Television That I Can Stand: RuPaul’s Drag Race

STAHT YER ENGINES! (electronic voice) RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE! MAY THE BEST NEUROTIC PSYCHOTIC CROSS DRESSER WIN! My seasonal effective disorder has been temporarily lifted due to a certain show on LOGO that is lifting me higher, higher than I’ve ever been lifted before. It’s RuPaul’s Drag Race, and I am head over heels in love. If I had a choice between an oiled Scott Caan go-go dancing for me and a new episode of Drag Race, I might actually pause to consider. No other show has touched me (on my moobs) like this one. It simultaneously gives us glimpses into the artistry and witchcraft of drag, while demonstrating that you have to be a crazy ass bitch to want to make a living out of doing it. And allow me to underline bitch. Out of this glorious grouping, there’s really only a few who I would trust to not plant a shank in my back and make off with my man. And Jessica Wild is only getting a pass from me because she doesn’t know what that means…”man,” “shank,” or “pass.” Bitch doesn’t speak the anglais. We’re only three episodes in, but those episodes have been fraught with wit, danger, peril, and this piece of underwear called a gaff which basically does your Buffalo Bill floating around his basement with a shiny mangina for you.

Why did I not start watching this gloriousness until this season? Well, because I have become an HD snob and no one wants to see a drag queen when she’s not in high definition. For real, if it’s not on the Comcast 800s, it pains me to watch. I am a twat. Because of this snobbery, I missed a large man from Cameroooonnn! (!!) in a variety of Tina Turner wigs sweep it last year. Someone filled me in. CAMEROOOONNN!! But this season I got smart (if you watch it all beaned out on pills, it’s just like HD!), and I am so along for this ride. Let’s meet our judges and contestants. And pay tribute to the fallen. Sashay chante this way.

RuPaul – our gorgeous, gracious, glamourous hostess. I still think she needs to eat something and stop filling in her pockmarks with spackle, but who else is this wise, this country queen-esque? Ru’s determination to bring drag to the masses, coupled with her wisdom and dirty wit makes her my favorite reality host ever. And she’s more than willing to look freakish (well, more freakish) for her cract. For real, when she’s got a moustache and a turtleneck on as she narrates Race‘s sister show Untucked, it’s almost subversive. She’s a trendsetter! A trendsetter who insists that the camera crew spray that fake snow on the lens whenever it’s pointed at her! She’s no fool, this world is beauty before age! “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love someone else? Can I get an amen?!?” is my new favorite thing to say to strangers on the T. Unfortunately, no one amens, everyone stares down at their Kindles, and I once had someone hand me a voucher for a free coffee at Dunkie’s.

Santino – this gawky ho is just lucky he managed to snag his ass another gig. The enfant terrible (he wished) of Project Runway for one season (though his Tim Gunn impersonation was on point), now he sits behind the judges’ panel and actually critiques drag queens on fashion. Drag queen fashion is supposed to be terrible, right? The only reason I can think of for him being there is that he got up in RuPaul’s panty grill once in awhile. I will say, I like his taste in Middle Eastern women’s wear.  (*coyote yip*)

There’s some other broad named Merle, and she’s kinda just there. I don’t know who is or what she does. I think Ru met her on the bus.

Raven – This one here. She’s just too good to be true. In her own absent eyebrows mind. Man, is she into herself. Which is why I keep delighting over her constant presence in the bottom two. The arrogant slut keeps having to LIPSYNCH FOR HER LIFE and it’s exactly what she needs to take her down a peg or 18. She also strikes me as utterly humorless.  All of her photos are sour in the face. You would think all drag queens could laugh at themselves every once in awhile, but this one thinks she’s Madonna or some shit. Her drag authority-like stance (no one likes a know-it-all, Rave) and not knowing how to make having to act as a chicken funny like it’s beneath her makes me want her to sashay away. Far away. Like Venus. Unfortunately, she’ll probably end up in the final three or something. I am such a bad judge of these things.

Morgan- this little terror fairy makes me uneasy. She’s very good at what she does, but her clowny face when she’s in drag and murder eyes…brrrr. She looks like the Joker’s little sister. Her odd walk during the Gone with the Windows challenge…wherein she kind of grinned and walked perkily like a 50s housewife going about the market looking for canteloupes while wagging her hips…it’s stuck with me.  Though it’s good to know she will end drama and not start it. Honey. She doesn’t care if you’re from Chicago. Fix your mug. Fix your hair. That fight with Mystique Summers Madison was AWESOME. (fastforward to 6:15)

more about “Untucked! — Episode 1 — G…“, posted with vodpod

Jessica Wild – Can’t speak English. She seems like a happy girl, though. Positivity is always good.

