Drag Race Down Under: The Rudemic
In the words of Gia Gunn: “Is there no budget this time around?”
The season set out with a cast of fourteen from New Zealand and Australia competing to become down under’s first Drag Race superstar. While the cast themselves had some amazing art and drag to show- it was overshadowed by the constant aggression and overproduced drama. While Drag Race fans are no strangers to loving drama, the produced friction between Elektra and Scarlet proved too much for fans who went to Twitter and Youtube to express their feelings. This also led to the production feeling off as the show could not decide on who they wanted as the seasons’ villain, leading to some messy editing and incoherent arguments.
I also felt as if the season focused too much on drama rather than the competition, it was clear many queens were left out of the edit (Yes were blaming it on the edit RuPaul) to compensate.
Black-face and racism took a precedent with two of the queens being exposed for having a racist past. Scarlet was even called out by Rupaul during the show and in a controversial move, allowed her to continue in the competition. Causing many fans to come to Twitter to make parallels between that and Ru’s meltdown during the British version over a queen wearing a dress from H&M. Many also felt as if Scarlet’s apology was half-hearted and had no genuine feeling behind it. It was difficult to continue watching as she almost tainted the rest of the reason for myself- I was always waiting for her elimination.
The music number is a staple in Drag Race ‘herstory’ with ‘Break Up, Bye Bye’ charting at number 50 in the UK charts. However, the Australian version, ‘Queens Down Under’ is probably one the worst songs that have been produced in recent drag history.
The lip-syncs were underwhelming mostly due to the song choices. There was no real mixture of music and a lot of the songs had a slow beat- only one Kylie Minogue song? But most notably was the forced lip-sync between drag sisters Kita Mean and Elektra Shock. Neither queen did awfully on the challenge but it was clear production needed a twist or shock factor- but in reality, there was no payoff because we as viewers had barely seen these queens interact.
Let us hope Ru learns from his mistakes with this season and improves upon everything in season 2 which has already begun filming.
