A Lesson on Media Literacy: RuPaul’s Drag Race & the Neverending Constipation of Cultural Appropriation

RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) encourages a kind of “show and tell” for stereotypes, but never matures into a learning moment—transforming those assumptions into understanding.

Whether or not you have ever watched an episode of RPDR, the popularity of RuPaul Charles is undeniable as a household name and one of the most famous drag queens of all time. Since the first season released in 2009, RPDR has gained millions of devoted fans spanning the globe. With increased viewership, key topics of gay marriage, HIV-awareness, transgender identity, drag bans, and instances of homophobia that queens have vocalized on the show have helped bring queerness to the public eye. Nevertheless, due both in part to RuPaul Charles’ personal assimilationist ideas of progress (he loves bootstrapping and fracking) and the showrunners’ brand deals and capitalist greed, RPDR has always been plagued with racism, sizeism, ableism, and other oppression-based harms.

Note: This essay will only scratch the surface of the culture of white-washing, bigotry, exploitation, and silencing found in the RPDR production, community, and fanbase. Any critiques are not intended to direct harm or hate to any specifically mentioned queens. Rather, the critiques aim to bring awareness to the larger scope of RPDR’s influence and the dangers of continued trends of avoiding accountability and reactionary cancel culture. This post was written during the ongoing genocide on Gaza, and recognizes the solidarity required to end Zionism alongside racism, capitalism, and other oppressions under white supremacy! 🍉This essay was originally published in a newsletter in early February, so does not account for later incidents over the course of Season 16, such as Nymphia Wind’s questionable Cantonese accent during the comedic, office presentation episode.

Success in the RPDR-dominated drag industry is predicated on one’s ability to participate in or be a bystander to the collective cultural theft.

Typically, success in the RPDR-dominated drag industry is predicated on one’s ability to participate in or be a bystander to the collective cultural theft. This is far from traditions of drag, as “Ballroom” dance scenes began in warehouses in Chicago and New York in the 1920s coinciding with the Great Migration and Harlem Renaissance. Black and brown queens—who were often also femme, unhoused, addicted, “crazy,” and/or disabled—would come together to “walk” and compete in competitions for who could epitomize and satirize various icons and archetypes of the zeitgeist. Now, however, “drag” is much more broadly categorized and judged, with most popular media about drag being close in proximity to the aesthetics and morals of RPDR.

In a recent episode of RPDR (Season 16, episode 4: aired Jan. 26, 2024), the runway theme for the remaining 13 queens was “Night of A Thousand Chers” (aka “Everything Every Cher All the Time”), and showcased different eras and famous looks of Cher. Nymphia Wind’s and Sapphira Cristál’s outfits stuck out as examples of Cher’s well-documented racial appropriation to mixed reviews. Nymphia wore an orientalist “ancient Egyptian” Cher outfit and Sapphira donned a 2017 Vegas Cher with a full afro and elaborate neck piece.

Both queens were “safe” with their looks and performance for the wfeek, meaning they received no critiques from judges before being moved through to the next stage in the competition. Likewise, production made no comment on the show about Cher’s history of appropriation or the immense influence she had with her racial stereotyping. From what I could find, it seems the RPDR community at large had nothing to say about any of it either. (Upon posting preliminary questions about what people thought on the RPDR subreddit, people told me I was being dramatic and to “go touch grass” since the questions I raised weren’t purportedly real.)

What I find interesting is how both of these outfits portray a disingenuine version of Cher that, in some form, these queens resonated with enough to reclaim, or, in Nymphia’s case, continue to take from. Sapphira’s Cher outfit exhibits Black Excellence, a far cry from Cher’s actual ancestry (Armenian and Western European white) while Nymphia’s look feels costumey, even if the craftsmanship of both garments is unquestionably good.

AppRupriation and Cher, Continued:

In the previous Cher-styled challenge on RPDR “Cher: The Unauthorized Rusical” (Season 10, Episode 8), Monet X Change wore a Native American headdress for a “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour” segment of the musical. The lyrics and costume reference Cher’s continuous history of theft, but unfortunately are written and performed under the guise of self awareness, anti-intellectualism and tasteless irony. It’s a pretty hard watch. For about a minute, Monet explains her ancestry and why that was okay for her to cosplay as Indigenous people, whether Native Americans or Roma people. The lyrics also include the g slur, “g*psy”. Then she dances around saying appropriation only happened “way back then” as if audiences weren’t witnessing it in real time on their televisions in May 2018. The portrayal of Cher’s appropriation is downplayed by a denial of the real harm brought on by stereotyping racially oppressed communities and is emphasized by the exploitative relationship RPDR has with pitting queens of color against one another while engaging in stereotype to be “funny” (well, at least for the judges and white imaginations…). Immediately following is a performance of Disco Era Cher by The Vixen, clad groovily in an afro.

What’s considerable is how this is just a bar for bar repetition of Nymphia and Sapphira now, but 6 years ago. Cher revivals initiate two outcomes: appropriation that either becomes subversive and reclamatory, or appropriation that’s basic and reductionist. In documented examples, Black queens reclaim ownership and pride over their natural hair while others (often also BIPOC) appropriate each other, whether that’s co-opting black-coded, textured hair or sacred headdresses.

