Series / Drag Race Italia

Nun facite strunzat'!^note Clockwise from bottom: Priscilla, Chiara Francini, Paolo Camilli, Paola Iezzi. Not pictured: Tommaso Zorzi

"What the eight of us are doing is a copernican revolution in the Italian TV scene."

— Enorma Jean, Meet the Queens (Season 1)

Drag Race Italia is an Italian Reality Show in which Drag Queens from Italy (and Albania) compete in challenges to impress host Priscilla, with the winner of the series crowned as Italia's Next Drag Superstar and awarded other prizes. The show is part of the international Drag Race franchise.

The challenges cover things such as modelling, makeup and fashion design - as well as comedy, acting and dance performances. Each episode also includes at least one themed runway fashion show, which may or may not be related to the episode's other challenges.

As well as the challenges themselves, a large part of each show is devoted to conversation and events backstage, in the shared "Werk Room". This is where contestants prepare their costumes, do their makeup and rehearse for some of the challenges. Contestants aren't usually in drag during these segments, but still use their stage names - Drag Race largely avoids mentioning contestants' legal names unless contestants specifically share them.

At the end of each episode, contestants in the middle of the field are immediately marked as 'safe' until the next episode, whereas contestants at the top and bottom of the results remain onstage to hear the jury's critiques. As the series progresses, the number of safe places available steadily reduces.

Once the critiques are over one queen is normally declared the week's winner, two are warned that they potentially face elimination, and any remaining queens who received critiques are also declared 'safe'.

As with other Drag Race shows, elimination is tied to a "lip sync battle" - the two contestants lip sync to a song chosen by the jury, with both queens performing onstage at the same time. Priscilla and the jury then decide who'll be saved and who'll be sent home.

Priscilla is effectively the head judge, supported by a panel that also includes actress and comedian Chiara Francini, influencer Tommaso Zorzi (seasons 1-2), singer Paola Iezzi and actor Paolo Camilli (season 3 onwards). There is often a special guest as an additional judge, with several different celebrities during the season.

The show is a co-production between World of Wonder, creators of the Drag Race franchise, Italian company Ballandi Arts, and Discovery Italia (seasons 1-2) / Paramount Global Italy (season 3). Season 1 originally aired from November 19 to December 23, 2021, on the Discovery+ streaming platform in Italy and on WOW Presents Plus worldwide, later followed by a broadcast on free TV from January 9 to February 13, 2022. The second season aired on the same channels from October 20 to December 8, 2022, and on free TV from January 11 to February 1, 2023. The third season aired on Paramount+ and MTV Italia from October 13 to December 29, 2023.

Drag Race Italia is filmed in Italian and streamed internationally with subtitles. Unless otherwise noted, all English language quotes on this page are taken from official subtitles.

Each season is preceded by a "Meet the Queens" special introducing the contestants.

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Drag Race Italia contains examples of the following tropes:

• Affectionate Parody: The Pink Queens acting challenge of season 3, episode 2 was one to Grease, while the Dragremo singing challenge of episode 10 is one to the beloved Sanremo Music Festival.
• Ascended Extra: Paola Iezzi appeared in the finale of season 2 as a guest judge, before graduating to full-time judge for season 3.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Each season's finale ends with one of these, when Priscilla crowns one of the finalists "Italia's Next Drag Superstar". Starting from season 2 the previous winner is also present, to hand down her crown.
• Bait-and-Switch: La Diamond comes to Snatch Game in the role of "the Queen", with a handbag and a large lady's hat covering her face. As the challenge starts, it looks like she will be portraying Elizabeth II... until she pulls the hat off and reveals her actual impersonation of Cristiano Malgioglio, iconic queer singer and tv personality and self-proclaimed "queen" of Italian media.
• Back for the Finale: In each season's finale, all of the eliminated queens come back for one last runway and have a mini-reunion in the Werk Room. Season 3 also adds a dedicated Reunion episode, in the vein of the flagship series, just before the finale.
• Camp: A staple of drag artistry and of the Drag Race franchise, but much more prevalent among Italian queens (or "drags", as you'd say in Italian) compared to their international peers. Some Italia competitors such as Ivana Vamp or Silvana della Magliana fit this trope to a T with their drag personas.
• Celebrity Impersonator:
  • Season 1 had two consecutive runways where queens were asked to portray female celebrities: Great Divas in episode 2, with impersonations ranging from Sophia Loren to Britney Spears, and the Night of a 1000 Raffaella Carràs in episode 3, entirely dedicated to Raffaella Carrà's looks.
  • A staple challenge in the entire franchise, to which Italia is no exception, is the Snatch Game, a Match Game-like challenge where queens have to impersonate a celebrity and improvise comedic answers (though the definition of "celebrity" is pretty lax, given that impersonations seen included a penguin, a marble head, and a disembodied hand). The queens are then judged on how accurate and funny the impersonation was.
  • On the first season, they were joined by actual professional celebrity impersonator Vincenzo de Lucia as perennial TV host Barbara d'Urso, as a special Snatch Game guest.
• Confession Cam: Contestants provide commentary via confessional interviews, which are recorded after the scenes they refer to, then spliced into the episode. Confessionals typically start on video, continuing as voiceover once the episode cuts back to the original scene. Confessionals are recorded out of drag.
• Continuity Nod:
  • One specific to Italia: the outfit of the previous episode's winner is exhibited on a mannequin at the entrance of the Werk Room.
  • Gioffré channels Enorma Jean from the first season during the random fight between Obama and Panthera Virus in Season 2, Episode 3, stating in a confessional "As a twenty-five-year-old, how can I be around these idiots?" and substituting her own age for Enorma's.
• Crossover: One of the guest judges for Season 2, Episode 7, is Drag Race España's host Supremme de Luxe, the first time that a Drag Race host appears as a guest on another series of the franchise. Supremme even joins Priscilla on the main stage to introduce the runway phase.
• Dance Party Ending: Every episode ends with Priscilla proclaiming "Musica!" ("Let the music play!") and the safe queens dancing to a Ru Paul song ("U Wear It Well" for season 1, "To the Moon" for season 2, "Fly Tonight" for season 3) before leaving the stage.
• Dark Horse Victory: Probably the biggest example in the Drag Race franchise, in season 1 Elecktra Bionic reached the finale without any maxi-challenge wins (although also no bottom two placements), having been safe the entire time, in contrast to Farida Kant, with two challenge wins and also never up for elimination, and Le Riche with one win. And yet she ends up taking the crown, becoming the first winner in the entire franchise to have never won any challenges.
• Decapitation Presentation: Two examples in season 2 (both fake severed heads, obviously!):
  • SkandaLove's Drag Horoscope runway, as detailed below under Sibling Murder.
  • La Diamond's A Walk in Time outfit, which she declares being her own favourite, is a Pimped-Out Dress decorated with flowers, fruits and jewels, though in a camp-horror move it's accompanied by a freshly-severed head that references the "Moor's Head" pottery from her homeland of Sicily.^note The Sicilian legend tells of a romance between a girl from Palermo and an Arab soldier, who unbeknowst to her already had a wife and kids in his homeland. Out of jealousy, the girl chopped his head off and kept it as a flower vase. Nowadays, Moor's Head vases are a popular decoration in Sicily, as demonstrated for example in The White Lotus.
