone-covered face. Kennedy, a black queen from Dallas, is, in her own words, "the Dancing Diva of Texas, honey!" And dance she does. Kennedy is a pageant queen, meaning she came up participating in-and winning-beauty queen-style drag pageants. A decorated performer, Kennedy has won numerous titles including Miss Gay Orlando 2016, Miss D'Elegance International 2013, and Miss Gay Black USofA 2009. Thorgy and Milk, both white, are what one might call quintessential New York City queens: a moniker emblematic of their highly conceptual looks, quirky performances, and unmistakable artistic eyes.

"Fuck my drag, right?" Kennedy says during her own confessional interview, responding to Milk's dismissal of her craftsmanship. "If I'm not your cup of tea, then baby don't drink it."

Milk's dismissal of Kennedy's art as being less likely to take drag to "an all-star level" is more than a shady throwaway comment. It's exemplary of a dynamic, emanating from both contestants and fans, that has time and again undervalued the contributions of queens of color, especially black queens. This dynamic perpetuates the notion that black art is pedestrian, while white versions of that same art are highbrow. It's a situation one sees mirrored in something like Southern soul food, where black cooks are often viewed as being "down-home" and rustic while white chefs are credited with "elevating" the genre. While drag has benefited from the contributions of both white folks and people of color alike, it's telling who's allowed to be avant-garde and who is expected to simply entertain. "I don't quite see Kennedy taking drag to an all-star level," can be read as a coded way of saying, "I believe the pageantry and showmanship exhibited by black queens is less valuable to the world of drag than the quippy, quirky, aesthetically driven contributions made by other, mainly white, queens like me."

"White queens are always the favorite. Black queens deserve hatefultweets." - Tyra Sanchez

I saw this mentality baldly on display during the 2016 tour of A Drag Queen Christmas, a holiday variety show featuring the Ru girls. Pearl, looking stunning (she is undeniably fashion-forward), gave a sleepy performance to a song I can't remember. Fans, asked to wait in a line down the side of the theater to tip the queens, queued almost down the entire wall. Most took selfies as they handed Pearl their dollars, even after we were asked to keep our phones away for efficiency's sake. Chi Chi DeVayne, a Season 8 queen who is also competing on All Stars Season 3 gave an all-out flips, kicks, and splits performance. As she took her bow and I jumped in line to tip her, the difference between the two crowds was remarkable: The line standing to tip Chi Chi was maybe one-third of the size of Pearl's. An archived thread on Reddit delves into the racism evident within the Drag Race fandom, and as user mulatto-brujo put it, "If you're pretty and white you can get away with murder." Or at least get away with just standing in one spot and looking pretty.

Katya, a fan favorite and undeniable talent, provided further insight into the disparity in reception between white and POC queens during a Periscope rant in 2016. She talks about the ways in which white queens (in this case Acid Betty) are offered certain allowances fans are not willing to extend to black queens (in this case Jasmine Masters). "There is a significant racial component to the ways Jasmine and Acid were both treated during the show, and more specifically, after the elimination." Katya is referring to the racially motivated hate levied toward Jasmine after her elimination. Season 2 winner Tyra Sanchez echoed this in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) in 2017: "White queens are always the favorite. Black queens deserve hateful tweets. Queens should be stoned or tarred and feathered even if they deserved the win."

And that isn't the only time Tyra has spoken out about racism in the Drag Race community. Talking to Jonny McGovern of Hey Qween in 2017, Tyra elaborated on the notion that Drag Race fans seem to be far more comfortable with black queens when they fit into particular boxes. Talking about fan favorite Latrice Royale, she said, "When it comes to white people, that stereotype is OK because 'I can deal with that.' " The stereotype Tyra is referring to is the mammy, clarifying that although Latrice was simply existing as the person she actually is, her personality also fit conveniently into a box that did not disrupt white fans' notions of black personhood. "Anytime a [black] queen is powerful, or shows something that people would love or fall in love with [when done by a white queen] or that could be this major powerhouse, they tear her down." Tyra specifically references Shea Couleé and Nina Bo'Nina Brown.