More insights:

“Night of A Thousand [blank],” the event in question from the Cher runway theme, is inherently appropriative! Its name originates from “Arabian Nights” (aka “One Thousand And One Nights”) and the concept is simply recreating already-made, iconic outfits. Even RuPaul himself did not invent this runway theme. The earliest rendition of the event is “1000 Stevies” for Stevie Nicks which began in 1991 and continues annually. (Ironically the event page also celebrates her mis-use of Roma imagery for her aesthetic, also using the g slur.) So what is this runway theme offering that’s new outside of nostalgia and reference. It’s cute for the girls that get it but not for the ones who flop (ex. wearing a 1960s wig for a 1970s outfit 😰). So how do we “queer” icons? Well, not by appropriating their racist appropriations!

How is the event contributing to the pop culture memory of a person just to recreate their greatest hits like a bad Beach Boys cover band? For instance, Season 14’s Kerri Colby wearing an exact off-the-runway Versace dress for “Night of A Thousand Jennifer Lopez’s” is not giving us anything new. It’s just aesthetically beautiful, boring, and not even necessarily “drag.” Additionally, Season 8’s “Night of A Thousand Madonnas” displayed four separate girls who wore the same red kimono for the runway. Not only were the looks cheap, but some were much more sexualized than even Madonna’s original music video look, adding to the orientalizing effect of the now-dubbed Kimonogate. After the fact, Season 8 winner Bob the Drag Queen revealed there were two more girls who had been eliminated who brought kimonos for this challenge, so that would’ve been six near-identical kimonos paying homage to dozens of other iconic, non-racist Madonna looks. (Unfortunately, even in the following season 9’s attempt at Ru-demption, “Night of A Thousand Madonnas, part two” [aka “Kimono She Better Don’t”], two pairs of queens ended up wearing variations of the same look. So that’s six kimonos, two Met Gala flannels, two Material Girls, and one Madonna, oh my…)

How does this keep happening?

Is the idea of appropriation too alluring for some people that it must inherently be racialized? Imagine how ecstatic one must feel to courageously wear one of the few questionable looks by a known gay icon—resident straight, probably white woman—for the gay competition of your generation, only to face a rude awakening to the uncreativity of one’s choices. Nevertheless, such rude awakening never occurs on RPDR. One of the most universally celebrated fashion queens, Season 3 winner Raja wore a crude-couture version of a Native headdress and was met gloriously by the judges feedback. One of them even made a holler of excitement saying “Nava-ho!”.

Not to mention, the “lip sync for your life” song in the Cher-tastic season 16 episode was Cher’s “Dark Lady,” which heavily relies on stereotypes of Romani people as mystical, foreign and hyper-sexualized. It, again, uses the g slur. Like, I guess this is better than including another anti-indigenous Cher anthem (like her most famous “Half Breed” in which she appropriates not only Native identity but uses slurs that aren’t hers!), but could they not have used any of Cher’s other non-racist songs?! 

Unfortunately, even when RPDR has the clearest opportunity to be a platform for queer liberation, education, or even simply “awareness,” they choose not to. For example, first indigenous winner of DR Canada, Métis member Venus won a design challenge few weeks ago (Jan 2024) and guest judge Batchewana First Nation member Sarain Fox commented on how important it was that Venus wore a red dress—referencing REDress Project. Either Fox, the other hosts, or the showrunners didn’t include any further info or even mention of the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women and two spirit people. It’s unfortunate that the “that’s enough activism for today” bar is so low that the mere mention of a symbol alluding to the awareness of an international issue was enough for RPDR production and fans alike. In a later instagram post, Venus thanked Fox for her insight and shared resources and information about the significance about the Red Dress Day and details about how folks can donate to a specific nonprofit org she included. Still, she’s a very small creator even after winning the crown. Despite her win, she only has about 74k followers at time of posting, paltry compared to the almost 5 million and 3.6 million who follow RuPaul and RPDR’s instagram, respectively.

To conclude, although Sapphira managed to create an entirely new feeling and resonance with her Cher look, Nymphia’s embodies the obtuse essence of Cher and her similarly daft appropriation of cultural aesthetics.

While RPDR remains a platform for queer voices, it relies upon the mutual participation of white and BIPOC in cultural appropriation in order to maintain empty entertainment for audiences. Thus, the only “representation” the show deems valid is one of consumptive exploitation, wherein audiences, contestants and hosts alike convey references to cultural and ancestral symbols, without any of the substance of why those symbols offer value, joy, and/or history. The symbols themselves may be mundane or commonplace, or they may be spiritual and ceremonial. Regardless of their nature, their mere reference and the exchange of their ownership is what’s valuable. What’s worse is that RPDR has a kind of fanfare over The Reference, where one may garner greater success and notoriety for the ability to demonstrate a fluency in the language of pop cultural appropriation. And because of the impact Black Culture has on pop culture, often identity and racialization are inherently included in that ball pit of “exchange.”

Regardless of their intent, the theft of these items, aesthetics, or cultural knowledge for the sake of visual reference is dangerous, crude, and unimaginative. As drag takes so much influence from Ballroom Culture, it’s only fitting that we return to those values of form and subversion that once pioneered drag and other queer art. So to those of you still asking “what is Drag Race without reference?”, perhaps instead we should ask “how much better could drag become, for everyone, with imagination, curiosity, and appreciation?”.

Carefully unpessimistic,

c.r.i.

Resources on appropriation that informed this essay:

• Hanif Abdurraqib’s essay “Sixteen Ways of Looking at Blackface”
• Andrea Long Chu’s essay “Ottessa Moshfegh is Praying For Us”
• Cathy Park Hong’s essay collection Minor Feelings
• Claudia Rankine’s prose-poetry collection Citizen
• Princess Weekes’ video essay “No—Twilight Hate Isn’t Just Misogyny”