Drag Queens Are My Sports

I had to start a Pop Culture blog because I absorb and think about pop culture way too much to not blog about it. We're starting with drag queens.

Rupaul's Drag Race is the best thing to happen to gender, fashion and maybe even comedy in an Insert-Hyperbolic-Amount-of-Time-Here. 

The show itself has gone downhill over the years, unavoidably. It's too aware of itself now, the queens are too polished and moneyed and famous before they even get on, it's just less fun than it used to be. But I still watch it like it's my job. Because it kinda is.

Why do I love RPDR so much? I love it because it has provided a platform to cutting-edge artists working in between the genders. Drag elevates women, queers, clowns, fashionistas, and, incredibly, has given real income potential to heretofore "outsider" artists who would never have previously hoped to achieve the coin they can garner now—coin that they can put right back into their art and push that shit farther and higher and better. I mean, it just doesn't stop.

It's ironic, too, that I hear drag queens refer to themselves as "clowns" as if it ain't no big thing, and I'm like, GIRL, US CLOWNS HAVE BEEN WAGING WAR WITH THAT WORD FOR MILLENNIA, AND HERE YOU ARE NORMALIZING IT LIKE NO BIGGIE. Miraculous.

So let me tell you about my top 4 drag queens from RuPaul's Drag Race.

1) ALYSSA EDWARDS. Alyssa is everything to me. First of all, the bitch discovered that she was a clown in front of the camera—it seems she didn't really know how funny she was before she got on RPDR, and it was in her first Season (and, more precisely, in the editing of it) that Alyssa Edwards got the message. She is a deeply, deeply ridiculous queen, giving you Dallas, giving you showgirl, giving you slightly-bucktoothed diva, and pouring from her huge southern mouth a nonstop font of inspirational t-shirt slogans and mixed metaphors that never really come together to mean anything. Genius. You can see the progression of the comedy in her fabulous YouTube series Alyssa's Secret. It starts kinda funny, and becomes fucking hilariously tight as the years go by. Here's the other important thing about Alyssa Edwards, she's a dance teacher for competitive dance kids (and their nutty dance moms). Before RPDR, and seemingly even now, she owns and operates a dance studio in Mesquite, Texas (hence the tear-jerk-worthy and incredibly uplifting Dancing Queen, her spinoff Netflix reality show about her life as a dance master, with incredible in-drag asides and monologues which go nowhere and look amazing). So not only is this a queen, but she's a teacher, and her love of being a role model, combined with the ridiculous of what comes out of her mouth, makes her a clown after my own heart. 

2) SHARON NEEDLES. So I was hooked on RPDR from the first episode I watched (season 2 episode 1 if you wanna know), but it was Sharon Needles who tied my arm down and shot it straight through me. In her season (4), Sharon Needles was a gothy Pittsburgh queen. She grew up somewhere in Red Neck, USA—grew up salty and smart and bullied and fierce. She was the first drag queen on that show with a culty, funny, edgy sensibility, like she and I might watch the same B-movies and argue the finer points of gratuitous cleavage shots. I thought the judges would hate on her for being so different, but au contraire, they ate up her heroin-chic and undeniable style, and she got the crown. Her victory was the first time I wept watching RuPaul's Drag Race, and it certainly wasn't the last; I weep pretty predictably at emotional lip syncs and teary confessionals. But the moment Sharon Needles won felt like a tremendous victory for all of the freaks and the bullied and the smart and the fierce. Nowadays Sharon Needles is less interesting to me; she idolizes Amanda Lepore so she got all this face work done and kinda looks like everyone else now. But back in Season 4, she was my everything. 

