To quote my best friend, Bebe Zahara Benet, the winner of the first season of RuPaul's Drag Race: GET IT TOGETHER!
I have been watching the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race, and while I think the caliber of the queen's improved over last year's dismal and largely untalented pool of talent (with a couple of notable exceptions), the unnecessary and community damaging drama of this year's season is really reaching the point where I am ready to walk away from the show.
Let me tell you why.
To begin with, the near violence on the show between the drag queens is really fucking out of control. In the first episode, when the two queens up for elimination had to lip synch for their life, I thought Phoenix's crazy ass was going to draw blood. RuPaul made it clear that her behavior was unacceptable....and then two episodes later Mimi Imfurst loses her fucking mind and PICKS India up and slings her over her shoulders.
Let me be clear. I know Mimi. We are acquaintances. I do not know her well, but she has been in my home, and I respect her drag artistry. I know that these shows are edited in a particular manner, and I don't believe she is as whiny and clueless as the show makes her out to be, but when she put her hands on another queen, I was done. It wasn't funny. It wasn't ok. And she deserved to be booted from the show. Love you girl, but that is the Lord's own damn truth. Don't put your hands on another person without their permission. You don't know what that person has lived through or what burdens they are carrying. As a survivor of intense physical assault, I promise you that I wouldn't have screamed when you picked me up, I would have put you in the motherfucking hospital and that is no damn joke. PTSD is nothing to play with.
Up until this current episode, I was LOVING on the South Asian Drag Queen Raja until she opened her mouth to talk shit about Stacey Lane, and, in particular, using Southphobic bullshit about listening to bullfrogs and sipping iced tea on the back porch. Let me be clear with you Raja you dumb heifer, if not for the radical, life threatening and courageous social justice work of SOUTHERN folks, PARTICULARLY queers and people of color, tranny South Asian half-assed drag queens wouldn't have a fucking chance in this world. LEARN SOMETHING before you open your fucked up mouth and start marginalizing people from rural and southern communities. How about that?
I HAVE HAD IT!
It is Black History Month. Hey Raja....do you know WHY we have Black History Month? Because MY great-Uncle Carter G. Woodson, FROM THE SOUTH, made it happen. Hey Raja, did you know that Stonewall only happened because BLACK SOUTHERNERS had shown the way? I am so fucking tired of folks from outside of the South perpetuating stereotypes of Southerners. I am from northern Minnesota. My Dad is from southern West Virginia. The most welcoming place, besides Minneapolis, I have ever lived is ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA! More friendly than New York, more friendly than the Bay area, but dumb bitches like Raja say shit on tv that reinforce and re-marginalize southerners that continue to lead us forward.
Hey stupid ass Raja....do you know about Southerners on New Ground (SONG?). Do you know about the Suzanne Pharr, and now Pam McMichael, both queer women to lead the HIGHLANDER CENTER in New Market, TN? Do you know anything besides how to tuck your tiny little dick into your ass with a little duct tape? I hope Stacey Lane shoves your ass in a Fry Daddy and eats you on stage.
I am pissed.
The South is going to rise again, but this time it is going to be queer people of color that rise up and claim their due and then beat the shit out of dumb fucks that run off at the mouth on national television.
I think the show is an interesting microcosm of the race and class issues (among other forms of oppression) in the Lesbian and Gay community. You can feel the underlying resentment from the queens of non color because they just can't out do the girls of color. It is so white to attempt to destroy something you don't understand or can't control. Phoenix was losing and Mimi seemed to be losing it.
ReplyDeleteNow Raja...oh Raja. I...yea. She reminds me of my frustrations with queer communities of color when they defend white folks.
The general fatphobia is like the whole reason I can't get too involved in LGBT activities.
The show has disappointed. But it is TV. MTV produced at that...I should expect nothing.
I know nothing about the show, but I do know reality TV... and I don't get it. Don't we have enough bullshit drama in our lives without artificially manufacturing more? I mean, even with good intentions, the nature of the medium as conceptualized *demands* conflict and drama, so it has to be manufactured even if it is not naturally there.
ReplyDeleteI get that the space in our culture for drag queens / transfolk, especially on TV, especially for people of color, is damned limited... does the show balance out net positive? I presume so, if y'all are still watching it, but I can't help wishing there were more outlets.