The Makeup of Rupaul’s Drag Race: Essays on the Queen of Reality Shows

Start your engines--for the fun, controversy and life lessons of RuPaul’s Drag Race and its spinoff, RuPaul’s DragU. This international collection of original essays critically examines the shows’ representation of drag within the contexts of the reality TV genre and LGBTQ issues. Contributors focus on the structure of the two programs, the subversive nature of drag itself, the treatment of trans contestants, the issues of race, the language and the shows’ handling of LGBTQ political issues. A comprehensive discussion is provided of the shows’ premise, the host and the contestants through six seasons of Drag Race and the three seasons of DragU.

Jim Daems teaches in the English Department at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, Canada. His work focuses primarily on 16th and 17th century English representations of Ireland and on queer theory. He has published books and articles on Canadian multi-media artist and poet bill bissett, Harry Potter, Hank Williams, and Chuck Berry.