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More than ever, the show has felt like content.
The philosophy ever since has been more is more.
There are multiple after-shows featuring judges and alumni dedicated to recapping the competition.
(They were not, as Miranda Priestly might note,reaaady.)
You could get a spinoff, baby.
Shortly after the season-eight premiere in 2016, RuPaul told me that drag wasthe antithesis of the mainstream.
Listen, what youre witnessing with drag is the most mainstream it will get, he said.
But it will never be mainstream, because it is completely opposed to fitting in.
Nine Emmys later,Drag Racecan no longer claim outsider status.
What was once counterculture has simply become the Culture.
This has its benefits: Mainstream consumer culture has gotten a little less straight.
Queer slang is now the lingua franca of the internet.
Memes like And I oop!
are passed around, stripped of context and ownership.
The market is shifting as well.
But its also created a monopoly.
Its difficult to imagine a viable career path independent of the show.
Were living in a post-tragic, post-camp, pro-filter era of drag that sits in the uncanny valley.
Certain tricks are pro forma; a death drop is de rigueur.
You cant look messy, even though in some deep way, messiness is part of drag.
Meanwhile, the contestants act more like reality-TV stars who are self-conscious of their image.
A potentially insurgent challenge like Trump: The Rusical culminated in a call for more female political candidates.
Maybe hell be Ruprah next.
There was an audacity and a willingness to upend social conventions that are essential to the form.
In this sense, Ru was right when he said that drag resists conformity.
Like queerness, it will elude, resist, and throw a middle finger to the people in power.
He just might not be the one flicking them off anymore.
