Last Saturday I was feeling sick, and while my body was busy purging I wanted to find a show I could binge on. I settled on Drag Race because ... okay, why not? I like drag and drag queens, I have nothing against RuPaul, and I needed to watch something.
I started at episode one of season one, and at first I just enjoyed it.
The show is like a criss-cross of several shows, but mostly it reminded me of Top Model. A less bitchy, more self-sufficient Top Model with a nicer, less self-absorbed host. Criticisms of Tyra aside, the contestants were nicer to each other, there was no real focus on cattiness or rivalries, and the "ladies" could actually do makeup and walk in heels! Amazing!
With each episode I never saw RuPaul get really full of himself or bitchy or anything but kind of pleasant and nice and encouraging. Which is cool. Good on you, RuPaul! But the judging got ... weird. Very, "I wonder why he made that decision." The drag queens I really enjoyed and who delivered real, believable performances went home while the one with the worst lip-synching skills I've ever seen? Won. Huh. (In my heart, Ongina won. Sorry, other person whose name I don't even remember. Even the other two in the final three were better.)
Well, that could be an aberration, right? Sometimes these shows pick bad winners. Make Me a Supermodel picked the absolute wrong-last-person-you-would-expect winner, after all. (I watched that because it was on the same Youtube channel as my usual reality offerings and I needed shit to watch.) Weird people win on shows like Survivor and Amazing Race all the time. Lackluster, milquetoast people who did nothing notable. But on a show where you're losing because of one person's unilateral decision based on absolutely nothing, it means something more. You expect someone lame to win Survivor because all the strong or smart people get voted out as a part of "strategy." With a show like, say, Top Model, you want the best overall person to win.
That didn't happen on the first season of Drag Race. Nothing against the person (all I remember is that he was from Cameroon. I think his drag name was Bebe Something? See, that's how much of an impression he made on me. And he sucked at lip-synching. <--All I remember.) RuPaul chose the wrong person. Period.
And then it happened again. I watched Tyra (at least I remembered the name) get to the end and take the title after just being pretty and delivering some terrible performances. He wasn't great at what he did, and yet ... he won over more deserving people. Again. It happened again.
The second season was also where I saw everyone start to get ... catty. The negativity I hadn't really seen in the first season popped up, and while RuPaul briefly addressed it, it didn't end up having any effect on anything. The "lip synch for your life" portion got more desperate than it had in Season 1, and now the queens were fighting--sometimes literally--to be seen. The cordial, queenly behavior was gone and suddenly it was like the cast had been replaced by sheltered 18-year-olds.
Another weird trend I saw in those first two seasons was a dearth of plus-sized queens, and the plussie going home at the beginning of the season. It was just like Top Model! Now that I'm on the third season, I do see the larger ladies being better represented, which is nice. Cattiness and lip-synch-fights are still on the rise compared to Season 1, but it feels a little better compared to Season 2. There's no one quite as deluded and irritating as Tyra was.
Today is an artificial day off, since there's tons and tons and tons of snow. I think tomorrow might be similar. So we'll see what happens as I get into the future seasons. Right now I have a couple of favorites, as I usually do, but in the end we'll see who ends up taking the title.
(Honestly, Ongina should just win every season. I loved him. Her. Shit, I never know which pronoun to use. It's like talking about Mana. Or talking about me dressed up as Mana.)
Also, *I* want a lifetime supply of professional makeup. Shit. I was overjoyed with my little Sephora gift sets.
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