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Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Drag Race Philippines Season 1 Episode 2 – SagalAmazon: Review & Power Ranking

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Mabuhay! Welcome to my review and power rankings of the second episode of Drag Race Philippines Season 1 – SagalAmazon, an unconventional materials design challenge.

As I understand it, this episode title is a play on words. “Sagala,” “santacruzan,” or “Flores de Mayo” is a flower festival and pageant where one beautiful local woman is declare the queen and is escorted by handsome men in a procession through town. From what I’ve seen, their outfits are not crafty flower affairs, but full-on regal opulence! The flowers come in everywhere else, including on the parade floats and arches that frame the queens.

As for the Amazon part… I’m not sure. Because they had to deliver the looks in a hurry?

Designing with real flowers and greenery is no easy feat. Even if you came to the show with plenty of sewing lessons under your belt and a suitcase of dress patterns, you might still fail spectacularly.

This challenge was slightly different than the similar Episode 1 challenge on RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under because the Filipino queens were encouraged to augment their plant-based looks with fabric from the workroom supply – but, they were not meant to use their own garments.

That meant the real, unspoken challenge in this episode was “Do you want to risk relying only on flowers and leaves, which are in short supply and might not sell the full Sagala fantasy, or do you want to rely on convention fabric with flowers as accents but risk being too safe?”

(Ostensibly they were mean to to also design their own flower arches, but the amount of flowers on the arches was vastly more than they had available for their outfits and not a single judging comment focused on the arches. I have a suspicion the queens were allowed to simply sketch the arches and then production crafted them. I could be wrong!)

This challenge is tricky to critique, because I don’t have the context of the Philippines’ festival to work from. I might have missed some references that made these looks more clever, referential, or haute couture than they seemed. I’ve done a bit of my own searching for image references, but if I’ve missed something, please feel free to drop me a link so I can educate myself. It’s not your job to do the labor for me, but I always appreciate a point in the right direction!

Before we get to the Power Rankings, which have shifted slightly since my Episode One ranks, I have to take a moment comment on two other aspects of the episode.

First, the mini-challenge was absolutely wacky. The queens were challenged to shimmy up a massive bamboo pole to grab a flag, with some support from a team of Pit Crew members (who actually got to wear shoes, presumably for non-slip safety reasons). I can’t think of another franchise that would throw out a challenge so aggressively athletic and actually dangerous, nor can I think of another cast we’ve met who could make it quite this goofy.

Second, and more significantly, the episode featured remarkable judging! Designer Rajo Laurel is a Drag Race superfan who gave actionable advice in the workroom and terrific, sensible critiques on the runway. He kept things aspirational and encouraging even when he was tearing into a concept. He was one of the best fashion judges we’ve ever had across all of the franchises. I’d compare him to Carson Kressley when he’s actually allowed in the workroom.

Also, our beloved investigative journalist Jiggly Caliente came for one of the queens for breaking the rules! I am living for Jiggly’s “fun aunt who has seen it all” energy on the panel, right down to her bejeweled domed take-out drink.

If you want to watch Drag Race Philippines outside of the Philippines and Canada you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the home country of a franchise you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see that content.)

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best Filipino drag queen win! [Read more…] about Drag Race Philippines Season 1 Episode 2 – SagalAmazon: Review & Power Ranking

New for Patrons: Red She-Hulk AKA Harpy

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I’m back today with a highly-specific guide for “pledgeonaut” Patrons of CK. This one also spun out of last week’s update to my Guide to She-Hulk, because it’s also a Guide to She-Hulk! No, not that She-Hulk, the other She-Hulk – it’s a Guide to Red She-Hulk!

Be warned: Even though the guide itself is careful not to spoil details of Red She-Hulk’s secret identity while covering pre-reveal issues, I’m talking about it openly in this post.

Honestly, it was only a secret for nine months 12 years ago! But, I think it was a fun secret executed well, so I try not to ruin it for people who might be coming to the run for the first time.

Marvel was going through an interesting period from 2005-2012 where at first they were revitalizing lines and characters purely out of the business instinct to stay alive, but then they started adjusting them even more due to the popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

To me, this began with the period of Bendis launching New Avengers through the death of Captain America at the end of Civil War, with House of M sandwiched between them. Despite Marvel using the “All-New, All-Different” tagline since the Bronze Age, this was the first time in a while that the main 616-Marvel Universe felt like a truly new and different place.

(A lot of that was down to the sales and popularity pressure from the Ultimate Universe, which at that point was threatening to subsume the main one.)

One result of that period was character lines that felt larger than they used to. Marvel’s major Silver Age characters feel encouraged to reinvent their casts and build their own huge events. That was certainly true for Hulk, which went from a Marvel also-ran to one of their hottest titles on the strength of Greg Pak’s “Planet Hulk” storyline, which spun into the line-wide “World War Hulk” event.

In the wake of that, Pak and Jeph Loeb had more leeway than ever to expand the scope of Hulk comics. Suddenly, there were a lot of Hulks and Gamma-powered characters. We had Bruce Banner as Hulk, Jennifer Walters as She-Hulk, Doc Samson, Rick Jones as A-Bomb, the newly-birthed Skaar, and even Lyra – Hulk’s daughter from a potential future!

(Spoilers begin here.) [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Red She-Hulk AKA Harpy

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, Episode 4 – Snatch Game: Review & Power Ranking

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Kia ora and welcome to my review and power rankings for the fourth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – Snatch Game!

