RuPaul's Drag Race: when radical queer goes mainstream

RuPaul's Drag Race: WhenRadical Queer Goes

Mainstream

Laura DunnYear Four Joint HonoursEnglish and American

Studies

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Mike Powell, Abigail Rowse, Nish Virani,Josh Jackman, Carole Dunn, Tony Dunn, David Palmer at UNC and my supervisor Susan Billingham.

Abstract

The success of RuPaul's Drag Race demonstrates the tension betweenassimilatory and radical politics in the modern American LGBT movement. By contextualising the show in regards to corporate interest in the gay market, I question how far the commercial marketplace can be considered a beneficial tool for oppressed minorities. Lisa Duggan's idea of homonormativity is key in discussing how commercial influence in the entertainment industry affects LGBT representation. I then examine how the show can be understood in relation to the reality television genre and intersectional identity politics, namely how it overturns established patterns of LGBT representation in the media. From this, I propose that Drag Race complicates the dichotomy of radical and assimilationist politics, providing a

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possible template for an increasingly successful American LGBTmovement.

Word Count: 7890

Contents

Introduction 5

Chapter One: Assimilation 10

4

Chapter Two: Subversion 20

Conclusion 30

Bibliography 33

"If I can't make fun of this stupid-ass bullshit world, I don't want to be here,

honestly...That's not just a strength but a survival technique."1

- RuPaul

1 Kyle Buchanan, 'RuPaul on Drag Race, Hannah Montana, and 'Those Bitches' Who Stole Annette Bening's Oscar', Vulture, 4 April 2011. http://www.vulture.com/2011/04/rupaul_on_drag_race_hannah_mon.html. Accessed 2 April 2013.

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There's this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve

always thought...is that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny

them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a

monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something

wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t

exist?

And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make

a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might

seem themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it."2

- Junot Diaz

"what factors caused the media's depictions of gay men to be transformed so rapidly

in a mere fifty years? In a word: money."3

- Rodger Streitmatter

Introduction

2 Carrie Stetler, 'Junot Diaz: Man in the Mirror', NJ.com, 26 October 2009.http://www.nj.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2009/10/junot_diaz_man_in_the_mirror.html. Accessed 8 April 2013.3 Rodger Streitmatter, From Perverts To Fab Five: The Media's Changing Depiction of Gay Menand Lesbians (London: Routledge, 2008), pg. 183.

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A reality show broadcast on U.S. cable channel Logo, RuPaul's

Drag Race aims to find "the next drag superstar".4 One of Logo's

biggest hits, Drag Race has consistently been the network's most

watched and most streamed show, and has produced the spin-offs

Drag U and Drag Race Allstars. 5 Premiering in 2009, the show is

currently in its fifth season and has been renewed for a

sixth, to be broadcast in 2014. As the fifth season is mid-

broadcast at the time of writing, this dissertation will cover

the first four seasons only. Contestants are drag queens – men

performing a female gender role for entertainment purposes –

and while sexuality is not regulated, all contestants to date

have been gay men. In this dissertation, I will follow Drag

Race's example, and refer to contestants with female pronouns

throughout. The show is hosted by polymathic drag queen

RuPaul, who takes a double role in the show: guiding the

contestants while in male drag6, then appearing in female drag

4 RuPaul's Drag Race (Hollywood: World of Wonder, 2009- present) Television. Further references to RuPaul's Drag Race will be made clear in text.5 Logo press release , 'Logo's season finale of RuPaul's Drag Race caps offhighest-rated and most-streamed season ever', 27 April 2011, http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/04/27/logo%E2%80%99s-season-finale-of-%E2%80%9Crupaul%E2%80%99s-drag-race%E2%80%9D-caps-off-highest-rated-and-most-streamed-season-ever/90786/. Accessed 29 March 2013.6 Nicholas deVilliers' term in 'RuPaul's Drag Race as Meta Reality Television', Jump Cut, no. 54 (Fall 2012).

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to oversee eliminations. "The poster girl for drag queens"7,

RuPaul first rose to fame in the 1990s as a singer, television

host, model, actor and the country's premier drag queen, and

through Drag Race has been credited with "bringing drag back

into our dialogue".8

By eliminating a contestant each week through various

challenges, the original cast is cut down to the final winner.

These challenges have included performing a comedy routine,

celebrity impersonation and taking part in a faux-Presidential

debate. The other factor in the weekly elimination is the

runway section that closes each show, in which queens walk in

outfits of their own creation. The judging panel critique the

contestants before RuPaul names the contestants in the bottom

two. These queens must "lip-sync for [their] lives" to keep

their place in the competition. On the basis of this

performance, RuPaul alone decides who should "chantay, you

stay" and who should "sashay away".

7 Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, 'RuPaul Runs the World', Spin, 1 April 2013, http://www.spin.com/articles/rupaul-runs-the-world-drag-race-supermodel?page=1. Accessed 15 April 2013.8 Season Three winner Raja quoted in Louis Virtel, 'RuPaul's Drag Race

Winner Raja On The "All Stars" Cast List And Why the 2000s Weren't A Great Time For Sissies', AfterElton, 22 August 2012, http://www.afterelton.com/people/2012/08/raja-interview-rupaul-drag-race?page=0%2C0. Accessed 15 April 2013.

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In this dissertation I will be using 'LGBT' to refer to

the sex and gender minority community as a whole (lesbian, gay

, bisexual, trans, and other identities), and 'queer' to refer

to the more radical politics of the movement. 'Queer' can

refer to identities and politics that reject the

heteronormative and problematise the essentialist categories

of sex and gender, and it is in this radical sense that I use

it here. While much academic research has gone into LGBT

representation in American film and television, practically

nothing has been written on Drag Race. Nicholas de Villiers'

2012 paper 'RuPaul's Drag Race as Meta Reality Television' is

the one exception, detailing the show's participation in the

reality genre. This paucity is maybe to be expected with such

a young show, however Drag Race's significance in the field of

LGBT media representation is such that I believe this dearth

of research will not last for long. In this dissertation I

will not be focusing on the show's treatment of gender – while

this is a topic that would prove fruitful for further

research, the transgressive and performative aspects of drag

have been admirably discussed in works such as Esther Newton's

Mother Camp and Judith Butler's Gender Trouble. Instead I will be

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investigating how far Drag Race can be considered radically

queer, and what this can mean within commercial television. In

order to do this I will be placing it in the context of

radical politics and what Alex Ross has described as the "cult

of marriage and the military"9; the assimilatory side of the

modern American gay rights movement.