• Distracted by the Sexy: In the season 1, episode 5 mini challenge, the queens have to compose words from the letters pasted on the Pit Crew's butts. Le Riche is eliminated during the second round because, rather than coming up with a word, she was busy admiring said butts.
• Drag Queen:
  • As with other Drag Race shows, not only is it a contest for drag queens to demonstrate their skills, the host is a well-established drag queen as well. In practice, much of each episode covers the Werk Room preparations and rehearsals, with contestants mostly out of drag.
  • Each season includes a Makeover challenge, where queens are paired up with guests and have to transform them into drag queens for one night, making sure to maintain a drag family resemblance. Season 1 had queens' relatives and loved ones, season 2 had the members of the Lupi Roma football club, and season 3 had LGBTQ+ influencers.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Season 1 had notable differences both with the parent franchise and the following seasons, including the smallest cast ever (8 queens, only tied with the non-elimination RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 7 and 9), a different order for the judges' critiques sequence, and a prize for mini-challenges but not maxi-challenges.
• Elimination Catchphrase: Priscilla dismisses eliminated contestants with the same "Sashay away" used on previous English-language Drag Race shows.
• Elimination Statement: As with other shows in the Drag Race franchise, eliminated contestants usually make two different statements when they leave. The first is a final comment to the jury and cameras, before the contestant leaves the stage. The second is a message for the remaining contestants, written in lipstick on the werk room mirror. It's then the duty of the queen who won the lip-sync to wipe the lipstick message, early in the following episode.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • The first episode deliberately gives each contestant a showcase to establish their drag style and persona when they make their grand entrance. Each queen walks into the Werk Room in full drag, pauses, poses and delivers a carefully chosen entrance line.
  • The season 3 premiere, other than the usual entrances, is this trope in the form of an entire episode since the main challenge is a Talent Show and the runway category is Drag Excellence, allowing each queen to showcase their drag persona out of the bat.
• Everyone Meets Everyone: The first episode of the season begins with the contestants entering the werk room in drag, one at a time. Some of them may already know each other, but they get some time to talk and introduce themselves before Priscilla arrives.
• Everything Sounds Sexier in French: Season 1's Le Riche, whose drag name means "the rich [male] one" in French.^note It's also a partial translation of her legal surname Riccobono, meaning "rich and good".
• Falling Chandelier of Doom: The concept behind Melissa Bianchini's Death Becomes Drag runway, in episode 8 of season 3: a beauty pageant contestant who died impaled on a chandelier after her fellow competitors, jealous of her beauty, set the theatre ablaze.
• Fanservice:
  • Some queens, like Elecktra Bionic, Obama or Melissa Bianchini, have no qualms with showing off their figure and tend to opt for skimpy outfits on the runway.
  • On the male-presenting side of things, there's the Pit Crew, handsome men who only wear skimpy briefs. They are ostensibly the assistants to the various challenges, but it's obvious that they are put there to serve as eye candy both in- and out of universe.
• Feet-First Introduction: Common for the queens' grand entrances in each season premiere.
• Flag Bikini:
  • Elektra Bionic's Italian Style outfit is a low-cut swimsuit made of cut-up tarot cards painted in the colour of the Italian flag.
  • Obama's Plot Twist... upid runway starts off as an African-style dress, which she later tears away to reveal a skimpy, all-white two-piece outfit. She then opens two secret compartments on her breasts to bring out colored powder, green on her right and red on her left, which she uses to colour the sides of the outfit in the pattern of the Italian flag.
• Foreign Remake: Drag Race Italia provides an interesting example, as the first season is condensed into six 90 minute episodes and just 8 queens participate, suggesting a proof-of-concept approach. Thoughts are that drag has never really been presented on Italian TV particularly positively (and certainly not in the Drag Race style), and the very concept of drag hasn't quite hit the mainstream appeal in Italy as it has in the US and in the franchise's other European territories, making Drag Race Italia a somewhat risky manoeuvre for the network — hence a prototype season. In terms of tone, Italia is similar to the other European series in terms of exhibiting its own regional style and themed challenges, though the arguments and dramatics are on occasion explosive and sadly, almost all of the queens have experienced parental rejection (thankfully becoming less of a regularity across the franchise) which lends the series a sometimes sad, but at the same time hopeful, groundbreaking quality.