Jujubee – I’m down with her. Not because she’s from Boston (although that’s part of it…”wicked spahkly!”)…but because she’s one of the few whores who seems to be a fairly common-sense individual with a kindness streak. The competition is cutthroat but she seems like the kind of gal who would call 911 if she saw you bleeding on the sidewalk. Most of these women who be the one who stabbed you! Jujubee hosts a viewing night of the show here in town, so I might need to go!

Tyra Sanchez – Is Rihanna. A seriously stunning Rihanna who would have trounced Chris Brown with her tall self. As Ru said., “this Sanchez isn’t dirty.” (*guffaw*) She has this weird, whiny, slow personality when she’s not lit up on the runway, like your pet cat who constantly resists your commands and merely gives you a “fuck you” look as she goes off to sun her fat ass near the window. My only question for her is…who in the fuck let you shoot off in em’ to make a kid? I mean, she knew, right? “My child’s father is gay.” Like before she laid back, she was fully aware of the situation, right? I know a few gay guys with kids, and some of em…I’m like “were you hiding your gayness down at the School for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind? Cuz, there’s some coma victims out there who know you like dick.” At least that baby boy will be glittery.

Pandora Boxx – She gets the award for best name. She also seems like the kind of ho who is a little out of her league with the extreme cuntiness around her. Like Pandora out of drag seems like your best gay who you work at the bookstore with, and doesn’t usually go around threatening people with her fat fist and screaming where she’s from. She definitely has the comedienne gene, though…her schtick during that horrifying Crisco skit commercial killed. Looking like Phyllis Diller‘s aborted fetus helps, too. I mean in drag, in drag!

That very very ladylike one whose name escapes me but has done drag since she was birthed – is a transsexual. The other drag queens know it. I know it. You know it. Get the chop and move on, pretty lady.

Sonique – gives me a boner. I don’t know what it is. I think she might actually be a Victor/Victoria sitch where she is a woman dressing up as a guy dressing up..you know what I mean (god, Alex Karras was hot in that movie). Her burlesque was HAWT. And her country look, she’s more of a woman than that whole Taylor Swift/Carrie Underwood/insert halfwit pop country dreg from American Idol here grouping put together. Sonique is on my switch list. Wait, she’s a guy so she’s just on my regular list? But no, out of drag she looks like backwoods meth woman. I’m so confused. I mean, I know I’m not straight. I wanted to be Lynda Carter when I was 8.

Sahara Davenport – is a dancer. You probably knew that. I think she misses Shangela. She always strikes me as the head of the prom committee and people just aren’t listening to her, you guys! Which is pretty gifted for a biological male.

And the Fallen….

Nicole Paige Brown (Simpson?) – she also struck me as a little transsexual, just very very involved in her womanness. I could see her being your aunt who just divorced the produce section manager and is dying to have a sex toy party with her friends every weekend. She can’t lipsynch or dance to save her life or a busfull of schoolchildren’s, so I assume she just…tells jokes? Or makes the windows down at the gay bar shatter with that laugh,. that godawful laugh?

Shangela – “I’ve only been doing drag for five months, ya’ll.”  Which is why you and your corn dress are no longer with us.

Mystique Summers Madison – aka Precious. So full of anger, so full of rage. I found her and her thickness to be the most endearing. Why? Well, once you get past all of that “I AM FROM CHICAGO, BITCH!” negativity and various rolls, you realize she is just a sad little (well, not little) gay boy inside. Remember when she told us she does drag because no one ever in her life called her cute when she wasn’t dressed as a ladyperson? A “mall country” ladyperson. What the fuck is “mall country?” She’s off because she was so angry she was phoning it in. But someone should tell her that there is someone out there for everyone. Someone out there wants a big ladylooking brotha who can do a split. Hopefully for her sake, she can do it on someone’s crotch.

Now, who do I think is going to take this? My money’s on Morgan, actually. She seems to be a multifaceted type of drag jewel. She will get strong competition from Tyra, though. I see those two femmes going the distance. Maybe with that stank Raven as the third for drama. What do you think? Let me know in the comments section!

p.s. If anyone knows Sonique, tell her I said “heeeyyy.” But not “heeeeyyy” if she’s out of drag. I know, I’m awful.