To understand the conflict between radicalism and

conservatism in the gay rights movement (or indeed, any civil

rights efforts), it is necessary to first discuss privilege.

The varying degrees of privilege that individuals and groups

hold in society on account of their identities is a

cornerstone of social justice theories, and is a framework for

demonstrating the intersectional nature of oppression.10

Heterosexual privilege, for example, may include the ability

to get married, or having people correctly assume the gender

of a partner. In a heteronormative society like the United

States, these privileges are so entrenched that they are

indeed the norm, and are rarely questioned or examined.

However, privilege works within queer communities as well.

9 Alex Ross, 'Love on the March', The New Yorker, 12 November 2012. 10 Popularised in Peggy McIntosh, 'White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack', Independent School (winter 1990), pp. 56-63, which discusses heterosexual as well as white privilege.

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Factors like gender, race and class all affect how individuals

are oppressed in society: so a wealthy white gay man will have

a different life experience to a disabled black lesbian,

despite their shared queerness.

Prioritising intersectionality – understanding

oppression as being linked in this way – is a feature of the

radical side of the gay rights movement, who promote "mak[ing]

connections between marginalised groups and struggl[ing]

together across identity lines".11 In contrast, more

assimilatory groups typically take a narrower focus on gay

issues, and so work less on intersections with class, gender

or race. A second difference between the two politics is their

attitude to existing societal institutions. A radical view

looks disapprovingly upon participation in institutions such

as marriage and the military, stating that "the radical

potential of queer identity lies in remaining outside – in

challenging and seeking to dismantle the sickening culture

that surrounds us".12 Conversely, assimilationists see value in

11 Josina Manu Maltzman, 'Revolting', in Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (ed.), That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Berkeley: Soft Skull Press) 2008, pg. 150.12 Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, 'There's more to life than platinum: challenging the tyranny of sweatshop-produced rainbow flags and participatory patriarchy' in Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (ed.), That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, pg 6.

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achieving equal treatment from these restrictive institutions,

and in opening them up to include queer people. This viewpoint

has proved to be powerful: the Human Rights Campaign, the

United States' largest LGBT rights advocacy group, raised $20

million in the 2012 election to secure victories on marriage

equality ballots and the re-election of President Obama.13 The

rhetoric used to justify this inclusion often centres on an

assertion of similarity: lawyer Roberta Kaplan, arguing at the

Supreme Court against California's Proposition 8 (which

eliminated same-sex couples' right to marry) pointed to "a

moral understanding...that gay people are no different, and

gay married couple's relationships are not significantly

different from the relationships of straight married people".14

This emphasis on LGBT people's similarity as a tactic in

activism has led to accusations of excessive conformity to a

heterosexist society that "negat[es] any claims [queer people]

13 Human Rights Campaign, 'HRC 2012: Unprecedented Mobilization for Equality', 2012. http://www.hrc.org/files/assets/resources/HRC2012UnprecedentedMobilizationforEquality_2012.pdf. Accessed 29 March 2013.14 Roberta Kaplan quoted in Anon, 'Gay Marriage at the Supreme Court: transcripts, audio and analysis', Guardian Online, 26 March 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/mar/26/supreme-court-arguments-prop-8-gay-marriage?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487#t8. Accessed 26 March 2013.

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might have to a distinctive culture"15 and prizes assimilation

over diversity.

Recent flashpoints between radical and conservative

thought in gay advocacy have been the repeal of the Don't Ask

Don't Tell policy banning gays from serving in the U.S.

military, and the ongoing attempts to legalise same-sex

marriage in the U.S.. While both these causes may seem to be

gains for the queer community, radicalists see them as

benefiting those who face oppression only for being gay, and

doing nothing to change the underlying power structures which

favour some identities above others. The Gay Liberation Front

asserted "we will not be gay bourgeoisie, searching for the

sterile American dream"16 and a challenging of the most

fundamental of societal structures – capitalism, the family,

marriage – is at the heart of radical activism.

The tension between conservatism and radicalism in the

gay rights movement is long-standing, and bears particular

relevance for the trans and drag communities, who have

frequently been elided from the acceptable public face of gay

15 Cathy Cohen, 'What Is This Movement Doing To My Politics?', Social Text, No. 61, Out Front: Lesbians, Gays, and the Struggle for Workplace Rights (Winter, 1999), pg. 116.16 Gay Liberation Front, Come Out! (vol 1, no 1) 1969, pg. 1.

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rights. The much-vaunted "origin myth of queer visibility"17 is

the 1969 Stonewall riots, in which patrons of a New York gay

bar fought back violently against a police raid, sparking the

formation of several activist groups and giving unprecedented

visibility to the marginalised LGBT community. This event is

often reported as involving only gay men, when in actuality

drag queens and transgendered people took leading roles in

challenging the police.18 Following the riots, the activism of

drag queens Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera was minimised

by mainstream gay advocacy groups uncomfortable with their

radicalism.19 This recalls the efforts of homophile groups

active during the 1950s - such as the Mattachine Society and

Daughters of Bilitis - which aimed to "provide a dignified

standard upon which the rest of society may base a more

intelligent and accurate picture of the nature of

homosexuality"20 by encouraging assimilation. Their focus on

respectability meant the organisations avoided association

17 Melanie E. S. Kohnen, 'Screening the Closet: The Discourse of Visibility, Sexuality, and Queer Representation in American Film and Television, 1969-Present', Brown University, Ph.D., 2010. pg 37.18 Sylvia Rivera, 'Sylvia Rivera's Talk at LGMNY, June 2001, Lesbian and GayCommunity Services Center, New York City', CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies 19.1 (Spring 2007), pg. 118.19 Michael Bronski, 'Sylvia Rivera: 1951-2002', Z Magazine (April 2002).20 Mattachine Society, 'Statement of Purpose' (1951) in Mark Blasius and Shane Phelan (ed.), We Are Everywhere: a Historical Sourcebook of Gay and Lesbian Politics, (New York: Routledge, 1997), pg. 283.

