RuPaul's Drag Race is an American, reality TV show about 14 drag queens all competing to become “America’s next drag superstar”. The show has been a huge success since it started in 2009 and has put drag queens such as Trixie Mattel, Courtney Act and Bianca Del Rio into the spotlight. The show is currently on its 14th season, although at the beginning of 2021, season 13 aired and the iconic starting catchphrase that RuPaul started the competition with was changed to become more inclusive for transgender and non-binary contestants, in light of Gottmik being the first trans male drag queen entering the competition. RuPaul originally stated for 11 years, “Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win.”, although now they say “Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win.” This change towards one of the most iconic lines of the show received a huge amount of support and praise by fans online and is a succeeded attempt to normalise people's identities, especially in the art of drag, which can be stereotyped and mistaken to just be ‘men dressing up as women’. This can be linked towards Richard Dyer’s function of stereotypes, specifically ’a reference to the world’, in which some believe the stereotype that drag queens are only men and not many consider the other real identities of some drag queens, such as Bimini Bon Boulash and Ginny Lemon, being two non-binary drag queens competing on season 2 of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.
Images shown (left to right): Bimini Bon Goulash, RuPaul, Gottmik
The worldwide, popular tv show Friends, attempts to represent people of the LGBTQ+ community, however it has possible received more criticism than praise. The show featured the first lesbian wedding on US television alongside a same-sex parent family, through the characters Carol and Susan. Although, the show doesn’t just portray Carol as Ross’ ex-wife and the mother of his child as Ross tends to treat their relationship pretty badly and acts as if it is a personal attack towards him. Additionally, in the episode where Carol and Susan get married, Jane Sibbett and Jessica Hecht, the actors who play the couple, were not even allowed to kiss after tying the knot and even two cities refused to air the actual wedding due to being so ‘uncomfortable’. This represents LGBTQ+ people in a negative way as Ross acts disrespected about their relationship throughout the whole show. Almost every time that an LGBTQ+ person is brought up in the show, it is played for laughs and not to represent the group in a positive and enlightening way, whether it’s the reoccurring joke that Chandler is gay or when Ross and Joey fell asleep together and woke up in a huge panic due to the apparent ‘traumatic’ cuddle.
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