What is a “brand”? If you asked someone 15 years ago, they could have said Sears, Oreo or Microsoft. But these days, it means much more. A brand is not just a corporation: it is an old one single competitor who sells pre-workout in his Instagram story, a businessman who once gave a talk at TED about “cultivating a constructive mindset” or (most notable for the purposes of this recap) a drag queen on TV. In this week’s challenge, queens are tasked with creating a commercial for a soda that conveys and sells their brand to an audience. This style of challenge is not new: RuPaul has had the products of the queens shilling since the first season. But the focus on cultivating and selling queens’ personal brands is a relatively new twist, and I’m not sure if it’s for the better.
Mainly, the format change is not necessarily “fun”. In the third season, for example, the equivalent of this challenge was to create a moral video “for the troops”. In one of Drag RaceAlexis Matteo’s most memorable moments created a completely crazy PSA dedicated to her foreign boyfriend Bobby. Heavy for jokes? No. Infinitely fun? Absolutely. I think part of the reason why Alexis was successful was because the focus was not on his marketing, but on his creativity and charisma. The result was one of the most successful organic “brands” in the franchise’s history. So it’s interesting that the queens that are most successful in this week’s episode are not the ones with the most defined brands, but the ones that seem to have the most fun. After a delicious little self-referential mini-challenge (Are you smarter than the pit crew?), The queens start working to make their soda commercials popular.
Tina thinks she has the challenge in the bag. After all, who has a more cohesive “brand” than Tina Burner? She understands the task and knows where to insert all the necessary signifiers from the Tina Burner brand (flames, housewife, camp aesthetics), so when Michelle calls her Drag Race “one-note” package she is a little confused and rightly hurt. As bad as it sounds, Tina’s problem is not necessarily repetition, it is that, well … what is being repeated is just not so good. Her housewife character is not revealing at all, the orange and yellow catwalks are not particularly aesthetically pleasing, so what remains is a meticulously crafted, very consistent brand that simply does not arouse joy.
Rosé, on the other hand, understands “branding” in a more subtle way than Tina. She uses her commercial for “Rose-Aid” less as a time to redo the things we already know about her, and more as an opportunity to do kiki and make fun of herself and Michelle. The biggest laugh in the sketch comes when Pit Crew member Bryce (who deserves a SAG award for the work he puts on in this episode) walks in dressed in Rosé’s infamous tulle dress and asks “is this flattering?” After that, Rosé turns to the camera and says “No, it’s not”. Of course, the way to make jokes is not the most astute, but Rosé is an audacity punching the panel of judges and, as they say, it takes courage! On the catwalk, Rosé is a beautiful red devil in what may be her best look. I don’t think it was necessary to give her a joint victory with Symone, but, hey! An uncontrolled season is quickly ending, so I am happy to see another real candidate for the top four.
While the other queens struggle with the prompt for this challenge, Symone wins by almost ignoring it. When I think of the Symone brand, I think of “Ebony Enchantress”, impeccable taste, attention to detail and a wide range of cultural references. But Symone’s soda (Sweet Tooth) is a drink that induces heart attacks, full of sugar, that “makes you go tense for the right thing”. I don’t particularly associate Symone with being tense, but I Does associate her to be great at Drag Race. And in that way, it complies. Symone’s commercial is Fun. Not to mention the fact that she is one of the only queens to actually write jokes, which gives her a lot of points in my book. For the beast’s catwalk, Symone serves the pre-redesigned Lola Bunny reality on the most furry adjacent catwalk Drag Race have you seen. It is a lot of fun and culminates with Symone taking his fourth victory. Damn it, sis!
The rest of the soda commercials follow the comedy school “no jokes, just vibes” with varying degrees of success. In the “… huh?” end of the spectrum, we have Utica. This commercial has everything you never knew you didn’t want: Utica licking a can, Utica sucking a cow’s udder and Utica dressed as Sasha Velor spent six months at the Manson Family ranch. Despite a beautiful catwalk, the performance does not come together, and she is in the background for the second time with Tina.
Gottmik and Oliva, although not so discouraging, also do not do well in this challenge. Between tonight’s challenge and the Snatch Game, I don’t think anyone will accuse Oliva of being the queen of comedy anytime soon. Her commercial is not great, but even worse, she cannot follow a direction. Carson and Ross do their best to pull a frown from Olivia, but that is not happening. She manages to escape the worst two this week, but with the field narrowing, performances like this just won’t work anymore. Likewise, Gottmik also struggles to accept the great tips Ross is giving her. Her concept is much stronger than Olivia’s, but she doesn’t have the comedy know-how to stick to the landing. With a few tweaks, this sketch could have been one of the best of the week, but Gottmik is too stressed out to be able to tweak his mutilated storyboard on the spot. Another stunning track saves the last two, but it is close by. At the other end of the spectrum, nobody gets “just vibrations” like Kandy. It is another very strong concept: “The K Special”, a soda that secretly is just ketamine. Perfection. Kandy is not so good at expanding that premise, but it is infinitely fun to watch Kandy order fake ketamine soda in an empty bar in an empty club and then stumble across the two boys on the boxing team. The Platonic ideal of a comedy challenge Kandy Muse. Her runway is unbalanced and not worthy of a gag, so Kandy is only safe, but she continues her string of strong defiant performances mid-season.
In the last two, we have Tina Burner and Utica synchronizing our lips with the seminal gay hymn “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas. It is a song with perfect lip sync for two queens of the comedy, and doubly for Utica, which gives its frightening and monster touch on Fergie’s vocal track. And then Tina leaves, joining the long list of big-city nightclub veterans who never quite caught up with her. Drag Race. Love her, however! See you in Cherry Grove, queen!