RuPaul’s Drag Race 12 – Madonna : The Unauthorized Rusical

The Aftermath : Hey, remember how the edit of RuPaul’s Drag Race gave the impression over the last few episodes that Brita didn’t rate Aiden Zhane, didn’t really like her, kind of resented any even meagre success she had in the competition, didn’t want to be anywhere near her? Well guess what

actually she LOVED Aiden Zhane, was so proud of her and her tenacity, and she’ll really miss her! Yes she will! Please ignore how none of these sentiments are reaching her eyes, she really means it! She loved Aiden, now everyone say love and repeat Aiden’s iconic catchphrase “My name is Aiden Zhane, where am I, I need a blunt, *scream*”! Fortunately for the sake of my sanity, Widow, still nursing a distaste for Brita as old as the first episode, where Brita kept on trying to teach her how to rap, and with

congealing jizz all over her face (which let’s face it, never puts you in a good mood), wasn’t having it, and spent an entire series of confessionals ripping Brita a new one for being fake as fuck and accusing everyone else joining in with the “goodbye Aiden” party of being rampantly insincere. As if this drama wasn’t enough, additionally we revisited the moment from last week’s Untucked when Gigi, high off her own goop, decided to tell Heidi off for not listening to the judges and fixing her shitty make-up already.

And of course Heidi wasn’t taking that from Nicki Minaj, so she’s certainly not taking that off Gigi Goode, so it got raised in the Werkroom, and Gigi was told in no uncertain terms that Heidi now respects her a little less. Gigi greeted this news with a lot of eye-rolls and snippishness because…remember when Gigi was called “Aquaria”, and Aquaria couldn’t handle this sort of fight either? It was very that.

Oh and Widow and Jackie also got into it over how condescending and high-handed and superior Jackie is (which…she is), Jackie tried to apologise, and Widow told her to shove it, so yes, the stopper is out the bottle and there’s no agreed universal target any more and welcome to the endgame of RuPaul’s Drag Race Series 12.

The Main Challenge : So let’s leap right to it, the main challenge this week was a Rusical. So here’s your Jan update

Jan LOVES the Rusicals! (oh so she’s the one). Every season she and her friends have a Rusicals party where they sit down and watch every single rusical from every single series and they all sing along (I mean, she does, and presumes everyone else joins in) and she knows all the words for each one and it’s such an honour and a privilege to be part of this year’s rusical episode and oh my lord what if she even WINS it can you imagine that would just be the BEST. And then what if a Broadway producer was watching and saw her and cast her as the lead in an all-drag revival of Gypsy and what if Alexis Michelle put a word in and got to play Mama Rose?!?!?!?! EVERYTHING’S COMING UP JAN!

Anyway, the theme of this year’s rusical was Madonna, and please just imagine how flattered Madonna was that this show did rusicals based around the Kardashians, Cher, RuPaul herself, and Hillary Clinton singing “Cheese Frightning” in a Grease parody where Omarosa was the Frenchy, before getting round to her. Bet she was so flattered. Ru couldn’t be arsed to set a mini challenge this week, too much fracking to do, so the queens were basically just told to sort themselves out for parts, each based on a different era of Madonna’s career. In the scrimage, Jackie, Widow, Heidi, Sherry, and Jaida all managed to nab the parts they wanted, leaving a tussle between Brita, Gigi, Crystal, and Jan for the leftovers. And it was Jackie who took control, assigning Crystal Ray Of Light era Madonna based on personality, and flattering Jan into taking the role of Early Madonna by telling her that she was the only one who could really do it justice. Jan agreed.

In an ascot. Not even Jackie though could sort out the all-out war between Gigi and Brita as to who got to wear a cone-bra, as they back-and-forthed and eye-rolled and slap-fought until Brita came out triumphant. If she’d seen the actual costume they’d bought for the role beforehand, she might not have been so keen.

The Rehearsals : And so the queens took to the studio to lay down the lip-sync track for their performance, and rehearse their choreography, and here are the music producers for this year’s show.

