You are not all the things that it says you are on your birth certificate and driver’s license. What’s the first step to for all us to be as cool as you? You have to have a sense of humor about yourself. So the perfection you see is really, really not. That’s why throughout the ages-witch doctors, shamans, court jesters-are there to remind people to not take themselves so seriously. Is that ever exhausting? I’m not perfect, and part of the brilliance of drag is that the whole premise is a joke. You once jokingly referred to yourself as “Miss Black America,” and you’ve long presented an image of perfection. I could speculate, but I do not know why. Why? I don’t know why I’ve been able to do this. The show is a competition, but you’ve been at the top of drag for decades now, with no real challenger to your throne. And that’s kinda rotten-it is what it is, but it takes away some of the mystery or illusion. So if you were not having a good night, or your wig comes off, or you have a wardrobe malfunction, you never have a chance to fix it. And with live performances, everyone will tape or record your performance and it’s around the world in seconds. How has the Internet changed drag? Everyone has a really short attention span and you have to bombard them with content, content, content.
You have a podcast, an iPhone app, an Instagram. It’s always interesting to find out what is someone’s kryptonite, what they can’t move beyond. Sometimes the ones who I think are going to go really far fizzle out fast, and the ones who I had no idea about go the distance.
How do you cast the queens on the show? We find the best queens to fit the genre that she represents and then have our fingers crossed that one doesn’t outshine the other too much, so as to not give away who’s going to win. “I knew it could happen because it’s so obvious.” Ru spoke with about Drag Race’s new cast, the spark that makes a queen a star, and Ru’s place in the history of gay rights. “When I went out and tried to go mainstream, well, who said I couldn’t do it?” he said by phone from Los Angeles. Ru has also become something of a philosophical compass for queer America, popularizing a number of trademark phrases-“If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” and “You’re born naked-everything else is drag.” Who could’ve guessed that a six-foot-four black drag queen from San Diego would become such a cultural fixture in prudish America? Ru knew.
DRAG QUEEN MAKEUP MAINSTREAM MOVIE
An enduringly joyful icon, Ru has had pop hits (“Supermodel”- You better work!), talk shows, movie roles, and MAC modeling contracts, and since breaking through in the early nineties has been the consummate pop-culture hustler, reinventing consistently to meet the era’s needs (a Drag Race–themed iPhone app was released in December) but remaining always the glamorous, hilarious queen we’ve grown to love. Tonight is the premiere episode of the seventh season of **RuPaul’**s Drag Race, the hit reality competition and the latest success in the long career of RuPaul Charles.
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