Does "RuPaul’s Drag Race" Have a Bias Against Camp Drag Queens?

Most of the participants on RuPaul's Drag Race, Season Three

Talk about pushing the envelope! Early in the third season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the contestant with the series' best drag name, Mimi Imfurst, pulled an audacious twist on her Christmas-themed attire: she dressed up as a fabulous drag queen Virgin Mary (post-makeover) – an outfit that even included the baby Jesus in tow!

Frankly, in America 2011, it’s hard to imagine a more daring and provocative drag performance than Imfurst’s – a point that guest judge Vanessa Williams made well: “I thought was hilarious that she used something that was so iconic and turned it into something flirty and funny.”

“You had a concept, and you had an execution,” agreed another guest judge, Bruce Vilanch.

But the show’s regular judges, including RuPaul, were decidedly less taken. Sly, subversive concept be damned – they seemed more interested in the quality of Mimi Imfurst’s sewing.

And then, in perhaps what was a very revealing moment for the show, new regular judge Michelle Visage said of the performance, “You know I live for camp drag, but I’m really concerned that that’s her shtick. I want to see that she can do something else.”

Her “shtick?” It seemed like a pretty dismissive word for one of the most interesting, daring performances we’ve ever seen on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Plus, it was only the first episode of the season! Why the immediate presumption that “camp” wasn’t “enough”? None of the fashion-oriented queens were immediately put on notice that displaying their fabulous fashion sense would not be enough to win the judges over.

Imfurst in the best of the photoshoots? Naturally, the judges didn't think so

Visage’s off-hand comment wouldn’t have mattered if the show didn’t seem to have a long tradition of celebrating exactly those queens who excel at the “fashion” and “runway” side of drag – to the seeming exclusion of their campy, ironic, or comic peers.

“It’s kind of hard to know exactly what the judges are looking for, especially when you are in the show,” says Michael Steck, who competed in the show last year as Pandora Boxx, one campy queen who many thought was unfairly criticized and ultimately prematurely eliminated. Entertainment Weekly called Pandora “America’s Next Drag Superstar in our hearts.”

“They have a certain aesthetic on Drag Race that they’re looking for,” he admits. “That sort of supermodel drag queen who can walk the runaway and be fierce. They want a little bit of comedy too. They don’t ever put down the comedy, because they certainly liked everything I did on the show. They just didn’t like what I wore.”

So is a professional fashion sense a requirement for success on the show, while drag comedy skills or a “camp” sensibility are more like “extra credit” – a little comic relief while we wait for what the show is really all about?

“There were queens last season who didn’t have any comedy skills whatsoever, so I’m not sure you need that [to be successful on the show],” Steck admits.

But if RuPaul’s Drag Race is mostly about the fashion, and about the ability to “pass” as a woman, it becomes harder to see it as more than yet another, albeit very entertaining, variation on Project Runway.

“Reality shows are supposed to be entertaining – they’re not asking you to think,” says Clinton Leupp, who performs as Coco Peru, perhaps most famous for the movies Trick and Girls Will Be Girls. “There’s nothing dangerous about [RuPaul’s Drag Race]. It’s very safe for television. It was safe for Logo to do that show. It was smart to do that show. [But] if I was a young drag queen just starting out, that’s not a show that would showcase what I do.”

Next Page! Is it a problem that all three permanent judges seem to share the same sensibility?