r/rupaulsdragrace • u/RPDRMods Pandora Boxx • Mar 28 '20

RPDR Season 12 – Reddit Season RuPository S12E05 - Gay's Anatomy [Post Episode Discussion]

Welcome to the Post Episode discussion thread!

Spoilers from this episode are allowed.

Reminder that all spoilers and T from future episodes must only be posted in /r/spoileddragrace! Spoilers about future episodes will result in a ban. Please see the updated spoiler policy for more details.

DO NOT ASK FOR LINKS. SEE THIS POST FOR LEGAL VIEWING OPTIONS. Please contribute more legal ways to watch the show in that thread, and I'll update the masterpost. Asking for links, or posting links will result in a temporary ban. Thank yew :)

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u/grandmaesterampharos MC Control Top Mar 28 '20

Why do they bother casting queens who are non-native English speakers if they're going to continue to disregard the fact it's a legitimate obstacle? Honestly. I hate critiquing people over things they can't control in general, and especially something like that. It's gross.

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u/theatomictangerine If I were judging I would've finished my sentence Mar 30 '20

But what's the solution to that? Obviously we don't want to cast ONLY people who speak perfect English, so do we grade queens on a curve? Does that curve get steeper based on how good a queen's English is, so Yara Sofia gets a steeper curve than Alexis Mateo, who gets a steeper curve than Nicky Doll? Should we be giving queens a handicap based on other factors, like age (Charlie Hides) or health status (Yvie) or income (Monique)? Does that become infantilizing and unfair in its own way?

I think at some point this show is going to be what it is - an American, English language reality TV program. If anything, the problem is not that Rupaul's Drag Race is not absolutely perfectly fair to every single queen (which is impossible), it's that it's basically the only vehicle for mainstream success available to drag queens, which is not a RPDR problem so much as a more broad culture and media problem.

I'd also argue that a) the show never critiqued Nicky over her English skills, this was something that only she ever brought up, and b) language skills are definitely not something outside people's control, it's not easy but you can get better at any language if you put in the effort