part0016

Alexis Mateo explains, “Drag made me be who I want to be whenever I wanted to be, it just gave me that freedom.” “Freedom,” nods Yara Sophia. “To me it’s like my artistic expression,” chimes Manila. “Because I started so young, I needed something to boost my self-esteem, you know, and people finally told me I was beautiful,” adds Raja.

Here is one of the most defining and oft-repeated conversations that we hear between different queens throughout each season of Drag Race herstory. This is because RuPaul’s Drag Race examines ontological questions about the lives of those who identify as LGBTQ+.

While reading is fun-da-mental to the art of drag, ontology is fundamental to a branch of philosophy also known as metaphysics. Examining abstract concepts about the nature of our existence and its categories, such as time, space and reality, it asks questions like, “Does the external world exist beyond my perception of it?” and “In what capacity does time exist?”

In Drag Race , ontological questions arise from the idea of human nature in a radical sense when we see the challenges faced by simply being or existing in a world that is restrained by normative policing of gender, sexuality, class and ethnicity. Contestants spiral and navigate between the determinants of an external world and their own perception of reality.

But, while they may spiral, they quite often overcome such adversities to connect with a more authentic sense of self in the world. Let’s consider this in a bit more detail while looking at how some of the contestants may, or may not, have overcome their difficulties and fragile self-esteem.

As we embrace each season with delightful anticipation, we watch the contestants pursuing their dreams while exposing their raw and real selves (often for the first time). We see Chi Chi DeVayne, Kim Chi, and Sasha Velour. And we relate to them, especially when we too have experienced life outside of the normative structures of the social worlds we inhabit. These norms can appear to make sense in a world where things begin to evade our rationalization. They offer a comforting reassurance that we fit in and belong to the status quo. They tell us we’re okay. From a young age we acquire a profound attachment to these norms, whether they sit comfortably with us or not. We shouldn’t question anything that is in conflict with the natural scheme of things, right?

Sara Ahmed considers a norm as “something that can be inhabited … as giving residence to bodies.” There is a deep sense of belonging when we conform to these normative societal structures and it takes a lot of work to dismantle the connection. To abandon the residence means leaving something behind, but if we are to think of this with Drag Race in mind it is as if a metamorphosis is occurring. In the song “The Realness” Ru sings, “Gonna move into the house, ain’t never going home” and the house here is the drag community, leaving behind the norms that were once home.

So what can happen if we don’t conform to the norm? Well, we shift uncomfortably when questioned and inevitably end up feeling like we don’t belong, that our sense of place was somehow misinformed. Remember when Pearl asked Mama Ru if she had something on her face in “The DESPY Awards” (Season Seven, Episode 5)? Uncomfortable, gag-worthy viewing for sure, but this moment was the catalyst that propelled Pearl’s thinking from victim to overcoming her fear of rejection and owning her rightful place on the runway.

The fun-da-mental claim of the sublime is that human experience is capable of transcending the limits of our own humanity. This suggests a going beyond the restrictions imposed by normative structures. Of course, any assumption of what exactly lies beyond this human horizon, while probably unknowable, is subject to much contention and greatly depends upon the manifold systems at play such as our culture, beliefs, shared environment and so on.

We hear time and again about the need for contestants to “get out” or “snap out” of their own thoughts and head, either by their own conviction or through the feedback from the judges. Just as Michelle Visage and Ru warned Pearl to “wakeup,” other contestants allow their anxiety and overthinking to manifest in ways that prohibit them from being themselves and excelling in the competition, assuming that being themselves will in fact boost their performance (see Phi Phi O’ Hara in Season Four and All Stars 2).

What’s clear from the sublime’s persistent revivals over the centuries is that it has recurred at times of significant societal change and challenging upheaval. From civil rights movements like the Stonewall Riots, a gay liberation movement in 1969, to the current challenges of the Anthropocene era, the sublime can be comprehended as a way of understanding the relationship between human consciousness and art or nature.

This idea of reciprocity between humans and culture as well as the intersubjectivity between them is instrumental to how we understand the ontological questions that arise throughout the show. As Ru warns at the beginning of the “RuPocalypse Now” episode (Season Four, Episode 1), “We are living in desperate times. Birds falling from the sky, dead fish fouling the sea, once fertile areas becoming dusty dried up wastelands,” it is not that far removed from what we face in the Anthropocene. Let’s have a quick look at how we form judgments. This will help us to understand more clearly what happens during a sublime event.