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with gender non-conforming people: as Rivera put it, "gay

liberation but transgender nothing!".21 This is an exclusion

that has continued to this day, as transgender activism is not

given the same support or attention as the more assimilatory

mainstream gay rights movement. Drag Race does not discuss

transgender issues, and so I will not be examining them in

this dissertation. However the historical marginalisation of

gender non-conformers – both drag queens and transgendered

people – within the LGBT movement makes the success of RuPaul's

Drag Race hugely significant.

While radical and assimilationist politics may appear

to be opposed, I argue that the show indicates a troubling of

this dichotomy. The seeming opposition of the pop culture

predecessors it situates itself in relation to - Paris Is Burning

and America's Next Top Model - demonstrates what the show attempts

to combine: underground and mainstream cultures, radical and

conservative, subversive and commercial. I will show that Drag

Race encapsulates the tension between assimilation and

radicalism in the modern American gay rights movement.

21 Sylvia Rivera, 'Sylvia Rivera's Talk at LGMNY, June 2001, Lesbian and GayCommunity Services Center, New York City', pg. 120.

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Chapter One

In this chapter I will consider how RuPaul's Drag Race can be read

in the context of assimilationist politics. I will be

considering the structures of television and advertising as

two key conduits of mainstream interests, and how they work

together in the commercial arena. In addition, this chapter

will discuss the importance of the marketplace for minority

rights, and finally, the extent to which Drag Race upholds

homonormativity.

The television and advertising industries' relationship

to queer people followed similar trajectories during the

1990s. The decade brought increased visibility in both

mediums, as sexual minorities became less taboo in mainstream

culture. Television successes like Friends and Will and Grace

featured gay characters and storylines, while Ellen deGeneres'

coming out in 1997 preceded her character's announcement on

her eponymous sitcom. Similarly, advertisers' interest grew,

as it became clear that the gay market was an untapped and

potentially very profitable resource, leading to a 1994 Ikea

advert that featured a male couple shopping for furniture

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hailed by contemporaries as "groundbreaking"22. The success of

the gay market even gave rise to so-called pink dollar

companies that marketed themselves to LGB people, such as

Absolut and L.A. Eyeworks, both of which supply prizes for Drag

Race. This targeting was "highly unusual three decades ago,

when almost all mainstay brands shied from the market for fear

of alienating the larger, mainstream market"23, and their

history is something explicitly referenced on the show by

Absolut spokesman Jeffrey Moran. He mentions that through

their advertising and sponsorship, his company "has been

supporting the lesbian and gay community for thirty plus

years" – implying that corporate recognition is a meaningful

step in the struggle for equal rights.

However corporate recognition of minorities is limited,

dependent, and a precursor to being co-opted into the dominant

culture. Marketers' depictions of queerness are dependent on

gay people not being overly different, and "encourag[e]

identity difference only to the extent that it serves as a

basis for niche marketing".24 Indeed a move away from such 22 Bruce Horovitz, 'TV Commercial Featuring Gay Couple Creates Madison Avenue Uproar', LA Times, 5 April 1994.23 Stuart Elliott, 'Absolut Heralds Its 30 Years of Marketing to Gay Consumers', New York Times, 26 October 2011.24 Alexandra Chasin, Selling Out: The Gay and Lesbian Movement Goes to Market (New York:Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) pg. 5.

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market segmentation can be seen in the case of cable channel

Logo. In 2012, Logo announced they would be stepping back from

the LGBT-specific programming that had defined their six years

on air because of "a seismic shift in culture".25 Executive

Vice President Lisa Sherman said that "many [gays and

lesbians] are living fully integrated, mainstream lives"26,

pointing to recent victories like the repeal of the U.S.

military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. Significantly, she

also cites the success of the show Modern Family, which features

gay characters, as a factor in LGBT people's increasing

acceptability in American society. Logo's only current shows

to survive the shift in direction are Drag Race and its

spinoffs, which bring in the channel's highest ratings.27

In this statement, Logo posit that gay people are fully

assimilated in straight society, and have no further need of

queer-oriented programming. In this way they use Lisa Peñaloza

and Mary Gilly's idea of the "marketplace operat[ing] as an 25 Logo press release, 'Logo Amplifies Culture Shift With Expanded Programming', 21 February 2012, http://www.afterelton.com/content/2012/02/logo-programming-shift-and-future-afterelton. Accessed 13 March 2013.26 ibid.27 Logo press release, 'Logo's season debut of RuPaul's Drag Race on Monday night scores as the highest-rated premiere in network history', 1 February 2012, http://www.logopressroom.com/press-release/logo%E2%80%99s-season-debut-of-%E2%80%9Crupaul%E2%80%99s-drag-race%E2%80%9D-on-monday-night-scores-as-the-highest-rated-premiere-in-network-history/. Accessed 13 March2013.

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effective cultural change agent"28 – the political and

televisual landscape has altered to accommodate gay people,

thus specifically gay programming is outdated at best,

divisive at worst. However I assert that the true significance

of Sherman's statement is that gay individuals, or more

precisely what is considered an acceptable presentation of

gayness, have also been changed by recent developments in

American politics and entertainment. As Ron Becker describes,

"in a mutually reinforcing cycle, advertiser interest in gay

consumers in turn moved gays and lesbians even closer to the

mainstream"29: marginalising further those who went

unrepresented in the advertising. As a result, a certain type

of gay person has become visible in the media; upwardly mobile

family-bonded couples like Modern Family's Cam and Mitch, or

servicemen and women whose involvement in the military puts

their patriotism beyond doubt. Despite their non-normative

sexuality, "if particular gays and lesbians can still fit the

remaining requirements that are tied to the heteronormative,

such as a specific racial and class hierarchy or a specific

28 Lisa Peñaloza and Mary C. Gilly, 'Marketer Acculturation: The Changer and the Changed', Journal of Marketing , Vol. 63, No. 3 (July, 1999), pg. 102.29 Ron Becker, Gay TV and Straight America (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2006), pg. 12.

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model of the family and of long-term partnerships"30 - in other

words, if they are not too different, they could be an

acceptably unthreatening face of queerness. This is what Lisa

Duggan calls "the new homonormativity"31 - in which queer

people's assimilation into straight society is prized above

breaking down heterosexist power structures. In order to

understand the tension between radicalism and conservatism in

Drag Race, I will use Duggan's idea to examine the show.

