I’m back and ready again to bring you all my opinions on entertainment! Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best WOMAN win! Yes, I’m revving up my bitch critic 9 billion horsepower engine by kicking off the summer with a review of Ru Paul’s Drag Race.
I hadn’t come across Ru Paul until relatively recently, when a friend tweeted in ecstasy that she had discovered his show on Netflix. Intrigued, I decided to investigate. The ‘Drag Race’ part, contrary to popular ignorant opinion, actually refers to ‘drag’ in the sense of drag queens. The ‘Race’ is to become ‘America’s next drag superstar’ by being the last (wo)man standing after an X-Factor style elimination process throughout the series. I’ve recently finished watching season 2 of the most hilarious, bitchy, fabulous show on Earth.
Each episode of the show follows the style of ‘America’s Next Top Model’, in which the queens have several challenges to overcome: designing outfits, dancing, filming and photo shooting – in essence, everything it takes to be as queenly as Ru Paul him/herself. If you are in the bottom two after being judged by Queen Ru and his fierce companions, you must ‘lip sync…. for you LIFE.’ All the contestants are eccentric and full of attitude, making the series exciting and funny, and even, at times, moving. Their backgrounds are very interesting – the winner of season 2, for example, had a 3 year old son, and until he won the show was sleeping on the sofa of his ‘drag mother’ (a sort of mentor character in the drag world).
Ru Paul’s Drag Race is easily the most quotable thing since Mean Girls. The quips, comments and retorts that Ru Paul and the queens come out with are insurmountable. Ru’s catchphrase is “good luck, and don’t fuck it up.” Another favourite quote from the series is “when my mommy sent me to a military school she told me I’d grow up to be her little soldier. But of course, she got a drag queen.” If you enjoy laughing, you really have to watch this show.