Nina, who was regularly beaten down by fans during her season for appearing less emotionally secure than her competitors, took to Instagram to discuss Thorgy's elimination: "[I]'m glad she's getting sympathy for the most part of her 'paranoia' because y'all let my black ass have it lol." This is another example of the space fans give to white queens who feel shafted on the show (#justiceforthorgy, a hashtag meant to express outrage at her elimination, showed up almost immediately on Twitter), when black queens are expected to suck it up. Shea, an early pick to win her season who ultimately lost to a transcendent performance by Sasha Velour, was unceremoniously dismissed after her elimination. However, when black queens have been the cause of an upset (Tyra vs. Raven, Nina vs. Valentina, Kennedy vs. Katya) the online hate is swift and vicious. Sasha's Instagram following skyrocketed to almost 900,000 while Shea has just over half of that. This is a trend consistent between white queens and black queens who have appeared on the show.

It's also worth noting that eccentric white queens who are (typically) conventionally attractive out of drag often have a larger following than black queens who have been more successful than them on the show. There is, of course, nothing wrong with thirst-following the quirky-as-a-queen-cute-as-a-boy contestants. However, fans who conflate their attraction to a queen's boy drag with that queen's deservedness to be America's next drag superstar are just repackaging problematic " race is just a preference" tendencies. Fans in the " Drag Race and Racism" Reddit thread have spelled it out fairly plainly, but none perhaps more than user berthavnation, who said, "the truth is, as a whole, there are many incredibly talented non-white queens who don't have the same level of fan love as the cute thin white queens, who themselves don't have to sweat as hard or show as much in order to accumulate that fan love." And it's not just fans who have been vocal about this unfair dynamic. "How many of you guys love Pearl?" Trixie Mattel, another fan favorite and All Stars Season 3 competitor asked a club crowd in 2015. The audience cheered their approval. "But how many of you guys love Pearl just because you wanna fuck Pearl?" The room erupted in cheers.

These days, we live in an ever-developing landscape of queer artistry, and we are lucky to see so many forms of drag being celebrated. Bio queens and trans queens are finding homes where before we only saw camp and pageant queens. Milk and Pearl, and Thorgy and Sasha, deserve every bit of praise they have received, and it would be foolish not to commend the work and devotion they pour into their craft. However, it would be harmful and ignorant to try to pretend that their black contemporaries are not judged by a different scale. Kennedy said, "If I'm not your cup of tea, then baby don't drink it." But in this case, it may be worth choosing to sip something with a little more flavor, before you chug a gallon of milk just because it comes in a nice package.

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Does RuPaul's Drag Race Have a Race Problem?

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This post is part of , Slate's home for coverage of LGBTQ life, thought, and culture. Read more here . "I'm devastated because I don't quite see Kennedy taking drag to an all-star level quite like I thought Thorgy could," bemoaned Milk, a contestant on Season 3 of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, on last week's episode.

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RuPaul's Drag Race UK is wrong to embrace the outdated stereotype of queer bitchiness - Adam Bloodworth - 04/10/19

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RuPaul's Drag Race UK is wrong to embrace the outdated stereotype of queer bitchiness - Adam Bloodworth - 04/10/19

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In this scathing review, Adam Bloodworth suggests RuPaul's drag race collectivises members of the drag community as being 'catty' and nasty. He says the show edits clips to make it seem as if all they ever do is argue and gossip about each other when this is not always the case. He argues it is wrong to communicate this message to people watching the show as they will begin to perceive the drag racers negatively. This puts the show in a bad light and suggests the producers have made an effort to create the drama for reality TV, rather than promote the drag queen's work.

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As excitement mounted in the hours before the premiere of Drag Race UK, contestant Divina De Campo tweeted a plea: "I guess what I'm trying to say is be kind to us all," she urged. "We are all only human."

It was a simple request - some might say almost disarmingly simple. It was the type of comment that would've made viewers new to Drag Race wonder why there was any need to post the tweet at all. After all, isn't kindness the least we should all expect? Something we shouldn't have to publicly beg for?

The answer is, of course, yes. And in the majority of queer circles, communities thrive alongside one another. But De Campo has been performing for 15 years, and will unfortunately have come into contact with the type of toxic abuse that so often affects LGBT+ people, whether in the form of homophobic or transphobic slurs or within the LGBT+ community itself. So she has her reasons to fear the worst from the show.

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Homophobia from outside the community is self-explanatory. But De Campo was alluding to something else: the cliche that bitchiness prevails in queer circles - and more specifically, the outdated stereotype that drag as a genre has cattiness and bitchiness at its centre.

