Doonan, however, is not worried about drag’s de-fanging because he believes it remains a fundamentally political act. “Prohibition of drag goes back centuries. So just by virtue of doing it, in the past, you would be breaking taboos, but now you're making sure those taboos don’t get reinstated. Yes, it's [political] putting on a frock and walking down the street, just as it’s political for women to put on a suit and dress as a man.”

It is also undeniably true that for some LGBTQ+ viewers, having such a strongly LGBTQ+-centred show being given a mainstream cultural platform has been monumental in making them feel ‘seen’ – and still feels revolutionary. By the same token, Doonan believes the social impact that Drag Race has had in educating non-LGBTQ+ audiences about the community is profound – highlighting, through the contestants and their backstories, issues from body image to the battle for civil rights and homophobic violence. “It’s reaching and preaching to a wide audience of people who are inevitably becoming more accepting.”



But while its value on that front may seem self-evident, it is also arguable that the visibility it offers to LGBTQ+ artists, and by extension, the community, may, in some ways, be counter-productive. Al-Kadhi wonders whether the show has in fact “led a little bit to straight people tokenising [us] and then coming to a drag show and wanting to [just] watch someone do the splits.” They add that they don’t see the idea of drag going mainstream as a worry – they are only concerned about it being watered down in the process. “If it’s mainstream, but it still has political bite, then that’s great, but if it’s just drag queens standing on a Pride float for decoration, then I just think that’s emptying it out of its politics. I want a drag queen to go on TV and say something that will humiliate that TV company and reveal something … not just go on and look pretty and be fabulous … I think my feeling is that [drag performers] should always be political and if they’re not, then I’m not really that interested.”



The future of drag

In any case, like all pop-cultural phenomena, Drag Race will undoubtedly have a shelf life. There has been a degree of jokey exasperation among fans that, with its two US series a year, as well as all the spin-offs now to come, it has already reached overkill – though, conversely, the amount of conversation it still generates suggests interest isn’t about to slope off anytime soon. It may have to shake up the formula in order to stay fresh, though, and that could be why in the end, cynics might suggest, doing better on diversity will simply become good business sense. That’s to say, as the selection of queens becomes ever more wearily familiar, the show may come to realise that widening its talent pool is key to its survival.

Whatever the fate of Drag Race though, and whether drag’s mainstream currency continues to rise or not, one thing seems sure: an artform that has always been predicated on notions of fluidity will continue to evolve. “There are always new forms coming up,” says Edward, “and whenever you think, what else can come [along], something else comes up and you go ‘oh wow, oh god, yes of course’. And while we’re looking at this from a Western lens, in the next 10 years there are people in other countries who have not even got on the ladder of drag yet [who will come through].”

Drag Race UK begins on 3 October at 8pm on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on 11 October on Logo in the US. Drag: The Complete Story by Simon Doonan and Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen by Amrou Al-Kadhi are available now. Contemporary Drag Practices & Performers and Drag Histories, Herstories & Hairstories, both co-edited by Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier, will be published in 2020.

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