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You Better Work: The Popularizing of Drag as Seen in RuPaul’s Drag Race

RuPaul’s Drag Race was not only created for queer audiences, but also to bring drag into the mainstream. If the show were to be constrained to one specific audience, it would not be accessible or inclusive; attitudes which drag claims to embody. Furthermore, by bringing drag culture into the mainstream, RuPaul and the contestants are able to use their platform to educate mass audiences on the history of the LGBTQ community, and issues they have faced and are currently facing.

As a reality show, its main objective is to be entertaining. The historical and cultural references, while important, are secondary to it being an entertainment show. If its main purpose were to educate, RuPaul would have produced a documentary, not a reality show on Logo TV. Therefore, I would argue that RuPaul’s Drag Race is inherently an entertainment show for the mass market.

So how does this play into subculture appropriation? The podcast ‘Reply All’ traces the history of the word ‘Yas,’ which history of the word might not always be taken into consideration, however, the podcast claims that people who use the word do not know its history, at all. I would argue otherwise. The majority of the people online using ‘Yas’ use it within a context referring to icons such as drag queens, or LGBTQ icons such as Lady Gaga. (The podcast even refers to the video of the Gaga fan shouting ‘Yas Gaga,’ and they mistakenly believe this to be the word’s origin.) People who have no awareness of the LGBTQ culture are probably not using ‘Yas;’ an idea disregarded by ‘Reply All.’

However, while its users might be a part of, or at least aware of queer culture, they might not trace it back to Harlem’s ballrooms, as documented in Paris is Burning. The podcast interviews Jose Xtravaganza, a dancer (famous for teaching Madonna how to vogue) who was a part of the ballroom scene. He explains how ‘Yas,’ among other words, was used as a code among the queer community, as a method of speaking back to a heteronormative exclusionary society.

In this sense, it might be problematic that ‘Yas’ has fallen into an everyday vocabulary outside of the queer community. However, it is important that the queer community has evolved alongside its language. Drag queens are no longer confined to ballrooms; they have TV shows, films, online shows and sell out tours in clubs and theatres world wide. This is not only down to RuPaul’s Drag Race. Drag and the subversion of gender has been portrayed in a number of films long before the TV show; The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), The Birdcage (1996) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) all document some form of ‘genderfucking.’

Drag as a subculture is becoming more mainstream. Although this might mean some losses, such as ownership over words such as ‘Yas,’ ‘shade,’ and ‘reading,’ drag has so much more to gain through its increasing popularity. Drag as an art becoming more accessible means more visibility for the community, as well as income for the performers and everyone else who works towards creating their shows. Popularizing any subculture might have its issues, but when it comes to drag, there is no such thing as too much.

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But First, Let Me Take a Selfie: Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be? and Contemporary Selfie Culture

They like me for who I am, and I would rather be liked for who I appear to be, and for who I appear to be, to be who I am. 

- How Should a Person Be? Page 3.

This passage from the prologue of Heti’s How Should a Person Be? depicts Sheila as a narcissist obsessed with celebrity and selfie culture. While it is somewhat uncomfortable to read, the most unsettling element of this passage is how much it echoes our contemporary culture. Do we, with our instagram and twitter accounts, really sound like this? Sadly, the answer might just be yes.

Henry A Giroux explains our contemporary society’s obsession with the curation of the self in his essay, ‘Selfie Culture in the Age of Corporate and State Surveillance,’ where he explores the motivations and consequences of a selfie obsessed culture. Giroux argues that,

‘The usual criticism of selfies is that they are an out-of-control form of vanity and narcissism in a society in which an unchecked capitalism promotes forms of rampant self-interest that both legitimises selfishness and corrodes individual and moral character.’ - Page 158

Although this is true, selfie culture also does something else. Rather than simply being obsessed with presenting the self, selfie culture has created a fascination with curating the self. We can now use social media to present the person we want to appear to be, rather than who we really are. This is reflected in Sheila’s desire to be liked for how she appears to be, rather than her true self. It is interesting that Heti titled her book How Should a Person Be? when she Sheila seems to be asking How Should a Person Appear to Be?

