I want to go back to some details on season 9, but going down that tangent the show has always been popular all over the world, but over the past year it seems to have intensified. I just took a vacation. I covered the Cannes Film Festival, and afterward I was in Sitges outside of Barcelona on a Monday night in the smallest little gay bar that you could ever imagine. And there was this old-school drag queen, she was hilarious, doing this British pub singalong. And out of the corner, no joke, I heard this British guy yelling at his friend, “You’re beautiful. You’re gorgeous. You look like Linda Evangelista.” [RuPaul laughs out loud] And I’m literally like, “What is going on?” It’s a Monday night in Sitges during the off season and this guy is, yelling a “Drag Race” meme out of the blue. I know the show is now on Netflix in the UK at the exact same time as the US, which helps but are you seeing more evidence of how much bigger the phenomenon of the show is overseas?
Absolutely. Definitely. It’s on Netflix around the world. It’s pretty amazing. Because what’s happened as populism and the political climate has turned, people who see beyond the superficial have banned together as a tribe to celebrate the show. Our show has come to symbolize the voice of those who otherwise didn’t have a voice. For young people, we see this at DragCon, which we do here in LA, and we’re bringing to New York on September 9th and 10th at the Javits Center, that these young people from around the world can come together. They knew each other on social media, but at DragCon, they can come together and meet one another, which changes everything. It changes the whole PH balance of the universe. This convergence, this meeting of the similar minds, like minds, is really the salvation of our world. It is really the culmination of the ’60s and ’70s mentality of free love, and free speech, and civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, it’s culminating in the love of our show, and our show has come to symbolize that in the 21st Century.
I’ve gone to DragCon the past two years. I thought the jump from year two to year three was remarkable. It was packed. It reminded me of Comic Con 10 years ago. Were you expecting this sort of turnout?
Well, you know, we started getting an inkling that it would be this big when the tickets went on sale and how we had surpassed the ticket sales early on from last year. We had an idea, but then to actually be in it and to experience it in person, it was even bigger than what we could have expected. But I think that there’s a correlation between what’s happening in the world with the populism and all this crazy stuff politically, with the success of “Drag Race” and DragCon. I think young people, we’re talking 12, 13 and 14, are really identifying with the “Drag Race” phenomenon.
One of the sweetest things I saw was at Dragocon* was this young boy, he couldn’t have been older than nine or 10, beaming as he met Detox. And his mom is standing behind him watching, just so excited for him, and I remember thinking, “I couldn’t have imagined this 10 years ago.” It was sort of amazing to me. And I know that you have people who bring their kids to meet you at DragCon as well. Sometimes I feel like we’re living in two different worlds.
*To clarify, this occurred at DragCon 2016.
Yeah. It does feel that way because like in the TV show “Downton Abbey” we’re at this precipice of people who have moved into the 21st Century and then the people who are digging their feet in and trying to ignore the 21st Century and trying to pretend like it’s the 20th Century. But we’re not there anymore. We’re not in the 20th Century anymore. I think, politically, what you see with Brexit and you see in the Philippines, and clearly here in America, that is a rejection of forward thinking. Our show represents forward thinking. Even the parents who would bring their 10-year-old to DragCon to meet Detox is a forward-thinking parent. This parent understands that we live in a global communication and no more can people hide away in these pockets and pretend that other people don’t exist. You know? That’s what this is. That’s why the show has reverberated around the world as a beacon for the people who see beyond the 20th Century, and who are clearly living in the 21st.
I interviewed Jeffrey Tambor about three weeks ago and he was talking about the fact that, just by existing, “Transparent” is an activist show. In many ways “Drag Race” is too. Does the change in the political climate affect how you move forward shooting season 10 or is the fact the show even exists enough?
No, we’ll shoot it the exact same way. No, this is what it is. There is a voice. There’s a sensibility. There’s an aesthetic. And there’s an approach to life that all of the queens have, and they’ve had it since the first season that we shot this show. It’s an approach to life which is, “Ride or die, I’m going to live life on my terms.” And that is the most political thing a person can do; is to follow their heart, and to follow their gut instinct. You may have heard this, the word “sin” is a term that comes from archery. It means you’ve missed the mark. It’s a sin against yourself to not follow your intuition and your instinct and your love of colors and music and textures. And it has nothing to do with sex or a fetish or anything, it just has to do with living life to the fullest and using all the colors in the crayon box. That way of thinking is completely punk rock, it’s completely future-forward, and that is how we’ve always done it. That’s why it’s revolutionary, because it’s contrary to what our parents did; well, my parents did.
This weekend we have the Gay Pride march in LA which normally would be celebrations and balloons and all sorts of stuff, but this year it’s planned as a resistance march and I think you’re going.
Yeah. I’m going to speak at the beginning of the march.
For anyone in LA, or in the area who would be wavering on going, can you just say why you think it’s important that people should go?
Well, it’s important for young people, but then pride, in general, is for young people. It’s important for young people to understand how to navigate their lives, and how to have a voice, even if the voice is as much as just showing up as a group of people who have decided, “This is the direction we want to go in.” And it’s important for young people to understand that you’ve got to vote, but also, you’ve got to also be very aware of where you spend your money. Because in a consumer culture like ours, where you spend your money is like casting a vote. That’s why the march is so important. That’s why it’s important for young people to see older people who have successfully lived their lives on their own terms. Because for a lot of young people, all they’ve seen is what their parents have shown them. This is the first opportunity for a lot of people, you know, 21, 18, to see their brothers and sisters, and to finally meet their extended gay family. And not just gay. It’s not just gay. It’s actually, like I said before, people who think outside the box; people who have a worldview, and that’s a very important distinction, because it’s not just gay. It’s people with a worldview who understand that we live in a global community.
Which goes back to the success of the show all over the world in so many ways.
Yes.
What kind of drag do you think Donald Trump is doing? Is he a pageant queen? Is he a comedy queen?
I will tell you exactly what he’s doing. He’s playing big-boy dress-up drag. That’s what he’s doing and he’s not doing it very well. The thing is this, what people are relating to, it’s kind of like Stockholm Syndrome where the good old boys’ club, which has been running this world for so long, say when Mama moves her boyfriend into the house, because he looks like a big strong man, but the kids all know he’s faking it? The guy is faking it. Mama moves this guy into the house because he’s got a big dick. And he presents himself in that old school way that Mama grew up thinking the way a man should behave. That’s what America is experiencing. America is like Mama, and she is trying to feel like a woman again, trying to feel like the concept of a woman that she grew up with. But that’s done. So he’s playing that role. He’s playing the role of the big strong man who knows how to run things. But the truth is, that’s done. It’s done forever, and Mama’s going to pay. But the kind of drag he’s doing, he’s playing dress-up good old boy’s first time in the White House drag.