‘RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars’ Recap: Oops, She Did Britney (And Pettiness) Again!

And one week after S12, we’re back for All Stars 5 — something the cast, understandably, have mixed feelings about.

Shea Coulée summed up her feelings with an Instagram post (as did Mayhem Miller), detailing her conflicting excitement and guilt about posting about Drag Race at a time when social media is flooded with conversations around prison abolition and police brutality as Black Lives Matter protests are held around the world.

Ultimately, she says that there’s no easy answer here, but that her “experience on AS5 was nothing short of pure MAGIC. It challenged me, inspired me, renewed my love of drag in a deep and meaningful way, but most of all it gave me hope. Hope that I feel so many of us need right now.”

“My name is Shea Couleé, and I didn’t come to play,” she signed off with. “I came to dismantle white supremacy, defund the police, return power and resources back to the people, uplift and amplify black voices, and get that crown.”

While throughout the S12 recaps I wrote that those queens had it tough, the AS5 cast is in unprecedented waters: the world is too. Shea says none of us know how to “consume or interact” with culture or art right now, and, to be frank, it feels awkward to address the BLM protests in this recap, especially as a white Australian. But nothing is divorced from this ‘conversation’: racism is systemic and pervades everything, including Drag Race.

Both the show and its audience continually favour white queens. BIPOC queens, again and again, have fewer followers on social media yet receive far more hate, and the show itself has a complicated, studied relationship with pushing queens into performing racial stereotypes. The way the show treated The Vixen alone is well worth your re-examination.

I felt comfortable describing S12 as a beacon of light, but feel hesitant to say that here, even though AS5 will be too. Already, it’s a reprieve from how fucking awful the world can feel right now, and a display of Black excellence — and with Shea, Mariah and Mayhem there, we’re guaranteed it.

But it feels like a cop-out to lean on that and Shea’s words alone as a way to shrug off its context and meaning. AS5 was filmed a year ago: the way the Drag Race machine will interact with the Black Lives Matter movement will largely take place off the show.

Instead, it’s on YouTube, where Bob The Drag Queen and Peppermint are chatting about why you need to say Black Lives, not all, matter, or discussing what intersectionality, an incredibly misused term, actually is and how it affects someone’s life. Or how they can’t just be drag queens — how they have to be activists too, where white queens can opt-out of being ‘political’.

It’s in Jaida’s post-win interviews, too, where she’s been now tasked with speaking on police brutality and the show’s own racism a week after winning a drag reality show. Or Monique Heart’s simple line: “I’m not a black drag queen, I’m a black man. And black men are not beloved in America”.

But it’s not just black queens’ responsibilities. Conversations, however awkward, are taking place on podcasts like Willam and Alaska’s Race Chaser, and Twitter, where Aquaria is directly tweeting RuPaul (!!), other queens and Drag Race for their silence or half-hearted words, and other queens are educating themselves alongside their audiences. Or warning their audiences to not be racist towards AS5 queens.

It’s also on the Drag Race subreddit and countless Facebook groups, where fans dissect every single social media post, outfit, and statistic, not always with equal weight.

It won’t always be eloquent, and the non-Black queens and fans will get things wrong. So will any ally. It’s following the example of queens who reflect and grow; it’s taking lessons from those who don’t.

I want to say sorry to those I’ve let down by not speaking up, esp to my black fans who feel betrayed. I am generally less outspoken these days and I hesitated in speaking up in selfish fear of sounding inauthentic, merely virtue-signaling for "woke" digital applause

— Катя (@katya_zamo) May 29, 2020

If you love this show like I do — if it takes up way more brain space than you’d care to admit, if it brings you a stupid amount of joy, if it’s been the first steps to finding queer culture and community — you should listen and engage, especially if you’re white.

We need to examine, among many other things, our relationship to the show: who do we follow on social media? Who do we pay to see live? Who is deemed a ‘fashion queen’ and who isn’t? Why do we hate ‘cheap’ looking outfits, and how does that play out for the queens with fewer resources?

