Renaissance Queen: An Exploration of the Creative Interdisciplinary Nature of Drag via RuPaul’s Drag Race

RuPaul’s Drag Race is an internationally acclaimed competitive reality show like no other and it is not just because it features drag queens as contestants. Unlike other artforms and competitive television shows based on those artforms, Drag Race requires the contestants to be polymath or “comb-shaped” performers, who unlike “T-shaped” individuals, have a deep working knowledge across a variety of different disciplines. Based on a literature review and extensive (binge-watching) review of 17 years of the show, we propose nine general skills that can represent the foundation of drag (at least this interdisciplinary version of drag celebrated on the show): choreography, dancing, singing & songwriting, lip-syncing, acting, writing comedy, improvisation, design, and fashion. By looking at all the finalists and winners (those who competed in every challenge of each season), we can better understand the degree or type of “polymath” that is necessary to be successful on the show. Winners of their seasons, when compared to the other finalists, had higher overall average rankings across all types of challenges, a greater number of wins on challenges, and placed in the top for judging more often. Looking specifically at the interdisciplinary nature of drag, winners had on average 1.5 more strong skills than the other finalists and, in general, a higher average ranking than finalists across all nine individual skills. The average number of strong skills for winners is 6.9 and the average number of strong skills for finalists is 5.4. There are four queens (all winners) who were strong at all nine skills. No winners across Seasons 2–16 had fewer than five strong skills. This study highlights how drag is truly an interdisciplinary, creative artform where finalists and winners on RuPaul Drag Race excel at many different skills, thus being “comb-shaped” artists and performers.