Why is everyone responsible for the content of this show getting older and older whilst the winners remain a clatch of 21 year olds? Remember when this role was played by a young fresh-faced Lucian Piane? How is the voice of the youth on this show now fortysomething Ross Matthews? Anyway, sorry, this is a Madonna episode, no ageism here, ahem. The singing portion of rehearsals saw Jan’s belting and Brita’s bass notes (she had a vocal scholarship! To musical theatre school! IN NEW YORK!) rise to the top, and Gigi, Crystal and Jackie exposed as the weakest, particularly Jackie, as Crystal was at least attacking the notes with winning gusto. Here’s Michelle’s face when Jackie started to sing

Here’s Jan’s

Here’s Widow’s

I think my favourite Widow talking-head of the episode (although there were many many options) was her explaining very slowly the meaning of “Like A Virgin” (the Madonna era Jackie was repping), because she didn’t think Jackie understood it, based on how chintzy and sexless her singing was. Y’know, no offence. Also struggling to be sexy was self-proclaimed “trade of the season” Jaida, although it seemed to be more about having to be dirty “Justify My Love” era Madonna with Michelle and her gay uncles over there sat three feet away than any lack of innate sauciness. Worst of all though was Gigi, after being told she wasn’t enunciating clearly enough, like has been said about Patti Lupone (by people who were later found in a garbage disposal unit round the back of CBGB’s), telling Michelle he didn’t know who Patti Lupone was. We sadly didn’t get a crash-zoom on Jan at this moment, ah well.

In terms of the dancing? The key storyline was that Widow is still carrying a knee injury from Week 1, and it’s slowing her down, which pleased Jackie and Brita immensely, with Dr Brita in particular saying that by her diagnosis, Widow is really fully healed already and faking it. Brita and Jackie then


danced like this in front of God and everyone so…that’s what you get for being judgemental I guess. Standouts here were Heidi and (yes) Jan, less so, again, Gigi.

The Backstories : More family delving this week, as we visited upon the topics of Heidi’s guncle who died with AIDS when Heidi was very young and who looked

absolutely fabulous as far as I can tell, and also Crystal’s dad, who was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s and who now has problems performing everyday tasks due to his tremor. At no point did the show connect the dots between this and the judges giving high plaudits to Sherry basically going “LOL SHAKY OL’ CATHERINE HEPBURN!!!” last week, so throw another log on that particular fire. Also there were a lot of general hoorays and wahoos to Madonna for acknowledging the existence of gay people through her career, AN ICON.

The Performance : So let’s be clear from the off, Eric Paparazzi and Robert Di Nero up there owe these queens a debt of honour, because this was a really very ropey Rusical indeed redeemed by the fact we’ve got a strong set of performers this year. The lyrics were absolutely dreadful – basically either rewriting Madonna’s wikipedia page to make it rhyme or just a long stream of incredibly laboured puns and ham-fisted cultural references (does everyone else agree that Madonna INVENTED lipstick lesbianism, she definitely did!) The point in particular where Jan bubblegum pop sang “I shared my name with my mother, she died when I was five years oooooooolllllllllllld” and Ru cackled “YES, I LOVE IT!!!”? Cringe chills. But somehow, just because it was Jan, pushing herself to 150%, it worked. Let’s face it, if any of these contestants could ever convey even a little of Madonna’s ambition, it’s Jan. Other stand-outs for me were Widow, representing cocky champagne glugging mogul Mirwais era Madonna perfectly and still doing cartwheels and flips on that knee, and Gigi, who was definitely visually iconic as “Who’s That Girl?” era Madonna, but my clear top two of the whole shebang were Jaida who was




just absolute filth, from beginning to end, genuinely erotic whilst also including all those little Madonna head-touches and giggly scampers from the Justify My Love video, and


