Peripheral post I -JAE-

 This past Friday was the Snatch Game episode of RuPaul's Drag Race season 13. Watching it reignited my thoughts and feelings on the Strings and Bui piece that focuses on the Season 3 Snatch Game episode in which Manila Luzon, a biracial Filipino-American portrayed a caricature of Imelda Marcos, which some cast members found to be distasteful and inappropriate. Before moving onto my thoughts, I need to preface them with my personal standpoint, which arguably places me too close to the show.

I, Jae Harris Johnson, have known former contestants of RuPaul's Drag Race (Seasons 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, All Stars 1, 2, 3, and 4), have had actual friends work on the show (Seasons 7-9), filmed audition tapes for friends, encountered show producers, and been in attendance at the premiere parties for seasons 2 & 3. In my late-teens and early-twenties, I was a drag queen, never anything to write home about, but I was pretty, and other queens would graciously receive me into their folds, despite me doing one show a month if at all. But I luckily was associated with some notable queens, which extended me access to many spaces I had no business in otherwise. Some of them are now arguably famous, which is kinda cool to witness from afar. Nevertheless, I, once upon a time known as Saturn Jeanine Love, and to a lesser extant Jeanine Rodell - Executive Business Womxn, was loosely attached to the orbit of RuPaul's Drag Race and the Southern California drag scene.

Back to the Strings and Bui essay, I was perplexed by how the authors seemed uninformed by some of the logic underpinning Snatch Game character selections, as well as why they didn't comment on all the queens who selected characters outside of their ethnic spheres. 

First, the Snatch Game is indeed a blend of the Match Game, Hollywood Squares, and other retro game shows. Season 3 was the second season to feature the challenge, which is now a fan-favorite, and one that often delineates who will be very successful in the late-season of the competition. The drag queens are tasked with bringing their best celebrity impersonations to the challenge. Celebrity impersonations and female illusory are traditions within the drag world, in which queens will parody or embody celebrity figures that they oftentimes physically resemble regardless of race/ethnicity, personally know, or simply caricaturize to a successful degree. The same logic underpins the trends in female movie character illusions and cartoon character illusions alike at drag shows. Needless to say, the authors appear uninformed of the larger history and genealogy of the controversial act of female impersonation and female illusion within the drag realm.  

Secondly, Raja, Manila, Delta, Mariah, Yara Sofia, and Alexis Mateo all portrayed characters outside of their ethnic realities on the season 3 Snatch Game. For example, Raja, a queen of Indonesian descent, selected Tyra Banks, a person they personally know and worked with for 6 seasons of America's Next Top Model, despite Tyra being half Black and half White. Whereas, Alexis Mateo, a Puerto Rican queen, selected Alicia Keys as their celebrity character, despite Keys also being half Black and half White. Alexis Mateo was also a contestant associated with "the Boogers," which Strings and Bui note as not having the ability to transgress racial lines in the same fashion as "the Heathers," which Raja, Delta and Manila are part of. Yet, no person on the show had qualms with Alexis Mateo's take on Alicia Keys, which was flavored by urban sonic and visual cues associated with Black-Americans. The authors fail to note how Alexis Mateo's Alicia Keys contradicts the issues that are launched against Manila's Imelda Marcos. 

And I clearly could go on for days on the topic of this particular show and challenge, but I'll stop here because I've already typed way too much. And that essay faces more challenges with later seasons of the show where race, ethnicity, and even gender expression become more policed. In sum, I'm too close to the subject matter, but I'm also down to talk story, in a critical manner, about queer TV.