I know this isn’t very fun, which is hopefully how these recaps usually read. But 18 seasons (!!) and a decade in, Drag Race is the most mainstream queer cultural text we have, complete with its own community of fans and literal economy made of conventions, worldwide tours and endless content. It is a beacon of light, but it’s also far too impactful to view just as an escape.

Having said that, it’s time to awkwardly segue to the episode. Feel free to DM me about this ‘recap’, if you’d like — thoughts, criticism, and, of course, your favourite Kelly Mantle quote.

All Stars 5, AKA Some Stars 1

Jujubee’s read of Mariah holds a truth: All Stars 5 really should be called “some stars”, but thank God for that.

This cast is a really eclectic mix of newer fan-favourites (Shea, Cracker and Blair, to a lesser extent), early Drag Race-era legends (Ongina, Jujubee, Alexis) and queens who didn’t necessarily have a great run on the show, but are highly respected and revered by other Drag Race queens/people who actually attend drag shows as legends (Mayhem, Mariah). Then there’s Derrick and India, who don’t quite fit into either category.

Derrick has been cast as a Gia Gunn-esque agitator, while India is a bit of a wildcard. She didn’t really make much of a memorable impression back on S3, so it’s hard to know what narrative the show’s producers have in mind, given she’s already had a redemption one episode in.

Let’s be completely honest — most of these queens have little chance of winning. I’m hesitant to say it’s absolutely Shea’s crown given how messy All Stars can be, but from the outset, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else taking it. Maybe Jujubee or Alexis?

It’s not to be rude to the other queens: in fact, I’d say there’s a good chance they’d agree with me. Most are there to gain a bigger audience and show off their personalities and drag upgrades — judging by the premiere, that might mean we have one of the least self-producing casts in recent history, Drag Race UK aside.

As a result, this premiere had such a fun energy, as the ‘veteran’ queens were far less concerned about appearing shady, whether that be Jujubee calling out Mariah’s shoe size or Ongina running around demanding gossip. And a solid reading challenge, too! Besides Ongina (bless her kind heart), there were no duds.

Jujubee and Blair win the reading challenge — it feels like both Blair and the show are pushing the ‘all grown up’ narrative, and the win showed that. People might be who’ing India and Mariah, but to me, Blair is the real odd one out of the show: at 24, she’s the only queen below 30 on the cast, and it shows.

Maybe the cast’s age is part of the tonal shift — where at least half of Drag Race‘s casts have been 20somethings since S8 (AS3 excepted), these queens have been doing the thing for a hot minute.

I quite liked Blair on S10: her ingenue schtick was a lot more original than the sexy bad-bitch she’s going for on AS5, which feels more like a front based off Instagram than a queen who has grown into herself, which she’s trying to sell it as. She looks great, but I’m keen to see what she does this season beyond sassy quips.

Speaking of stunning entrances, Ongina. Her decadent draped-pearl look was an absolute event, a homage to both Filipino superhero Darna and the Philippine’s 7,000+ islands.

It’s a shame it was her peak this episode. As she said and Shea joked in the reading challenge, Ongina has tried to be on every single All Stars, and maybe the pressure that it was finally happening got to her.

She didn’t help herself, either: while she was always going to end up low for that non-lipsync, aimless dance performance, Ongina kept talking in the confessionals about how nervous she was to be there. On Race Chaser, Willam loves to talk about how he’d refuse to give the producers what they wanted to hear, and would never say something negative about his own performance as ‘they can’t use what they don’t have’.

Ongina isn’t producing herself at all, here; there’s something very sincere about her admittance that she watches the show and wonders whether she’d be capable of competing, but it’s also a dangerous storyline to hand over. As a devout S1 apologist, I really hope Ongina breaks out of it: she’s such a star, but that doesn’t always translate to Drag Race star.

On Season 10, Mayhem Miller was a queen whose talents didn’t translate to the show, and she also didn’t get off to a great start at the talent show. Her voice just sounded very gruff, and she was a little too low-energy: still, she was a fun addition on-screen, particularly when offering an alliance with India backstage.

Actually, to be honest, the variety show was generally a little one-note: it’s hard when the queens mostly stick to lip-syncing and singing. It’s hard to blame them, as trying something new is a risk — just ask Jasmine ‘improv stand-up’ Masters, Farrah Moan or Coco Montrese.

The show also did a couple of queens dirty. Jujubee and Blair both sung, but Jujubee’s vocals were clearly pre-recorded or at least live-corrected; Blair’s weren’t. There were a few odd sound issues, actually — Mayhem mumbled already, but she wasn’t helped by how loud the music was. Same for Mariah, who I was astounded was just safe.

Putting aside the incredible timeliness of the performance (plus, you know, it’s always relevant), Mariah’s spoken-word piece about violence against Black people was so left-of-field from what I expect of her. In context of the show, the performance was arresting: an absolute tone-shift that took a lot of nerve to pull off.

It’s a shame the show put cloth down underneath her to prevent paint splattering, as it lacked grip, so her moves weren’t as graceful as planned. I’m glad Ricky Martin, the hottest man alive, gave her extra praise, but I wish she was in the top alongside Alexis and India.

Meanwhile, Shea also tried something new — pole dancing, which she admitted in Untucked she had only started doing for the show, and had 10 days training prior to filming. While she wasn’t helped by that pole’s shakiness, you could tell. Still, it’s super impressive for someone new to it and those little dance moves in between steps elevated it.

You know who else tried something new? Derrick Barry.

Saltier Than Miz Cracker

Ooft. Derrick did not come off well this episode — but, like Gia, she’s also excellent TV. Unlike Gia, she’s not super self-aware: Derrick Barry came onto AS5 to show she could do more than Britney, and entered the workroom in not one but two Britney looks.

Like Ongina, she doesn’t know how to edit for the show: on Whatcha Packin’, she told Michelle she ‘had’ to come in as Britney, which she absolutely did not have to do. She set up the exact same S8 ‘we need to see Derrick, not Britney’ narrative immediately and then cemented it with the variety show ‘impressions’ — a performance that reaches the cringe hall of fame alongside Laganja’s S6 comedy routine and Farrah’s S9 roast.

Derrick says she wants to prove she can be more than Britney, but in Untucked says her drag makes her read as Britney as default, going through each queen’s outfit and saying what Britney she’d be if she wore it. Her face structure clearly has an uncanny resemblance to Britney, but given what beauty bloggers can do with contouring, it seems Derrick hasn’t really tried to make his base mug too different.

We get it: she looks beautiful, plus there’s also nothing wrong with just being a Britney impersonator. Derrick is very, very good at it, second only to his ability to be unnecessarily mean. This on-show feud with India Ferrah is Taylor Swift-Katy Perry levels of petty, with so many years passing that it’s not exactly clear what anyone’s holding onto save the grudge itself.

It’s great TV, but it also doesn’t seem like just TV. On both Whatcha Packin’ and Monét X Change’s talk show, Derrick remains incredibly ‘shady’ about India. It’s as funny as it is spiteful, and they’re big words for someone who doesn’t come across super well on either seasons of Drag Race she was on. Enjoy.

Here's two minutes of Derrick Barry being shadier than you ever imagined. pic.twitter.com/Xnv4ATzhDo

— Chris (@amandalepwhore) June 6, 2020

LMFAO I cannot stand her but I live for the white on white crime pic.twitter.com/sS9JY1fJrO

— scarlett johansson as kurapika (@dps_moira) June 7, 2020

Meanwhile, India wins the week’s challenge after going all out in her number. Deserved, but also a nice move from the show to get audiences onside with her early on.

She lipsyncs against Yvie Oddly, who enters the stage for this new ‘lip sync assassin’ twist looking incredibly stoned only to give an all-time performance with so many funny moments and reveals. It was a nice reminder of why she won S11: she’s really in a league of her own.

Yvie wins, and the $10k prize clocks over to next week for a potential $20k tip. It doesn’t really matter, as the other queens have chosen Derrick to go home too. India, who has changed into her Nomi Malone hair, is very happy to say bye to the other Showgirl and redeem herself from S3.

Next week, the queens record a love song. All Stars 5 is in session.

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RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars streams on Stan, with new episodes arriving Saturday 1pm AEST. 

Jared Richards is Junkee’s night editor and a freelance writer. He’s on Twitter.