Line #22 Headscratchers/RuPaulsDragRace


1	%%Per this ATT https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=114200&type=att, we are troping the queens and crew as characters on a TV show, not as real people, so please do not add real names or other personal information that is not explicitly given on the show.
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3	%% This rule also means that we can't list any Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease tropes applied to the real person rather than a drag persona.
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6	* Why don't the "Lip Sync For Your Life" song ever match the challenge? The ones in Season 1 generally did, but since then, they've been all over the place. I've noticed this before, but the "Rusical" challenge really stood out. After a whole episode devoted to musical theater and Broadway-based puns, the Lip syn song was..."I'm Every Woman" by Chaka Kahn.
7	** They rarely match the theme of the challenge, but they often match the judges. If a female musician comes on the show, it's almost guaranteed they will be lip syncing one of her songs later.
8	*** Not always. In All Stars 4 we had a girl-group challenge where Ciara and Kacey Musgraves were guest judges, two very accomplished female musicians with ''amazing'' choices for lip-sync songs. Yet the lip-sync ended up being... "Into You" by Music/ArianaGrande.
9	*** ...Except for the hiphop challenge where the song was not by Music/{{Eve\|Rapper}} ''or'' Trina.
10	*** ...because the show was doing what the OP insisted they never do: Matching the theme of the challenge. Neither Eve nor Trina really hit the mainstream in the 1990's, and the theme was 1990's rap. So they went with Salt N Pepa.
11	*** Maybe the show wasn't able to get the rights to use either's music? Or maybe it was just be too hard for the queens to lipsync to hip hop? Sure they still lipsynced to a hip hop song but it was a lot slower so it would have been easier for them to get the words.
12	** It's honestly better in season 6 because although they don't match the challenges, we've had some of the best lipsyncs in the entire show run.
13	** All Stars One had songs that very clearly fit the theme. Opposites Attract for the Opposites Photoshoot, No Business Like Show Business for a 60's runway, Don't Cha for Girl Groups, Queens Gone Bad had Nasty and Dancing On My Own came at a pivotal time for one of the teams. Ru seems to select the song based on the bottom two.
14	** One of the most perplexing examples was in Season 10 when they had they had a live singing musical based on the life and career of Cher, filled with Cher puns and references all throughout... and then the episode ended with a lip-sync to Deee-Lite's "Groove Is In The Heart".
15	** Season 13's Disco-mentary challenge joins the "Bad Lip Sync Choice" hall of fame. An episode and challenge all about the history of disco, with plenty of disco dancing from the queens themselves. And then we get a 90's R&B lip sync at the end of the episode. After "Strong Enough" (a disco song) was used for a lip sync later in the season, some fans [[WildMassGuessing speculated]] that it was originally supposed to be the lip sync song for the Disco challenge, but was changed to R&B to give Kandy a better chance of staying against Tamisha.
16	** Season 12 does a bit better with this. Music/NickiMinaj, {{Music/Robyn}}, and Chaka Khan all had their songs used on the episode they guest judge, there's a {{Music/Madonna}} song for the Madonna challenge, "[[Music/KatyPerry Firework]]" was used for the stars & stripes runway, "Let It Go" was used for the WesternAnimation/{{Frozen\|2013}} runway, and "[[{{Music/Prince}} 1999]]" was used for the purple runway.
17	* Is it just me or does it seem like as the show goes on the queens become a bit more homogenous? Like season 6 only features two black queens and one Asian queen and one big queen.
18	** There are also three Hispanic queens: Adore, Bianca, and April. That's six minority queens--seven if you count Darienne. Still a respectable amount of representation. The fluctuating diversity is arguably a ''good'' thing, since it proves that the minority queens are there of their own merits and not some arbitrary need to fill a quota.
19	** A lot of people believe that this was an acknowledged issue in the Season 7 casting. It's telling that every season afterward seems to have shied away from casting a ton of "fishy" white look queens. Season 10 in particular features not only two self-proclaimed big girls, but the most non-white queens in a cast since Season 4.
20	* So Santino was making fun of the way Rupaul was pronouncing the "s"s wasn't Rupaul still making fun of the way Trinity talked?
21	** It still doesn't change the fact that it was done at a very inappropriate moment. There were better moments to do it in rather than right in front of the person who was just critiqued on her pronunciation.
22	* Is Joslyn hispanic/latino? The show seems to make references to the possibility sometimes but it's still fairly ambiguous to me.
23	** She might be hispanic, but not knowing what a quinceañera is has got to hurt your street cred.
24	* This might relate to watching them both on the Amazon instant video service, but why is Untucked! censored when the main show is not?
25	* If Adore didn't want her look criticized, then why did she agree to do ''All Stars 2'' in the first place? This takes RealityShowGenreBlindness to ridiculous levels because ''she was just on this show two years ago.'' She knows first-hand that the judges go for blood. If she felt that appearing on this show would no longer help her career or her personal drag style, then why take that spot from a queen who actually ''wanted'' to return?
26	** There were other factors at work. Adore's surprise at how harsh the critique of her outfit was is only part of why she left.
27	** Also, it wasn't a fashion challenge. While Adore's outfit might not have been outstanding, she didn't look ''awful'', and it's not unreasonable for her to choose something more toned-down in a situation where she could reasonably think her vocal talents would be the focus.
28	* Yes, the scene in New York is obviously big, but man, how many more New York queens can be cast in a single season? The number's increased from three (Bob, Acid, Thorgy) in Season 8 to ''five'' (Monét, Cracker, Dusty Ray, Yuhua, Aquaria) in Season 10.
29	** New York collects talent. Many of the queens billed as being from New York City weren't actually born there, but moved there specifically to make a living as drag queens. It's only logical that it'll have a higher concentration of queens likely to pass the audition process as well as have the ambition to try out in the first place. Ditto for Los Angeles. In 18 seasons (counting All Stars), 5 NYC girls have won the crown, but only one of them (Monet X Change) was born and raised in New York.
30	* In UK Season 2, Astina and Tayce both say there aren't many black queer icons in the UK to emulate for the queer British heroes runway. It was heartwarming that they both gave each other their blessing to do Naomi Campbell, but um, '''SCARY SPICE''' anyone? Frankly her style would've been right up Tayce's alley and probably would've gotten her in the top.
31	** Nobody is denying that both of them choosing Naomi Campbell was a coincidence, it's just that, since the pool of British POC gay icons is more limited, the likelihood of such a coincidence is higher. It's also possible that they both chose Naomi Campbell over, let's say, Scary Spice or Shirley Bassey (another name that several people suggested ex post to Tayce, since she's black and Welsh like her) because, as it was a runway challenge, they might have thought the one who's a supermodel would have been more fitting.
32	* What exactly did Ru and Michelle love about Scarlett Harlett's Macauley Culkin in UK Series 3's "Snatch Game?" This isn't (just) about me not liking the performance; throughout the franchise they have ''constantly'' read queens for doing [[ShallowParody shallow parodies]] in their impersonation, and in this very episode they read Vanity and Krystal for leaning too heavily into fictional characters and "telling other people's jokes," nevermind that multiple queens have won "Snatch Game" by playing a character more than the actress. Why is that just now a problem? But since it is, why was Scarlett praised while Vanity and Krystal were criticized?

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