The glitzy reality TV contest is one of the defining shows of our age. But, as a UK version launches, what has its impact been on the artform of drag as a whole, asks Hugh Montgomery.
Drag: The Complete Story by Simon Doonan and Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen by Amrou Al-Kadhi are available now. Contemporary Drag Practices & Performers and Drag Histories, Herstories & Hairstories, both co-edited by Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier, will be published in 2020.
There’s a moment in Paris is Burning, the seminal documentary about New York’s drag-ball scene of the 1980s, in which the late, legendary drag queen Dorian Corey refers, with a faintly withering tone, to the fact that the “children” are now taking their style cues not from old-school film icons like Marlene Dietrich and Betty Grable but from modern-day TV characters like Dynasty divas Alexis Colby and Krystle Carrington (played by Joan Collins and Linda Evans).
However, one wonders what she would have made of today’s era, where drag queens are no longer merely aping small-screen stars – they are the small-screen stars. And that’s all thanks to one pop-cultural phenomenon.
Back in 2009, TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race, in which iconic 1990s queen RuPaul searched for “America’s Next Drag Superstar”, began on the small, LGBTQ+-aimed cable channel Logo. Ten years on, and it has grown to become one of the defining series of our age, helping to make drag a mainstream artform like never before. In the US, there have been 11 regular series, as well as four All Stars series, which now fill the gaps between the regular seasons, and feature the return of popular ex-contestants for another shot at a title.
Last month, RuPaul picked up his fourth Emmy for outstanding host, and the show also won Best Reality/Competition Program, bringing its Emmy total to 13 awards and 29 nominations. The show now airs on the bigger VH1 channel in the US, while it has gained a large global following on Netflix, anecdotally breaking out far beyond LGBTQ+ viewers to be watched by all ages and sexualities. Now, RuPaul is making the franchise truly international by rolling out a series of spin-offs – there have been two series of Drag Race Thailand, while this week comes the launch of Drag Race UK; Drag Race Canada and Australia are set to follow.
An explosive new age
But, of course, there is far more to the drag scene than a television show. In his new book Drag: The Complete Story, New York-based fashion writer Simon Doonan offers both a vibrant history of drag – from Ancient Egypt onwards – and a celebration of what he sees as its reinvigoration over the past decade.
He ascribes its “explosive” new energy in part to the ‘RuPaul effect’, but also to other factors. Read more via BBC