Life's A Drag

Mama Ru says it best: ‘If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else – can I get an amen up in here?’

- Pippa De Bruyn

‘If you allow someone else’s negativity to affect you, it’s because you forgot that you are fabulous. It’s not my responsibility to make you feel good all the time. That’s your f*cking responsibility! The fact that you’re here is because you’re a star; you’re a f*cking star, and don’t let anybody tell you you’re not. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me, “You’ll never be a star as a drag queen,” I’d have a billion million dollars!’

It’s the last episode of Season 1 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, RuPaul has lost his temper, and I’m lapping up yet another sermon in the Ru church of self-reflection and acceptance. I joined early January. Uncharitable thoughts about how long Daughter No 2 had been on the sofa were interrupted by a larger-than-life creature striding across the screen. Eureka was strutting down the runway in a plus-size pink plaid suit and bright yellow wig, batting her eyelashes at the camera, her breezy sales pitch like an old-school dating site: ‘I’m a be-yourself to-free-yourself kinda queen. I like family time, laughing and all-you-can-eat buffets.’ Entranced by her chutzpah, I paused, long enough to see her step onto the runway as her alter ego, Eufilthior. Wearing thigh-high black boots and green contacts that matched her neon green plaid minidress, ‘evil twin’ Eufilthior pointed at a quivering Eureka and started a litany of abuse: ‘She thinks she’s beautiful and funny, but she’s really a disgusting fat whale who only makes jokes about food and her size.’ It was a visceral attack on the self, a marvellous visual representation of what RuPaul calls the ‘inner saboteur’.