Duggan postulates that the assimilationist movement in

its pursuit of homonormativity "does not contest dominant

heteronormative assumptions and institutions but upholds and

sustains them"32, and indeed Drag Race promotes middle-class

conservative values. In one episode, contestants are asked to

record a message of support to be sent out to troops serving

in Afghanistan, taking the opportunity to assert their

admiration of the soldiers (with Puerto Rican queen Alexis

Mateo emotionally expressing her love of America). Their

30 Melanie E. S. Kohnen, 'Screening the Closet: The Discourse of Visibility,Sexuality, and Queer Representation in American Film and Television, 1969-Present' (Brown University, Ph.D., 2010), pg. 6531

Lisa Duggan, 'The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism' in Russ Castronovo and Dana D. Nelson(eds.), Materializing Democracy: Toward a Revitalized Cultural Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), pg. 65.32 ibid.

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unqualified patriotism emphasises their participation in

American values, while discussion of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell

policy that was still in effect at the time is notably absent.

Such patriotic homonormativity allows the idea of the nation

to supersede both sexual and racial minority status,

"allow[ing] even those who nominally do not fit the demands of

heteronormativity and whiteness to be included".33 Melanie

Kohnen sees the new importance of patriotism in American

thought as a result of post 9/11 concerns, stating that while

heteronormativity remains significant, "other concerns -

particularly surrounding race and religion— have become so

pressing that the demand to be heterosexual can be momentarily

suspended in some cases".34 I argue that Drag Race thus engages

with a patriotic agenda to assert its contestants' inclusion

in the nation - presenting them foremost as American citizens.

Another episode sees contestants creating a wedding

photograph with themselves as both bride and groom. This

sparks a discussion of their desire to marry their male

partners, with contestant Morgan stating "it's our right to be

33 Melanie E. S. Kohnen, 'Screening the Closet: The Discourse of Visibility, Sexuality, and Queer Representation in American Film and Television, 1969-Present', pg. 151.34 ibid. pg. 152.

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equal. It's not a luxury to have gay marriage, it's a need and

it's a right". It is of course possible to see this as

provocative - all contestants are gay men who can only get

married in a few states, and whose marriages are barred from

full recognition under U.S. law - but I assert that in

upholding the institution of marriage itself, the show works

to maintain homonormativity. Paula Ettelbrick writes that the

appeal of marriage to the gay and lesbian community is

ultimately assimilatory: "those who marry can be

instantaneously transformed from outsiders to insiders and we

have a desperate need to become insiders"35, which casts the

show's challenge in a different light. In both episodes, the

message is the same: the contestants share the values of

middle America and, despite their queerness, do not represent

a threat to U.S. society. Far from wanting to destabilise the

social order, they wish only to join it. In this way, Drag Race

mitigates its potential radicalism with an emphasis on queer

similarity, rather than difference.

In addition, Drag Race avoids contestation of existing

structures through its engagement with commercialism. The

35 Paula Ettelbrick, 'Since When Is Marriage A Path To Liberation?', Out/look:National Lesbian and Gay Quarterly, no. 6 (Fall 1989), pg. 10.

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concept of homonormativity is inherently linked to

commercialism, "promising...a depoliticized gay culture

anchored in domesticity and consumption"36: and it is possible

to see this replicated in Drag Race. The show's commercial ties

are made explicit, and challenges frequently involve promoting

or selling (for example, recording an infomercial for Mac

makeup). RuPaul has stated that the show's goal is to find

"someone who can really follow in my footsteps: someone who

can be hired by a company to represent their product"37, making

corporate approval a prerequisite of contestants' success. The

celebration of consumption becomes most evident when

considering the marketing techniques of product placement and

product integration used within the show. These techniques are

overwhelmingly American devices - unsurprising, when the

country's dominance of television production is considered -

with the U.S. forming 68% of the world market.38 They are also

disproportionately a feature of reality television - nine of

the top ten shows in 2008 with the most instances of product

36 Lisa Duggan, 'The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism', pg. 179.37 Kyle Buchanan, 'RuPaul on Drag Race, Hannah Montana, and 'Those Bitches' Who Stole Annette Bening's Oscar'.38 PQ Media, 'Global Product Placement Forecast 2006' (Stamford: PQ Media, 2006).

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placement were part of this genre.39 While product placement

usually means a product will be seen onscreen, integration

refers to the practice of working products into a show's

storyline to the extent that an episode may revolve around

them. Product integration is a rapidly growing method of

advertising within entertainment – in 2007, the U.S. market

was worth $3.6 billion, and is projected to more than double

by 2014.40 The format of reality television lends itself to

explicit integration; indeed it appears "a genre ...ready-made

for such tie-ins"41, with no need to maintain the 'fourth wall'

illusion of a scripted show.

It then should not be surprising that Drag Race uses

various forms of product integration throughout its run,

resulting in a show that foregrounds the commercial interests

behind it. Contestants are supplied with Nyx Cosmetics (or Mac

in the first season) and the products are frequently seen as

the queens prepare for the runway. One episode's challenge was

filming an infomercial for a Mac line, in which contestants

39 November 2007 to November 2008. Kaylene Williams, Alfred Petrosky, EdwardHernandez, Roger Page Jr., 'Product Placement Effectiveness: Revisited and Renewed', Journal of Management and Marketing Research, Vol. 7 (April 2011), pg. 4.40 Andrew Hampp, 'Product Placement Dipped Last Year for First Time', AdvertisingAge, 29 June 2010.41 Scott Donaton, Madison and Vine: Why the Entertainment and Advertising Industries Must Converge to Survive (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), pg. 87.

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assured the camera "'this is not just make-up or lipstick.

This is make-up with a purpose". Should the audience forget

the companies that fund the show, the opening sequence of each

episode includes a reiteration of the prizes (including, in an

example of advertising-entertainment synergy, fronting an L.A.

