'...and DON'T *bleep* IT UP!' -- the RuPaul's Drag Race thread

Underrated bit from this week's episode -- Roxxy grappling with the plural of 'sequin.'

see quines?
http://www.philbrodieband.com/muso-top-muso-pic_robert-quine.jpghttp://www.philbrodieband.com/muso-top-muso-pic_robert-quine.jpghttp://www.philbrodieband.com/muso-top-muso-pic_robert-quine.jpg

sequence dress

sequinced

for VG:

http://opencity.org/archive/issue-6/the-slap-of-love

the slap of love by michael cunningham. it's a piece about angie xtravaganza in particular and the ball culture in general, including cameos by dorian corey and pepper labeija -- it involves a little more history of the balls than paris is burning

omg thank you elmo!

I have seen sequence used as the plural of sequins at work.

let's not started on paillettes then

VG just you WAIT until you get to the last paragraph of that piece

Phew. Some crazy intense times there tonight.

goddamn

i'm going to have to start watching with a box of kleenex, these girls know how to make me cry holy shit

coco's roast was awesome, glad she won. hope Alaska keeps bringing the heat too. I like her.

Jinkx takes the high road!

Dear fans, friend and supporters.

I've seen some really disparaging remarks made about my fellow drag race competitors...
for example: "You deserved to be left at that bus stop."

Roxxxy and I may not always see eye to eye, but she doesn't deserve such things being said to her. Remember that we all play the game in different ways. Though we may feud, it doesn't mean we don't have a friendship underneath it all.

Any fans of mine who think that's the way to talk to other people have completely missed my message.

Haters will hate, but let it just be water off a duck's back. I love you all.

xxoo

atta girl

Season six casting, heads up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4US2mI5gkw

Finally Coco starts playing! Still I liked Alaska's roast the best, but they were both funny and so was Jinkxy.

A lot of people didn't seem to buy Roxxxy's tears, but I was really touched. How can you be cynical about a story like that?
And when you saw Untucked afterwards it made even more sense that she was in that headspace on the runway since they had just been talking about it backstage.

Yeah the Untucked scene brought it home. The girls have a pretty good bond it seems - is that common? I've only seen part of S3

Yeah pretty hard NOT to be moved by that. TV is TV and 'reality' TV is a production and so forth, but there's a sense I get -- taken in part from RuPaul's own thoughts and comments in interviews, he's clearly big on working out from rough times via therapy/rehab/what have you, that life isn't just sass and fun and games and glamour -- that there's a priority in the show on those kind of emotional moments beyond drama for drama's sake. That's kinda patently obvious given the still massively homophobic world out there, but something like being abandoned at a bus stop, or (say) leaving a kid brother behind with an alcoholic mom compounds that. I think it's a big reason why the show appeals -- it's 'just' a series of sometimes goofy competitions, sure, but always underscored by something more.

Yeah the heart of the show, the human element of it, is a lot stronger than in other competition shows I've watched. It's really something

Like, they do use those moments to hints at a downfall or a success but on shows like PR or Top Chef that's all they're there for. I like that even though it is used for drama, that's it's still treated as something that really happened to a person, and you see it's impact on the group & not just the contestant in a vacuum

Hey neat, an interview with Jinkx

http://narkmagazine.com/culture/286-jerick-hoffer

So did Ivyyyyyy really deserve to go so early? I thought she was gonna last longer than Coco & Alyssa. And for good drama, they should've lipsynched against each other last night. Coco deserved it imo.

Yeah, I was wondering. Bummer to see her go because that leaves Jinkx as the small/quieter one among five larger than life types. Still I almost think that'll pump her up a bit!

As long as Alaska's still in the running as well, I can't complain too much.

Bummer to see Ivy go because her face was a really gorgeous canvas, but ... she really didn't have a strong enough personality to go much further in this competition tbh. (I feel the same way about Roxxxy, too, for the record.)

My rankings of the six that remain:

1. Jinkx
2. Detox
3. Alyssa (think she's mad underrated)
4. Alaska
5. Roxxxy
6. Coco

Alyssa looks good most of the time, but she is not the sharpest or most original girl in the world.

Yeah, it's clear hers isn't a case of selective editing but of a genuine lack of comedic chops.

But her look and carriage are, to me, clearly among the best in the field.

What happened to the Coco that was so hysterical calling out Selena in the second Untucked episode?

one of the judges said that alyssa walks the runway like a dressage horse which is 100% otm

Interesting that we're getting more backstory coming out now -- they just had a sneak of the first few minutes of the next show, and giving nothing away about the minichallenge, turns out Detox lost her boyfriend two years ago (as in boyfriend is dead, not just broken up with). Combined with Coco's story of her parents being gone and damn. Alaska's the only one left that isn't carrying a big backstory event that we know of (yet).