Crystal, who had me absolutely howling from the second that little gap-tooth popped up from the bottom of the screen. Obviously it helps that, being 34, the stretch from Ray Of Light to American Life was absolutely my era and I identify this Madonna most instantly AS Madonna, but Crystal was uncanny, and laugh out loud funny whilst doing it AND got around her own vocal weaknesses by making a joke out of it, doing all of the track’s little reverbs and echos on top of her lines. Heidi (The Last 15 Years All Mashed Together Because Nobody Cares Madonna) and Sherry (Evita Madonna) were solidly middle of the road (although I would have liked to have seen Sherry read by the judges for this

the worst make-up job I’ve seen on this show in a long time, just…smacked in the face with a sack of the dirtiest flour) and my bottom 2 personally were Brita and Jackie. Maybe if they’d directed more of their energy into their performance and less at sneering at Widow’s injuries, I dunno. Brita was

an absolute sloppy mess, as per usual in these all-singing, all-dancing, challenges, missing half the words and flailing about randomly, and Jackie was


genuinely terrifying. Like, Dressed To Kill terrifying, I know she’s dodging beard allegations, but some contouring wouldn’t have gone a-miss and nothing she did had any energy behind the eyes whatsoever. Overall? A pleasure in the moment, but I’m coming away remembering the performances, not the material, girl.

The Runway

Jan : I love how truly Jan was firing on all cylinders in every category this week, this is her melding her own natural costuminess and over-thinking perfectly to the category (ie “look like Michelle Visage”) whilst looking beautiful. They really were trying to fuck with her head having her not win this week, I applaud it.

Gigi Goode : If there are no tits, it’s not Michelle Visage. The end. I don’t care if she technically wore a swimsuit once, no. Also, I can see your cutchie girl, this needs to be tighter around the hoo-hoo. Ask your mother.

Jackie Cox : Probably the most INSTANTLY clockable as Michelle of everyone, perfectly tacky, absolute Jersey mallwear. Should it have been enough to save her from the bottom 2? Absolutely not.

Brita : Nope

Jaida Essence Hall : I remain absolutely in awe of Jaida’s skills on the runway. Not only has she done the tits, she’s done that absolutely AWFUL star tattoo wodged in between the undersides, magical.

Heidi Nina Closet : “Michelle wore this on her lunch break whilst filming TOWIE” is such beautiful desperation I almost want to green this, but I can’t. Even with that boinky boinky hairball. There have to be *some* rules, there have to be *some* standards, I’m sorry.

Crystal Methyd : Both looks beautiful, and gets major sucking-up points for referencing “The RuPaul Show” era Michelle Visage, impeccable sucking up to the only judge that matters there. REMEMBER WHEN RU HAD THAT ICONIC TALK SHOW? IN THE 90S! CHANGED A LOT OF PEOPLE’S LIVES!

Widow Von’Du : I badly want to give Widow bonus points for referencing The RuPaul Show era Michelle as well but…if you’re the one queen with a natural cleavage, and you do this little with it? In a MICHELLE VISAGE CHALLENGE? No.

The Lip Sync : So obviously, as we’ve already established, I don’t fully agree with the judging this week, in that I wouldn’t have had Gigi winning (or even in the top), and a bottom 2 of Jackie vs Brita (not Heidi vs Brita), but ultimately, the paths taken by both the judges and I would have ended up in the same place in terms of the two things that really mattered this week. Second most importantly, Brita going home after making an unholy show of herself in the lip-sync (“Burning Up” by Madonna, I guess, no Madonna lip-sync is ever again going to be as iconic as Peppermint absolutely bodying Cynthia to Music, I can understand why they’re not really bothering with the big name tracks), just a complete mess, flailing around everywhere, her jaw distending, ultimately ending up



melting into a screeching puddle, like Margaret Hamilton as The Wicked Witch Of The (Upper) West (Side) (Of New York) (Which Brita Is From). And most importantly…well I’ll let Widow say it, she said it best.

“You know like the scary movies, when the serial killer finally just snaps, and just starts tearing faces off?”

Jan could not process not winning, could not, her brain, it fried,I cannot wait for next week. Cannot wait. Jan is going to snap and a half. BEATEN BY SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHO PATTI LUPONE IS?! IN A MUSICAL THEATRE CHALLENGE? UNPOSSIBLE. (Also Jackie’s moment with special guest judge Alexandra Ocasio Cortez over her mother’s status as a Persian immigrant was genuinely touching, it was sweet, it warmed me a little to her, I’ve done the full Miz Cracker 180 degree turn yet, there’s still time).

The Untucked : Gigi spent all of it being really artificially nice to Heidi. Heidi wasn’t particularly interested.