S D A D H H

This blog is serving as my Honors Project in fulfillment of the requirements to graduate with University Honors from Bowling Green State University. You might wonder how I landed on RuPaul and RuPaul's Drag Race as the topic for such an Academic and Serious endeavor. I'd love to tell you.

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The first time I ever saw a drag performance was at a drag show on campus in our student union. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I let a friend drag me along. From the first number, I was entranced. It had been a very difficult time in my life where everything felt very serious and not fun. But as I watched these men dressed up in sequin gowns with a heavy contour, I was filled with pure and inexplicable joy.

 

If you have ever been to a drag show, you can probably conjure up an image and imagine the atmosphere and recall the feeling of believing the illusion the performers are creating. If you haven’t, it’s difficult to describe. It has a lot to do with the way the performers truly embody the singer as they lip sync to the songs. Something about the spotlight, the emotion channeled as a queen performs a song, and the environment makes you feel like you are truly in the presence of something magical. The whole thing feels both serious and deeply important yet also absurd, hilarious, and irreverent.

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Needless to say, that show began a love and an obsession for drag. I started going to drag nights with my friends, and shortly after, I was introduced to RuPaul. I began watching RuPaul's Drag Race with season 5 (recently ended at that time) and I loved it immediately. 

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The more I watched the show and drag performances, I became interested in what it was that made me love it so much, and what made it so special. I started joking with my friends that I would do my honors project on drag queens. Ha ha. 

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As I got more into the show I started adopting some of the language I heard the queens using. Phrases like “yes mama!” “okurrrr” “throwing shade” “eleganza” and the frequent tongue pop made their way unapologetically into my daily language. Around the same time, I started to hear “throwing shade” from straight people. While I believe strongly in my linguistic influence on those around me, I was aware this was much bigger than that. I thought it was interesting, but wasn’t sure why. At that point, I didn’t have the word misappropriation in my vocabulary.

 

After hearing Paris Is Burning referred to enough times on Drag Race, I came across it on Netflix and decided to watch it. I loved it. I felt like so many of the things I heard on Drag Race and mentally filed under “Things Drag Queens Say That Make No Sense” finally had a context. It helped me begin to see a larger context and history behind drag.

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I’m sure I knew that drag didn’t just spring up when LOGO cast RuPaul’s Drag Race, but I had also never taken the time to think about it. I had also never thought about what RuPaul had done before the show. After seeing Paris Is Burning I thought about some of the slang and language common to drag queens in a different way. I saw them not just as part of an established vernacular in the world of drag but as having origin points in a world that has often not been so celebrated by the mainstream.

 

As I progressed as a student (and I suppose a citizen of the world), I learned more about things like misappropriation, issues of equity, feminism, and more. Social justice has a rotten connotation, but that’s basically it. Little by little, drag meant something more than my favorite form of entertainment. I also was consuming more content from RuPaul such as his podcast and music. However, I could no longer take everything that RuPaul said as gospel without questioning something here or there. I spent more time learning about the world of drag but I also started to think about it a bit more critically, especially RuPaul.

 

Throughout this writing, I never want to hide my bias for RuPaul because it is so stubbornly present, but I also recognize there is much to be questioned about his actions, motives, beliefs, and the way he uses his considerable influence on his captive audience. When I began the planning stage for this project, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to write about RuPaul. I knew I wanted to write about drag, but as I researched and developed questions and ideas, they all seemed to make sense framed in a context concerning RuPaul. I think there are several reasons for this but the most important reason is because RuPaul is so salient.

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RuPaul is loved, adored, despised, and questioned, but no one can ignore his fame as a drag superstar, nor his irrevocable impact on drag culture, and just as importantly, drag in pop culture. I have to admit that I’m much more fan than critic when it comes to RuPaul. He is someone I respect, admire, cherish, and forgive for all mistakes much too easily. However that doesn’t mean that I don’t have questions. When I started this project, I knew I wanted to talk about drag and culture. As I researched, all roads seemed to lead to RuPaul. I realized many of the questions I had and discussions I wanted to have made perfect sense to be located in the context of RuPaul. If nothing else, RuPaul has made a splash in our culture, and I decided that is what I’d like to focus on. 

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Originally, I intended this project to focus more specifically on language and the way that it's borrowed and how it originated. In it's final form, it is obviously this blog, which focuses on RuPaul's impact on culture. This includes drag culture, mainstream culture, and how mainstream culture sees drag. For the most part, the focus is on RuPaul's Drag Race. While the show is undisputedly an excellent form of entertainment, I hope in this blog to look deeper into some of the messages RuPaul is broadcasting along with the hour of tongue pops and death drops in each episode. I hope you'll follow along.