DRAG RACE DOWN UNDER UNTUCKED TV

(I’ve seen some comments that Etcetera isn’t white as a Lebanese-Australian, but for now, I’m going off how she describes herself as an ally to people of colour routinely on social media.) But the issue is obvious, especially when televised in place of any other conversation: whiteness will always be centred. Seven white people talking about race isn’t a bad thing of itself - white people should discuss their own whiteness and racism outside of having a person of colour in the room. 'RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under' S1E4 Recap: Sounds About White The whole thing just speaks to Down Under‘s larger failure: if the cast reflected our actual drag community, the conversation we saw in the werkroom would have been completely different. Not that if Jojo was still present it would’ve been her duty to accept Scarlet’s apology for her blakface, or to even talk about it with her. Instead, we’re left with this - an apology that centres Scarlet so she can continue to compete, with literally no Bla(c)k voices or people of colour present in the werkroom to speak about their own experiences with racism. Maybe that’s more appropriate, for Scarlet to have ‘taken’ leave (if the show only became aware of the performances during filming, that is, which seems unlikely given they were floating around online beforehand). Would substantive addressing of Scarlet’s behaviour be the Drag Race we love? Of course not: it probably wouldn’t even be televised. I’m thinking of Real Housewives Of Auckland, where the latter half of the show fell apart after one cast member used a racial slur against another. That’s what needs to happen: the show needed to become something else to tackle it (though RHOA, not surprisingly, didn’t exactly succeed either), rather than shoehorn it into seven minutes of airtime, finished off with Ru calling it a learning lesson and tying a bow around an unfinished issue rather than ‘cancelling’ anyone.

DRAG RACE DOWN UNDER UNTUCKED TV

That said, a TV competition show isn’t going to be able to dive deep into racist acts without disrupting its own production. 'Drag Race Down Under' Has Quickly Exposed A Racism Problem In Australian Drag

Drag race down under untucked