Eyeworks advertising campaign), the most prominent of which is

provided by sponsors Absolut Vodka. As well as this

consideration, every week queens are instructed to "enjoy an

Absolut cocktail in the Interior Illusions lounge" while the

judges deliberate - and in the companion behind-the-scenes

show Drag Race Untucked, contestants are shown drinking them while

discussing the show's events. More significant are the

episodes, one each season, where the guest judge is "Absolut

image czar, Jeffrey Moran" who presides over a challenge

revolving around his company's products. These could be

designing a dress based on an Absolut flavour, or, in an

episode that took the partnership to extremes, recording an

infomercial and completing a staged interview that promoted a

new Absolut flavour. Moran encapsulated the ethos of product

integration in his statement "if you're going to be America's

next drag superstar, you have to be ready to do things a

26

little differently. That's what we've done with our brand new

flavour, which we're going to debut here: Berry Acai". During

this challenge, RuPaul instructed the contestants that "the

more you plug... the Berry Acai, the better", involving them

directly in the task of pleasing the show's sponsors. The

influence that this commercial interest has on the show

demonstrates how corporate involvement in entertainment can

represent "fundamental encroachments on the independence of

the programming"42: ones that are problematic when considering

Drag Race's potential subversion.

Indeed, the problematic aspects of corporate

acknowledgement for queer people may outweigh the positive

results of greater media representation. Firstly, recognition

from companies is typically limited to a very narrow section

of identities in the LGBT community, and displays a "tendency

to center prosperous white men as the representative

homosexuals".43 I will discuss this and the same trend in

television more in the next chapter - the lack of diversity in

entertainment and advertising is a significant issue when

examining their subversive potential - but here I want to

42 Stephanie Clifford, 'Product Placements Acquire a Life of Their Own on Shows', New York Times, 14 July 2008.43 Alexandra Chasin, Selling Out: The Gay and Lesbian Movement Goes to Market, pg. 224.

27

question the underlying assumption that the marketplace can be

a sphere of radical change. In a study of marketing to Mexican

customers in Texas, Peñaloza and Gilly concluded that

"marketers serve as bicultural mediators, both accommodating

their consumers, and working to alter their consumption

patterns to bring them into line with...larger U.S. national

market customs".44 The idea that the marketplace serves both as

a site and tool of assimilation is just as applicable to LGBT

people. Of course no advertiser wishes to drastically overturn

the social structures that allow them to profit - the gay

people in their images are not radical campaigners, but are

often shown safely domesticated in families (as seen in recent

JC Penney adverts)45 or are mediated through heterosexual

people (as in the Expedia advert in which a formerly

homophobic father flies to his daughter's same-sex wedding).46

These are not the activists of Queer Nation who stated "being 44 Lisa Peñaloza and Mary C. Gilly, 'Marketer Acculturation: The Changer andthe Changed', pg. 102.45 David Gianatasio, 'Group Targets JCPenney Again, This Time Over Lesbians in Catalog', Adweek, 4 May 2012, http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/group-targets-jcpenney-again-time-over-lesbians-catalog-140035. Accessed 3 April 2013.Rebecca Cullers, 'JCPenney Hits Back at Anti-Gay Critics with 2 Dads in Father's Day Ad', Adweek, 31 May 2012, http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/jcpenney-hits-back-anti-gay-critics-2-dads-fathers-day-ad-140853. Accessed 3 April 2013.46 Tim Nudd, 'Ad of the Day: Expedia', Adweek, 3 October 2012, http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-expedia-144152. Accessed 3 April 2013.

28

queer means leading a different sort of life. It's not about

the mainstream, profit-margins, patriotism, patriarchy or

being assimilated"47: rather, they are the ideal gay people as

defined by a heteronormative capitalist system.

The view that "many civil rights gains were and

continue to be manifest in the marketplace"48 – working within

existing structures for change – is a cornerstone of

assimilationist politics. These politics can be seen in Drag

Race's engagement with commercialism, Absolut's involvement

indicating how the show acts as a collaboration between the

advertising and entertainment industries. This collaboration

provides seemingly positive exposure, however corporate

recognition of marginalised groups such as drag queens comes

with distinct and strict caveats, and is far less liberating

that it may initially appear. The assimilationist necessities

of working within a capitalist system restrict the radical

potential of entertainment producers, encouraging non-

threatening homonormative portrayals of queer people and

politics. Duggan writes that upholding the homonormative leads

47 Queer Nation, 'Queer Nation Manifesto', 1990, http://www.sterneck.net/gender/queer-manifesto/index.php. Accessed 11 March2013.48 Lisa Peñaloza, 'We're Here, We're Queer, and We're Going Shopping!', Journal of Homosexuality, vol 31, no 1, (1996), p 16.

29

to a once radical quest for "equality becom[ing] narrow,

formal access to a few conservatizing institutions".49 As such,

Drag Race's engagement with institutions like the marketplace,

marriage and the military promotes conservative values and

moderates its radical potential.

49 Lisa Duggan, 'The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism', pg. 190.

30

Chapter Two

In the first chapter, I argued that RuPaul's Drag Race upheld

essentially homonormative values. In this chapter, I look to

complicate that reading with an analysis of how Drag Race

presents a challenge to typical patterns of LGBT

representation in television. I will argue that its treatment

of class, race and the reality genre means that it becomes a

subversive, rather than assimilatory, force. As such, the

show's introduction of radical elements to American television

means its success is significant for queer politics.

Reality television has been criticised as "the

fetishisation of the ordinary"0, but in fact is a rich arena

for analysis: as Writers Guild of America director Charles

Slocum says, it "may not be the sociological trifle many

assume it is".0 Hugely popular in the industry due to low

production costs, reality shows have proliferated on U.S.

television since Survivor premiered in 2000, producing stars as

big as any actor and franchises that outlast scripted shows.0

0 Sam Brenton and Ruben Cohen, Shooting People: Adventures in Reality TV (New York: Verso, 2003), pg. 9.0 Charles B. Slocum, 'The Real History of Reality TV Or, How Alan Funt Won the Cold War', Writers Guild of America, undated, http://www.wga.org/organizesub.aspx?id=1099. Accessed 3 March 2013.0 American Idol was the top rated show for six consecutive years. Ben Kaplan, 'The Return of American Idol: Money Never Dies', Forbes.com, 17 January

31

Of particular interest is the hugely popular America's Next Top

Model franchise, premiering in 2003 and now on its twentieth

season. Guided by the host, model Tyra Banks, contestants

compete in various challenges, aiming to avoid weekly

elimination and ultimately win a modelling contract. Like Drag

Race, the show fits into a reality subgenre best understood as

a job search competition, in which skilled contestants compete

for a single role or contract.

The reality genre has become so established in the

American cultural consciousness that several scripted shows,

such as Modern Family and Parks and Recreation, now use the filming

techniques and straight-to-camera interviews of the medium.

While Drag Race may appear to be part of the reality genre, I

will argue that it takes a referential approach similar to

these comedies. Both utilise immediately recognisable features

of reality television for their own purposes, but retain a

postmodern detachment that knowledgeable viewers recognize as

mocking television norms. Significantly, while these comedies

use some trappings of the medium for comedic purposes but do

2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/benkaplan/2013/01/17/the-return-of-american-idol-money-never-dies/. Accessed 4 March 2013.

32

not substantially challenge them, Drag Race's participation in

the reality show genre amounts to a subversion of the format.

In order to clarify how this subversion works, it is

useful to compare Drag Race to another television success. In

Reading Contemporary Television: Queer Politics of Television, Samuel A.

Chambers argues that the ABC series Desperate Housewives works

within the populist soap format to challenge heteronormativity

and gender norms. Revolving around four suburban friends and

neighbours, the titular housewives, the show at first glance

"upholds norms of binary gender, standards of femininity and

presumptions of heterosexuality".0 Its protagonists are

wealthy, often glamorous, and seen in the context of their

husbands or children (as evidenced by the show's very title).

Its suburban setting goes hand in hand with the traditional

roles it espouses, presenting an all-American vision of a

small town and its inhabitants. However, instead of

"reinforc[ing] both heterosexual and feminine norms"0 , the

show uses these trappings to balance its more subversive

elements - the kiss between two teen boys (at the time only

0 Samuel A. Chambers, Reading Contemporary Television: Queer Politics of Television (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009), pg. 109.0 ibid. pg. 110.

33

the sixth male-male kiss on U.S. network television)0, a

husband's interest in S&M, a housewife challenging assumptions

of heterosexuality by running away with another woman. These

challenges are all the more effective because they rely on the

viewer's expectations of both the idealised surburbia the show

portrays and the soap format it participates in. The show then

undermines the viewer's assumptions of what this genre entails

- namely the social conservatism associated with its

Stepfordesque suburban setting - by presenting pioneering

storylines.

I wish to extend Chambers' discussion to argue that

RuPaul's Drag Race uses the reality show format established in the

public mind by shows such as Project Runway and America's Next Top

Model to subvert the heteronormative mainstream by introducing

queer concerns. In the same way that Desperate Housewives works

within the soap genre to present an alternative to the typical

reinforcement of traditional gender roles, Drag Race works

within the reality competition format to present a picture of

non-normative queer life. Both shows adapt their respective

genres to give the appearance of conformity, allowing the

inclusion of more radical material.0 ibid. pg. 112.

34

The use of subversive commentary in a show not overtly

political gives it a radical edge that belies its conventional

format. Including this between-the-lines commentary in a

commercial success like Desperate Housewives or Drag Race has the

result of communicating the social critique to a much wider

audience; indeed, "challenging the norm from the centre has

the potential to wield a much greater force than questioning

the norm from its margins".0 In contemporary America, a show

that does not win high audience ratings will not be given the

chance to build a fanbase, but will be promptly cancelled to

make room for something more profitable. Thus to run for seven

seasons (as Desperate Housewives did), broad support must be

consistently maintained: a task that does not lend itself well

to subverting social norms. Creating a subversive space within

the most populist of television genres is thus one strategy to

reach a large audience with a critical message, and it is one

used effectively by Drag Race.

Examining the show in the context of the reality

television genre is essential to understanding how it works

within and against these conventions. In this way Drag Race can

appear like a queered Next Top Model, an impression deliberately 0 ibid. pg. 123.

35

cultivated by the show. RuPaul's persona and appearance in

female drag on the judging panel is a clear reference to and

parody of Next Top Model host Tyra Banks. Her "narcissism" and

"megalomania"0 are parodied by his imperious commands (to

"bring back my girls" or for the other judges to "SILENCE"),

his neologisms like 'RuCap' or 'Ru-stravaganza', and even the

possessive title of the show itself. In addition, Nicholas de

Villiers points out that RuPaul's somewhat calmer persona seen

in the workroom recalls Project Runway's Tim Gunn.0 The parallels

with other shows continue with the format itself – RuPaul

communicates with Drag Race contestants on She-Mail, while

potential next top models receive Tyra Mail – and even with

individuals – Drag Race judge Santino Rice and RuPaul have both

appeared on Project Runway, and season three winner Raja had been

the longtime makeup artist on America's Next Top Model.

With touches such as referring to the season two winner

as "the other Tyra", the show slyly positions itself as both

successor and alternative to the more mainstream fashion

reality shows. Examining the show's subversion within an

established genre is therefore vital in analysing how it is

0 Nicholas de Villiers, 'RuPaul's Drag Race as Meta Reality Television', Jump Cut (no. 54, Fall 2012). Unnumbered.0 ibid.

36

able to introduce radical elements to these mainstream

formats. By positioning itself in a category familiar to the

American public, Drag Race is able to challenge and upset

expectations associated with the reality show format through

"parody, resignification, and subversion"0 - specifically those

of heteronormativity. This knowingness "cultivates a media-

savvy and meta-savvy queer audience"0 that revel in the show's

reappropriation of televisual language for those the medium

usually declines to speak to. Cynthia Fuch's description of

drag – "a show which resists normalization as it ironically

observes it, exposing the seams of the display"0 – is also an

appropriate description of Drag Race's relationship to its

reality show structures. The show's engagement with

conventions of the genre only serves to call attention to

their artificiality, in much the same way that its contestants

complicate essentialist ideas of gender. The show's

participation in the conventions, even as it parodies them,

also allows it to package its presentation of a radically

0 ibid.0 ibid.0 Cynthia J. Fuchs, 'The telephone and its queerness' in Sue-Ellen Case, Philip Brett, Susan Leigh Foster (ed.), Cruising the Performative: interventions into the representation of ethnicity, nationality, and sexuality (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), pg. 152.

37

queer profession and performance in a familiar setting. In

another format, Drag Race's radicalism may have been more easily

recognised – and more easily protested.

