16th Aug2022

‘Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race 2×01’ Review

by Rhys Payne

Season one of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race had a very different format from the newest season. The original season saw three mystery celebrities enter the werk room to experience a drag makeover that was managed by three of the most successful queens from the normal franchise.

While the celebs used on each episode were a surprise on an episode-by-episode basis, there were very few surprises within the episode itself. I think that season one wanted to highlight the idea of the drag transformation and so seeing what the celebrities looked like before and after the process was really important. However, the newest season seems to place a much bigger focus on the performative side of drag with the guests each performing a lip-sync number to entertain the crowd. The “secret” element of the title becomes a much greater focal point as the celebrities behind the make-up are only revealed once they are eliminated from the competition. While I personally enjoy both concepts of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race (which could be two separate spin-offs one being a secret celebrity and the other simply being Celebrity Drag Race) I do think that these iterations need something that ties them into the normal seasons and adding them into the Ru Paul universe that I have talked about in previous reviews! Even if this throughline is something along the lines of the winning celebrity having a cameo on the next season of Drag Race in a musical challenge (similar to what was done with Stacey Lane Matthew’s on All Stars Four episodes two) but I just think something needs to tie this season to the other iterations of Drag Race!

The idea of Ru girls mentoring these new queens has been brought back with All Winner‘s top four contestants Monet X-Change, Jujubee (marking her sixth appearance on a Drag Race franchise) and host of Drag Race Canada Brook-Lyn Hytes guiding the queens in their training and transformation. In all honesty, I don’t quite fully understand the function of these three drag mentors as all we see is the queens chatting to the celebrities about their drag names and not actually providing any support or helping with the drag transformations. The only person we see actually preparing the new queens for their performance is Jamal Sims, who helps every queen put together a dance sequence. The viewers were also promised a series of Ru girl cameos throughout the seasons but the capacity in which they would be involved was not Ru-vealed which does add a certain amount of excitement. As previously discussed it is clear that performative elements are a much higher priority for this season of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race, with each performer doing an individual lip-sync number complete with choreography (planned by the insanely talented Jamal Sims), backup dancers and props leading to fully realised performances. At the end of each episode a top queen is selected (but this does not seem to have any benefit apart from simple bragging rights) but more importantly the two worst performing queens are forced into a lip-sync battle to see who would leave the competition and then reveal themselves to the world! This Masked Singer-style structure is fairly exciting as every queen is given a chance to showcase at least one performance in the season so even if you go home in the first episode then at least you were able to create one fully realised showcase!

I want to take some time to appreciate a small business that I have been following on Instagram for quite a while as they were selected to provide padding for all of the contestants of this version of Drag Race. The drag stops helped to make the performers achieve their perfect drag body and it is incredible to see small businesses being used as this can only have a positive effect on the hard-working people behind the products! I am unfortunately going to start with the negatives from this opening episode of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race season two. I think that the performer called “Millie Von Sunshine” did a pretty good performance but the outfit chosen did not match the description given before the lip-sync. As this is the first exposure to this new drag persona, I think it would have been the perfect opportunity to showcase a signature look and so was a golden opportunity missed! It was also extremely clear that the person behind the new character “Jackie Would” clearly struggled with choreography however I do believe that this was an important inclusion on the show! It is getting pretty tiresome to see celebrities who have never done drag to grace the stage and deliver excellent performances. In the real world this does not happen so why should it be on TV? Some people are not able to pick up choreography so quickly or even dance excellently on their first try but I hope that we can see a development of Jackie throughout the season!

I do have to say that it was an incredibly bold choice for the first mystery celebrity we see on this newest season of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race to be a straight cis-gendered man which I know is going to cause yet another debate online as to whether straight people should be allowed to do drag. This is the exact same conversation that was had during the controversial casting of Drag Race’s first ever straight cis-gendered before Maddie Morphosis on season fourteen. I do think that this is a very complex debate but it is clear that whoever is behind this first performer (named Poppy Love) had a great time performing which is one of the key parts of drag! I thoroughly enjoyed the performance by the performer going by the moniker Thirsty Von Trap who wore an incredible pink and yellow outfit and delivered a rather sensual performance of ‘Don’t Cha’ by the Pussycat Dolls. The pole dancing elements of this song fitted the vibe of the song perfectly and Thirsty looked very comfortable putting on a provocative number using the other dancers perfectly! However, my favourite performance of the night would have to be Chic-Li-Fay (which is a clear pun on the classically homophobic American diner) who wore a fabulous candy-infused outfit with a red and white striped top/rainbow skirt. The cutesy/adorable outfit conflicted perfectly with the sensual moments in the number which led to a very entertaining number! I am not going to ruin the surprise of who I think the person behind this act is but if it is who I think it is then I hope that at some point we get a performance of “Proud Mary” by Tina Turner! It was announced that the first-ever winner of the first-ever episode of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race is none other than the first-ever performer Poppy Love. I personally don’t think that Poppy was the most entertaining performer of the night but was still a pretty good act! On the other end of the competition were Jackie Would and Fabulousity with the latter being forced to reveal themselves after losing the lip-sync. The person behind this character turned out to be Loretta Devine who is not someone I am particularly familiar with but the audience seemed to be very excited!

Overall, this new format of Drag Race shares many similarities with the phenomenon of Masked Singer (and other iterations of the same concept) with a creator focus on muster and entertainment. The first show was extremely entertaining but I think that it requires something that goes this season into the Drag Race universe and a theme to each episode that would allow us to receive more impactful teases of the people behind each character! There were a couple of fantastic performances but equally a few more challenging performances which helped to show a more honest and realistic perspective of newcomers to the art form of drag!

**** 4/5

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