The (Bad) Taste Test: Dragula and the Joy of Monstrous Queerness
Drag. Filth. Horror. Glamour. These are the four cardinal points of The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula, a reality TV that show that, as its title implies, is for monsters, weirdos, and outsiders. The kind of people that John Waters might call minorities within their own minority.
There might be a temptation to think of Dragula as simply being The Other Drag Show, as RuPaul’s Drag Race slowly but surely continues its path towards world domination. But to make that assumption does Dragula a disservice; its scrappy, monstrous presence isn’t just a breath of fresh air when it comes to drag on TV, but it offers a suitably grotesque reflection of a wide range of queer identities and ideas that can often get pushed to one side in shows that are more polished, produced, and self-consciously mainstream.
One of the things that makes Dragula both interesting and chaotic is the way in which it tries to more deliberately balance the drama of traditional reality TV, with the tension and narrative of a competition show. In its current iteration, Dragula Titans (think of it as being like an All Stars equivalent; a bunch of talented competitors who didn’t win on their season get to come back and try for the crown once more), there are often two stories running in each episode: a dramatic one, and a competitive one. Much of the air time in the early episodes of Titans was devoted to a love triangle between three contestants: HoSo; Astrud; and Abhora. While a lot of this is played for classic reality TV drama, and the other contestants grow increasingly irritated watching the three of them go around in circles, it opens the door to a legitimately interesting question about what non-monogamous relationships can look like. Both HoSo and Astrud are transparent about their relationship status (HoSo mentions another partner), and it's through this that uncertainty and misunderstanding come to the fore in the dynamic between HoSo and Abhora.
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It’s a rarity for couples to appear on reality TV together in this context, and the drama between these three uglies - an affectionate term used by the Boulet Brothers to describe the drag artists on the show - creates not only tension between competitors, but an aspect of queer relationships, in all their messiness and uncertainty, that still remains unseen. Even as queerness becomes more widely visible, its a visibility that seems to come with an asterisk attached; the requirement that what appears on screen be palatable to a mainstream audience. Dragula, in both its competition and drama, doesn’t care about this.
At the crux of this is the way that the show approaches the judging for its contestants. The refrain that rings through Dragula from the very beginning is the idea that “We are not here to judge your drag. Drag is art, and art is subjective.” Instead of offering critiques through the prism of a house style - think RuPaul making (bad) suggestions on who a queen should play in Snatch Game - Dragula considers each of its contestants as being unique, analysing their drag as it relates to those four cardinal points: drag, filth, horror, and glamour. This is refreshing as the ever-dominant Drag Race continues to fall back onto its same approach to critiques, in a way that often stifles certain kinds of drag.
Dragula is different, and Titans is the best example of that; there are contestants that feel like classic pageant queens, like Melissa Befierce; performers like Victoria Elizabeth Black; and avant-garde fashion monsters like Hoso. And each of these queens feel like they enter the competition on an even footing - it isn’t as simple as working out who the Boulets’ favourite competitor is and waiting for them to walk to victory. Dragula, as both a competition, and a mirror up to queerness, feels like more of an open door than other drag shows. By relishing in the monstrous and the ugly, Dragula is deliberately able to offer an alternative vision of queer art: one that feels more consciously by and for queers, less beholden to the whims of a mainstream audience (which may be a necessity for the growing success of something like RPDR and its endless international offshoots).
Dragula relishes in the mess of queerness, in both its drama and drag. Each episode offers a meaningful look at the monsters making their looks for the floor show - which in the past have explored themes from sea monsters and zombie prom; vampires to cenobites. It’s deliberately crafty, but in a way that doesn’t make it seem like a dirty word. Success - especially on a season like Titans - isn’t just about coming into the money needed to buy elaborate looks, but about making drag that feels like a mirror up to the artist, a representation of them and their own brand of queerness. And to watch that unfold in real time, look no further than the unfiltered chaos of Astrud’s Twitter page.
“This is what makes Dragula feel so special as an audience member too; the feeling that, no matter how you relate to your own queerness, chances are there will be a monster that’s just like you.”
There’s openness for gender play - in the sea monster episode of Titans, Koko Caine, who’s used hyper-femme silhouettes throughout the competition, switched gears into something much more masc - and an embrace of ugliness. A show like Dragula - and all of the messy drama of its contestants - ends up becoming an embrace about all the things about queerness that are so often pushed aside; things people are told that they need to keep quiet.
The peak of the drama for the latest episode of Titans - the sea monster challenge - leads to a heated conversation between contestants about being “fake,” a term that becomes increasingly loaded once you place everyone in front of a camera. But one of the things that rings true about it, via a confessional from Koko, is the idea that often reality TV contestants are very concerned with what they call “image management.” And say what you will for these ghouls and ghosts, whether that’s Astrud’s unfiltered nature, or Koko’s refreshing directness, image management isn’t on the top of their list of concerns. Dragula opens the door to a kind of queerness that’s often felt missing from the increasing wave of mainstream representation: one that invites you in, with bloodstained hands, giving you the chance to embrace your inner monster.
Words: Sam Moore
