ABSTRACT
Time management is a skill that is put to test in a reality competition program such as RuPaul’s Drag Race. The format of Drag Race offers insight into aspects of drag usually inaccessible to audiences of live drag, as each episode showcases the queens out of drag, socializing and doing their make-up. As such, the show not only features actual footage of labor but also dismisses, devalues, and even erases labor on screen. In an environment in which the show would not exist without drag queens’ labor, this exploitation for mainstream success underscores to what I refer to as dragsploitation and deserves critical attention. By establishing norms and expectations of what drag is, Drag Race audiences now judge drag queens based on what the show associates with successful drag. Have viewers thus become accustomed to an unrealistic set of expectations by virtue of on-screen drag? This chapter highlights the exploitation of Drag Race’s competitors and their labor, and it concludes by arguing how Drag Race not only performs a disservice to drag but also leads to drag’s commodification.