• Game Show Physical Challenge: While maxi challenges mostly relate to drag skills (sewing, acting, dancing...), some of the mini challenges can be definitely left-field. Highlights include running on a treadmill in heels while playing ring toss, diving in a kiddies' ball pit to find a ball in a specific colour, or play Red Light, Green Light with Priscilla and strike a sexy pose when she turns around.
• Garden Garment:
  • In keeping with her cheerfully quirky style, for the Long Live the Bride! runway of the season 1 semi-final, Luquisha Lubamba dresses literally as a bridal bouquet, with her head encased in flowers and petals applied to her beard. She looks very cute, though the look is overall quite unpolished and it lands her in the bottom two.
  • The runway category for season 2, episode 2 is Flowery Meadow. Highlights include La Diamond as a Cactus Person, Panthera Virus as a half-rose dominatrix, SkandaLove in a Mystical Lotus gown, and Nehellenia as an anthropomorphic greenhouse filled with peonias.
• Gayngst: Unfortunately common in this series, given Italian society's not-so-great track record towards queer people. Season 1, episode 2 alone gives us Ivana Vamp recounting being kicked out of the house for being gay, and Enorma Jean's rocky relationship with her late father and her HIV+ diagnosis.
• Gender-Blender Name: Season 2 gives us Gioffré (a surname related to the masculine first name Goffredo/Godfrey), Narciso (Italian for daffodil, also a masculine name), and Obama.
• Gratuitous English: Very common in the show and Truth in Television among the Italian LGBTQ+ community. For example, Priscilla uses the same "Shantay, you stay" and "Sashay away" catchphrases as Ru Paul does in the flagship US series.
• Green Aesop: Ivana Vamp, in season 1, episode 1, conceives her Italian Style outfit as a reference to the seas of Italy and the danger of marine pollution. While the dress per se is a bit too simplistic, the outfit's message and her comedic presentation land her a high placement.
• Harsh Talent Show Judge: Tommaso Zorzi tends to be the most critical voice on the judges' panel across the first two seasons.
• Homage:
  • The entirety of season 1, episode 3 is dedicated to the late Raffaella Carrà, who had always been a gay icon and outspoken supporter of LGBTQ+ rights. The mini-challenge has the queens complete puzzles of Carrà's photos, the main challenge is a Rusical about her life and career, and the runway category is Night of a 1000 Raffaella Carràs.
  • Likewise, season 3, episode 3 is one to pop duo Paola & Chiara — who both appear in the episode on the jury panel. The Rusical main challenge is a fairytale retelling of their career, and the ¡Viva el Amor! runway has the same name of one of Paola & Chiara's hit songs.
• I Have No Son!: Ivana Vamp, in the first episode, tearfully recounts the time when she left her home due to her father's homophobia, especially lamenting how no one from her extended family gave her support.
• Instant Costume Change: Another staple of the Drag Race franchise is the "Reveal" (or "RuVeal"), that is uncovering a hidden part of an outfit in a spectacular and/or unexpected fashion. Italia had two runways dedicated to this concept: season 2, episode 3's Plot Twist... upid", and season 3, episode 6's Twist'', plus many more other individual cases.
• Just the Introduction to the Opposites: For her Long Live the Bride! look, Luquisha Lubamba portrays a large, anthropomorphic bridal bouquet, and she carries a doll dressed as a bride in her hands.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Some fictional characters have been portrayed in the Snatch Game, but under generic names to dance around copyright laws:
  • In season 2, Gioffré portrays a non-descript "Penguin", who's obviously meant to be Pingu.
  • In season 3, Leila Yarn portrays Art Attack's Head, though presented on-screen as "Testone" ("the Hard-Head").
  • Also in season 3, Sypario's character is the "Drag Hand", a dragged-up take on The Addams Family's Thing (who is named just Mano, "Thing", in Italian).
• Living Prop: The Pit Crew are ostensibly assistants to the queens in challenges, but their real role is obviously to be there and look hot. Literally in challenges such as the Infomercial one of season 1, episode 2, where the Pit Crew men are offered to the queens among the props they can use to film their commercials.
• Mystical Lotus: SkandaLove's Flowery Meadow runway (season 2, episode 2) is a ruched gown with a large lotus fascinator. As she describes in her voice-over, she chose the lotus as a symbol of rebirth just like she herself was "reborn" after her extended pause from drag.
