- We gotta have drama.
- They're more women than most women are.
- I liked it. I'll probably watch it.
♪ (ragtime music) ♪
(movie reel clicking)
- (judge #1) Miss Fame, green goddess.
- Is that a woman or is that a guy?
- (judge #2) Those aren't shoulder pads.
Those are her shoulders. - That is a man.
- That's a dude.
- (judge #2) I love the shoulder pads.
- This has gotta be RuPaul's show.
- Oh, RuPaul! RuPaul!
Yay!
- (Miss Fame) Somewhere in this cosmic alien galactic green gown,
I've got my face painted for the gods.
- No, I've never seen this show.
- (judge #2) Valentina, bring me the act.
- Oh my!
- (judge #1) Jessica Rabbit ain't got nothing on her.
- It's fabulous. (laughing)
- (Valentina) I am covered in Siam crystals
and my beautiful Catherine...
- She looks pretty.
They look like women.
- (judge #1) Violet Chachki! - God.
- (judge #2) Oh my god.
- Oh, her waist!
Oh, she must've broken her ribs for that.
- Look at her waist! Ha ha!
- (Violet) I'm numb from the waist down,
tuck included.
I really could die, bitch.
- Oh my goodness. Oh boy.
- Ooh! - (judge #1) Sharon Needles.
- I like that. "Sharon Needles," they always have the best names.
- Oh my god. - (judge #2) Oh, she's bleeding.
- How gross!
- That's bizarre looking.
- (judge #1) My goodness!
- (judge #2) Somebody call a dentist.
- (chuckling) They need more than a dentist.
- What was I looking at there?
Female impersonators.
- Oh, I love it! I love RuPaul.
- It's modeling.
It's becoming more and more outrageous,
as I definitely saw there.
That's as outrageous as I've ever seen,
so I try to stay away from watching that.
- It's a very changing world.
I'm a little old-fashioned about this stuff.
Good thing we have a million channels on TV
and we got to fill them with something! (chuckling)
I get that, but, yeah, just not my cup of tea.
- (FBE) That was a clip from the TV show
RuPaul's Drag-- - Oh, RuPaul's Drag Race.
RuPaul's so funny.
I've never seen this particular show.
I've seen RuPaul in the past. I think he's hilarious.
- (FBE) We're gonna show you a little more in a minute,
but everyone you just saw there, they were drag queens.
- Well, that's what I figured.
- If you do go to a drag show, they're usually very funny.
They have good comedians.
- (FBE) So the show has a lot of different elements to it,
but we're gonna show you some more clips,
even though we can't showcase everything
that goes on in the show. - I'm prepared for anything.
I'm prepared for some kind of adventure.
- Today's mini-challenge is sponsored by the letter T.
- "T"?
- (RuPaul) As in... - Is that RuPaul?
Oh, I thought-- I've never seen RuPaul dressed up like a man.
- (man #1) Joslyn Fox, she's so gay, even her [bleep] has a lisp.
- (laughing)
- (man #2) Laganja Estranja, next time you death drop,
reverse that and drop dead. - (laughing)
- (man #3) Miss Darienne Lake, you should be
arrested for animal cruelty.
- Their expressions are so funny!
- (man #3) The way you abuse those kitten heels on a runway
is absolutely criminal! - (chuckling)
- (man #4) Adore-- - Oh, it's all very fae.
- (man #4) I'm going to say this very slowly
so you can understand. - (laughing)
- (man #4) You're dumb.
- (laughing) They are really funny.
- It doesn't do it for me.
They have a lot of in-jokes, I think.
- Eh, it's kind of cute.
It doesn't bother me.
In fact, I like all the animation.
They have great animation, great color.
- (Sharon) In the last runway, I was pretty sure
I was in the bottom two. - (Phi Phi) Uh-huh.
- (Sharon) So I brought you up.
I felt like you kind of pushed me into, you know,
just doing my spooky look, and that it was irresponsible--
- Okay, this is-- okay, this is reality television
with the behind-the-scenes stuff?
- (Sharon) I thought it was kind of sloppy, just to--
- (Phi Phi) Because I told you something that you're good at?
- Did she?
- (Phi Phi) You're an adult.
You could've came up to me and said, "You know what?
I don't want to do this."
- (Sharon) I was being realistic.
- (Phi Phi) Realistic is bullshit because I picked out
a character for you to sit there and do,
and you did it great.
You obviously won the goddamn challenge.
- Yeah, this is just a lot of drama and dah-dah-dah-dah
yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda.
- (Phi Phi) Because I told you to go in your closet
and dig out that goddamn Gothic look.
- Ooh! (laughing)
- Let's have some drama here.
We gotta have drama.
- (Sharon) If you think that I won because of you,
you are wrong. - Oh god.
- (Sharon) It's talent that gets me to win.
- (snoring)
- (Phi Phi) You are not even on the same level as me,
so get the [bleep] out of my face! - Oh! Ouch.
Oh, cat fight.
- (Phi Phi) Go back and do your only one look that you got!
- Diva dudes.
- (Sharon) ...tired-ass showgirl.
[Bleep] you.
- (Phi Phi) At least I am a showgirl, bitch!
- Oh!
- (Phi Phi) Go back to Party City where you belong.
- Heh. Yes, it's funny to watch.
- It's great entertainment. (laughing)
Talk about guilty pleasures.
- To me, this is a little staged.
It's just two people pissed off at each other.
- (Eureka) I never really got a chance to apologize
specifically to you all-- - Oh, wow, that makeup's amazing.
