The RuPaul Effect: The Exploration of the Costuming Rituals of Drag Culture in Social Media and the Theatrical Performativity of the Male Body in the Ambit of the Everyday

Abstract

[.]to make sure the viewer understands the fact that the contestants are men impersonating women by cross-dressing as part of the show, the program presents the show's host and the contestants in male clothing first and foremost, and as the show unfolds they transform into their drag personae, which emblematically highlights the idea that gender is a defined social construct. From this perspective, drag becomes a performance of gender rather than an imitation of an original gender, whatever that would be. [.]I see RuPaul's Drag Race followers' drag expressions as having no clear position as to which is the dominant or the imitation of the norm, but rather as a theatrical gesture of gender being performed without any assumptions about which one is the original. The fan photo mirrors the almost fantastical silhouette presented by Drag Queen Violet Chachki in RuPaul's Drag Race Season 7.37 The costumed male body in the context of reality TV and social media, then, becomes the stage for eroticism and sexual identification, where the idea of embodiment becomes part of the event. [.]I ask: is the mediatized costumed male body taking the role of the sexed object, offering, metaphorically, his flesh and sexual identity to the spectator? When audiences watch this section, they receive the impression that the fantastic is the real. [.]when audiences reproduce such gestures in the realm of the everyday, they remain within this realm.