Friday, July 3, 2009
07.03.2009
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Paul Hagen




”I’d stayed away from reality shows until now because there was this hostility in the air and a mean spirit,” RuPaul tells me as we discuss his immensely successful return to television in RuPaul’s Drag Race. “We have a long history of treating men who do drag, especially gay men who do drag, like a science project,” he says, “trying to get them looking really nasty and gnarly because it reinforces archaic ideals.” 
  However, as Ru was working to create a reality program that would banish that mean spirit, the show’s contestants did not know what to expect and had prepared for the worst. “Going into the competition, I was ready for anything. I was ready for them to tell us to do an obstacle course through mud and just crazy stuff, like bungee jump in drag!” contestant Rebecca Glasscock confesses. 

Even Bebe Zahara Benet (who ultimately won the first-season crown) had her doubts. She remembers friends speculating: ” These people will be throwing wigs! There will be so many catfights!”  Instead, Bebe discovered a spirit of passion and professionalism in her fellow contestants. Though she will admit that there was “a clash of personalities here and there,” Bebe says that the prevailing method of conflict resolution was, “If I had to prove to you that I was better than you, I’ll see you on stage."

When Logo was looking to find a sponsor for this daring new drag venture, they turned to Absolut. Jeffrey Moran, the Absolut Image Czar, says that when Logo approached them with the pilot, ”It took us about three hours to come back and say, ‘Hell yes, we are totally in on this!’” Moran would ultimately join the program’s impressive list of guest judges (which included Lucy Lawless, Michelle Williams and Bob Mackie), who would sit alongside permanent judges: Project Runway alum Santino Rice, fashion journalist Merle Ginsburg and, of course, RuPaul.  
  Ru felt that choosing the right judges was essential to creating a fair environment for the contestants. “We wanted people who understood starmaking, image making, people who could reference fashion, history, pop culure, who knew what these queens were doing and could reference where it came from.” Ru also cites Santino’s reputation for frankness and the fact that  Merle is “very in touch with her emotions” as reasons they balanced one another well on the panel. 

One criticism that would ultimately be aimed at the show was the fact that its runway sequences were shot in the kind of extreme soft focus often jokingly referred to as "Vasoline on the lens." Ru tells me that this was a decision made out of kindness to the queens. If it helped the girls look fabulous on the runway, he was going to do it, even if it meant pulling out "two jars of Vasoline!" 

Once the show began filming, it was soon clear that some of the best material would come from the judges’ hilarious commentary as the queens strutted their stuff on the runway. “That stuff does not get dubbed in later,” Ru confirms. Jeffrey Moran tells me that he remembers plenty more funny exchanges between the judges that never made it to the screen, in addition to a few other gems, like the judges walking the runway.
 

By the time Ru saw the final edit, he was pleasantly surprised by some of the sass that he didn’t remember coming out of his own mouth. “This is the one I remember: Rebecca Glasscock is walking down the runway doing executive realness, and she ‘answers’ her phone. And off camera, I go, ‘Hello? Donald Trump! Why, you old geezer!’” Ru says, letting rip one of his glorious laughs.

There was also plenty of work and worry on behalf of the queens that the judges didn’t see. “Being a drag artist, you have time to prepare for things, you know?“ says Bebe. “But when you are put in a situation where everything is so like rush, rush, rush, rush, rush — it’s very nerve-racking. But you need to pull the stunt!"  

Though Ru's hopes had been as high as his wig, the public reaction surpassed all expectation. “Logo is thrilled,” says Dave Mace, senior vice president of original programming. The program was a ratings bonanza, drawing huge new audiences, first to Logo and logoonline.com (where the episodes could be viewed in their entirety) and then to re-airs on sister network VH1. Even more important? The show had the public buzzing, and regularly appeared on pop-culture roundups like The Soup and Best Week Ever. “This show has hit a cultural lightning rod,” Mace says.

Absolut was “blown away with how well it was done,” according to Moran. Their investment in the program paid off: The brand was beautifully featured in commercial breaks, all over the show’s website and on the program itself. In fact, the Absolut Drag Ball episode, which turned out to be a delicious mix of flavored vodka and competitive drag à la Paris Is Burning, is not only one of the season’s best but also garnered a bit of celebrity for Moran from appearing as judge. “Getting in my elevator last night in my building, a guy walked in and goes, ‘Didn’t I see you on TV last night?’” says Moran. “And I said, ‘Yes, you did."

