Discontents of Being and Becoming Fabulous on RuPaul's Drag U: Queer Criticism in Neoliberal Times

In this essay, I argue that RuPaul's Drag U reinforces an apparent postfeminist/neoliberal worldview through a rhetoric of “narcissism as liberation,” which inevitably rearticulates classic tropes of patriarchal domination. In particular, I find that Drag U relies on (and promotes) individualization and competition as primary logics that purport to signal liberation in a neoliberal economy. By the end of each episode, contestants are presumed to embody a corrected gender expression (read: feminine female). Rather than embrace gender-anormative expressions, they seek assimilation into a mythical normative center. Considering its lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) audience, Drag U works to integrate drag/trans/queer bodies into an unchanged homonormative and gender-normative mainstream that fails to address the various needs of those queer bodies that do not so easily yield to its demands. In the end, I advocate for a queer coalitional potentiality that resists individualization and competition.