Without the ability to judge we could never have intuitions of certain things (let’s say moral actions and free will) because they necessitate empirical evidence and conscious reasoning. Sometimes having a hunch about something is simply not going to cut it. We have already formed concepts of them in our minds and those play a particular role in various parts of our thinking and the judgments that we make, but we also need to gather as much knowledge as possible to allow us to make a particular judgment. Our understanding of actions as being morally sound, for example, are only possible on the assumption that we are free and autonomous agents. But because we can never know if we are free and autonomous, as we do not have empirical evidence of our freedom in a world governed by cause and effect, we have created an idea or concept of freedom.

In the “RuPocalypse Now” episode, Ru reminds the contestants that “This is a test. This is only a test. To find out which one of my girls has the charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent to snatch the title of America’s next drag superstar.” The title is up for grabs in equal measure for each of the contestants, meaning that in ways similar to life as we know it (albeit under capitalist, patriarchal, and heteronormative constructs) there are rules and regulations to adhere to before we meet our just rewards.

Or does it? Well here’s the thing: it appears that the opportunity to receive a glowing evaluation of a performance during the episodes arises for everyone in the same way. But are the contestants not conditioned by lived experiences to react and respond to life’s walk-in-the-park or harsh challenges in a certain way, just like we do in everyday life? Are there limitations imposed that ensure that they reach only to a certain point in the show?

We could argue for a resounding yes to both of these questions, yet time and again we see that the contestants who thrive the most are those who overcome their limitations and who embrace their authentic selves, which suggests that the idea of free will trumps that of the determinism imposed on their bodies by nature. Their freedom to choose to do drag, to embrace their sexuality, to identify as transgender, and to shake the foundations of normative structures surely points to an undeniable authenticity. Yet, we must also bear in mind that the evidence of contestants’ ability to be “authentic” and “free” in this sense is collected in a room full of rolling cameras that ultimately generate an edited portrayal.

Drag Race is not uncontroversial. It is part of the capitalist system that upholds certain norms—for instance, we see branded goods plugged on each episode, and these are genuine plugs even though they’re usually delivered with a campy wink. The concept of the show was undoubtedly inspired by Paris Is Burning , a documentary about New York’s ballroom subculture featuring people of color (POC) in the 1980s and while the latter faced criticism for cultural appropriation on the part of director Jennie Livingston (who is white and middle class), from bell hooks among others, there is something about Drag Race that makes us want to believe that everyone is okay.

Perhaps because Ru is a POC, it allows us to think that there is a sense of equilibrium and that the less privileged will be looked after. It’s telling that Monique Heart and Monet Exchange want to be the final two in the All Stars 4 finale to send a message to the young black queens on the periphery that it’s not only skinny, white queens who win the competition.

The contestants’ first-hand accounts of the determinism imposed by nature on their bodies (being a POC, trans, or born into a poor family) reveals the struggles that they overcame as well as the various discriminations they have encountered. While it can be a cathartic experience for most of them to share their journey it’s also one that provides some depth of insight about different types of human existence for the privileged viewer who has never experienced life outside of the norm.

So, what does the sublime have to do with transcending these discriminations and boundaries? Well, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant offered a distinction of two types of sublime experience to explain the limitations imposed upon a supposedly free and autonomous agent (by the supersensible or metaphysical). The metaphysical can be understood as something that imposes limitations on the free agent; however, a better way of understanding these limitations is by comparing them to the concept of the divine as something beyond the physical world that is true and is independent of human choices.

In Kant’s Critique of Judgment , he uses the ‘mathematical’ (theoretical) and ‘dynamical’ (practical) sublime to illustrate the tension between reason and imagination. Firstly, the ‘mathematically sublime’ is embodied within our encounter with physical objects that are so ‘absolutely great’ that we perceive the object as overwhelming. Think of vast mountain ranges, the starry skies or the Egyptian pyramids. In “RuPocalypse Now” the queens are asked to embody anthropogenic scenes of chaotic destruction while their bodies’ spiral out of control and toxic waste splashes against them. Willam controls the prop despite an initial struggle while Jiggly Caliente flails around and eventually falls over. After getting back up, she declares, “I couldn’t let my fall be the death of me.”

Indeed, most of the queens appeared overwhelmed during this challenge as they tried to maintain composure in full drag while spinning on a prop. This little prop looms as large as any mountain range given the high stakes nature of the competition for each queen, making it an experience of the mathematically sublime. As many queens over the years have noted, every challenge is do or die.