The contestants found themselves in the spotlight as well. “I used to love doing drag because when I was done, I could take everything off and I could still go to a bar and have a quiet night out and be under the radar and not get noticed,” Rebecca Glasscock tells me. “And now, it’s just wild. It’s crazy. I get recognized anywhere, in or out of drag.” Even at one of the nation’s premier drag events, the prestigious Night of a Thousand Gowns (at which the Imperial Court of New York hosts many of the nation’s foremost drag enthusiasts), the contestants were welcomed like royalty. “The three finalists were there and the whole room was buzzing,” says Ru. “They were stars."

According to RuPaul, it's no accident that the show found an audience at this moment in history. “We have experienced this era of fear-hysteria in this country that really damaged us as Americans,” Ru says. “People lived in fear of being Dixie Chicked if they would speak out.” But now, Ru sees the success of the show as one more sign of a new era. “This show would not have been popular two years ago. Something shifted,” he says, but warns against pointing the finger at any one person: “It’s very easy to say, ‘Oh, this is the Obama era.’ And, you know, he is the figurehead, but we are all responsible for Obama, and we are all responsible for Bush."

During the Bush era, says Ru, even in the gay community, “people were obsessed with ‘straight acting.’ So the show being a hit is heralding a new era of not being afraid to be men who are feminine, which is a big, big thing in a masculine-dominated culture."

In times of immense cultural change, Ru proposes that drag is more important than ever. “Drag has always reminded the culture to not take itself so seriously and that you are not your car, you are not your hair color or your religion or the friends that you hang around,” says Ru. “You are a spiritual being having a human experience. Don’t get it twisted."

One subtly subversive element of the show that seemed to particularly please RuPaul was the constant shifting from shots of Ru and the contestants in full drag to shots of them in their male attire: “As a political statement, it says that even you in boy clothes is drag, in girl clothes, you’re drag, in a policeman’s outfit, you’re drag."

For those gay folks who are less enthused by the success of a show that so clearly celebrates drag, Ru has this message: “Unfortunately, drag in general has been a scapegoat for people to say, ‘See! There it is! That’s why gay people can’t get ahead. Look at these drag queens, they don’t represent us,’” Ru says. “Bitch, we ain’t trying to represent you. We’re just doing our thing. You’re the only one concerned with us representing you. How about you represent yourself and we’ll represent ourselves?"

Bebe Zahara Benet sums it up in a way that would make her drag mother proud: “Drag comes with a lot of stereotypes. But the fact is that we’re just men. We’re men trying to express ourselves."

"There will be a season two," says Ru, “which will probably start shooting sooner than I’d like to think.” Not that he knows exactly what it will be like yet. “I guess the choice that we have to make is: are we just going to do a carbon copy of last season or are we gonna push it,” he says. “My guess is that we’re going to keep it entertaining for ourselves. If we can start — and this has been my criteria always — from, ‘What do I like?’ then I think we’ve got a winner on our hands."

But he does already have some special folks on his wish list. “I’d love to have Bob Mackie back again. Nobody is more of a starmaker than he is. I’d love to have offbeat people like LaToya Jackson, who clearly understands that she is drag,” says Ru. “Cher or Diana Ross or Dolly Parton would be perfect."

In the meantime, Bebe Zahara Benet will continue headlining the Absolut Real Fruit Tour, which has been bringing vodka, Drag Race contestants and joy to cities all over the U.S. Jeffrey Moran is already looking forward to next year’s edition. “It would be great to have this year’s winner tour with next year’s winner. I think that would be hilarious. Maybe eventually we would have a whole troupe of Next Drag Superstars!” he says.

RuPaul will be busy touring his nightclub act (rupaul.com for dates) and promoting his album, Champion. “It really talks about owning your power, owning your goddess, owning your hero and not playing small,” he explains. “A lot of the songs were inspired by the girls [on Drag Race].” He’ll also host another Logo program, the annual NewNowNext Awards, set to air on June 13.

In the meantime, Ru has this to say to his fans, old and new: “I challenge everybody out there to be the queen that you are, unabashedly, unashamed and out loud and proud, because you really make our world so much better when you shine that way."

Perhaps, in the end, what happened to Tyra Banks after the premiere of Top Model cannot happen to Ru. He is already an icon who has the world watching, listening and waiting for more. But thanks to Ru and his Race, if you’re a young man with the charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent to aspire to be America’s Next Drag Superstar, maybe — just maybe — it could happen to you.

