On one level, I truly do love how
Drag Race takes its position as one of this moment’s biggest queer pop-culture products seriously and devotes time to topics and histories the team feel We Need To Discuss, from Black Lives Matter to Madonna looks and Warhol, and everything in-between.
On the other hand, sometimes it’s just a bit too didactic: I don’t really need to see Ru act incredulous that 20somethings don’t know about disco figures, as important as they are. It’s Frances Joli all over again; yes, it’s important to know your references (especially in drag, which is post-modern by design/ever referential blah blah blah), but the show tends to place too much emphasis on it, to the point where queens can get away with being purely referential, rather than genuinely creative.