I thought it was interesting that in comparison Ivy's apparently had just a nice supportive upbringing, I guess, based on that chat with her mom. (Also, what a bummer. "Talk to you when I'm home!" *two days later* "Uh, guess what!")

I will say that the main challenge of the next episode involves telenovelas. I CANNOT wait. But for whatever reason it's not running until April 1.

Oh and new Jinkx interview. But of course.

http://www.beautylish.com/a/vxrra/jinkx-monsoon-interview

Rewatched the runway presentation and the commercials and ... yeah, retroactively downgrading Alyssa and upgrading Alaska. The main reason? Alyssa looks fantastic every time, but that's partially because she looks basically the same every time. "Dressage horse" and a one-trick pony. But it's a great trick, et al.

Whatever else happens, I'm still too through with Coco. She's reading at a fourth-grade level.

But her read on Aubrey O'Day was outstanding "....like she WON Celebrity Apprentice!"

Aubrey is ugh! trash! I hate that she gets on any show

but yeah, for the most part I think Coco has lost her grip completely

Aubrey is the definition of low-hanging fruit, tho.

Well, maybe I should reword that.

No, you captured her perfectly well there.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/d5ec601cf24bfaa63fe643fc1133002e/tumblr_mjx78nJkfJ1rosb88o6_250.gif

Low hanging fruit is right. Yeah Coco's done.

Going back to watch some of the Untucked episodes from previous seasons (of which I've only watched 2 & 3, the only two available on Netflix), I'm starting to get a sense of what's sort of bugging/underwhelming me about season 5.

Chiefly, the animosity this time around seems much more capricious, which is I think symptomatic of it being more obviously and unconvincingly engineered. I don't think there's a soul left who doesn't think Coco and Alyssa have been playing up their beef for effect, but as that vehicle has been running out of gas lately, it seems Coco's been stuck in step-off mode without a focused target.

There's no dynamic here anywhere near as compelling as Heathers vs. Boogers, though admittedly pageant vs. comedy seems like it will be a forever fertile field for flamewar (and Alaska puts that into great perspective).

In that sense, Jinkx's transformation from comedy into potentially stunning runway queen is the true headline here.

yeah i wouldn't be shocked to find she had some pro makeup artistry help for this shoot but holy smokes jinkxy!

http://i.beautylish.co/CiH5FGYFg4Wt_LAoJBJhtAPUBTo/orig.jpg

damn gurl

+ photoshop and a half, but still, great effect

http://www.jinkxmonsoon.com/images/fullscreen/44.jpg

i love her

my six are:

Jinkx
Detox
Alaska
Alyssa
Coco
Roxxxy

I love Alyssa look, I love the way she carries herself and how graceful she is but she is missing a depth, not even comedy but just some kind of personality that makes her MORE than her look. I dunno, she doesn't quite feel like the complete package to me.

There is just something about Detox that I love. I like that she always just throws herself 100% into whatever's given to her, challenge wise. She doesn't always rise to the top but she seems to be in the moment. Jinkx is the same way.

Alyssa's too in her own head, I think is maybe where she falls flat? If she unclenched a little she'd be great. Same with Coco.

Roxxxy's all look and no substance. And she's getting really childish about her competition, the same way Coco is. I think they're both doomed to go in the next couple of weeks unless they stop looknig over their shoulder.

oh and Alaska's just cool. A little less finessed, but she's fun.

alaska jinkx and detox are my top 3, but i'm sorry to say that i'm a little underwhelmed by detox

Further re: Jinkx one of those interviews talks about how her drag name comes from Eddie Monsoon of Absolutely Fabulous and that the conceptual goal is someone always intentionally just out of sync/behind the times. So yeah, total star.

There's no dynamic here anywhere near as compelling as Heathers vs. Boogers, though admittedly pageant vs. comedy seems like it will be a forever fertile field for flamewar (and Alaska puts that into great perspective).

Yeah, agreed on that. Season three built up to this kinda amazing kaleidoscope towards the end; I actually think the most dramatic moment was when Alexis and Yara ended up having to face off.

The weird thing is this season could definitely have that same sort of squaring off. RoLaskaTox was fixing to be that powderkeg of mean girls, but it disbanded before any real drama could start, and all of them look the better for it.

It's weird, but this season's presumed frontrunners (Detox, Jinkx, Alaska) are all a lot more magnanimous in their dominance than, for instance, Raja or Tyra ever were. And good on them, but it's just a shade boring in comparison. I really go for Raja's unfiltered confi-dominatrix persona.