3) WILLAM. Here's the thing about Willam. Willam is a fucking actor, and she played Drag Race for a sucker. When I watched her on season 4, I thought she was a brainless, name-droppy Hollywood wanna-be. She got dramatically eliminated halfway through: she broke the rules and had her husband come fuck her in her hotel room when they were all supposed to be sequestered, then she puked on camera and was kicked off. Willam now does a lot of shady comedy videos and is just super raw and funny. Also a ridiculously good singer—like clearly super trained voice, fantastic, and SMART lyrics. Her "Too Late To RuPologize" is one of my favorite psych up songs. Willam was definitely playing dumb on RPDR, like deep cover dumb. She is justwayyyytoo clever to get that dumb an edit unless she was in on it. She is an insult comic for the ages, incredibly nasty, incredibly filthy, and she doesn't give a fuck about anything. Plus she's gorgeous in a trashy, careless way, all the time. 

4) BIQTCH PUDDIN. I lied. Biqtch is not from RPDR, she is from a show I love even more than RPDR, the Boulet Brothers' DRAGULA, which is on YouTube and must be seen to be believed. If you like horror, camp, cult, and sickeningly original, incredible drag, you must watch DRAGULAlike your life depends on it. Biqtch Puddin is really something. First of all, she is always giving you 80s hair rocker mixed with 50s housewife mixed with aliens mixed with peyote. She is a transcendently good performer; she just lights up the world when she's on stage. She also almost made me vomit in my own mouth at what she did on the "filth" challenge of DRAGULA. She is a badass rocker drag queen rife with nostalgia and charisma, and I live for her. 

Honorable mentions from RPDR: 

YARA SOPHIA. This bitch is a crazy genius. I have a huge predilection for queens who have that kind of raw comedy that is just insanity, and it might not even be that fun to be in the room with, but on camera, it's the role model for anybody who cares about comedy. Yara Sophia is a designer who is just wild and sometimes overdoes it but boy is she fabulous. Her attempts at comedy actually work really well on the show, too. Her Amy Winehouse impression is one for the ages. It is nothing like Amy Winehouse. She has cigarette butts in her beehive. It is next-level clown. 

ALEXIS MATTEO. Alexis is a pageant queen who talks like a Puerto Rican boxer. She is always talking about how she's going to slay you, bitch, with a big perfect smile on her face all the while, and it's adorable. She is the queen of charming catch phrases, like BAM! everytime she does something triumphant. Alexis has incredible presence and knows how to be super funny too. Her looks have always been pretty basic-pageant, but I just love how proud of herself she is all the time. She has a grace of spirit that really comes through. BAM! 

ALASKA. Alaska's story is fascinating to me. She was originally Sharon Needles's boyfriend, and she applied to be on RPDR again and again to no avail. And in her Season 5, especially in the beginning, she seemed like a poor man's Sharon Needles, in the cool girls clique, kinda catty and snobby. Somewhere along the line, she and Sharon broke up. And then Alaska took off. She's got this ridiculously nasal fried voice that works great in rap, and her music is dope. She's got a humor and a incredible skinny fabulousness, and she just kinda wins at everything. Most RPDR fans love Alaska; she's the easy one everyone agrees on because she's so good at everything. 

RAJA. Raja was a pretty polished stylist and queen when she arrived on Season 3, already a friend of RuPaul, and super editorial and studied in terms of her style choices. She probably paved the way for Sharon Needles as the first queen who was really doing smart edgy stuff on the runway, playing with gender and historical references. In her addictive YouTube series Fashion Photo Ruview, she and Raven critique the looks of RPDR queens, and it's so clear how smart and thoughtful Raja is about style. She's also pretty funny and self-deprecating, and seems to think she looks like a old Jewish grandmother even though she actually looks like a gorgeously ageless fuck boy for the ages. So whatever Raja. Live your bubbe fantasy. 

I could go on and on, but that's probably enough for now. Suffice it to say, it's important. It's all very important. If you care about gender fuckery in pop culture, you must know your RPDR (and if you have the stomach for it, Dragulatoo). And what's delightful is that there are so many YouTube channels and lil' videos these queens have going now, so you can really get to know them outside the super-produced RPDR machine. Also check out CAMP WANNAKIKI on YouTube too. It's not life-changing, but it's moving in a good direction. 

Queen on, bitches! QUEEN ON.