Ladies and Gentlemen, keep your engines running for more exclusive excerpts from our interviews with RuPaul, Jeff Moran, Rebecca Glasscock and America's Next Drag Superstar Bebe Zahara Benet:

Rebecca on being told that she's beautiful:

I think that everyone likes to hear a bit of praise every now and again, and if the judges wanted to tell me how beautiful I was, I want to hear it every day; I want to hear it every week; I don't care; give it to me now. You know why? Because I work very hard on my look, and I take time putting myself together and everything I do, I really put a lot of thought into it. And, yeah, absolutely if you think I did a great job and I look great, thank you for telling me. I love it. The day that I stop hearing that is the day I know I need to run to the doctor and get botox and get nipped and tucked."

Jeff Moran, on watching the series leading up to the episode he judged:

Logo, as much as I tried, wouldn't show me any episodes before they aired, which was great; so I saw them the same time everybody else did, (although I will admit I got to see my episode in advance because they had to run it through legal approval). So it's been a kick to watch all of these people winnowed down to those four whom I saw because there were other people before them who were eliminated who I thought that would have made good brand people as well, Ongina in particular.  I thought that she was a really great representation, and actually at gay ski week, she was there [representing Logo]. And she was great; we talked at length about when she was eliminated and so on. So I think there were other predecessors who could have been brand ambassadors as well, although I will say that the final four who were part of our challenge were really spot on. They all represented well and, in particular, when you look at what Nina Flowers did with the Mango — we were shocked. We were absolutely shocked. That's another food not easy to deal with. But we said: they really pulled it out.

RuPaul on Drag Race's choice not to emphasize celebrity impersonations:

We were looking for girls who had their own clear-cut image of themselves. Some of the girls — Shannel does impersonations: she does Lucille Ball and she does a few others. In fact, Bebe does Diana Ross and she does Brandy, but we were looking for their own unique personalities to shine through because, if the template is my own career, you know I've never done real impersonations. I've always just done myself. In fact when I'm in drag, I don't change my voice. I think people hear me differently, but no I'm just me. Just Ru.

Bebe on Ru shouting "Cameroon":

It didn't give me extra confidence, but it was a reiteration of the fact that I'm here to celebrate my origins and to know that America is beauty because of the many cultures that come together and stay here. So just being able to acknowledge that - ok, look at where I come from, this is also my home and I'm using this opportunity to celebrate all of that. It was a lot; it was important to me. And she just mixed me with Cameroon! I was like, "Well my name is Bebe!" I'm like, "Can you say Bebe one time?" Then she moved from Cameroon to Diana Rosspberri - I was like, what else is coming?

RuPaul on controversial drag performer Shirley Q. Liquor:

People are looking for opportunities to be offended. People are looking for reasons to reinforce their identity as a victim, their identity as someone who has been put down, and we don't need to play into that. Everybody takes themselves way too seriously. Shirley Q. Liquor is a comic. Eddie Murphy is a comic. You never see people going and boycotting his films because he's in blackface or because he's in whiteface. You never see people boycotting the Wayans Brothers film White Chicks. You don't do that because black people and gay people, everybody, our egos, our big human egos are looking for opportunities to co-opt our victim-hood. Our egos are looking for opportunities to reinforce the idea that we are not good enough. And so unfortunately Shirley Q. Liquor has been a scapegoat for that.

Rebecca on being an actor and an actress:

I just got my first headshots, and I'm trying to get out there and get an agent or start some work. I did my first background work for CSI, and I'm very excited and definitely doing stuff as a guy is in the works only because I'm a big theater kid and I was a drama geek with the whole mime face and the hat and the whole gloves and everything. So definitely acting is in the future for me whether it is in or out of drag or both.

Jeff Moran, on how to end up with a fabulous title like "Image Czar":

First off, you're lucky when you run a department, you get to make your own title. Sometimes that works out really well. So that would be the best advice: figure out how to be your own boss. I think, otherwise, you know, there's a lot of trial and error that happens in everyone's life, and I think that my best piece of advice would be: be very sure in what you want and as long as you can continue to see that vision and visualize it and every day work toward accomplishing that goal and/or moving forward with that goal, you'll be able to get it. I mean it took me a long time to get settled with myself. Once you're settled on your personal life, I think it makes a lot of things easier to balance that scale between work and home. So get comfortable with yourself as early as you can, and never be afraid to take chances. Without pushing yourself, you're never going to know how far you can go.

 

 

RuPaul on her spectacular Zaldi-designed wardrobe:

Zaldi knows what my requirements are and what my energy is and we've been working together for 17 years. I've known him for longer but he's been doing my outfits for 17 years; so he knows what I need. He's got the body mold in his studio; so basically I open up the box when it's shipped to me and I'm surprised and we're like going, "Oh my God!" That's all Zaldi and he is a genius. And he of course did all my the costumes on the VH1 show for me, but he knows what I require and what I can  and cannot do with my look; so, yeah, he's already sketching for the next season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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