• Nails on a Blackboard: Season 3, episode 5: Lina Galore walks the Back to School runway as an Anthropomorphic Personification of a blackboard (which doubles as a reference to actress Silvana Mangano's black latex dress in the 1967 Italian film The Witches), and she invokes this trope when she scratches her nails on her outfit. The judges appropriately cringe.
• Non-Gameplay Elimination: Of a type not seen before across the franchise. Following their meltdowns in season 1, week 3's Untucked segment, during the next episode Ava Hangar and Enorma Jean are called to the main stage before the runway to be disciplined for behind-the-scenes misconduct^note Both queens later clarified that said misconduct included blasphemy (as in insults against God, which is still a serious moral offense in Italy) and, in the latter's case only, harassing the crew. Host Priscilla gives both of them a long dressing-down, extolling the virtues of the competition, before commanding them, as a disciplinary measure, to lip-sync against each other to Creator/RuPaul's "Champion" to stay in the competition. Ava Hangar ultimately wins, and Enorma Jean has to sashay away immediately — to the relief and delight, it must be said, of her fellow competitors.
• One Judge to Rule Them All: While she appreciates the judges' feedback, Priscilla makes clear every time that every decision on challenge wins, eliminations, and season winners are hers and hers alone.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: As is usual for the Drag Race franchise, the queens are only ever referred to regularly by their drag personas, in and out of drag. Averted by host Priscilla, who openly calls herself (and lets herself be called) by her legal name Mariano when out of drag.
• Only One Name: Divinity, Narciso, Gioffré, SkandaLove, Vezirja, Sypario, and of course Priscilla. Many others go by one name preceded by the determinate article (Le Riche, La Diamond, La Sheeva, La Prada). Yet more have a multi-word drag name outside of the show, but got it truncated for the competition (Nehellenia Aruta, Obama the Queen).
• On the Next: Episodes often conclude with short previews of the next one, including judges' critiques out of context to avoid spoiling who they're referring to.
• Panel Game: The franchise's perennial impersonation challenge Snatch Game, a pastiche of the Match Game (known in the UK as Blankety Blank) makes its appearance in this series too. Curiously, Italy never received an international adaptation of Match Game, so Snatch Game is technically the first time the format (kinda) appears in the country!
• Parody Commercial: Season 1, episode 2's maxi challenge tasks the queens with creating commercials for random objects they chose on a first-come-first-serve basis. Enorma Jean, who was Picked Last, is left with nothing as her object, but in a twist it's her who wins the challenge thanks to her commercial filled with Meaningless Meaningful Words.
• Passing the Torch: Starting from season 2, the previous season's winner makes an appearance in the finale to pass the crown to her successor.
• The Pratfall: For the first mini-challenge of season 2, the queens have to do a photoshoot in a fake car wash. Nehellenia comes to the set with great confidence... and then she slips on the soapy floor and falls to the ground.
• Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: Sypario's Twist runway (season 3, episode 6) invokes this, as she first walks on the catwalk in an oversized magician's hat which she quickly discards to reveal a cute, ruffled rabbit girl outfit.
• Retraux: Ava Hangar's drag style calls to mind bourgeois Italian ladies from the 1940s/50s. For the Long Live the Bride! bridal-themed runway of the semi-final, she recreates an exact version of her mother's own 60s wedding outfit: a cream silk trouser-suit with a little pillbox hat and a short, curly wig.
• The Roast: Season 2, episode 7 had the queens perform one in front of an audience of sciure (Milanese middle-aged ladies), while season 3, episode 8 had another dedicated to Chiara Francini modelled as a mock funeral, à la US All Stars 4.
• Rousing Speech: Season 1, episode 5: crashing out just prior to the finale is, as Priscilla puts it, a "nightmare" for any queen, and although Ava Hangar is visibly hurt, she uses her post-elimination piece-to-camera as a platform to give an important speech that's equal parts empowering, but also serves to highlight the problems still faced by Italian queer people over acceptance.
• Satire: In season 3, Silvana della Magliana's entrance line (well, speech) is a parody of a memetic 2019 speech against the so-called "LGBT agenda" by Giorgia Meloni, far-right politician and incumbent PM at the time of the season's airing (Meloni's name literally translates as "melons", hence the reference to fruits). Making the parody even more evident, Silvana is dressed in the colours of the Italian flag, and the soundtrack adds the notes of the Italian national anthem in the background.
