Occupying the intersection: RuPaul’s celebration of meritocracy

RuPaul’s Drag Race is an intersectional show on multiple levels: it broaches new forms of representation as well as new televisual culture.To us, the international mainstream success of the programme is a celebration of diversity and a clarion call for a new world that is not predominantly White or heteronormative. Drag Race makes you dream of a different kind of television landscape that seems to be on the verge of becoming a reality. In this intervention we want to expand on that: how is this show—a monument to trans and queer representation— twined with how television is changing? And seemingly in contrast to this: might its new-found mainstream success also obscure how its politics of representation can be problematic?