Each of the nine men has his own distinctive style and look as a woman, ranging from madcap androgynous punk to prissy ’50s schoolmarm: they are sui generis practitioners of a field founded on imitation.

Image Rebecca Glasscock, a competitor on RuPauls Drag Race. Credit... Logo

RuPaul, who still wears the tiara, is the host and supreme adjudicator of the competition. There is no shock to see this singer-performer in a cascading blond wig and feathered, form-fitting ball gown. RuPaul became a cross-over star in the early ’90s with his hit song, “Supermodel (You Better Work),” and has a wax likeness enshrined in Madame Tussauds. It’s more startling to see RuPaul make a subdued entrance as RuPaul Charles, a tall, elegant bald man in a tailored suit, tie and eyeglasses.

Fittingly the drag contest borrows heavily from other television shows. In a gown RuPaul is a hair-tossing, snappy tyrant in the manner of Tyra Banks on “America’s Next Top Model.” He too has a signature dismissal line, telling successful aspirants, “chantez, you stay,” and eliminating losers with the words “sashay, away.”

In pinstripes he is more like Tim Gunn on “Project Runway,” dispensing fatherly advice and costume tips. One of the first challenges is a design competition “on a dime.” Contestants who are accustomed to expensive rhinestone-and-tulle wardrobes (most of them perform for a living) are instructed to patch together an outfit from hand-me-downs and dollar-store purchases, accessories that RuPaul describes mischievously as “a whole bunch of crap.”

Most reality contests, from “Project Runway” to “Flavor of Love,” pump up backstage rivalries and campy hissing matches. “Drag Race,” however, is strangely benign and friendly. Everybody postures and vamps for the camera, but behind the scenes the competitors offer only pro forma cattiness. Melodrama is for show. In dressing rooms and rehearsal halls the competitors seem to share a stage-weary camaraderie, perhaps forged in the narrow, precarious niche their art form occupies.