Kant’s second offering is the ‘dynamically sublime,’ which emphasizes the capacity of nature or art to impose its power on us, but we are not afraid of it because it has no dominion over us. This sublime experience brings to our mind the thought of our own ability to overcome nature as we recognize something within ourselves that is even greater or more powerful—an awareness of our own humanity. As Ru asserts, “You are the hope for future generations of glamazons everywhere. Ladies, tighten your tucks. This is the beginning of the rest of your life.” We, the viewers, get a real sense of this humanity believing that charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent can ultimately guide the contestants to safety and survival long enough to hear “Shantay, you stay.” The pressure is on, the struggle is real, and the dynamically sublime nature of their contest means we look forward to seeing new queens rise up each season (along with the rising cost of tickets for each queen’s subsequent world tour).

Kant believed through this embodiment of the sublime experience that nothing can be truly sublime, because every single lived or imagined experience can be conceptualized or imagined in comparison with something else. So, in other words, if we think about this overwhelming and threatening thing in some other capacity, then we are going to survive and overcome. These objects, according to Kant, are not actually ‘absolutely great’ but what they do is bring to our minds the idea of infinity by virtue of the sublime and because we can conceptualize infinity. It indicates that we have a faculty in us that is not limited to sensation or experience alone.

While things appear sublime because we can conceptualize, describe, or compare them, the preliminary impressions are pointing us towards what the sublime ultimately is—this idea of infinity. So, the fact that we can mentally yet not physically grasp infinity proves that we are onto something. And that is part of the many complex components that separates us humans from an inanimate object like a chair, okurr?

Because we smart humans are capable of thinking beyond our basic senses, we have the ability to reason. This, according to Kant, gives us a certain type of pleasure, but we can only get that gratification through a type of displeasure at our imagination’s initial inability to contain what we see as sublime. This is a type of pleasure in itself, but not like what we find with beauty. There is an intellectual challenge (the thought of an overwhelming infinite through this finite body) that drives humans towards the sublime. The pleasure is in this attractive challenge where the sublime is almost a paradox that comes from our sensibility. The imagination that functions during a sublime event allows our self-awareness to reflect upon our temporal and spatial given experience by operating the human capabilities of understanding and reason.

There’s an interplay between our imagination and our understanding that results in reason. If we consider Violet Chachki’s violent cinching for the “Death Becomes Her” runway look (Season Seven, Episode 6), we could argue that it is beyond all reason that Violet could possibly cinch her waist to sixteen inches. But, she does, declaring, “I’m numb from the waist down, tuck included. I really could die, bitch. I’m giving you realness.” The judges gasp with shock as she appears onstage with the oxygen tank, her corpse-like eye make-up, the cinching. They are almost overwhelmed by the theatrics of her performance. This is what the art of drag sets out to do and it is from a safe and rational position that we are able to comprehend the things that would otherwise appear to overwhelm. The sublime appears as a force that we, as moral agents, must resist and transcend. We see this in Drag Race when nature is presented as something that our fragile self-esteem has the power to overcome.

The contestants share their individual experiences of being outside the norm. Chi Chi DeVayne explains what it was like to grow up poor, black, and queer in the Deep South and the implications that arose from trying to conceal her sexuality that ultimately caused her involvement in gang and gun crime. Kim Chi describes her fear of being rejected by her own mother. She conceals not only her drag persona but also her sexuality to protect herself from the pain and humiliation of being ostracized by her family.

But we also get to see the queens transcend these discriminations. Often they have covered the groundwork before arriving on the show, but the shared testimonies in the Werk Room appear to foster a further sense of justification and acceptance. By sharing painful stories about the past, there is an acceptance, understanding and reasoning that life outside of the norm can be cruel and heartless. This collective consciousness and reciprocity on the show supports those who struggle to come to terms with their past. Which is not to say that boiling hot tea is not consistently served throughout each episode in what is essentially a televised drag competition. But it does reveal the ways in which solidarity can alleviate some of the challenges imposed by the imagination and resulting fears and anxiety.

When the imagination presents the realization of our superiority over some aspect of nature (both internal and external), and culture allows us to develop our rational ability to create ideas that reveal to us the possibility of resistance, then we are in a position to fully appreciate the sublime within us.

Sasha Velour uses drag as an art form to escape the limitations imposed by normative gender-structures while The Vixen’s drag is her creative outpouring of grief and anger. We are, thus, considering the sublime as momentary or a series of recurring flashes of overcoming and transcending our own fears and emotions, which now brings us to the idea of confidence. When we think about confidence in Drag Race All Stars , for example, the tension often lies in the juxtaposition of contestants’ performances on their first season and how they approach an All Stars season. They must show some experience of having transcended their old ways. Alyssa Edwards has a completely different attitude on her All Stars season that shows a maturity and growth in confidence. Katya returns to All Stars vowing to leave her anxiety-ridden habits in the past, but unfortunately her anxiety still manages to get the better of her. Let’s look at how confidence and anxiety interact in the example of Katya.