While everyone is - to some extent - guilty of presenting a modified, or perhaps improved self on social media, Sheila takes it a step further and exercises this attitude in her real life. When Sheila and Margaux are in the pool in Miami, Sheila is occupied with how happy she appears to the onlookers, rather than just enjoying herself;

SHEILA I’m so happy with how we were making everyone jealous with how happy we were in the pool!

- Page 112

As soon as this attitude towards selfie culture is used outside of an online space, it becomes a cause for concern. Our generation is so concerned with selfies that this online culture has seeped into our everyday offline life, as personified through Sheila’s character.

Heti explores another element of selfie culture in Margaux’s email to Sheila, when she tells her she is upset that Sheila bought the same dress as she did. Margaux writes,

5. when you said that you’d only wear it out of town and never in toronto, it sort of seemed reasonable. 6.but not really, since of course we only exist in pictures. - Pages 115-116

The idea that we only exist in pictures is compelling, as there is an attitude of, if it is not on Facebook, did it really happen? We are so concerned with documenting our every move, thought, outfit and meal online that it seems as though that is where we solely exist. What is the point of wearing a nice outfit if you do not post it on instagram? This is the attitude presented between Margaux and Sheila’s exchange. It is not enough to not wear it in the same city; it does not matter who sees them in real life. What really matters is how they are documented. And of course, the millennial generation turns to the art of selfie.

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Taylor Swift and her #GirlGang: The Rise of Insta-Feminism

Contemporary culture has given feminism a massive rebrand. Gone are the days of the man-hating feminazi stereotype. Instead, to be a feminist is to be cool. This new ‘trendy’ feminism can be seen everywhere; slogans such as ‘girl power’ and ‘girl gang’ are flooding high street stores and instagram hashtags alike. What you look like means more than what you do. This is aesthetic feminism.

Enter Taylor Swift. Whether it’s on instagram, on stage or her Bad Blood music video. Swift is typically surrounded by her ‘girl gang;’ a group of women made up predominantly by tall, white, beautiful, rich models. With names including Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid among the chosen few, it’s not a coincidence that Taylor’s friends also happen to be amongst the most followed on instagram - it almost seems like a requirement.

‘There is a difference between an artist who actually employs women to further her feminist message and one who seems to expect them to surround her as though bounce boards simply there to magnify her limelight.’ - Amy Odell

So why is Taylor Swift calling herself a feminist an issue? Take a look back at Taylor accepting her Grammy awards in 2016. She was surrounded by her team and not a single one of them was a woman. Sure, Taylor can wheel out her conveyor belt of hot models when she needs to look great, but when it comes to who she works with, there’s not a woman in sight. Amy Odell summed it up quite well in the quote above. Taylor appreciates the aesthetics of having a girl gang, but god forbid working with any of them.

There’s also the troubling element of her lyrics, which can be, at times, questionable. For example, back in 2008, she released ‘You Belong With Me,’ which included lyrics like, ‘she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts.’ Taylor has repeatedly slut-shamed women who might have ‘stole her man,’ and has torn down women who appear less ‘pure’ than herself. However, the epitome of her girl gang-style of feminism has to be her ‘Bad Blood’ music video. Naturally surrounded by an army of Victoria’s Secret models, Taylor is armed and ready to fight... Another gang of gorgeous, white supermodels.

It’s almost impossible to call out Taylor on her faux-feminism. When Tina Fey and Amy Poehler joked about her at an awards show, Swift later tweeted, ‘there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.’ The hypocrisy is almost as palpable as it is frustrating. Using ‘feminism’ as a defense against criticism is a low blow. 

Feminism is not a tool to use to further your own cause. It should be used to further the feminism movement universally, not held as a commodity exclusively sold to young, white, privileged women with an instagram account.