Snatch Game is one of the most-celebrated episodes of every season of Drag Race. That’s not only for the laughs and memes that it brings, but because it is the one challenge queens can prepare for the most. Even when RuPaul slightly changes up the format, Snatch Game is always a challenge about celebrity impersonation and being ridiculous.

I’ve come to appreciate that Snatch Game is also an interesting window into the national humor of each country and its drag scene. That was slightly muted in this panel of contestants, because only one of them chose to portray a New Zealand or Australian celebrity – and, that choice came with its own set of challenges.

Spankie Jackzon brought Barry Humphries to Snatch Game, who has been primarily known outside of Australia for decades as a drag character named Dame Edna Everage. This is down to Drag Race‘s rules around playing copyrighted characters. The idea is that as long as you claim to be playing the actor behind the copyrighted character that Snatch Game is a fair parody. The show wants to avoid legal trouble for portraying a character without legal release… sometimes saying inappropriate things.

While Humphries certainly wears drag to portray Dame Edna, who he created in 1955, to my knowledge he does not considered himself a drag queen. He happens to portray an over-the-top female character, which has links to British Panto.

In the case of Dame Edna as a drag character, I’m not aware of her having any connection to gay or queer culture or making commentary on same. She is simply a parody of a woman – at first a Melbourne suburbanite, but from the 80s onward a sort of self-made media mogul fitting for the time period. She became sort of daft but incisive response to the heartless conservative power-ladies of the Thatcher era

Adding another layer to all of that, Humphries lives publicly as a straight, cisgender male, and he has repeatedly and unapologetically made transphobic comments in recent years. It reached a point that a famous Australian comedy award named in his honor decided to retitle itself.

People of any sexual orientation or gender identity can perform in drag. However, performing in drag is not a shield for being deliberately cruel or offensive, or to protect your bigoted views.

I share this background not only to catch you up on the only actual Australian character on the panel this year, but also as a means of exploring Spankie’s portrayal of Humphries as Dame Edna. As an impersonation, it was perfect. I’ve seen a fair amount of Edna back in the day, and if you had told me this was the real deal making a guest appearance on Drag Race I would have believed you.

If you listen to Spankie’s answers, you’ll note a lot of slang about female genitalia and how Edna’s has aged. I haven’t watched Edna’s act recently enough to recall if this is a big part of it or Spankie’s own invention. However, what stuck out to me is that this is the sort of overt parody of womanhood that leads some folks to label drag performances as misogynistic.

Drag Race itself engaged in this sort of misogynistic commentary more often in earlier seasons, as well as language that we would now all label as transphobic. Comparing the sorts of things the judges would say on Season 1-4 to today reveals how different the dialog around queerness, drag, and transgender people has become.

Of course, I’m also writing about a regular challenge on a female impersonation show called “Snatch Game.” There’s always an element of transgression in drag.

What’s fascinating about that is we have no way of knowing how meta Spankie intended her performance of Edna to be. Was she intentionally leaning into the offensive aspects of an elderly, bigoted man playing an elderly panto dame, making outdated jokes? Was that also a commentary on Drag Race itself? Or, was this her literal interpretation of Edna, with no comedy attached? Or, yet again, was this Edna speaking with Spankie’s voice, saying things Spankie thinks are funny?

I have no answers for you. Nor am I trying to engender any negativity or blame towards Spankie! To me, this is one of those moments that is so fascinating about Drag Race, where it has become the very thing it is commenting upon. I think it’s important that we don’t just view the show as entertainment or as a showcase for drag art, but as a conversation about gender – and, one that sometimes can be uncomfortable or even offensive.

Last week, Spankie Jackzon conquered my Episode Three rankings. Has she held onto her top spot, or did someone else snatch the pole position from her? Read on to find out – and let me know if you agree (or disagree) in the comments below.

If you want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 outside of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the home country of a franchise you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see that content.)

Readers, start your engines… and may the best Down Under drag queen win!

[Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, Episode 4 – Snatch Game: Review & Power Ranking

Drag Race Philippines Season 1 Episode 1 – Mabu-Heeey! Review & Power Ranking

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Mabuhay! Welcome to my review and power rankings of the debut episode of Drag Race Philippines Season 1 – Mabu-Heeey!

This episode was utterly packed with content: entrance looks, a Dragna superhero photo shoot challenge, a Totally Exciting Talent Extravaganza, and a runway based around the Terno – the Philippines national dress.

That gives us more to discuss in this episode than we get in a typical Ball challenge, and this is with all twelve queens!

That’s a lot to put queens through in the first episode of a regular season. However, it also served to effectively stratify the cast, giving them plenty of opportunities to show their quality across different situations – and, leading to a relatively obvious and fair first elimination.

There’s not much else to say before we get down to ranking all of these queens through each of the four hurdles of the episode, which definitely shifted things from my speculative Pre-Season ranking. Even though the show premiered two episodes at once, I am 100% spoiler-free on the second episode as of this writing! I’ll be back with that second ranking early in the week.

If you want to watch Drag Race Philippines outside of the Philippines and Canada you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the home country of a franchise you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see that content.)

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best Filipino drag queen win! [Read more…] about Drag Race Philippines Season 1 Episode 1 – Mabu-Heeey! Review & Power Ranking