So... About RuPaul's Drag Race...

The single most interesting fact about the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race was that my son absolutely adored it.  My kiddo is mildly gender-bendy because his hair is below his shoulders, but in most other ways, he's very boy.  He has been primped, primed, and preened to understand that gender and sexuality are choices and his parents respect more diversity than he can probably imagine.  However, though he's vegetarian, athiest, and long-haired, he is also a soccer and videoplaying BOY.  Straight up gym shoes and t-shirts with nothing flowery or even androgynous except the occasional elegant dragon on it.  He watches Naruto and ignores all female characters unless important for plot and getting to all the evil villains, several of whom -- including his favorite Deidara -- look entirely like girls to me.  Anyway, I digress.  Maybe.

We watched most of season two, or maybe from about midpoint on, and he was entirely into the cut-throat competition and picking which ones he thought were best and questioning judges and not boggling or baffled after the first episode we watched where it was clear these were men dressing not even as women but in High Drag.   He loved every minute of the tension and trials and contests and dishing.

The rest was just another reality show, I suppose, though we all did kinda love Raven (which, I hasten to digress, is my son's nickname for himself).  The man is gorgeous and the drag she does is WOW.  Wouldn't wanna meet him, but did love looking at her.  And in a less reality-TV way, I adored Pandora Boxx.  My favorite, hands down.  Witty, wild, wonderful. Great costuming and characterization.  Talented in ways so many weren't.  OMG Tatiana. Buy a brain. Purchase one, please.  Then the ending came though, and Tyra won and ok, he gets to have an apartment so his son can stay with him.  What more happy ending is there?

Last, let me say that RuPaul is so into his/her own media self I can't watch/listen without cringing.  The surgery, make-up, and fuzzy lighting are nothing compared to what seems like delusions of grandeur that I found painful to witness or perhaps just not performed with enough panache.  "Don't fuck it up" became just...embarrassing.  She is gorgeous.  He is talented.  He and she have paid more than their dues.  But the Big Gay Sketch Show did a spoof where the contestants were fawning insanely and wondering why RuPaul looks blurry all the time when no one else does. And I laughed.

And ok. I'll watch the Drag U show I bet anyway.