It is important to note that it is not just America's Next

Top Model that Drag Race references. Another key source the show

draws on is the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning. This depicted

the drag ball subculture of New York, and the largely black

and Latino street youths that populated it. RuPaul frequently

quotes dialogue from the film - "shake the dice and steal the

rice", "opulent", "sick'ning", "eleganza extravaganza" - and

the final runway section of each show mirrors the competitive

'walking' of a drag ball. Challenges that ask the contestants

to vogue (the dance style begun in drag balls, and later

popularised by Madonna) and to produce 'executive realness'

also form a clear link to the ball scene. The 'RuCap' episode

of Drag Race's first season provides a brief history of drag

activism and visibility, showing key figures such as the Lady

Chablis, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and Venus

Xtravaganza of Paris Is Burning. RuPaul then reminds us "don't

forget it was a drag queen who threw the first brick at the

Stonewall riot. That's right honey, if you're out, proud and

38

living the gay life, you've got a drag queen to thank". This

explicit link made between the show and radical trans activism

is hugely important: defying the acceptable face of modern gay

visibility in which "marketers maximized gay consumers’ ideal

characteristics – tastefulness, trendiness and affluence – and

played down their political commitments and sexual desires".0

It is also significant for its address of trans and gay

audiences: communities that are hardly ever addressed by the

heteronormative media find themselves the in-group. Thus Drag

Race positions itself in a narrative of trans and drag history,

showing an awareness of its roots. This political and social

awareness is a radical act, in light of the sanitised gay

image given popular currency by media depictions.

An assessment of how Drag Race defies previously-

established models of queer media visibility is useful here in

understanding its hidden radicalism. Any account of the

growing inclusion of LGBT people on television in the last

decades must be tempered by the caveat that this inclusion was

only offered to certain members of the queer community,

typically the most privileged. As such, television presents "a

0 Katherine Sender, Business, Not Politics: The Making of the Gay Market (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pg. 87.

39

narrow and limited acknowledgement of the existence of a

diverse queer audience"0, leaving unrepresented those seen as

excessively challenging the status quo established by

heteronormative patriarchy. As seen in Will & Grace, Queer Eye for the

Straight Guy, and Six Feet Under, "a young, white, wealthy, slim,

male body [is constructed as] the universal gay subject"0 with

the visibility of this model eclipsing the "non-normative gay,

or queer, body".0 While shows seemingly increase diversity by

including gay characters, the sheer dominance of a single

version of gayness prevents more marginalised queers from

being represented. This is why it is so significant that the

Drag Race contestants represent a variety of body sizes, races,

socioeconomic statuses, gender expressions and ages. In

accurately reflecting the diversity of the drag community,

they are queering mainstream television norms by granting

exposure to the most disempowered. Gender variant people,

especially drag queens, have historically been the most

marginalised and least assimilated members of the LGBT

community - so even if Drag Race is a vehicle of assimilation, 0 Marcos Moldes, 'Not Fab Enough: Consumer Identity and the Politics of Representation' in Jes Battis (ed.), Homofiles: Theory, Sexuality and Graduate Studies (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010), pg. 880 ibid.0 ibid.

40

it is still truly radical to be including these members.

Contestants discuss their criminal records, HIV status, family

breakdowns, immigration problems; even before their drag is

considered, the typical contestant stands on the fringes of

society.

One significant aspect of this representation is race.

The cast of Drag Race is always extremely racially diverse, with

Caucasian contestants being the minority in the first three

seasons (contestants' heritages include Hispanic, African-

American, East Asian, South Asian and Lumbee Indian). The

variety of races represented, and the sheer number of non-

white contestants, indicate that this is not a case of token

inclusion but rather a rebalancing of television's unexamined

favouring of Caucasians. This is especially relevant in LGBT

representation, which is typically white-dominated. The show

is not only racially diverse, but transnational too: most

evidently with season one contestant Bebe, greeted each week

on the runway by RuPaul's cry of "Cameroon!", who spoke

movingly throughout about the hardships facing her home

country. Additionally, each season includes one or more Puerto

Rican contestants, whose difficulties with English in various

41

challenges, while not blocking them from success, effectively

demonstrate the institutionalised barriers that face

immigrants to the United States. Race is not hidden but

celebrated – Bebe frequently made outfits inspired by

traditional West African clothing, just as season two's

Jujubee, who is of Thai and Laotian heritage, used Asian

dress. It is also a serious discussion point at several

junctures, as in a debate over whether it was acceptable for

Manila (a Filipino contestant) to impersonate a Chinese woman

in a challenge. Far from tokenising non-white participants or

upholding the typical media vision of white gay men, Drag Race

actually presents a transracially bonded drag community. This

is evident in a conversation where contestants talked about

the words used in their various familial languages to

denigrate their femininity: an example of a gay and trans

community finding shared experience to overcome oppression and

celebrate racial differences. This is a radical move away from

the white-washed view of gay men that is typically perpetuated

on American television.

In addition, the show as a whole makes a significant

issue of class. While American sitcoms used to focus largely

42

on the blue-collar workers (as seen in Roseanne and Laverne and

Shirley), in the last decade there has been a move away from

these characters in favour of upmarket dramas. As critic James

Poniewozik puts it, "TV has evicted its mechanics and

dockworkers to collect higher rents from yuppies in

coffeehouses"0- and the increasing invisibility of the working

class reinforces a class hierarchy. RuPaul's Drag Race, for all its

glitz, redresses this balance somewhat by making it clear that

drag is not a diversion for these contestants, but a job

(season four's Chad Michaels became known for his repeated

insistence that "I'm a professional"). The queens' discussions

of the necessity of money and the expense of drag - in clear,

dollar terms - sets the show apart from America's Next Top Model

which embodies a glamorous and aspirational attitude. The most

significant example of Drag Race's discussion of class is in the

season three semi-final when on being asked why she wanted to

win, Puerto Rican contestant Yara Sofia answered that she was

in debt and needed the prize money to move to America. In

addition, several contestants express pride in their working-

class backgrounds, including season two's Mystique whose

0 James Poniewozik, 'Reality TV's Working Class Heroes', Time Magazine, May 22, 2008.

43

defiant "bitch, I am from Chicago" became a reference point in

later seasons. This sympathetic - and realistic - treatment of

its contestants' financial hardships and the politics of money

is a stark contrast to the wealthy gay individuals typically

represented on screen and in advertisements: those "raised up

from the margins as almost exclusively consumer subject[s]".0

Drag Race's engagement with the intersectionality of drag and

class is a radical departure from typical LGBT representation

in America.