  Silvana: I am I am Silvana! I am a drag queen! I am Italian! I don't eat melons, only bananas. With my whole heart, hasta Magliana!
• Self-Deprecation: Upon her elimination in episode 3 of season 3, Vezirja deliberately signs off her mirror lipstick message with a couple of struck-off misspellings of her own name, as a joke on Morgana's Accidental Misnaming moment earlier in the episode.
• Share Phrase: Host Priscilla mutuates RuPaul's catchprases "shantay, you stay" and "sashay away", Gratuitous English and all.
• The Show Must Go On:
  • Season 1: one of Le Riche's shoe breaks during her lip-sync against Ava Hangar in episode 3. She just sits down and continues her performance from the floor, earning a shantay and a special commendation from guest judge Vladimir Luxuria.
  • Season 2, episode 1: Hilariously, after her pratfall in the mini-challenge photoshoot, Nehellenia immediately strikes a pose and screams to the photographer to keep taking pictures as if it was all intended!
  • Season 2, episode 5: It seems Nehellenia can't catch a break. Her heel breaks off during her Top 2 lip-sync against La Petite Noire, and even though this doesn't faze [[Spoiler:Nehellenia]] she narrowly loses the dance-off against her opponent.
• Sibling Murder: SkandaLove's outfit for the Drag Horoscope runway (season 2, episode 4), inspired by her star sign Gemini, is a little girl jealous of her twin sister's desire to be on Drag Race, but who eventually acquiesced — by bringing her sister's severed head with her.
• Slipping a Mickey: Invoked in the season 1, episode 2 Infomercial challenge by Elecktra Bionic. Her advertised product are the "Dreaming Caps", powerful sleeping pills to KO an annoying friend. It veers into Black Comedy territory when she suggests using them on babies.
• Soap Within a Show: The Secret... but not so much!!, the terrible soap opera parody the queens have to act in for the episode 2, season 2 maxi challenge.
• Spell My Name with a "The": Several contestants have a stage name which includes the definite article "la" (feminine "the"), such as La Diamond, La Prada or La Sheeva. Le Riche, in whose case "le" is masculine "the" in French, counts as well.
• Stage Name: Or "Drag name", as it is known in this context. Some names head closer to The Danzainvoked (like Gioffré or La Prada, who use their respective legal surnames) or Sobriquet Sex Switch (like Adriana Picasso, where "Adriana" is the feminine version of her legal name), however.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Lina Galore's talent show in the season 3 premiere is a raunchy comedic monologue, entirely in couplets, about summer vacation with her family. She concludes with:
  Lina: Non vedo l'ora di riabbracciare i ragazzi^note "I look forward to meeting the boys again"
  Passerò l'estate a prendere... il sole.^note "I'll spend the summer taking... the sun", instead of "cazzi" (dicks)
• Visual Pun: During her winning turn as a fortune teller in the season 2, episode 4's challenge, La Diamond declares "let's bring out the tarot!" before pulling out... two oranges.^note "Tarocco" (Italian for "tarot") is also the name of an EU-certified variety of blood orange from Sicily.
• Voted Off the Island: Priscilla normally chooses the winner of each episode, chooses the two queens who'll lip sync to avoid elimination, and then chooses which queen will go home. Given the nature of the challenges and the lip sync, there's always a subjective element to these decisions.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: The Pit Crew, the scantily-dressed hunks that assist during challenges and provide eye candy, are perennially seen in matching underwear and little else.
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Three examples in the season 3 premiere, all entrance looks to boot. Silvana della Magliana enters in a short dress patterned after the Italian flag, Vezjria's look incorporates the two-headed black eagle on a red field that makes up the flag of her native Albania, and Melissa's gown isn't based on a national flag but rather the transgender pride flag, since she's an out-and-proud trans woman.
• Western Zodiac: Capping off the horoscope-themed episode 4 of season 2, the category had the queens walk the runway in outfits inspired by their respective star sign.
• Wham Episode:
  • Season 1, episode 4: The disciplinary lip-sync and Enorma Jean's disqualification.
  • Season 1, episode 6: Elecktra Bionic becomes the first winner of the franchise without any prior challenge wins.
• What Were They Selling Again?: In the season 1, episode 2 infomercial challenge, Enorma Jean is tasked with selling... nothing. She uses her acting experience and delivers a hilarious and charming advert, full of vaguely motivational corporate phrases. Coupled with a scene-stealing impersonation of Sophia Loren on the runway, she deservingly wins the episode.

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"Long live the Drag Queen!"

— La Diamond (Season 2)