If you're wondering where the supposedly "woke" RuPaul's Drag Race fits into all this, I'd argue that the original US show has often promoted negative stereotypes about the LGBT+ community. This promotion of negative stereotypes has been carried over to the UK show.

Even in the first episode, contestants were shown making catty comments about one another on and off camera, and behind each others' backs. Sensational edits are frequently made to show queens side-eyeing one another, fighting with each other and getting into slagging matches. And on every episode, contestants are taken into a Big Brother-style room to purposefully bitch about other contestants.

You might say that the fighting is an authentic representation of what's actually going on during filming. And I'd agree to a small extent. As De Campo said in her tweet, "filming this has been one of the most intense experiences I've ever been involved in, nothing else even comes close".

And at times, this means contestants do snark at one another, with one seeming disapproving that another hadn't been to a drag show before and another calling a contestant's look "half missing".

But by the end of the episode, the sensation and drama had been ramped up to an entirely unrealistic level. The music sounded like the stuff theme parks play when you're about to board a rollercoaster; it only served to make tight cuts of contestants shouting at one another seem awkwardly inauthentic when screened seconds after other shots showcasing the group's clear closeness.

This sort of editing crassly and grossly sensationalises any small disagreements between contestants. By doing so, it perpetuates negative stereotypes about queer people to suggest that all they can do is argue and fight with one another.

As East End queen Baga Chipz surmised early in the episode: "Everyone's friendly, you know what I mean? You normally do get the odd twat though don't you." But from what I could glean from the first episode, any unsavoury characters are far more likely to be found in the editing suite (or higher up, in creative meetings about the show's style and direction) than in a fabulous dress.

That we're being fed this fake in-fighting feels even more absurd when you consider how the UK drag culture differs from its American counterpart. In the UK, our innovative drag scene celebrates queerness in its original form, meaning difference: queens, particularly in east London, have beards, hairy chests, and are, as Drag Race UK queen Crystal put it, "a little bit more punk, a little bit more gender-f*ck, kind of the alternative style of drag."

In other words: we don't have time for cattiness. If we're competitive, we're competitive in a friendly and intellectual way; more interested in gender politics and equality than landing shallow jibes or achieving shallow aesthetic perfection.

I'm going to surprise you now by revealing that I actually rather enjoyed the season premiere of RuPaul's Drag Race UK. On the whole, I thought it did a good job of taking the show from one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other. RuPaul handled well his blind spots about UK queer culture, admitting that he didn't know who people such as Kim Woodburn were. Where he was unfamiliar, he asked the right questions to educate himself.

Crucially, he was open-minded to our drag culture. Now all that I ask is that the big TV producer bosses that're making editorial decisions about how RuPaul's Drag Race UK will look and feel are open-minded too - and that they stop portraying us as an arguing, fraught and bitchy community. It's honestly the last thing we need.

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Opinion: RuPaul's Drag Race UK must stop embracing bitchy stereotypes

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As excitement mounted in the hours before the premiere of Drag Race UK, contestant Divina De Campo tweeted a plea: "I guess what I'm trying to say is be kind to us all," she urged. "We are all only human." It was a simple request - some might say almost disarmingly simple.

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RuPaul's Drag Race UK review – so smutty even Ru can't keep up - Rebecca Nicholson - 03/10/19

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RuPaul's Drag Race UK review – so smutty even Ru can't keep up - Rebecca Nicholson - 03/10/19

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In this positive review of the UK version of the show, Nicholson comments,  'RuPaul’s Drag Race has become less of a reality show and more of an industry'. This suggests the magnitude of his work and the impact it is making at a rapid rate. It boosts RuPaul's star image as that of power and an icon for the drag community. He is paving the way for the LGBT+ community and everyone else who supports this movement.

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RuPaul's Drag Race has become less of a reality show and more of an industry - and it is expanding at the rate of WeWork. As well as the original US series, there is the spinoff All Stars, in which fan-favourite former competitors get to try again, meaning Drag Race barely takes a break from the air. There is Untucked, the DragCon conventions - a live circuit for old participants. And now there is Drag Race UK (BBC Three), the second in a wave of international editions, after Thailand, to be followed by Australia and Canada. To misquote Dolly Parton: it makes a lot of money to look this cheap.

