Abstract

Since its inception, RuPaul’sDragRace (DragRace) (2009-) has pitted drag queens against each other in a series of challenges testing acting, singing, and sewing skills. Drag Race continues to become more profitable and successful by the year and arguably shapes cultural ideas of queer performances in manifold ways. This project investigates the impacts of exploitative labour practices that emerge from the show, the commodification of drag when represented on screen, and how the show influences drag and queer performances off-screen. Through systemic content analysis, interviews, and observations, this thesis investigates the impact of the show and the evolution of Drag Race as a corporate empire. Aided by literature on television, labour, representation, and commodification, this project analyzes how Drag Race’s particular distortion of reality, undertaken as a generic norm of reality TV, not only commodifies and corporatizes drag for the benefit of the producers of the show, but also does a disservice to the art form and impacts upon the lives of the types of queer performers the show purports to capture.