Supplemental Post #3- Georgina Gonsalves

 After reading "She is Not Acting, She is", I found the choices made in Ru Paul's Drag Race to be very unfortunate and unfair, utilizing racial stereotypes for challenges, with the objective being "racial realness", though it is not enforced for the white and asian contestants. Ethnic misappropriation is a norm on the show, often offending the contestants who come from marginalized groups and mocking them with exaggerated and over-the-top stereotypical acting. Though drag is based on exaggeration on many levels, racial exaggeration with harmful stereotypes is inappropriate and offensive. I have never seen this show, but I was very surprised to hear about the division of "Heathers and Boogers", the Heathers being the white or fair-skinned contestants evoking beauty, popularity, and "whiteness", while the Boogers were the dark-skinned contestants who were brown and black, called an "unpolished mess" in an extremely offensive and demeaning description of the Boogers. When encouraged to "race it up" for challenges, the black and brown contestants often personified stereotypes of their born race, calling it "racial realness". 

Though the bounds of gender are crossed and exaggerated with personification, crossdressing, and utilizing mannerisms attributed to females, (essentially the entire foundation of drag culture), the bounds of race are held constant, locking ethnic contestants into stage personalities solely based on their born race and essentially trapping them in their own stereotype, which is encouraged to be exaggerating to "sell their performance" even if it is derogatory or offensive. 

Similar to this article, I recall watching an episode of America's Next Top Model from years ago where the models were asked to switch genders for a challenge. The use of cultural appropriation was offensive, as it was compared to 'blackface' mockery when white women were assigned to be black or dark-skinned, making the audience uncomfortable and many infuriated. I understand that an effort was made to push boundaries in the modeling industry but this was offensive and the wrong way to do so.