‘RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars’ Recap: Miz, You’re Cracking
Let's be completely honest: this week's challenge sucked.
All Stars 5 was filmed a year ago, but Ongina still has hurt feelings and harsh words for Miz Cracker.
Posting on Instagram stories after her elimination aired, Ongina thanked her fans and admitted she lost her “the fire to fight” during the competition, and that it was ‘her biggest regret’. She also thanked Shea, Mariah, India and Alexis for their support during the competition — then singled out Cracker.
“And to @miz_cracker, I just want to say that I hope next time you are surrounded by queens, whether it’s a local stage or a world stage like All Stars; if a queen is feeling nervous, unsure of themselves or losing confidence that you choose to uplift them instead of kicking them while they’re already on the ground. We can make the choice to be genuine and sisterly even in a competition with $100k on the line.”
It’s been interesting — or, to quote Mariah, I’ve been entertained — to watch the Drag Race community empathise with Miz Cracker, despite her less-than-lovely behaviour on this episode.
From tearing apart Ongina for little reason to trying to write Mayhem’s lyrics and stream-rolling her team, Cracker clearly is the kind of person who needs to let their own opinions be heard: of course, this usually comes from a place of deep insecurity, and we hear that side of the story too. Cracker struggles to make friends; she is often seen as difficult or arrogant; she feels that her loving self is caged.
Cracker gives good reactions, I’ll give her that.
It’s sad to see, and thankfully, the show instantly gives her the time to explain her not-so nice moments — almost a way to pre-empt the trolling online, or, at least, to not completely throw the season’s (potential) villain to the dogs.
Maybe the show’s learned its lesson. But it’s very ‘entertaining’ that the show learned that lesson in time for a white villain: just a few weeks ago, Brita wasn’t given that same in-episode empathy.
The solution here isn’t to troll all queens regardless of race, and to send Miz Cracker the death threats that Brita received. Nor is it to celebrate all villains or excuse shitty behaviour: Brita treated Aiden terribly on S12, and when Cracker says she’s always called difficult, it’s a bit grating for a 35-year-old to not see she’s the common denominator.
much to think about pic.twitter.com/WlxrRvX2XD
— eilish gilligan (@eilishgilligan) June 14, 2020
Seeing that Ongina is holding onto her feelings suggests that Miz Cracker and her haven’t made amends, and we can take our own conclusions from that.
But, at the same time, these queens aren’t role models. To quote Alexis Michelle, they’re freaking drag queens. There has to be a middle ground between death threats and admitting someone was a bit terrible under the constraints of a terribly stressful reality tv show, or recognising that a spiteful or mean queen makes for excellent TV.
It doesn’t mean we have to destroy them. Take Silky for example, whose behaviour on S11 was, uh, not great — but the amount of hatred she received was completely unwarranted.
This week, she responded to Drag Race’s too-late Instagram statement about not tolerating hate against its BIPOC queens by saying the racism hurled at her was was “unbearable”, and that she’d ‘never go on All Stars‘ and face it again.
The statement was a response to a viral clip of Asia O’Hara from tour-doco series Werq The World (which is on Stan and well worth a watch) getting asked to step aside at Meet & Greets in favour of pics with just white queens. It’s absolutely heartbreaking — and this is the experience of one of the show’s best queens in recent history (in the words of another, facts are facts, America).
Reminder: it is never okay to ask a queen to step out of a picture at a meet and greet.
Also, reminder: taking a photo with @asiaoharaland is an HONOR.
? https://t.co/fHSgaVvxyS pic.twitter.com/hyGtLktfTG
— World of Wonder (@WorldOfWonder) June 9, 2020
Last week, I said All Stars 5 features Black excellence, but it’s also a symptom of racism that Black queens need to be perfect to be loved. Yvie was a complicated figure on S11 and so remains undervalued (though her lip-sync last week was a reminder of why she deserved the crown), while Jaida isn’t ‘CUNT’ because she’s ‘too pageant’ perfect. There’s no winning.
If only they were allowed the leeway we give the Crackers of Drag Race.
Please Stop Trying To Make Madison Beer Happen
With all that said, lets address the other elephant in the room: All Stars 5 isn’t off to an amazing start.
As I said last week, the ‘some stars’ casting could be really exciting. But this week didn’t really let anyone shine, as the ‘love song’ challenge might be one of Drag Race’s worst music challenges.
Nine queens writing 16 bar (or so) verses about male celebrities they want to fuck to an incredibly low-energy song with a one-note joke about stalking? I would not like to see it.
On the plus side, Shea paid homage to Instant Influencer‘s Strashme with those double buns.
A shitty challenge doesn’t necessarily ruin an episode, but it also didn’t let these queens shine at all. Shea flat-out won this week and Alexis’ was a lovely first-alternate, but most of the other performances, for me, blended into one: it just didn’t give them much wiggle-room.
Without any mini-challenge, India is asked to pick her two biggest competitors who then become team leaders for the challenge, despite the ‘girl groups’ not really working all that cohesively besides choreography. She picks Shea (correct) and Blair, which was a little questionable: I’m happy to see her on All Stars 5, but Alexis and Jujubee were standing right there.