Speaking of instagram, Taylor has a massive 104.4 million instagram followers. If only she could turn her insta-feminism into something more productive than posing on a yacht with only her most aesthetically pleasing friends. To summarize the privileged, white aesthetic feminism that Swift is selling, I’ll conclude with a quote from Melissa Fabello, ‘Anyone who calls themselves a feminist for learning about the movement from, of all people, Lena Dunham, is not to be trusted.’

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Citizen: An American Lyric

because white men can’t police their imagination black men are dying

In Citizen: An American Lyric, Rankine reflects on the media representations of black people, and how these representations weave into contemporary racism. Beginning with personal experiences, Rankine allows her readers an insight into the everyday racism that she has faces. On the surface, these may seem like less significant experiences - such as overhearing her coworkers or being called by the wrong name - in comparison to the blatant racism we usually see. However, these ‘smaller’ experiences are all pieces that build up a larger image of racism.

Rankine does not presume her readership to have a common cultural experience. Reading the first chapter made me think about the every day experiences minorities face, while as a white person, I never will. However, we should be aware that they do happen, and understand what they mean on a larger scale, but Rankine is not writing for a universal audience, nor should she.

Building on her own experience, Rankine goes on to reflect on media representations, such as Serena Williams and racism within the sports world. Linking back to Surya Bonaly, Rankine references the number of occasions where Williams has been penalized unfairly, and then called out for behaving unsportsmanlike. After reading about Bonaly’s story, Williams’ experience only emphasized just how alive racism is in sports. It’s important that Williams is a woman, as it adds another element to why her body is deemed inappropriate for tennis. The tennis world, similarly to the ice skating world, is used to the image of a slim, white woman, and anyone who challenges that image is disparaged.

(Kate Clark, Little Girl)

Towards the end of the book, Rankine discusses men like Trayvon Martin and Mark Duggan; black men who were killed simply for being black. It appears that Citizen has been building up from personal anecdotes, to media representation, to go on to discuss these murders in a very purposeful way. Rankine has had us reflect on every racism and racism in pop culture before revealing the very real consequences of these representations. We hear about these murders on the news, but we don’t always recognize the smaller steps that lead up to them. Rankine urges us to take these experiences and representations seriously, as they have a bigger impact than you might initially believe them to have.

Rankine is playing with the idea of preconception and image, and makes use rethink what we would typically expect of a certain form or genre. The use of screen grabs from YouTube videos and football games, to an image of Caroline Wozniacki mocking Serena Williams, also allow the readers access to references that we might not have realized otherwise. The images and artwork affirm that these are all real experiences happening, if only we look around and see them.

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OMG, this has me losing it each time I look at it. An audience member at a Trump rally is reading Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, one of the best books about race, identity, and citizenship to be published in the last couple of years. You know this woman knew she and other black people would be put on camera, and she was ready to enact one of the most subversive activist moments possible.

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You are not sick, you are injured— you ache for the rest of life.

Claudia Rankine, from “Some years there exists a wanting to escape…,” Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press, 2014)

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Because white men can’t police their imagination black men are dying -“Citizen” Claudia Rankine

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Race as/and technology

‘Could race be not simple an object of representation and portrayal, or knowledge or truth, but also a technique that one uses, even as one is used by it - a carefully crafted, historically inflected system of tools, mediation, or enframing that builds history and identity?’ - Introduction: Race and/as technology; or How to Do Things to Race - Wendy Hui Kyong Chun

In Janelle Monae’s Many Moons and Jennifer Lopez’s If You Had My Love, the use of race and technology reflect the idea of removing any connotations that come with an external identity. Monae portrays a cyborg with no past and Lopez portrays an internet image that is up for debate.

Janelle Monae’s Many Moons

Hey hey hey, all we ever wanted to say Was chased, erased and then thrown away

The image of the cyborg in Janelle Monae’s Many Moons video links to race, as as a cyborg, she is removing any history, and therefore any preconception, that comes with her external image. Monae also uses gender to remove any connotations, through her playing with the idea of masculine and feminine clothing. Donna Haraway wrote that a cyborg is a utopian figure because it reworks nature and culture so that, ‘one can no longer be the resource for appropriation or incorporation by the other.’ The cyborg is raceless and genderless, it transcends the idea of what it means to be human.

Jennifer Lopez’s If You Had My Love

Race works as technology in If You Had My Love in the way that Jennifer Lopez uses herself as a tool to control her public image. Wendy Hui Kyong Chun wrote, ‘how race is used to construct connections between - and indeed construct the very concepts of - public and private, inside and outside.’ In her essay, Chun explains that while race is just skin pigmentation, an external idea of race has connotations attached, which work to internalize race.

Lopez plays with this idea, specifically the idea of public and private, in her music video. Though she is being watched through webcams, Lopez turns the camera on herself, thereby gaining control of her public image. We see her as her ‘private’ self, in her house, though by making her inside life public, Lopez controls the narrative. This applies to race, as Lopez doesn’t allow any preconceptions about her external race to influence how she is portrayed. Technology is crucial to this method, as Chun explains, there is a “desire to see online digital spaces as sites of universal subjectivity that can escape the limitations of race.” This webcam is a way for Lopez to portray herself as she chooses, outside of any preconceptions.

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If You Had My Love (1999)

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Janelle Monae - Many Moons [Official Short Film] (by janellemonae)

watch this

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Second Best

I’m surprised that I’ve never heard of Surya Bonaly. While it’s true that I’ve never been interested in ice skating, Bonaly’s story is so important in terms of race and gender in sport, I’m confused why she’s not more widely spoken about. However, I suppose that is what her story is about, after all: not getting the recognition she deserves.

The presenters of Radio Lab called her illegal backflip ‘a middle finger to the establishment,’ and while it would be so easy to read the move in that light, Bonaly rejects their claim. Even though she states that, ‘when you’re black everyone knows that you have to do better than people who are white,’ Bonaly doesn’t blame her failure to secure a first place on her race. Instead, she is self-defeatist, and simply says, ‘it’s not for me.’ Her attitude is heartbreaking, as if she believes she doesn’t deserve first place. As if it’s her personal issue, and not the fault of prejudice within the sports world.

I have to disagree with Bonaly. Again, I know nothing about ice skating, but from how the podcast presented her achievements, it seems strange that she never made it to the top. The only explanation must be some form of discrimination present in the sports world. How could Bonaly achieve fourth place in the Olympics, but when competing in the world championships in Japan, come second to someone outside of the top four? The odds were consistently stacked too high for Bonaly to over come. No matter how hard she tried, there wouldn’t always be someone better, but there would be someone white.

Another factor that stood out to me was how concerned the ice skating world seemed to be with her body, outside of her race. She wasn’t elegant or graceful enough, and her body type was too muscular. The body standards in ice skating reminded me of ballet, where what you look like seems to have some direct correlation with your ability to perform well. While it’s also a gender issue, it also definitely has something to do with her race; Bonaly’s body did not look like what the judges deemed to be an ice skater. They weren’t ready for somebody to break the mould. (It’s important to remember that Bonaly was skating in the 80s and 90s; equality in sports wasn’t where it is now, and even now, there’s still a long way to go).

A key moment in Bonaly’s skating career was her refusal to stand on the podium when she achieved second place at the world championships. This move led to her being called a sore loser, and she was criticized for being unsportsmanlike. And while it’s true, maybe it was unsportsmanlike, it’s hard to blame Bonaly for being upset at the judges decision. To work so hard at something you’re so passionate about, and to come so close to reaching the top but never actually make it must be devastating. She can be the first and only person to ever pull off a move so dangerous they’ve made it illegal, and still end up in tenth place. No matter how hard she tried, she was always second best.

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Surya Bonaly skates circles around her competition. This woman is just that good!

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This photo is incredible. The height! The lines! The reflection! 

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Surya Bonaly