It's Time for <i>Drag Race</i> to Move Past the Binary
This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.
Last week on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, a fake ’50s housewife named BenDeLaCreme rewrote reality in Wite-Out. Every episode, the two top contestants fight a lip-sync battle, and the victor sends one of their competitors home—by revealing a preselected tube of lipstick with the doomed queen’s name on it. This time, BenDeLaCreme painted “DeLa” on hers and then won the battle, thereby eliminating herself—because, she said, she had nothing more to prove. This left the show without its clear frontrunner, sent gay bars worldwide into gasps, and birthed the new nickname “BenDeLaChrist.”
exists in part. (E.g., Is DeLa proving her nice-guy rep or disrespecting the crown?) But these moments also raise questions about the show itself. What if DeLa hadn’t won the lip sync? Would she have still quit? It’s hard to imagine, which means it’s hard to avoid the suspicion of collusion between producers and contestants, even . On as on many reality-TV competitions, the rules change at a whim. The editing distorts. The eliminations aren’t fair. And still the viewers love it. Why? Because it is collaborative, artificial art, like drag itself. Treating it as simple sport, a pure and neutral competition, means you miss the magic.
