As UK fans prepare to sit down for the seventh series of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, it is worth asking what the competition format really offers drag. Since first airing in the US in 2009, Drag Race has grown into a global brand.
RuPaul has achieved global drag domination with 20 localised versions, bringing the total number of contestants worldwide to over 600. The series has brought drag unprecedented visibility. Yet across these platforms, the same issues of representation keep appearing.
[My work with performer and researcher Mark Edward](https://www.routledge.com/Drag-The-Basics/Edward-Greenough/p…
As UK fans prepare to sit down for the seventh series of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, it is worth asking what the competition format really offers drag. Since first airing in the US in 2009, Drag Race has grown into a global brand.
RuPaul has achieved global drag domination with 20 localised versions, bringing the total number of contestants worldwide to over 600. The series has brought drag unprecedented visibility. Yet across these platforms, the same issues of representation keep appearing.
My work with performer and researcher Mark Edward traces how drag has been used to fight censorship, challenge colonial law, mobilise against AIDS, critique apartheid and demand trans liberation.
It does seem like overt politics and activism are not seen as “sellable”. Mass appeal and commercial viability must be a concern when there is a whole series of linked product lines, tours, cosmetics, podcasts, merchandise, conventions and brand endorsements. The Conversation contacted the production company behind Ru Paul’s Drag Race, World of Wonder, for comment but it did not respond.
Yet beyond the show, drag performers continue to lead activist initiatives. Black and brown queens have drawn attention to systemic racism, while others have used drag for causes such as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, drag nuns, who campaign for sexual health and HIV awareness. Or performers campaigning for environmental concerns and veganism.
Drag Race also represents, recognises and rewards certain kinds of drag over others. Across its franchises, queens (note, only queens and not kings) who embody a polished, high-femme aesthetic tend to flourish. Contestants who work outside these conventions, whether through performance art, body non-conformity or alternative drag, often struggle to be recognised.
Drag kings, assigned female at birth (AFAB) performers and trans and non-binary performers are absent or under-represented from the show’s casting and representation. Drag researcher Ami Pomerantz writes about the tokenism in the selection of fat performers on the show. While, political scientist Ash Kayte Stokoe discusses representations of ethnicity and prejudice against non-native speakers of English across the competitions.
- ** Read more: RuPaul’s Drag Race: how social media made drag’s subversive art form into a capitalist money maker***
Disabled performers are also largely absent. When they do appear, disability is often hidden, downplayed or framed as personal struggle. In the US series, Yvie Oddly waited until halfway through season 11 to reveal her hypermobility condition. Tamisha Iman (US season 13) competed with an ostomy bag following cancer treatment. In the UK, Ginny Lemon (UK season 2) explained their fibromyalgia prevented them from wearing heels, and later left the show.
But outside of the show, there are disabled performers such as Drag Syndrome the world’s first drag troupe featuring drag artists with Down’s syndrome.
Drag has been about transcending and parodying rigid gender structures and in the wider drag world there is more diversity to be found. For instance, The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula has presented itself as an alternative to such performances, celebrating horror and filth.
- ** Read more: Drag culture may be mainstream but its forms are constantly evolving***
Drag theorist Nick Cherryman describes tranimal perfomers, those who use interpretive, animalistic, and post-modern expressions of drag to transcend the human-animal binary.
Drag has long been sustained by community. In 18th-century Britain, molly houses like Mother Clap’s in Holborn, London, gave gay men and gender-nonconforming people space to parody rituals, gossip and bond. They often called each other “mother” and “daughter” – a precursor to today’s drag families. A century later, New York’s ballroom scene created chosen families led by house mothers such as Pepper LaBeija, offering shelter to youth rejected elsewhere.
The competition format of Drag Race reorders these priorities. Performers in competition, weekly eliminations, cliffhanger edits and rivalries are formatted for television, not for community.
The problem is structural. Television formats demand tension, pacing and clear winners. What gets lost is drag’s ethos of kinship and solidarity.
The contrast is clear. On television, activism is transformed into digestible content, stripping drag of the radical force it historically carried. Off screen, it remains a daily practice of protest and survival for LGBTQ+ communities.
The impact of RuPaul’s Drag Race is undeniable. It has made certain forms of drag visible and popular. Yet, drag’s visibility should not be confused with representation. By privileging certain aesthetics and the dominance of queens, the competition format constrains as much as it celebrates.
As season seven of the UK franchise begins, viewers will once again enjoy the glamour and talent of British queens. But the bigger question lingers across the franchise: can drag on television hold onto its diversity and political edge?
Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.