- Adore Delano – Interview - 15 May, 2014
- Bianca Del Rio – An Interview with Drag’s Queen of Mean - 2 May, 2014
- RuPaul’s Drag Race To Go International - 4 April, 2014
Spoilers ahead, obviously. No T, no shade!
This week saw part two of the Season Six premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race – the second big opening, as it very much were. I’ll come right out and say it – compared to the first group of queens who we met last week, this group seems much more exciting. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really liking all the queens this year, but this group seemed to contain some of the bigger personalities and more interesting performers.
Let’s get straight to it – who’s who?
Bianca Del Rio
Possibly one of the best comedy queens to ever grace the RuPaul’s Drag Race runway, Bianca Del Rio is an amazing insult comic, with her own mental “Rolodex of hate”. She’s endlessly entertaining to watch, both in the Werk Room and in the Behind-The-Scenes reaction shots. I’m very eager to see what else she can do though – could she be glam? Does she have it in her to be fishy? Her signature eye make-up could piss off some of the judges – perhaps being seen as a bit too campy.If the look can match up to the obvious talent, then we could be looking at a contender for Top 3.
Also, his boy name is Roy. Therefore he is awesome.
Fuck/Marry/Kill? – Marry.
Trinity K. Bonet
With a grill even more busted than Tyra Sanchez (pre-veneers), it would be too easy to ignore Trinity’s obvious talents and go straight for jokes about cancelled barbecues. She’s certainly got more personality than “the other Tyra”, and her runway look was decent. She’s probably the queen I felt I got to know the least after this episode, though. Time will tell whether or not she’ll be able to outshine the competition, but she’s not wow-ing just yet.
Fuck/Marry/Kill? – Kill.
Joslyn Fox
Joslyn is cute as a button, with an adorable, dumb-blonde kind of personality and a sweet little girlish giggle. She has a serious crush on Santino (she said she wanted to lick his bald head. No, Ma’am). She’s also a major fangirl for Courtney Act, to the point where I’m a little worried she might kill her and wear her skin. I think her style might be a little bit basic, though. She’ll need to step it up if she wants to make it past the halfway point.
Fuck/Marry/Kill? – Fuck.
Milk
Milk could give April Carrion some competition for the queen I spend the most time drooling over – she’s really sexy. A former competitive figure skater, Milk is funny, talented and very much on the avant garde side of drag. One of the main favourites amongst most of the online fanbase, if she can prove (like Sharon Needles did) that quirky queens can still be glam, we could be looking at our Season 6 winner.
Fuck/Marry/Kill? – Marry. Ooof.
Magnolia Crawford
That nose. That personality. But really cute out of drag. Magnolia Crawford, you confuse me. You’re another queen who’s suffering from what I call the ‘Morgan McMichaels Effect’ – where a very pretty boy drags up into a trashy, awful-looking woman (no T, no shade, Morgan). In this week’s Untucked, Magnolia revealed she was only doing the show for the exposure, which sums her up perfectly – barf.
Fuck/Marry/Kill? – Kill.
Courtney Act
Courtney Act was already one of my favourite queens long before she was announced as a contestant for Season Six, thanks to her work with Willam on YouTube. The consummate professional, this Aussie queen is very fishy and has talent for DAYS – singing, acting, dancing. As she said in Untucked, “sewing’s not my forte…but everything else is.” I worry that her style might be too simplistic, especially compared to some of the other, bigger personalities this season. I just hope I’m wrong!
Fuck/Marry/Kill? – Fuck.
Darienne Lake
Every season needs a big girl. Darienne Lake is a campy queen with amazing make-up skills and an incredibly photogenic face. She seems really lovely as well, although perhaps a tad too sensitive? I just hope being around massive bitches like Bianca and Gia won’t get her down too much.
Fuck/Marry/Kill? – Marry.
The second premiere followed an almost identical format to the first one – a photoshoot (slumber party themed, and featuring a pillow fight with the Pit Crew), followed by a design challenge themed around “parties” – St Patrick’s Day party, toga party, princess party, etc., plus the potentially hilarious addition of the “Republican party”.
I felt like this time around we got to see a little bit more of the queens actually making their outfits and interacting with each other – something I sorely missed last week. Milk’s announcement that she wanted to wear a beard (YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT) with her outfit raised a couple of eyebrows, not least from Bianca Del Rio, who served up a healthy amount of side-eye at various points during this episode. I love Milk and everything she’s about, and I tensed up at the thought that she might go home so early. RuPaul’s Drag Race, in theory, is supportive of many different kinds of drag – comedy queens, campy queens, glamourous pageant queens, avant-garde queens – but has never really been particularly enamored with male/female fusion drag so far. In my opinion, that’s a shame – Mathu Andersen, Ru’s long-time friend and make-up artist is a very visible proponent of that kind of drag, and there are plenty of others out there. It’s fabulous, and as far as I’m concerned as long as their look is still fierce it should be judged as valid a drag style as any other. The fact that Milk actually ended up getting incredibly positive feedback for her overall look is, I hope, a sign of things to come.
Bianca Del Rio’s genuinely gorgeous Hawaiian Luau Party dress clinched her the coveted top spot (although there’s no immunity this season), and Darienne Lake’s disappointingly pedestrian St Patrick’s Day outfit (step away from the glittery green fabric, gurl – it didn’t work out well for Madame LaQueer, it won’t work out well for you) landed her in the bottom two. And then there was Magnolia Crawford…
Oh, Jeez. That nose is just…it’s not a good look. And she grumbled and groaned about getting the “Hoedown” box, then ended up just making a vile cowprint dress without even making the slightest effort to make it work for her campy/trashy aesthetic. She gave MAJOR sass during the judge’s critiques (but not the funny kind) and it was just a horrendously awkward experience all round. Darienne turned it out in the Lipsynch and Magnolia was sent packing. Thank you, drag Jesus.
The preview for the next episode is lurking around online already, and it’s well worth a look. Also, let me just tell you – Gia Gunn vs Bianca Del Rio is going to be one of greatest ego clashes ever seen on television. I can’t wait.
One more thing. There are a lot of new RuPaul’s Drag Race fans for this season premiere – which is an amazing thing. But gurl, if you’re not watching Untucked as well – you’re not a real fan. You’re also missing out on comedy gold like this:
RuPaul’s Drag Race airs every Monday night on Logo.
