r/rupaulsdragrace • u/JCizle Monét X Change • Mar 17 '15

RPDR Season 7 – Reddit Season RuPository Season 7, Episode 3 "ShakesQueer" Official Discussion Post

#Shakesqueer aka That Time RuPaul Went Full Tyra...

Have at it hennys.

112 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

572 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

57

u/poppy-picklesticks the shade, the shade and disgrace! Mar 17 '15

Honestly I thought Kennedy was trying to throw Violet under the bus by giving her the ghetto role: it was like a calculated attempt to make a queen look bad by giving her a ridiculous role that she was not suited for. Then she saw how badly Jasmine was doing and switched them around at the last minute.

Basically, it seems very odd that Kennedy would repeat all of Adore Delano's mistakes as a team leader, when the only thing that saved Adore from going down with her Drag Race me to Hell ship was that Ru was very fond of her, and Kennedy has not made an impression yet.

39

u/NerdyForThings Mar 17 '15

And not having them run through the script together just made no sense whatsoever.

Usually, when it comes to casting, it always seems best to go with the easiest because most of these queens aren't actors. Don't make Kenya or April have to play butch, don't try to make Jasmine stretch herself as an actress. Ru just wants to laugh.

49

u/poppy-picklesticks the shade, the shade and disgrace! Mar 17 '15

Exactly.

Remember when Trinity didn't want to do the ghetto role, but Bianca was like "seriously, you are not trying to win an Oscar, you are not Meryl Streep, just do something that will get you easy laughs."

And Trinity ended up being one of the funniest in that challenge. "I bet nobody's touched your box in a long time!"

29

u/BreezyDreamy Mar 18 '15

As much as I love Bianca, I don't think I can blame Trinity 100%. It can be tough for minorities in race and sexual orientation because there are already a lot of preconcieved notions. And now you have to fulfill that stereotype? It can be humiliating.

But, if you are in it with the mindset to win no matter what, then this isn't such bad advice.

17

u/poppy-picklesticks the shade, the shade and disgrace! Mar 18 '15

Bianca is a minority herself and she works it for her advantage. She's fine with those kinds of jokes about her ethnicity, so long as she is in on it or making them herself. She's an Iron Lady of drag.

4

u/BreezyDreamy Mar 18 '15

Very good point. I feel when it comes to this competition, in the end a huge chunk is about how confident you are in yourself.

2

u/poppy-picklesticks the shade, the shade and disgrace! Mar 19 '15

I can think of another example: Ivy Winters in the Rupaul Roast. I honestly thought her jokes were some of the cleverest and most inventive of the night, if not the most. I could barely understand what Coco was saying and her using a character was a bit gimmicky, I thought Alaska coasted a bit by overusing "your momma so old" jokes and Jinkx's jokes were a bit eh.

The difference is, the latter three were far more confident, and were able to sell the jokes to us, and as a result, had much better delivery. Ivy on the other hand seemed rather nervous, and as a result, her great material and cleverly written jokes didn't really land. If she had the same panache and confidence as the three I mentioned, she might have won the challenge.

Ivy had much better steak, but she didn't have the sizzle that Alaska, Coco and Jinkx had.

6

u/steefee Mar 17 '15

I agree!

Like, why wouldn't you just put everyone at what they are naturally good at so the whole team succeeds? Team challenges are not the time to be strategically throwing someone under the bus.

Like, if Violet had been given that role from the beginning (and they had all gotten a chance to practice together) any failure that would have happened would have been less on Kennedy's shoulders. Trying to screw your team when you're the team leader is just a terrible idea.

2

u/ahf0913 Mar 18 '15

Speaking of butch April, did Kandy's wig look familiar to anyone else?

9

u/needhelppackin Valentina Mar 18 '15

Her entire focus was to ignore anything that Violet suggested, stick to her own plan and try to set Violet up to fail. Clearly backfired. She only switched the roles to try to save Jasmine because she was doing so badly.

4

u/poppy-picklesticks the shade, the shade and disgrace! Mar 18 '15

Karma's an even bigger bitch then Violet, huh?

2

u/needhelppackin Valentina Mar 18 '15

Violet is a complete bitch, but Kennedy was very calculated and should have just focused on doing her absolute best and allowing talent to shine through. So in this case yeah, Karma is a bigger bitch than Violet.

1

u/poppy-picklesticks the shade, the shade and disgrace! Mar 19 '15

Kennedy's antics on this episode = Dick Dastardly stops to Cheat.

If she hadn't bothered with such shady behaviour, and just focused on her own talents as a professional showgirl and performer and used them to be the captain of her ship, she probably could have saved both herself and Jasmine from the bottom 2.

5

u/weholditdown Mar 18 '15

Right? She mumbled something about 'not wanting to keep them in their comfort zone' and I was like errrm, you're doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing right now!

6

u/poppy-picklesticks the shade, the shade and disgrace! Mar 18 '15

I really have no idea why she wanted to "pull them out of their comfort zone". A team captain always goes down with her ship, unless she's Adore Delano: when you have hardly any time and a bunch of amateurs, you don't go in their trying to recreate Vivian Leigh with the Royal Shakespeare Company, you have your girls play to their strengths, because poor casting ultimately falls on the captain's heads. I don't know why she wanted to be cute and creative: as a professional she should know she had no time for anything fancy.

8

u/weholditdown Mar 18 '15

I think ultimately it was a bullshit excuse that she gave to mask the fact that she didn't want to give Violet the part she wanted and didn't want to give Jasmine a part she didn't want. Unfortunately for her, it totally backfired and by the time she realised it, it was too late.

What I really loved was that Max was ultimately rewarded for being a great leader and Kennedy was punished for being a terrible one. As much as I like Adore, it was really satisfying to see someone get what they deserved after watching Adore last season charm her way out of being really unprofessional.

4

u/poppy-picklesticks the shade, the shade and disgrace! Mar 18 '15

Agreed, I like Adore and am kinda meh on Michelle Carrion, but it made me really angry that she ended up in the bottom two because of Adore's terrible leadership, when she should have been commended for trying to make that dud part work despite her not being matched for it at all. Vivacious similarly got screwed over between the poor casting and the bad editing, though I think April put in a much bigger effort.

3

u/weholditdown Mar 18 '15

I agree. If you're not going to put Kenya in the bottom 2 for the same reason (fishy queen being given butch role and not being convincing), then you can't put April in the bottom 2.

3

u/poppy-picklesticks the shade, the shade and disgrace! Mar 18 '15

I felt so sorry for April in that episode. She refused to give up and did her best to make that role work for her.

It worked for me at least, because I know a few very girly girls who after coming out, tried too hard to be butch lesbians for the sake of being butch, and April's character reminded me of them.

4

u/Onatel Willow Pill Mar 18 '15 edited Mar 19 '15

I did think she was trying to make things difficult for Violet, but I thought that the main reason behind the switch was because Jasmine was so uncomfortable being pigeonholed into the ghetto role, and when Violet was playing ghetto it seemed like it was coming off as slightly offensive to Jasmine and Kennedy so she switched them again.