The fandom for RuPaul's Drag Race is famously toxic and often racist. Queens of color, especially Black queens have been tweeting, posting and speaking out about the problems with the fandom for years, but the reaction to an apparent villain edit of a white queen on All Stars 5 is highlighting the fandom's double standard even more.
The fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars features some legendary Black queens including fan-favorite Shea Coulee. The season also includes Season 10 favorite Miz Cracker who is caucasian. In the most recent episode of All Stars 5, nearly every single drag queen on the show told Miz Cracker that she can be "difficult," "egotistical" and "self-centered." Cracker was clearly thrown off by these comments and it certainly painted a picture of her that the audience did not see in Season 10. The fandom was quick to come to her defense online and that same fandom sent death threats to the POC queens who received villain edits in the last several seasons.
On Instagram, former Drag Race contestant Venus D-Lite, posted a photo collage of the queens of color from the last six seasons with the words: "death threats" on top of their images. The pictures of Brita Filter, Nina Bonina Brown, Silky Nutmeg Ganache, The Vixen, Raja O'Hara and Naomi Smalls surround a photo of Miz Cracker. The words placed over Cracker's photo are "She just has really bad anxiety, I identify with that, maybe she has Aspergers, she shouldn't get a villain edit just because she gets in her head a lot." The thread of this post and fan reactions can be found here.
There is an undeniable double standard in the Drag Race fandom and the recent reaction to Miz Cracker's edit is further proof. Several queens have pointed out that most of the Ru Girls who reach over 1 million Instagram followers are white. This week, Shea Coulee reached 1 million followers and she is using her platform to speak out about the racism that she and her other Drag Race sisters face every day from the often toxic fans. In a video interview for the A.V. Club this week, Shea explains that she made a statement on Twitter last week about her trepidation for celebrating her time on the show during this time of police brutality against Black people. Shea says she wanted to make a statement that would give people watching a queer black person on TV hope for the future.
Hopefully, the fandom will learn how to support every queen of every color on Drag Race and if anyone is equipped to teach the children how to love, celebrate and dismantle white supremacy, it is Shea Coulee.
Source: Shea Coulee, Reddit
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