Drag Race's participation in the reality genre subverts

mainstream American television conventions effectively. The

show references and parodies the genre's successes, at the

same time as it draws on drag history to place itself in that

tradition, thus combining the mainstream and underground. Use

of a successful genre allows the show to include queer

subjects that are typically unrepresented in the mainstream

media, defying homonormative portrayals that emphasise

assimilatory potential. Activist Barbara Smith describes the

ideal LGBT subjects to be incorporated into a heterosexist

society as "people who have huge amounts of disposable income

0 Marcos Moldes, 'Not Fab Enough: Consumer Identity and the Politics of Representation'.

44

and who are kind of fun and trendy...just a little on the edge

but not really that threatening".0 It is this paradigm that

Drag Race upsets. Undoubtedly fun but not particularly trendy,

the intersectional marginalised identities of its contestants

do in fact represent a threat to an oppressively patriarchal

ordering that tends to reward the most privileged. In defiance

of this standard, Drag Race gives airtime to people who have

largely been ignored by mainstream society and corporate

interests. Their inclusion on television thus represents not a

selling out of radical values, but a queering of the

mainstream.

0 Barbara Smith quoted in Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed, 'Where Has Gay Liberation Gone? An Interview With Barbara Smith' in Amy Gluckman and BetsyReed (ed.), Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community and Gay Life, (London: Routledge, 1997), pg. 145.

45

46

Conclusion

RuPaul's Drag Race is "an amazingly progressive feat".0 With the

introduction of distinctly queer concerns, the show challenges

the heteronormative standards that U.S. television habitually

and uncritically presents. It has also "become synonymous with

Logo" and is the channel's biggest success, the show alone

accounting for a 33% increase in ratings for the network.0 Thus

the significance of Drag Race is how it marries its radicalism

to mainstream sensibilities, combining the commercial and

subversive.

While radical politics eschews commercialism as

antithetical to social change, participation does not

necessarily mean assimilation. Rodger Streitmatter argues that

"first on the list of reasons why media decision makers

started sending positive messages about gay people in the

early 1990s was their recognition that gay buying power was

too big to ignore"0; that this progressive change was based on

capitalist interests indicates the centrality of the

0 Bradford Nordeen, 'RuPaul's Drag Race: Racially Insensitive?', Huffington Post, 16 Feb 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bradford-nordeen/rupauls-drag-race_b_1280463.html. Accessed 3 April 2013.0 Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, 'RuPaul Runs The World'.0 Rodger Streitmatter, From Perverts to Fab Five: The Media's Changing Depiction of Gay Men and Lesbians (London: Routledge, 2008) pg. 183.

47

commercial market in American society. As such, social and

political change arising from commercial enterprises is not a

contradiction, but a result of the increasing power afforded

to corporations in the modern United States. The crossover

between commerce and politics can be seen in the corporate

response to California's Proposition 8, with Apple and Google

both donating thousands of dollars to opposition campaigns.0

Alexandra Chasin argues that "the capitalist market makes

possible, but also constrains, social movements whose central

objective is the expansion of individual political rights"0,

and indeed creating a political space in a commercial system

requires resistance to assimilatory forces. However as

activist Carmen Vazquez states, “assimilation into existing

democratic structures and radical militancy are... two

essential strategies in a very complex dialectic for social

change”0, and in twenty-first century America, the capitalist

system must be a third consideration. Drag Race, by producing

radical content in a commercial structure, complicates the

0 Michelle Quinn, 'Apple donates $100,000 to fight same-sex marriage ban',

LA Times, 24 October 2008.0 Alexandra Chasin, Selling Out: The Gay and Lesbian Movement Goes to Market, pg. 134.0 Carmen Vasquez quoted in Alexandra Chasin, Selling Out: The Gay and Lesbian Movement Goes to Market, pg. 237.

48

radical and assimilationist dichotomy and demonstrates that

working within existing structures can be progressive.

I anticipate that the lack of writing on Drag Race will

be rectified as the show's significance becomes recognised.

Further research on the show's treatment of gender, drag

community, or the U.S. media's vision of queer and non-

normative bodies would be valuable next steps. In addition, I

have discussed how radical politics can be upheld in a

commercial space, and expanding this topic would be a useful

task.

Despite Logo's statement on the matter, LGBT-themed

programming in the United States is still hugely important.

"Television, like any other cultural artefact, participates in

the constitution of our reality"0, and representation of

marginalised groups is vital to ensure their visibility in

society. The commercial nature of American television means

that depictions of queer people tend towards the assimilatory;

thus the ways that Drag Race overturns established models of

representation are hugely significant. Season three runner-up

Manila Luzon asserts how groundbreaking it has been, saying

0 Samuel A. Chambers, 'Heteronormativity and The L Word: From a Politics ofRepresentation to a Politics of Norms', in Kim Akass and Janet McCabe, Reading The L Word (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006) pg. 85.

49

"before, gay portrayals in the media were so limiting, like a

caricature of a homo...I think that it's just been adding to

the whole discussion about homosexuality and society".0 Despite

the show's engagement with corporate interests, its treatment

of intersectionality – notably race and class – defies

homonormative media depictions that emphasise its subjects'

assimilation. Its demonstration of drag community – self-

contained without heterosexual figures acting as buffers – is

in itself a radical act. "To grant this level of exposure to

the politics of drag is astounding"0, and indeed a marginalised

group receiving such coverage on national television is

groundbreaking. The show's radicalism lies in its queering of

televisual norms, allowing it to effectively subvert

convention while working within a highly commercial medium and

genre to produce a successful series.

RuPaul's Drag Race is therefore more inclusive of queer

difference than American television has previously seen, and

as such holds great significance for the study of queer

representation in the United States. Equally, its mainstream

success is a mark of how American attitudes towards LGBT

0 Manila Luzon quoted in Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, 'RuPaul Runs the World'.0 Bradford Nordeen, 'RuPaul's Drag Race: Racially Insensitive?'.

50

people have shifted in recent years. In combining underground

and mainstream cultures, the show could indicate a way forward

for the U.S. LGBT rights movement which allows activists to

balance a broad and growing acceptance with its beginnings in

radical politics. It is the combination of assimilatory and

radical elements that makes Drag Race important in modern

American society, complicating the political dichotomy and

indicating the radical potential in established institutions.

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