How ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Made Me A Better Mother
When our daughter was 11 I realized the TV shows we’d usually watched after
she went to bed were ones she’d probably enjoy, her tastes and interests so
similar to ours, the final realization of the clone we’d set out to create
years before when we were young and clueless about children. We’d gotten
lucky and we liked and laughed at a lot of the same things so instead of
packing her away for the night we began allowing her stay up to watch The Office and Parks and Recreation with us.
In another year it was my husband who headed off to bed while the two of usstayed downstairs to binge watch my old favorites: Monk and Buffy,
Frasier, and Will and Grace. When people would ask how it was living with
a now-teenager I’d tell them it was actually pretty great, like hanging out
with a college roommate who had spookily similar tastes. During holiday
breaks we’d stay up until the wee hours sprawled on the sofa under
blankets, *Just one more? No. Seriously we have to go to bed, I am not
even joking.* I was totally joking and we’d click play again just because
we could, the “being bad” of it a temporary thing as any mother knows.
It was through Will and Grace that we found RuPaul. We had consumed
massive quantities of that show in a completely random order, our DVR at
one point filled with a hundred episodes. I’d find a period I felt like
watching and we’d gorge on ten in a row, all of the Gregory Hines episodes,
and then all the ones with Will’s boyfriend Vince. I had noticed during
our Frasier phase that I’d found a convenient set of shoulders to carry
some of the burden that comes with mothering a tween. The sex positive
attitude of the show made it clear that people have sex because they want
to have sex, just for the fun of it even, and not always for baby-making
reasons. There are often consequences to this sex-having, some of it
funny, some of it not funny. I know I can be a lazy mother but allowing
that seed to be planted by familiar friends on a TV show seemed a more
impactful way to get the message across than one of my endless
driving-in-the-car lectures (at which I excel.)
What began with Frasier only continued with Will and Grace as a whole new
world of sexuality and sexual identity was unlocked. Anyone who has
watched Will and Grace on Logo knows the frequency with which commercials
for RuPaul’s Drag Race air. As the premier of season 6 got closer there
was no doubt we would be watching. That endless loop of Laganja Estranja
in hip high boots calling out to the world “Let’s get sickening!” before
sideways splitting to the floor in a green and yellow tartan heap? How
could anyone *not* watch that?
I want to say real quick here that I am a snob. As a general rule I do not
like reality TV. I think it is often lazy and simple and that it too often
celebrates the worst of humanity. I am also a middle-class, cisgender
housewife with three kids. I am super square and kinda boring and
basically just really white bread. I never thought I was the target
demographic for most things on Logo. But maybe I am? I’m not so sure
anymore. When I would try to geek out with friends over the latest episode
of Drag Race I would often get really confused looks. *You watch that?*
That *you* encapsulating worlds of assumptions, ones I often make of myself
too.
But after one episode of Drag Race we were hooked. Hooked! The proxy
mothering I’d taken advantage of while we watched Frasier and Will and
Grace soon magnified a thousand fold. It is safe to assume the stars of
RuPaul’s Drag Race were probably not the popular kids in school. Oddballs
and artists, in all shapes and sizes and shades. We remember those kids in school as the targets, the different kids who were punished for those differences. These gorgeous queens were *those same kids*, on television now and applauded. While that vulnerability is often hinted at on Drag Race it is rarely invoked openly. The framing of the show makes
it clear these queens live in the Right Now, that this is their moment.
They have found their world and it is the only world that matters.
We obsessively watched season 6 and as soon as it was over began consuming
earlier seasons desperate to understand all the inside jokes and
references. Something we quickly realized was that regardless of season,
the smarter queens always did the best. The quick-witted and kind always
had an edge that the catty and cruel did not. While we worship Bianca Del
Rio, the total drag package of runway looks, artistry, and comedy, we
championed the artsy queens like Milk and Detox, and the unrelenting Club
Kid, Vivacious. RuPaul’s Drag Race is not simply about who the most
beautiful queen is. Often, it is about who stays truest to their art, who
refuses to stray from their identity and their craft, who is most confident
in the best version of themself. Jinkx Monsoon and Ben DeLaCreme‘s old
vaudeville-style glamour and commitment to character even when the judges
didn’t love their looks earned them the snuggest place is our hearts.
Their good humor and warmth making it seem like we could all go out for
coffee together, just this middle-aged housewife, her teenaged daughter,
and a couple of queens out for a day on the town.
This is the world RuPaul has created. We are smart enough to know it is a
television program that has been assembled for the most entertaining
experience possible. Knowing who wins each season before you watch older
episodes allows you to see how the editors craft the season-long narrative
to throw viewers off the track. We always laugh when they reference Sharon
Needles or Jinkx Monsoon as underdogs who might be sent home, the
manipulation of the viewer for a compelling experience something we are
capable of understanding. What is not manipulation though is the obvious
affection that all of the queens have for RuPaul herself. Or “himself.”
It is telling that he says he has no interest in which pronoun you use to
describe him. The clear idea being that what matters most is what he calls
himself.
And that is why this show matters so much to me, and how it’s made me a
better mother mostly by doing the mothering for me. In the space of an
hour my daughter gets to see so many different versions of beauty, so many
different versions of self, all of them fiercely in love with their bodies
and completely comfortable in their identities. Queens like Latrice Royale
and Jiggly Caliente who the words “plus-sized” don’t seem to apply to.
They are beyond words like “plus-sized”. They are simply Themselves, people
who exist outside the regular, limiting labels. They own it and their
beauty.
Having flesh and blood examples of this acceptance of self is invaluable to
me as a mother. The visible proof that high school is temporary and if you
fly your freak fly high enough and wave it wildly enough you will find your
people, and your place. I wish I had learned that lesson decades ago. We
can’t wait for season 7 so we can learn even more. As Mama Ru says at the
end of each episode “If you can’t love yourself, then how the hell you
gonna love somebody else? Can I get an Amen?”
Amen.
(Photo: LOGO)