We’re only two episodes in, but I’m really hoping the show doesn’t continue to sleep on Alexis. She’s so good, silly arm waves while recording and all.
Blair does make for an interesting case study, though. As the youngest cast member, she’s grown up on Drag Race and understands the mechanics of the show in a way that some of the earlier season queens don’t seem as adept with: say, her picking Hannibal Lecter as her verse’s topic vs. India picking Justin ‘man in the woods’ Timberlake, only after her teammates suggest she not write about her real-life fiancé.
As one of Nakkiah Lui’s Twitter followers pointed out, the show used a picture of Anthony Hopkins’ wax figure??? Maybe it was noticeably cheaper?
Hannibal is smart, as were Shea’s Chadwick Boseman, Cracker’s pun-ready Sylvester Stallone and Jujubee’s John Stamos. The rest, less so, even if India likely picked JT purely to indirectly poke fun at Derrick Barry with a line about sending Britney packing.
There really was only one queen who could’ve gone home this week, though. It hurts to admit, given how excited I was to see Ongina finally back on the show, but she just wasn’t quite equipped for everything All Stars entailed. Being an excellent drag queen and an excellent Drag Race girl are two different skills, and while I hope they bring her back later on like Tati in AS2, I’m also not sure she’d be able to get out of her head.
My favourite little egg on a nest, guarded by an umbrella to avoid prey from swooping down. It didn’t work.
The other girls were sympathetic but were evidently frustrated by her down-and-out attitude: self-esteem issues on Drag Race are always pretty painful, because the competition really doesn’t have time for them.
And queens should know this by now, too — Ongina was so open in confessionals and with the other queens about how she was feeling overwhelmed, when being tight-lipped might’ve seen her stay for a few more weeks. As soon as she expressed doubt in the first episode, I knew she’d be leaving soon after.
‘Love The Skin You’re In’ – A Missed Opportunity For A Dove-Sponsored Runway
After the so-so performance, the queens come out for the first proper runway of the season: a ‘love the skin you’re in’ theme which adds a little empowerment to S7’s born naked runway.
They’re all pretty beautiful, save for a few missteps. Mayhem tries to pay homage to Kim K’s Mugler ‘wet look’ at the 2019 Notes on Camp-themed Met Gala, and just like Brita before her, doesn’t quite nail it, probably because the Mugler look would’ve cost a fortune.
It only worked with KK because it was such a meta take on her ‘wet look’/the Vogue cover she did for the Met Gala itself – sorry Mayhem!
Jujubee’s hair reaches towards God, but the bottom of her dress is a little iffy. It does not matter, as she radiates such a wonderful energy that she could wear anything and it’d look rgeat.
India’s ‘all skin tones’ look is super on-the-nose, but I kind of love seeing this old-school drag on the show. Plus, her face is stunning.
Mariah looks face-tuned. She’s perfect. I will hear no bad words against her.
Miz Cracker talked about feeling like she had a wall between her and other people, then put on this dress with an in-built sneeze guard.
Alexis, meanwhile, comes out as a leather vulva, but is upstaged by Shea, whose nude illusion is instantly among the show’s best looks. It’s so simple, but says so much.
It’s hard to capture this in a screenshot, but the tightness of this and that nude illusion on her chest… perfection.
“After a long night of hookin’, trade didn’t like the session so he had gutted me..and set me on fire..but I didn’t die..bitch, I crystalized…and now I’m a Glamazon bitch ready for the runway.”
Compare this, if not slightly unfairly, to Blair’s pink look, which is stunning, but doesn’t really say much about her as a person. She’s super polished, but I really hope we crack the surface as the show goes on.
Then again, maybe it’s a homage to Tessa Thompson’s role in Janelle Monáe’s music video of ‘Pynk’.
Ongina looks absolutely stunning too, but it’s not enough to save her. On first watch, I thought it was super endearing that she was whispering in the werqroom about the other teams; on second viewing, it’s clear that her voice was long-gone before recording her verse.
She was already down in the dumps, but her body was also literally failing her. It just sucks to see her go — and to see her vote for herself to leave. It’s a classic case of the old inner saboteur.
Shea, meanwhile, has come to slay. Lip-syncing against a slightly down-tempo Alyssa Edwards (to the point I wonder if she ‘threw’ the lip sync, even though Shea probably would’ve won either way), she earns $20k.
Sorry Santino, but this Alyssa outfit is the new contender for Drag Race‘s worst look.
I was hoping for a re-match against Sasha, but look, I’m almost certain she’ll have a chance to lip-sync again. If the producers don’t make it happen, then WoW seriously needs to bring in Alexis Michelle to sort things out.
What’s not to love? Just fucking crown her.
Next week, the queens have to make a hotel suite, in a weird mix of All Stars 4‘s ‘club room’ challenge and that time Tavi Gevinson pretended to live in an apartment to create #spon for the building on Instagram. A true pioneer.
RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars streams on Stan, with new episodes dropping Saturday 1pm AEST.
Jared Richards is Junkee’s night editor, Drag Race recapper and resident Vox Lux enthusiast. He’s on Twitter.