RuPaul Races Along The Line of Camp and Commodity
Drag has always been a fabulous and larger-than-life art form. However, the definition of drag and what it means to participate in drag has evolved since its 19th-century origins. The 19th- century definition of drag is only the foundation of what it means today: performing with a persona outside one’s gender identity. In the 1920s, drag became associated with the LGBTQ+ community, congregating queer people of color into common social spaces (Them, 2018). For decades, drag remained separate from mainstream pop culture until RuPaul’s Drag Race premiered on Logo TV in 2009. The show commercialized what once was a private outlet for marginalized people to challenge the gender binary through community, fashion, and performance.
RuPaul’s Drag Race is a competition show hosted by RuPaul, an American drag queen and fixture in the New York City ballroom scene. In RuPaul’s Drag Race, drag queens from around the world compete in weekly challenges to crown the year’s “next drag superstar.” These challenges include fashion shows, group performances, and most notably, lip-sync battles between the bottom two queens, resulting in elimination or a second chance at the crown. The series exploded into a drag empire, with outstanding audience ratings, several spinoffs, and thirty-nine Emmy Award nominations over the years (Bikales, 2022).
Drag is camp, but one can argue that RuPaul’s Drag Race is not. Commodification separates drag from Drag Race, as drag pioneers did not intend for their work to be judged for profit. Writer and political activist Susan Sontag coined the term camp, which she describes as “the love of the exaggerated, the ‘off,’ of things-being-what-they-are-not” (Sontag, 1984, p.3). Drag, at its core, exemplifies camp: its vernacular, extravagance, and avant-garde representation of queer culture.
According to Sontag, however, what is camp is not meant to be understood. Sontag adds that “camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation - not judgment” (Sontag, 1984, p.13). The moment drag does not only exist for enjoyment and appreciation is when it loses its campy nature. What once only existed in marginalized queer spaces as an outlet for creative expression and community, drag is now accessible on streaming platforms for all to consume.
RuPaul’s Drag Race adds complexity to an art form that once only existed in queer spaces. The show places queer people in a box, suggesting that only a certain type of cisgender gay man can participate in drag. In her criticism of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, scholar Katherine Sender references Sawyer’s gay minstrelsy or the notion that gay TV requires the performance of queer stereotypes to entertain straight audiences (Sender, 2006, p.133). RuPaul’s Drag Race is not only marketed toward straight people, but the show’s definition of what it means to be queer and a member of the drag community does not apply to everyone. The show characterizes drag as cisgender gay men dressing and performing in hyper-feminine dress, but drag is far bigger than this limited definition. For example, genderfuck drag is a type of drag that doesn’t portray the performer as one particular gender. The show does not often feature androgynous drag performers, as they don’t fit the “drag queen” persona (Segalov, 2015).
Similarly, RuPaul’s Drag Race invests in the growing “gay market” in pop culture and media. The show encourages a deeper understanding of the queer and drag communities, but RuPaul’s Drag Race uses queer people’s struggles and experiences “to court both gay consumers and heterosexuals who want to be associated with the positive attributes of the gay market” (Sender, 2006, p.137). While the show offers drag queens access to social mobility within the drag community, that opportunity is rescinded upon elimination. In RuPaul’s Drag Race, participants must “do drag” in a certain way to appeal to the judges, defeating its original purpose of unconditional creativity and acceptance.
RuPaul’s Drag Race is a transformative representation of queer people in pop culture. However, like any piece of media, the show is not perfect nor wholly representative of the drag community. In an attempt to capitalize on a camp art form, the show detracts from the meaning of camp in drag spaces (Sontag, 1984, p.6). In 2015, the first RuPaul’s DragCon was hosted in Los Angeles, California, marking yet another commodification of the drag community. Drag Race fans, former participants, and other members of the wider drag community could gather in one place to celebrate drag culture (Them, 2018). However, the use of brand sponsorships, an extension of RuPaul’s drag brand, and the commercial nature of conventions take away from the event being a safe space for members of the queer and drag communities alike. What once existed as “something of a private code” no longer belongs to one marginalized group (Sender). Instead, RuPaul’s Drag Race markets drag as a sought-after product.
Works Cited
Bikales, J. (2022, August 14). Drag exploded in popularity. then came the protests and attacks. The Washington Post. Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/drag-mainstream-attacks-crossroads/
Segalov, M. (2015, September 18). Meet the genderfucking drag collective embracing new lives. Dazed. Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/26486/1/meet-the-genderfucking-drag- collective-embracing-new-lives
Sender, K. (2006). Queens for a day: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the neoliberal project. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 23(2), 131–151.
Sontag, S. (1984). Notes On 'Camp'.
Them. (2018, September 20). Trixie Mattel breaks down the history of "Drag". Them. Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://www.them.us/story/inqueery-drag
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