The Cutprice Guignol

I know I don’t talk a lot about reality TV on this blog (well, apart from my love/hate romance with ANTM, and that Pangina Heals elimination), but sometimes, there’s a corner of the reality TV world that’s just too damn weird and too damn interesting not to get into. And that corner, for me, this week, is Drag Race España.

(before we get into this article, I need to make one thing clear: what I’m talking about here is not the quality, personality, talent, or skill of any particular queen who’s been featured in the franchise; I truly don’t think there’s anyone who isn’t supremely (or Supremme-ly) talented at their craft who has been on a season of the show. I understand that we’re not getting a full view of who they are in this limited competition series format, and, talking about them here, I’m talking about how they were edited to serve a certain production narrative)

Drag Race España is the seventh international spin-off of the main RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise, and aired it’s first season beginning in May 2021; seasons two and three followed in the consecutive years, with an All Stars season just finishing up over this weekend.

I’ve watched it since the very first episode, and honestly, it really did kick off with a bang. With brilliant judges in Ana Locking and Supremme De Luxe, and moderately good judges in Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, it had a brilliantly bright, warm, and witty first season, mixing high polish with a looser tone than the, at the time, flagging original US season. The second season was equally if not even more brilliant, with hysterical drama, sincere emotion, and a great range of queens that showed off the breadth of Spain’s drag scene. Around the fandom at the time, the Spanish version of Drag Race was considered up there with the very best iterations of the show, with the second season’s talent show becoming the highest-rated episode of the franchise ever at the time of it’s release. There were certainly unpopular moments in the show, eliminations that were disputed and track records that were debated, but, broadly, they were well-loved examples of the international Drag Race brand.

And then…season three. And All Stars 1. And…all that goodwill the series had built up had flown with dramatic fervour out the window. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show like this so completely turn a fanbase around in such a negative way, and with really good reason. So what exactly happened to Drag Race España? And how did it manage to go off a cliff in the eyes of the fandom?

Well, I think part of that comes down to, not just how good the first two seasons were, but how similar they were in terms of storyline. Both Carmen Farala, the winner of season one, and Sharonne, the winner of season two, followed relatively similar trajectories as winners: they were both extremely polished queens who came in with strong reputations, oodles of talent and skill, and an ability to pull it out of the bag for pretty much any challenge – neither of them ended up in the bottom once during their seasons, and their wins felt, at a certain point, pretty inevitable.

But, despite that, the show balanced out these steamroller-winner arcs with really interesting mini-arcs for many other members of the cast. The judging criteria felt relatively consistent and fair, and the show seemed genuinely invested in elevating and celebrating the work of most of the contestants on their respective seasons. Yes, both seasons had clear winners, but the reason, I think, that they’re not boring despite that is because of how well-developed the other contestants are in comparison.

So the question is, what changed between seasons two and three? Well, a few things. Most significantly, I think, Steve Kelly, who directed the first two seasons, moved to produce the first season of Drag Race Mexico and was replaced by Lola Ibarreta and a mostly-new production team for season three and All Stars.

And despite that shift, there seemed to be a focus in season three on creating a similar winner arc to the wildly successful seasons one and two, without the material to justify it. Now, to be clear, I think Pitita, the eventual winner of season three, is a great queen, but the show failed to justify the steamroll-winner edit that she received in the same way they had with Farala and Sharonne. The raw material that we saw in this season just didn’t seem to fit this narrative, so the judging parameters that had been laid out in the first couple of seasons were consistently bent and broken to justify her dominance during this season: queens were tossed into the bottom repeatedly for minor infractions, while Pitita was given a number of challenge wins that didn’t seem to make perfect sense. Instead of leaning in to the tighter, more competitive season narrative that would have differentiated it from what came before, the new production team seemed intent on repeating the storyline that had garnered the show so much success in the first place.

And the fandom did not like it. Season three was an incredibly frustrating watch, from the consistent dismissal of excellent queens like Clover Bish to the favouritism of other queens who had previous connections with the judging panel. The new production team failed to capture the previous season’s narrative with the same skill and conviction. The franchise dropped from reclining amongst the best of the best to declining like a stone off a bridge.

The second major issue came in the production of the first All Stars season, which was cast and filmed before season three even aired – I would guess that the show’s producers wanted to capitalise on the significant number of fan favourites and big personalities who had earned huge popularity worldwide (on a side note, Juriji Der Klee, please answer my letters, love you), and to get it out fast to claim the title of the first international franchise to have an All Stars season.

With no time to reflect on how the edit and production of season three would be recieved, All Stars felt like a repeat of the same issues of season three, but with Drag Sethlas in the “dominant frontrunner” role from episode one. Sethlas was in the top for four out of the five competitive episode of the very short season, and, predictably, won the finale last night. And, again, it’s not like she didn’t deserve it (well, after a very hotly-contested lip sync win against Hornella Góngora, maybe I could make a case against it), but the edit was so blunt as to remove any sense of tension or excitement. While she was undoubtedly excellent on the show, there seemed to very much be room to distribute wins more evenly and create a more compelling narrative going into one of the most boring finales of the entire franchise.

To add another level of oddness, too, much of the second act of this season focused on a clash between Sethlas and fellow contestant Sagittaria, who argued that Sethlas was being favoured by production. The way this argument was framed within the narrative, with talking heads from other queens criticizing Sagittaria, it was clear we were meant to see her as the villain of this arc; however, after what was functionally two seasons’ worth of clear production meddling to create a specific winner storyline, the fandom largely sided with Sagittaria in this argument, adding another sour note to Sethlas’ eventual win for many due to a misinterpreted fan reaction to the previous season.

After seeing this telegraphed winner storyline in season three, it was just consolidating the show’s uncreative and limited narrative abilities to watch it unfold once more over an All Stars season – which should be, be design, a grander, bigger version of the show.

It’s not the death of the show for me, as, with the fourth regular season on the way, there’s a good chance this fan reaction will help direct that into something more popular and competitive. And I’m genuinely interested to see if Drag Race España can recover from this huge dip in goodwill in the fandom – will you be watching the next season when it airs, or are you well and truly Done? Let me know in the comments below!

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(header image via Odi O’Malley)