I don't miss cable - much - but if I did, a big piece of my pain would be missing RuPaul's Drag Race... which I sort of dismissed, ahead of time, as gimmicky and a little obvious. Wrong, girl... utterly wrong.
Queerty has a nice sum-up of this week's premiere, and you can watch the show in segments here, for free.
I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised; it would be easy to work up a cliche of bitchy queens, backstabbing and cattiness... but that's Project Runway (if you ask me), and that kind of underlines the difference between fashion and theater. The drag queens I have known - one of my first writing gigs out of school was for the local gay rag, covering drag shows - have always struck me with being fundamentally decent, both to outsiders and to each other. They know what they do... and they know that it's hard. There's a mutual respect among peers for doing the work.
Sure, the show is over-the-top and the girls work it... that's the show's real strength (and if I had to do a design your own costume contest... and then show it to Bob Mackie, I'd just die). But what touched me, and will keep me coming back, was seeing the backstage, we're all in this together vibe. And credit to Ru, for doing the best out-Tyra of Tyra and the Next Top Model thing... she still knows how to work it, too.
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Queerty has a nice sum-up of this week's premiere, and you can watch the show in segments here, for free.
I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised; it would be easy to work up a cliche of bitchy queens, backstabbing and cattiness... but that's Project Runway (if you ask me), and that kind of underlines the difference between fashion and theater. The drag queens I have known - one of my first writing gigs out of school was for the local gay rag, covering drag shows - have always struck me with being fundamentally decent, both to outsiders and to each other. They know what they do... and they know that it's hard. There's a mutual respect among peers for doing the work.
Sure, the show is over-the-top and the girls work it... that's the show's real strength (and if I had to do a design your own costume contest... and then show it to Bob Mackie, I'd just die). But what touched me, and will keep me coming back, was seeing the backstage, we're all in this together vibe. And credit to Ru, for doing the best out-Tyra of Tyra and the Next Top Model thing... she still knows how to work it, too.
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