Minding Your Ps and Ns

During this lockdown, I’ve been rewatching Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Rather, I’ve had it on in the background as I doodle, write, or exercise. I’ve seen the material before, and it’s familiar noise.

I just finished season 10 last night. I vividly remember having watched the season unfold at the time. I was living in Chicago, and I was excited to see a fiery Chicago queen perform at her utmost.

The cast of season 10 is talented all over. It’s our introduction to Vanjie, and the stage is set with a number of drag exemplars — the Vixen (the Chicago queen I referenced before), Eureka O’Hara, Asia O’Hara, Miz Cracker, the list goes on. As I took in the season once more, I felt more and more that this specific season is perhaps a hallmark of how drag culture serves as a stage to begin discussion of problems in the world at large.

The full cast of season 10. Every season, Ru Paul curates a diverse cast of characters to represent queer culture through the art form of Drag.

It is reality TV.

There’s manufactured tension, and specifically engaged around a marginalized group. What I see in bright neon throughout season 10 though, is the intersectionality and layered oppression that isn’t always apparent on other seasons and isn’t always given due time in “civil discourse.”

The obvious tension seems to fall along race lines, as it does often in America. But there’s nuance beyond Ms. Rachel Tenshun (forgive the Drag pun, but it’s pertinent here).

Wearing a signature, hand-made papercraft look, the Vixen stomps in with conviction AND clear communication skills, both of which are remarkably threatening to white people.

The Vixen is a black, self-proclaimed political queen and artist. Her first words on the show are “I’m just here to fight.” This is highlighted in the second episode when she brings to light that Aquaria had talked shit behind Miz Cracker’s back. For me, this isn’t the Vixen fighting exactly; it does feel like a response to the previous season’s strong ‘Kumbaya’ vibes and a truth of Drag “culture.” Gossip runs rampant, and there’s even a preferred version of telling truth and speaking your grievances. It would seem that the Vixen disagrees, at least somewhat with that norm as she proclaims “Too vague! This is what happened.”

Beyond this, the Vixen continues to find herself in high-friction situations with two queens throughout her career on the show. She butts heads with Aquaria, a VERY young, admittedly well-privileged, white contestant and Eureka, a big, bold, brassy southern broad who seems to have an obvious unease with silence.

The Vixen seems to take very political, and even somewhat philosophical stances about Aquaria’s very typical queen-y behavior, and almost on the contrary takes very personal stances against Eureka’s pervasive personality. Aquaria responds — probably as best as she can given the climate and her faculties on the show — by crumpling under the weight of white guilt and fragility. It’s hard to watch, but I think the real shame of that interaction is that the Vixen is actively painted as the aggressor when in reality both queens are victim to a culture they did not create.

The Vixen and Eureka on the cusp of one of their biggest on-screen spats.

Eureka, on the other hand fights a different fight and chooses a different tactic. Since the Vixen’s strikes against Eureka are generalized but obviously personal attacks on things Eureka proclaims to love about herself, Eureka defends herself; I can appreciate this tactic because by the end of the Vixen’s run she was barely withholding her personal distaste for Eureka as a human being. However, Eureka utilizes the same strategy throughout multiple spats. The Vixen makes a claim about Eureka’s inconsiderate behavior (which does seem reasonable given the “pressure cooker” nature of the workroom) and Eureka’s comeback almost always frames the Vixen as a ‘negative person’.

Eureka is known for being the body-positive, and very joyful ‘Elephant Queen’.

I get it.

Eureka’s strength are her big, ebullient and effervescent personality. She strives to infect her surroundings with her boundless joy, and she does a damn good job. I can imagine she believes herself to be a ‘positive person.’ She spreads ‘positivity.’ Logically then, a counter to her or some detraction of her behavior would be “negative.”

That’s all fine and good in a world in which “positive” and “negative” are free of connotation.

This ain’t that world, sis.

A few times (at least on air) the Vixen explicitly spells out that her distaste does not make her a ‘negative’ person and does not invalidate her feelings. Furthermore, Eureka’s use of “negative” is a cheap dismissal of what could (and perhaps) should be a conversation between two adults who HAVE to share physical space.

This is logical fallacy, and we’re all culpable with great frequency. We’re prone to assigning moral value to things for and against us, and convolute our own moral framework with both our internalized sense of self and with our sense of others and their actions. The Vixen is obviously not a bad person, and Eureka almost extends that exact idea a few times, but the audience is subject to editing and very quick judgments. The audience also has a large white male demographic, filled to the brim with entrenched disdain for black expression, anger, and narrative.

I watched the Vixen be angry and upset for healthy and perhaps unhealthy reasons. I watched among people who were not shy about how terrible the Vixen must be for haranguing a queen like Eureka. I saw people floating on this exact narrative of “negativity” equating to “badness.”

It’s easy to see how fans can look at the Vixen as a ‘bad person’ when her interaction with Aquaria left the latter queen in tears. Aquaria WAS capable later of saying that she knows of the inequity and feels helpless against it.

This happens regularly, because as a species we’re very willing to maintain momentum from our ancestors provided it doesn’t hinder us (too much). In the USA, specifically this creates a huge problem because it means those with privilege maintain their privilege and have a tough time even seeing how they’re standing on a stage their forefathers built on the backs of the oppressed. This means the gap in equity widens naturally with time given that the privileged classes both don’t critique their own history AND diminish the merit of others’ critiques by assigning “negative” (and therefore “wrong and bad”) value to them. Furthermore, since we’re prone to convoluting attributes of actions with those of the person, it’s not just the Vixen’s “negative” argument; the Vixen becomes “negative” in making the argument.

So there are two fallacies at work here, compounding and amplifying genuinely damaging behavior:

1. Anger and contradiction is consigned to a “negative” space because emotions are not treated equitably.
2. The Vixen becomes a “negative” person by acting on her anger.

Put in terms of a solution:

1. Emotions do not have worth or moral value, and they are ALL equitably valid and healthy. Feelings are agnostic to your morals, and are rather a response to a stimulus.
2. People are not actions and vice versa. Judgment of actions cannot be coupled with a judgment something as complex and dynamic as a human being.

I find it hard to be mad at queens like Eureka or Aquaria. They’re wildly talented, and proud of who they are in their strength. I find it even harder to be upset with the Vixen, who trumpets her anger and desire for a better more equitable stage for the Drag World.

I am frustrated at the continued produced narrative that monopolizes on a mass of non-critical consumers. I am upset at the frequent dismissal of critique for emotional or moral reasons.

Dear reader, I’m mad at us. We need to become more critical consumers. It’s a kindness I believe we owe each other and ourselves. This baggage, this trauma — it does not belong to the Vixen nor Eureka. It is inherited and it’s about time we slough it off.

It’s not our baggage, but it’s our work.

Sincerely Not Positive,

August