If anxiety can be described as the fear of a deprivation rooted in happiness bound up with our human needs, then confidence can be described as the removal of this fear. In other words, it can be described as the way in which we learn to live with the fears and insecurities surrounding our needs and attempts to be happy.

The fear of loss can contaminate our hopes, leading to a predicted frustration. In the face of anxiety, our abandoned ego withdraws. When Katya opens up about her vulnerability and tells Violet that she admires her unshakeable confidence, Violet’s response is, “Drag is all about confidence. That’s why I like it.” The smugness that Violet exuded when she first entered the Werk Room (undoubtedly as the defense mechanism of a nervous younger queen) is now replaced by a breezy and quiet confidence. Violet has let go of her earlier insecurities, reminding herself of why she is there at that moment in time—which is to show off her charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent in doing drag to snatch the crown. You get one shot and drag has allowed her to find confidence by escaping and overcoming the fears initially brought about by her insecurities.

When Katya really begins to struggle with her mounting anxiety, she pulls Miss Fame aside for a heart-to-heart which reveals the essence of her troubles, “I am terrified of failure and my sense of humor has been a smoke screen for that. I’ve actually never been able to love myself … I am having to deal with all the insecurities that I don’t want to face and I did not expect that” (Season Seven, Episode 7).

The experience on the show clearly brings up a lot of emotional challenges for each individual queen. Using humor, or in The Vixen’s case anger, is a way for Katya to hide her real authentic self. To keep people from seeing her scars from the past means she doesn’t have to face up to the painful episodes in her life that made her put up a “smoke screen” in the first place. By recognizing the sublime within ourselves, we can begin to remove the layers that have been put there to avoid exposing our vulnerability to others.

In the “Divine Inspiration” episode (Season Seven, Episode 9), Katya once again tries to confront and overcome her crippling self-doubt by talking to Fame and sharing their concerns. As a result, they both appear to benefit. Fame reveals, “There’s a lot that I’m relating with Katya on an emotional level so to connect and let go of the fears that we were holding onto makes me feel stronger.” Katya feels as though “a weight has been lifted.” After she is eliminated, Fame admits, “I didn’t expect it to be so challenging and it really, really was. This experience opened up things that I never would have expected for myself. There’s no limitation from this point forward.” Who knows whether Fame has cracked the code entirely, but the honesty and integrity that she offered Katya were an essential basis for trust and we see this supportive co-dependency mirrored by other contestants, from the Heathers to Ro-Laska-Tox to Team Latrila. It is an integral part of human nature that we need one another to survive and it is no different amongst the queens.

We could argue that Katya lost twice due to a lack of confidence. Although she returns to All Stars 2 , confident that she has left her anxious ways behind, she seems to lose some of her initial certainty when overshadowed by a particularly relentless Alaska. While we can be both confident and unsure of ourselves, like Alaska demonstrates with her behavior, confidence is multi-tiered with subconscious levels of self-assurance bubbling beneath the surface. To understand this in relation to the sublime, we can imagine our mind as a motherboard for a moment.

When we encounter a sublime experience, the imagination responds to this sensory overload by overriding the vitally important processor and forcing our overall system into shutdown. When our senses are deprived in this way, the sublime can act as a means of offering an explanation when things appear to be devoid of reason. On the other hand, the residual feeling of alienation and repression can suggest a lack of meaning. The role of repression or alienation in the sublime moment implies that the relationship between the imagination and reason is legitimated and intensified.

While beauty insinuates harmony the sublime splits consciousness in two causing what Kant would call an agitation. So there needs to be some reconciliation between the imagination and reasoning for us to understand and overcome the anxiety of the sublime within us. This is where we see most of the queens’ struggle. While they want to show their creativity there is also an immense pressure to compare themselves with the other contestants.

We could analyze each character and episode of Drag Race endlessly, because the nature of existence lies at the heart of what the show’s all about. Spilling the T, throwing shade, being authentic people capable of integrity in spite of the tragedies that brought us here: these are what make us fall in love with our favorite characters. Because, after all, “if you can’t love yourself then how in the hell are you going to love someone else?”

By embracing the sublime in ourselves, we can overcome challenges in a way that leads us to becoming confident and self-assured in our autonomy. It seems fair to think of the value of the sublime when examining the complexities of the personalities we see in Drag Race . As we continue to search for ways to embody psychological processes that sometimes elude definition and where language sometimes appears inadequate as it fails to capture, convey and communicate through words alone, drag, like many other art forms, provides a means of reason in a complex world. And for that, I conclude that we can all say “Amen.”