In many ways, a British Drag Race or something of the sort has been a long time coming. There is a rich history of drag as mainstream entertainment in the UK, particularly in working-class culture, and bawdy humour is integral to our national identity (even Bake Off, the softest of shows, rose to prominence on a wave of double entendres). So it should work. On the other hand, one of the defining characteristics of the original Drag Race is its surprising earnestness, which seems at odds with most UK drag I have seen. British drag is more original, experimental and accepting of quirks. Like many, I was concerned that Drag Race might find those qualities lost in translation.
'I love drag. It's dangerous': Graham Norton and Alan Carr on desire, camp and 'cancel culture'
For the most part, they have pruned and tucked so you can barely see the stitches. Any fears that it might have been polished for a non-British audience are quickly allayed when we meet the first contestant, Baga Chipz, from West Bromwich, who demonstrates that while Britons and Americans may share a common language, they do very different things with it. The words "gobshite", "minge" and "trollop" flutter through the air like confetti. Another contestant, Vinegar Strokes, must gently explain the origins of her name to Ru; she makes her entrance quoting Kat Slater's infamous "I became a total slag" line from EastEnders. The Vivienne does an impression of Kim Woodburn of How Clean Is Your House? fame. I felt a tingling of patriotism. If Number 10 could bottle this, our sorely divided nation might be in with a chance.

The mini challenge introduces the 10 contestants, and compared to the show's glossy sheen across the pond, they are a pleasingly rough-and-ready bunch. They are asked to pose with their own severed head in a photoshoot so budget they make Ru operate the camera. A big difference is that there are no branded prizes, and there is no big prize of $100,000. This is the BBC, after all. There is a promise of the overall winner going to Hollywood to make their own original series, but that sounds like the kind of thing an unscrupulous agent might offer a starlet in the 1930s. Be sure to take a chaperone, is all I would say.

The traditional rivalries are put in place early on - young v old, loud v quiet, traditional v punk - but so far, no one is trotting out the reality TV maxim of: "I'm not here to make friends; I'm here to win." It is all very cordial. Having maintained the Drag Race tradition of baffling mini-challenge winners, the maxi challenge gets right down to it and asks for two catwalk looks: Queen Elizabeth Realness, and Queen of Your Hometown. If anyone has ever wondered how one might demonstrate the spirit of Wiltshire with only homemade outfits and heavy makeup, you are in for a treat. I can't tell you what they wore (the preview came with more spoiler warnings than an episode of Game of Thrones) but it is worth the wait to find out how Leicester might survive its sartorial interpretation.

RuPaul and his longtime BFF Michelle Visage shore up the judging panel, with the help of Alan Carr and Andrew Garfield, who mostly gets into the smutty spirit but occasionally forgets he is on Drag Race and not Inside the Actor's Studio (nerves, he declares, are "a wonderful tailwind"). Birmingham's Sum Ting Wong ("a reclamation of those little micro-aggressive racist digs") and Crystal, the obligatory "edgy" queen from east London, are my early favourites, but only a fool would pick a winner so soon.

For those of us who have stuck with Drag Race for the last decade, this new incarnation could be the shake-up that was needed. One of its recent problems has been how self-referential it has become. With contestants discussing old seasons and dressing up as former contestants, its world was shrinking. This opens it up. Yes, it is less slick, and Britons aren't very good at those reality TV recap interviews to camera. Most of them sound like they are reading pre-prepared answers on Blind Date. But it is more theatrical, and less pageanty, and promises to be a very British Drag Race after all.

* This article was amended on 4 October 2019 to clarify the sequence of international editions of Drag Race - Thailand was first.
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RuPaul's Drag Race UK review - so smutty even Ru can't keep up

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RuPaul's Drag Race has become less of a reality show and more of an industry - and it is expanding at the rate of WeWork. As well as the original US series, there is the spinoff All Stars, in which fan-favourite former competitors get to try again, meaning Drag Race barely takes a break from the air.

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Watching RuPaul taught me that drag isn’t just for queens - Alice O'Keefe - 21/11/19

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Watching RuPaul taught me that drag isn’t just for queens - Alice O'Keefe - 21/11/19

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The review on RuPaul's Drag Race suggests how his is inclusive of everyone, no matter of gender, race or background. O'Keefe suggests RuPaul and his show act together as a powerful brand, encouraging people to be themselves and enjoy drag if they want to. O'Keefe concludes that the show suggests being ourselves should be fun. It promotes him as a kind, loving individual and supports the dominant star image he conveys.

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First, a confession: I have only recently woken up to the joy of drag. I know, I know, more fool me. But as a straight female who struggles to find matching socks to put on in the morning - let alone attach a false eyelash - the wigs, nails and makeup never felt particularly relevant to my life. When I think about femininity at all, it tends to be in terms of the less glamorous stuff. You know: childbirth, the pay gap, workplace discrimination. That kind of thing.
'I love drag. It's dangerous': Graham Norton and Alan Carr on desire, camp and 'cancel culture'
So my passion for the first British series of RuPaul's Drag Race - it's the talent show's grand final tonight - has come as a complete surprise. I never watched the US version, so it's all new to me: the bizarre range of skills required of contestants, from constructing tailored skirts out of rubber gloves to imitating Donald Trump; the extravagantly bitchy behaviour (or "shade" in drag parlance); the sheer quantity and colour of the foundation. Partly, of course, what I love is pure froth - the sequins! The frocks! - but it's deeper than that too. Drag Race has been a reminder of something that almost 10 years of working motherhood had all but battered out of me: being a woman can be fun.

For the contestants on Drag Race, of course, dressing up is a serious business - their skill is to do it with a playful attitude. To say that these queens are imitating women is to misrepresent the scale of their ambition: during the course of the series, we have seen them hit the runway dressed as postage stamps, jockeys, chainsaw-wielding cyberpunks, rainstorms and mutant eyeballs. When it comes to appearances, there is no limit to their creativity and sense of fun. If I could bring even one iota of that joy to the process of getting dressed in the morning, I would consider it a win.

As a common-or-garden female, the task of presenting yourself to the world can feel like a never-ending grind. In her memoir Becoming, Michelle Obama noted the amount of energy and the hours she had to put into her hair, makeup and clothes prior to every public appearance - while Barack could pretty much bung yesterday's suit on and skip out of the door (I paraphrase slightly). To a less extreme degree, it's a gripe that many women will share: why do we have to think so hard about whether this particular top is too low cut for work, or how often we should shell out for a vastly overpriced haircut? If you're a fashionista, you'll enjoy making these choices; if you'd really rather be getting on with writing your novel, or becoming a world-champion tennis player, or inventing the self-cleaning toaster, it is yet another irritating drain on your much-needed energy.

But then, one way or another, we all have to choose our armour. RuPaul is fond of saying: "We are born naked - the rest is drag." Whether you are a dishevelled academic or a slick-bobbed fashion editor, your public face is just one part of you. There will be times when the dishevelled academic yearns for a designer dress; the fearsome fashion editor will occasionally slob out in front of the telly. It's helpful to remember, when you scroll through Twitter or Instagram, that what you are seeing is effectively a parade of people in drag: perfect-mother drag, successful-writer drag, troll drag. Behind their chosen masks, all human beings are infinitely complex; but to survive in this mediated world, we tend to create some kind of legible identity, and perform it.

Last week, as I watched drag queen The Vivienne apply yet another layer of mauve (mauve?!?) foundation, the thought struck me: maybe I too should drag up once in a while. This may not, in my case, involve dressing up as an eyeball or a rainstorm (although you never know). But taking a more playful, experimental attitude towards my public face might be fun and feel more authentic than sticking to the same tired formula day in, day out. I'd always thought of drag as a scene based on adopting a "fake" identity, but watching the series has shown me that when the queens put on their costumes, they are not only hiding themselves but also really showing themselves - in all their ridiculous, beautiful and messy glory.

So perhaps in some sense we all need to know how to get our giant wigs on, don our catsuits, and hit that runway - because after all, being yourself should be fun. As Mama Ru would say, "can I get an Amen up in here?"

* Alice O'Keefe's novel On the Up is published by Coronet
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Watching RuPaul taught me that drag isn't just for queens | Alice O'Keeffe

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First, a confession: I have only recently woken up to the joy of drag. I know, I know, more fool me. But as a straight female who struggles to find matching socks to put on in the morning - let alone attach a false eyelash - the wigs, nails and makeup never felt particularly relevant to my life.