- (Eureka) ...specifically to you all over the joke that I cracked
about eating disorders. - Wow.
- That's a serious thing, anorexia.
- (Valentina) This is just such a touchy subject for me
because I do still have an eating disorder.
And before I left, I promised my mom that I would eat
every single day. - Oh.
- (Valentina) It's so hard because sometimes I feel like
I'm force feeding myself. - Oh.
- (Shea) I applaud you guys for opening up because...
- That's touching.
It's really touching.
- (Shea) I've had a deep, deep battle with bulimia.
- Wow.
- (Sasha) I honestly never thought I'd be able to talk
to other drag queens this openly about these issues.
- Well, I'm glad he got somebody to talk to.
It's okay.
- (Alexis) This is RuPaul's best friend race.
- (off screen) This is RuPaul's best group therapy, right?
- (laughing)
Aww, see, now they opened up and they now support each other.
The opposite of the rawr, rawr, rawr.
That was lovely.
- That was handled very well, that the person did apologize
for doing it.
Through all the other mish-mush going on and chaos,
something important did come out.
- It's very touching that they spoke of that.
They can bond around it and be honest, and it's wonderful.
♪ (dramatic music) ♪
- (RuPaul) Good luck!
- Now it looks like a drag show.
- (RuPaul) Don't [bleep] it up. - (laughing)
- "Shut Up and Drive," strut your style.
- It's like Gaga.
- Pow! Pow! Pow!
- They are so pretty.
- You can't tell they're men.
They're more women than most women are.
- ♪ Got a ride that's smoother than a limousine ♪
- I think they're having fun, doing their thing.
(chuckling)
I don't see nothing wrong with it.
- I give them credit.
They do get lost in the character and what they are portraying
and they're good at it.
It's really funny.
- Whoa! - (RuPaul laughing)
- Wow.
- ♪ ...smoother than a limousine ♪ - They look gorgeous.
- ♪ 'Cause it's 0 to 60 in 3.5 ♪ - They are entertaining.
(chuckling)
- ♪ Shut up and drive ♪
- Oh my goodness, they're really, really good.
- I think that's fun.
I think the lip-syncing is fun.
I'm not so interested myself.
I'm older and, you know-- but I can see my daughter
would love to hear about this.
- Entertaining, different, nothing in my world
that I care to look at, be around, or even think about,
but like I say, to each his own.
Live and let live.
- They just plain look amazing, and they're so into it,
and I'm glad they have an audience.
- Oh, I just love it. (laughing)
It's something on TV that makes me happy.
- (FBE) So the point of the show is to find the next drag superstar.
- Okay, they're amazing to watch.
- (FBE) This is a show all about celebrating drag.
Were drag queens something that you were aware of
when you were growing up? - Not really.
It existed, but there was the closet.
- Not at all.
It was really something that was too freakish
for anybody to really come out of the closet with.
- Not when I was a kid.
(chuckling) You didn't have that on public television.
I danced in musicals when I was younger,
and I think around that time, my early 20s,
that I became aware that there was that scene.
- I didn't really become familiar with drag queens
until I moved to Europe, where they seemed to be
more open, more prevalent.
I mentioned about, "Look at all the pretty girls out there,
in the middle of the street, by the bonfires,"
and I was told, "Those are not pretty girls."
- Very definitely.
We had gay clubs and they would do shows.
- Yes, because on English television shows,
a lot of men dress as women.
It's part of comedy. It's part of comedy,
so it's not so unusual.
- (FBE) A lot of people like the show for how fun and crazy
it can be with the big performances and colorful characters.
- Yeah, they did a good job at entertaining.
- (FBE) But there are a lot of people who appreciate some
of the more serious issues that the show has tackled as well,
from HIV to eating disorders to transphobia.
Do you think it's important for this community
to have these type of issues to be discussed on television?
- Important?
Not necessarily.
It has a place and not a place.
I don't know.
It's of no real importance for me.
- Absolutely, and especially when it's something
that anybody, no matter who they are,
if they have some kind of disorder or something different about them,
and they're afraid to speak up, if they have their own support group
and that helps people-- the viewers out in the audience
say, "Oh, I'm not the only one.
I'm not alone."
That's the best it can be.
- It's important for any community to have issues brought up
that are a problem within that community,
whether it's online or it's on TV.
Myself come from bullied childhood and a bullied adulthood,
and it's affected me and, you know, so having someone to talk
to about it or relating with someone who's gone through
something similar, it's good that it's there.
- (FBE) So finally, with how popular the show has become,
what do you think that the future holds for this show
and other shows like this that cover these type of topics
that may have been considered taboo years ago?
- I think it is too small a field, a census of people,
that it doesn't need to expand more.
- I've never heard anyone sit down and discuss
RuPaul's shows.
I think it's a passing fancy.
- I don't see how anything can be taboo anymore.
I mean, everything is all over the place all the time.
- As long as it's entertaining, we're all gonna probably watch.
(laughing) You know?
As long as no one's getting hurt.
- A lot of people accept it now, especially all generations,
whether young, old.
I'm sure there will be more, but this one was good.
I liked it. I'll probably watch it.
- It'll keep opening up more.
This kind of thing is important.
Shows like this can help.
Maybe with the humor and the glamor, it can help open up
some of these closed minded older people--
and any people-- to the wonderful world of drag.
- Thanks for watching this episode of Elders React.
- Subscribe and hit the bell for more shows every week.
- Love you all! Stay fabulous.
- Ethan here from FBE.
Thank you so much for watching this episode of Elders React,
and if you guys want to see behind-the-scenes
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