No matter how “mainstream” the increasingly expansive global Drag Race franchise becomes, the series is always best when it’s at its most chaotic, campiest, and completely off its rocker.
That’s something we were reminded of during last week’s episode of the flagship RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, where the now-traditional Rusical maxi-challenge was a Sound Of Music homage called “The Sound Of Rusic” (naturally).
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Did the mini-musical riff on the plot of the classic film, where a nun-turned-governess cares for a wealthy family of Austrians and helps them flee the Nazis? No, it most certainly did not! Instead it was just a loose framework for nonsense with competitive girl groups, a comically large stole, and an unhealthy pinecone obsession.
The whole thing was downright unhinged—and that’s exactly why we loved it.
Actually, “unhinged” seems to be the word of the week for Drag Race fans, thanks to a prompt that’s been passed around Gay Twitter and gone viral to the tune of 8.4M views:
“What what are the most UNHINGED moments in Drag Race herstory?,” X user @RunnerEyeYT asked their followers earliest this week (brilliantly accenting their question with a photo of Tammie Brown, one of the most unhinged queens to ever step foot in the Werk Room).
Reading through the replies and quote-tweets to their question is like taking a tour through the Drag Race hall of fame—except these moments aren’t iconic for being fierce, fashionable, or even intentionally funny. No, these moments are legendary for the way they made us ask ourselves, “WHAT AM I WATCHING???”
Behind the mug: Get a look at the faces (and more) of the queens competing on ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ season 16.
For example: Ever since All Stars introduced the Lip-Sync For Your Legacy format, the series has given us a dramatic scene where the top queens of the week step into a private makeup room and deliberate whose lipstick they should choose—in other words who they think she could home.
It’s a suspenseful scene typically scored with tense music as we contemplate who deserves to sashay from the competition… usually. But in All Star 5, after one of her challenge wins, Jujubee gets completely distracted thinking about her beloved cats and proceeds to monologue about how much she misses them. Pure unhinged brilliance.
Or how about the time when, during Season 8’s Book Ball, Derrick Barry wore a nightgown look in tribute to her mother on the night she was conceived, adding, “No wonder my dad hit that baby one more time!” Girl… what???
In more recent Drag Race herstory, there was Season 15’s Snatch Game where Spice played Miley Cyrus like she was a Looney Toon, hitting her own head with a mallet and repeating the same chuckle over and over again for way, way, way long. Never change, Spice.
And what about that time the girls found a dead dragonfly in the Werk Room? Then dared Daya Betty to eat it?? And for some reason she did??? This isn’t Fear Factor, girl, you definitely did not need to do all that!
Oh my god, and who could forget when Utica Queen had the (yarn) balls to call to out the open secret that Mama Ru only does waist-up drag while at the judge’s table? Utterly fearless.
Look, we could go on and on and on. All we know is that RuPaul’s Drag Race is the gift that keeps on giving, and we hope folks continue to share their favorite unhinged moments because—to paraphrase the great Trinity the Tuck—we don’t know what the f*ck’s going on, but girl we are living!
If you need a laugh, scroll down below for a few more of the most ridiculous things to ever happen on Drag Race:
and gone viral to the tune of 8.4M views:
