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RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Shifting Visibility of Drag Culture

The Boundaries of Reality TV

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Editors:
  1. Niall Brennan

    1. Department of Communication, Fairfield University, Fairfield, USA

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. David Gudelunas

    1. College of Arts and Letters, University of Tampa, Tampa, USA

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • The first book to provide a global view on the RuPaul’s Drag Race phenomenon
  • Offers critical perspectives on the program and its relationship to larger questions of LGBTQ culture
  • Includes contributions from scholars, performers, and people involved with the program alike

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Table of contents (19 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  2. Drag Culture, Global Participation and RuPaul’s Drag Race

    • Niall Brennan, David Gudelunas
    Pages 1-11

  3. Representation and the Parameters of Drag Identity

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13
      Download chapter PDF

    2. The “RuPaulitics” of Subjectification in RuPaul’s Drag Race

      • Julia Yudelman
      Pages 15-28

    3. Contradictions Between the Subversive and the Mainstream: Drag Cultures and RuPaul’s Drag Race

      • Niall Brennan
      Pages 29-43

    4. “Pick up a book and go read”: Art and Legitimacy in RuPaul’s Drag Race

      • Dieter Brusselaers
      Pages 45-59

    5. North American Universalism in RuPaul’s Drag Race: Stereotypes, Linguicism, and the Construction of “Puerto Rican Queens”

      • Joanna McIntyre, Damien W. Riggs
      Pages 61-75

    6. Spicy. Exotic. Creature. Representations of Racial and Ethnic Minorities on RuPaul’s Drag Race

      • Sarah Tucker Jenkins
      Pages 77-90

    7. The Werk That Remains: Drag and the Mining of the Idealized Female Form

      • Amy L. Darnell, Ahoo Tabatabai
      Pages 91-101

    8. Big-Girls Don’t Cry: Portrayals of the Fat Body in RuPaul’s Drag Race

      • Ami Pomerantz
      Pages 103-120

  4. Drag Culture, Community and Belonging

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 121-121
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    2. “I Am the Drag Whisperer”: Notes from the Front Line of a Cultural Phenomenon

      • Rob Rosiello
      Pages 123-135

    3. Sissy That Performance Script! The Queer Pedagogy of RuPaul’s Drag Race

      • Colin Whitworth
      Pages 137-151

    4. Super Troopers: The Homonormative Regime of Visibility in RuPaul’s Drag Race

      • Anna Antonia Ferrante
      Pages 153-165

    5. “Please Come to Brazil!” The Practices of RuPaul’s Drag Race’s Brazilian Fandom

      • Mayka Castellano, Heitor Leal Machado
      Pages 167-177

    6. Reception of Queer Content and Stereotypes Among Young People in Monterrey, Mexico: RuPaul’s Drag Race

      • Nazar Ali de la Garza Villarreal, Carolina Valdez García, Grecia Karina Rodríguez Fernández
      Pages 179-195

    7. Mainstreaming the Transgressive: Greek Audiences’ Readings of Drag Culture Through the Consumption of RuPaul’s Drag Race

      • Despina Chronaki
      Pages 197-212

    8. RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Reconceptualisation of Queer Communities and Publics

      • Kate O’Halloran
      Pages 213-228

  5. RuPaul’s Drag Race, Globalization and Social Media

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 229-229
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    2. Digital Extensions, Experiential Extensions and Hair Extensions: RuPaul’s Drag Race and the New Media Environment

      • David Gudelunas
      Pages 231-243
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Keywords

About this book

This book identifies and analyzes the ways in which RuPaul’s Drag Race has reshaped the visibility of drag culture in the US and internationally, as well as how the program has changed understandings of reality TV. This edited volume illustrates how drag has become a significant aspect of LGBTQ experience and identity globally through RuPaul’s Drag Race, and how the show has reformed a media landscape in which competition and reality itself are understood as given. Taking on lenses addressing race, ethnicity, geographical origin, cultural identity, physicality and body image, and participation in drag culture across the globe, this volume offers critical, non-traditional, and first-hand perspectives on drag culture.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Communication, Fairfield University, Fairfield, USA

    Niall Brennan

  • College of Arts and Letters, University of Tampa, Tampa, USA

    David Gudelunas

About the editors

Niall Brennan has a PhD in Media and Communications from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, where his research focused on the national and global implications of the Brazilian television mini-series since Brazil’s re-democratization. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication at Fairfield University, Connecticut, USA.

David Gudelunas holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, USA and is Dean of the College of Arts and Letters and Professor of Communication at the University of Tampa, USA.

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