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The theme song begins, 'RuPaul's Drag Race: Start your engines' and the racers are off. For the rev-heads out there expecting big engines and noisy cars, you've come to the wrong place. This race is far more fabulous - as RuPaul Charles' series is an elimination style show for Drag Queens. Each week, one queen from the field is eliminated, until the final queen standing is crowned. 


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For many out there, you know that I am an English teacher - so naturally, one of my secret joys in watching this series is that it teaches us how language is formed. In any community (culture --> subculture), idioms and slang emerge as corruptions of language or plays within words or the syntax of sentences, and indeed, words take on new meanings - sometimes reclaiming derogatory terms as expressions of unity. That's one of the key things I love about this show, it invites you into a new world and you get to be the voyeur on the language wall.  

Before I get underway, here's how the show works: Mini-challenge, Main-challenge, Runway fashion show, elimination. It works just like any of those cooking shows, or making pottery or glass shows that everyone has seen over and over again. In short, the format works.


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Within the show, there are certain catch-phrases, which stand out. In one challenge, RuPaul invites the contestants into the challenge, and they all respond in unison.

"The Library is Open, because", and the response, "Reading is fundamental".

It's a pretty standard truth, however - within this subculture, to 'Read' someone is to insult them, in a roasting kind of way. Each contestant makes jokes about the other queens, and the most humorous, wins the challenge. There are rules though, 'The Library is Closed' reinforces the ideas of boundaries in relationships.


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Interesting tangent: At my school I suggested we put the slogan, 'Reading is Fundamental' on the way into our library. At the particular staff meeting, an older Science teacher burst out laughing. That was the start of our beautiful friendship. Clearly, no one else on staff had seen the show.

But, the show also seeks to offer messages which speak to the soul. Often the drag queens have difficult coming out stories, or stories of abuse or harassment or estrangement from family. Yet, RuPaul speaks to these insecurities and there are an awful lot of tear-filled moments. I love this about the show to, that it breaks down barriers around acceptance between different communities - and the removing of prejudices through empathy is never a bad thing. But, back on language, one of the things I look forward to is RuPaul's final line in each episode, 'If you can't love yourself, how the Hell can you love anyone else. Can I get an Amen!'. A powerful message to leave an audience with. 


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(The above image helps us understand another new word. The eleganza extraveganza!)

Speaking of breaking down barriers, RuPaul has a repeated line for this too: 'We're all born naked and the rest is drag'. It is an idea that very much suggests we all wear our own costumes and masks; we all have our own constructed identity, whatever this happens to be. As the show has moved into its 14th season, it also very much embraces politics and diversity, and as the show has progressed, it has become more aware of itself as a politicised TV experience. For this reason, the show promotes queens of all sizes and beauty standards and people from all racial backgrounds have appeared in the show. Back on the language focus, how about this masterful metaphor from Ru, 'I believe in using all the colours in the crayon box'.


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The show has also featured people with a TRANS story, alongside people with disabilities. In it's current season, the show has also included it's first ever HETEROSEXUAL! This was so funny to watch, as the announcement about his sexuality was made, and all the other queens gasped - and then moved around him to support the shocking revelation. It is a dramatic reversal of what a lot of the queens have experienced in their own lives; and the contestant, Maddy, needs to work through the discomfort - but, he still very much looks like the outsider in the cast this year; as judgemental as it sounds, his mannerisms just don't quite have the feminine quality of the others.


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- And back to politics, during the Presidential campaigns, they certainly encouraged all their viewers to get out and vote, and to feel empowered by having their voice heard, juxtaposing any suggestion of being a minority voice.


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And then, sometimes the language is a little bit more hidden. Every episode, the show announces their looking for the queen with Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent. Can you believe it took me four seasons to put the first letters in those words together. They wanted a queen with, C-U-(You can see where this is going).

And - then when you think it's time for a beverage break, the queens speak about 'Spilling the Tea'. But, you guessed it - there's no tea in sight! If you hear this phrase, it means that they're about to gossip about one another, or something that has happened on the show. Interestingly enough, this phrase is making its way into mainstream communication, and I've heard teenage girls use the phrasing a few times now - showing how language can transcend subcultures and communities, while maintaining meaning.

And then, what if you get called a 'Shady Lady'? Or the suggestion is, you have 'More shade than a palm tree'? It simply means you're 'Throwing shade' - to put it another way, saying something about someone else, in fact - you'd be spilling the tea!


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And then, there are the challenges - you know what my favourite ones are? When members of the public come onto the show and get a 'make-over' by one of their contestants, who become their 'drag mother'. Sometimes the contestants have been women who love the show, but mostly their burly men who are a bit nervous around lipstick - but by the end of the process, they are connecting with their queen who is showing them how to 'tuck'. I'm not going to explain this process, except to say that it involves a lot of tape, in order to flatten things out. Sometimes, the end result is hilarious - and the men look a bit like clowns, but as RuPaul says: 'Impersonating Beyonce is not your destiny, child'. 

So the show has now been running for 14 years, and along the way they have invited Queens back for All-Stars series, and the franchise has popped in the UK, Canada, Spain, Australia, The Netherlands, Thailand, and I'm guessing heaps of other places. It's a powerful show, and as the times have changed from the late 2000s until now - the show has adapted and evolved and been part of progressive politics. It's also been viewed by young people who felt invisible and 'other' as young teens, who felt the show gave them direction - and years later, they're now on the show to inspire the next generation of young people.


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A lot of people havn't seen this show, and the content may make them dismiss it pretty quickly, but the truth is - this could be one of the most significant shows you've never seen.

Hot Tip: Don't watch Season 1 - they put a funny colour filter over the show and it is an absolute mess. If you start here, you'll probably turn the show off. They learned a lot of lessons about how the show needed to be run and edited - and Season 2 is very much the product of that learning. I don't know if it was deliberate or not, but when I found this show they were about four seasons deep - and Season 1 wasn't available. I wondered if Season 1 is deliberately 'not available' to make sure people don't start there. 


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All images are associated with the show discussed, which is produced by World of Wonder, and distributed by Passion Distribution. The show aired on Logo TV from 2009 to 2016, and now airs on VH1.