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Elton John, RuPaul - Don't Go Breaking My Heart (2016)

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Elton John, RuPaul - Don't Go Breaking My Heart (2016)

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As a twist on the original video, this collaboration speaks volumes about both of the celebrities characters; Elton John is seen as trendy to collaborate with RuPaul who is the next big thing right now and RuPaul is seen as uber-famous due to his connection to a star as prestigious as Elton John. The collaboration works in favour of both stars and they can use it to their advantage. As they laugh and sing along together, their authenticity and realness come across to viewers, promoting their down to earth images. The celebrities are supporting each other's star images and working together in this significant collaboration.

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Elton John, RuPaul - Don't Go Breaking My Heart (with RuPaul)

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Upon winning the show, contestants will win money for themselves as well as money for a charity of their choice, showing how the show gives back to the community. He also made a chocolate bar for charity in 2014 (see link below). This shows his sincerity as a star and promotes his authentic celebrity image.

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On Monday night, the supermodel of the world herslf, RuPaul, debuted a brand new RuPaul chocolate bar during an interview on The Queen Latifah Show. Plus, she conveniently brought enough of the new bars to share with the entire studio audience... but that's still not the best part! RuPaul's Drag Race royalty, Chad Michaels, Raven and Alaska Thunderfuck, were called onto stage to hand the bars out to the audience.

Pre-orders for the bars, which are made with milk chocolate, peanut butter and sea salt, began April 1st and can be purchased for $6.99. Although that may seem like a high cost for a chocolate bar, RuPaul revealed during the interview that 10% of all of the proceeds will go to benefit the Jeff Griffith Youth Center.

The Jeff Griffith Youth Center is dedicated to helping LGBT homeless youth in the Los Angeles area "make the transition into independent living and to create a comfortable space for in-school, at-home and at-risk youth to socialize with other lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth in an alcohol-free, drug-free, safe, educational and affirming environment." ( source)

Pre-order the RuPaul Bar now and tweet us a picture of it when you get it!
Check out the video from The Queen Latifah Show below and let us know in the comments what you think of this new chocolate bar!
Pictures of RuPaul on The Queen Latifah Show

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RuPaul Debuts New Chocolate Bar (for Charity) on The Queen Latifah Show

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On Monday night, the supermodel of the world herslf, RuPaul, debuted a brand new RuPaul chocolate bar during an interview on The Queen Latifah Show. Plus, she conveniently brought enough of the new bars to share with the entire studio audience... but that's still not the best part!

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Drawn in drag, RuPaul is presented as a fun, bubbly drag queen, saying his iconic phrases such as, 'okurrr' and 'hunny'. Drawn into a Simpsons character on the infamous show boosts his star image and presents him as a rising star.

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RUPAUL ON THE SIMPSONS + GLAMAZON (FT RAJA)

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RuPaul made the Times 100 List in 2017. In her write-up, Naomi Campbell says, 'I am blessed to know Ru. We all are'.

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Photograph by Miles Aldridge for TIME

I first met RuPaul in the '90s, when I was doing a shoot on 14th Street in New York City. As soon as I saw him, I wanted to know where he was going, because that was where I wanted to be.

Ru was different. Not just because he had perfect, precise clothes and makeup, or because he was the only man I knew who could look that good in a wig and heels. There were no rough edges to be found. But as I got to know him better, I got to experience firsthand his wit and his intelligence-he's like an encyclopedia. And his beauty is far beyond skin-deep.

TIME 100

Now, through RuPaul's Drag Race, which recently premiered on VH1 after eight seasons on Logo, millions more people are getting to know Ru like I do. It's incredible what he's done for the drag queens who compete on that show-bringing them out, introducing them to a mainstream audience and letting them be proud of who they are and what they want to be.

I am blessed to know Ru. We all are.
Campbell is an actor and a model

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RuPaul: The World's 100 Most Influential People

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I first met RuPaul in the '90s, when I was doing a shoot on 14th Street in New York City. As soon as I saw him, I wanted to know where he was going, because that was where I wanted to be. Ru was different.

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Cameo appearance in Taylor Swift's music video, 'You Need to Calm Down' (2019)

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Cameo appearance in Taylor Swift's music video, 'You Need to Calm Down' (2019)

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At 02:27 - 02:38.
In a scene about a pop queen pageant, RuPaul presents the crown as Swift sings, 'we all got crowns'. This is the message RuPaul embodies so the cameo promotes his community ethic too.