Skip to content

Publics and Counterpublics

TV Show: RuPaul’s Drag Race

Creator

RuPaul (Rupaul Andre Charles)

Created for:

Primarily – at least in the beginning, now it’s more mainstream – for gay men/drag queens and people interested in/passionate about drag culture.

Materials:

Television (Video, Audio, etc)

Metaphors:

Pageant 

Impact:

It caused a lot of cis/heteronormative people to become more interested in LGBTQ+ communities/allyship. It also brought drag culture to the mainstream and helped drag earn more respect as an art form/mode of self expression.

How was this impact created:

The show became very popular because of the personalities of the drag queens and the competition format. Having a beauty pageant also promoted the idea of drag queens as beautiful which shifted the way people viewed the marginalized community.

Did it form a public/couterpublic:

I think that a counterpublic (drag) became more of a public as a result of the show. The drag community itself remains a counterpublic, but the show has a massive fanbase which brings it more into a public sphere.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *