‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Recap: Balls To The Wall
This week the queens took on macho, macho men.
Covergirls!
Never in my life have I screamed “SHE WAS ROBBED!” during an episode of RPDR like I did this week, when Shea Couleé won the challenge instead of Sasha Velour. Not only did Sasha deliver three stunning looks for this week’s challenge, but she needed that win.
We’re now at the business end of the competition, where a stumble sends you home (bye, Alexis) and if you haven’t won your fair share of challenges, you’re not getting the crown. Shea is now the front runner, having won two challenges with her RPDR bestie Sasha, and two all on her own. Trinity isn’t far behind Shea, while Peppermint has one challenge to her name.
Sasha is yet to win a challenge by herself. This week looked like she was going to get a solo run on the board, especially when you team her runway with that pitch perfect puppet read of Trinity.
Punch and (Friend of) Judy.
Instead Ru gave Shea the win, citing Sasha’s looks being more fashion than drag, and that they wouldn’t do as well at a Harlem Ball (NYC’s vogueing balls, made famous in Paris is Burning, are what the multi-look ball challenges we see each season are based on).
In a somewhat exciting twist, this lack of solo win for Sasha means the final spot in the top three is now a closer race between her and Peppermint. When I last analysed the top six I picked Peppermint to go next week, but after that lip sync AND Sasha’s non-win…who knows?
Meanwhile, I have thus far picked the last two queens to go home. Am I the drag race whisperer?
The Challenge
Right in time for Pride celebrations in the US, this season’s ball challenge was the Gayest Ball Ever, a gay-tasic celebration of all things rainbow, homo…and oh no.
The “oh no” part is due to the third runway look for the ball, Village People Eleganza Extravaganza. For a pride-themed challenge, a nod to the iconic gay supergroup makes sense, until you start to examine where we’re at in 2017 when it comes to queer politics and pride.
“What could possibly go wrong with the queens being inspired by members of the Village People to create drag looks?” you may ask. “Sounds like fun! There was the Construction Worker, the Cowboy, the Leather Daddy, the Cop, and…the Native American.”
Did you or did you not pick up that dreamcatcher, Alexis Michelle?
I might be a little sensitive snowflake, but when Alexis “The Great White Way” Michelle started plucking at feathered headdresses, my trigger-o-meter went off faster than Margaret Court listening to known homosexual Peter Allan’s Qantas-flogging anthem, I Still Call Australia Home.
RuPaul is on the record rolling his eyes at the current state of identity politics and boundary riding our own oppression, so I’m sure the potential awkwardness of Native American cultural appropriation in the context of a RPDR ball would fall on deaf ears. Fortunately, Alexis Michelle steered the look to a place that was at least inspired by some azure stones and not feathered headdresses (hi Raja).
Props to Shea Couleé for slipping in some Black Lives Matter consciousness raising when Trinity, who picked the Cop, whacked her with a toy police baton (Shea cried out “Police brutality, it’s too close to home!”). Police involvement in Pride marches is a contentious issue, especially in Toronto where protests against police involvement have been staged.
The Runway
I love the ball challenge. Quality queens delivering multiple runway looks, usually to some camp theme. Let’s take a closer look at the outfits that were ball that and more, and those that were ball busters.
Rainbow-She-Betta-Do
Sasha is the New Kid on the Colour Block.
Obviously, I think Sasha deserved to win this week, and it started with this colour blocking piece of deliciousness that included a HOUSE STUCK ON HER SEXY SHINY BALD HEAD. Go home, everyone else.
Best Skittle Borehouse in Texas?
Alexis ain’t all that bad, but this literal take on the pride rainbow proved she wasn’t in the same creative league as her fellow competitors. There was definitely no gold at the end of this rainbow.
Sexy Unicorn
Unicorn? More like do-me-corn, Sasha Velour.
Look at Sasha’s Amadeus eleganza! Was Ru ASLEEP when she walked the runway? Compared to all the other sexy unicorn runways this look was My Little Brocade brilliance, and was horned-head and shoulders above the rest.
Peppermint: shantay, you neigh.
Peppermint’s unicorn look was the second most creative after Sasha’s, but the execution (Peppermint’s weak spot) wasn’t great. It was baggy in all the wrong places, but she deserves extra points for that Jellyraiser headwear that was part horror movie, part Koosh ball.
Village People Eleganza Extravaganza
Drag Queen Name: Lindsay LoMAN.
JFC, look at this thing. The hat, the cut, the FRECKLES. Sasha took the Village People’s Cowboy and turned it into something Y.M.C.-YAY. Ru thought it was more Vogue than vogueing, but at this stage of RPDR, anyone who serves up Vivienne Westworld couture gets my vote.
“You don’t gotta go to work work work work work work work work, but you gotta put in work work work work work work work work” – Shea Couleé.
Shea has been doing more than her fair share of emotional labour this season, propping up Nina and helping her bestie Sasha co-win two challenges. So this Construction couture is a fitting look for the werkhorse of season nine, and it was a top to bottom triumph….but I still think Sasha was robbed.
The Lip Sync
“Bitch, boom, bye” was all I could say when Peppermint took to the stage and took down Hubris Michelle. It was a fait accompli that these two would be in the bottom, and Peppermint’s lip sync skills are such that it’s a genuine pleasure to watch her send someone home.
In a previous lip synch, Alexis Michelle had been saved by her mum-dance Dolly Parton performance, but no amount of Kath meets Kim kitsch could save her from Peppermint, who proved genre and drag race herstory means nothing to her as she tore the house down to the first-ever lip sync for your life number sung entirely by men…macho men.
We know from Peppermint’s previous lip sync that she is a total assassin, but this week she just may have worked her way into the herstory books, pulling off more choreography that was as skilful as it was joyous.
Assault and Peppermint.
Can we talk about Peppermint’s wig tear, revealing a shorter, choppy wig underneath? A double wig isn’t new territory, but for Peppermint to pull a Roxxxy Andrews against this season’s Roxxxy Andrews? Inspired.
Alexis “Older Sister of Lea?” Michelle was sent home, and right on schedule.
This Week’s Real Winner Is…
The “realness” portion of the ball. Often, RPDR balls have featured a classic realness challenge, inspired by the old Harlem balls in which African American drag queens and other queers present a hyper-real look in which they could pass as a straight man or cisgendered female in an ordinary, everyday setting.
In the now-extra buffoonery costumery of late-stage RPDR, it is almost impossible to get the queens to adhere to the challenge. We expect too much of them, wardrobe-wise, so it’s great that Ru just lets them go OTT. Also, the notion of “realness” has at its roots an aspect of survival, of subverting the very real need to “pass” as straight/cisgendered in an unsafe culture and turning it into an act of performance.
Given the ascension of drag (race) culture to the mainstream, and given the way vogueing culture has been appropriated, making the queens aim for “realness” is perhaps best left to a time/place in which it belongs.
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RuPaul’s Drag Race is fast-tracked from the US each Saturday on Stan. Read more Drag Race recaps here.
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Nic Holas has written for The Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald, Archer Magazine, and Hello Mr. You can find him on Twitter @nicheholas, or in his role as co-founder of HIV movement The Institute of Many.