RuPaul's Drag Race and Globalisation

Shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race have brought queer TV into the mainstream of global media. Scholars of everyday political economy highlight how both producing and watching television shape global queer identities. Dominant media channels promote specific, standardised ways of being queer, often celebrated as victories of LGBTQAI+ visibility, yet at the cost of erasing alternative expressions. 

Global media tend to privilege urban, Western narratives, marginalising rural, local, and Global Majority experiences. Queerness is often framed as progressive only when detached from place, tradition, or indigeneity. Popular formats, particularly in drag, have commodified queerness, smoothing over linguistic and visual differences for global appeal. 

Still, alternative forms of queer expression continue to surface across TV, art, digital platforms, and community spaces, offering more grounded and resistant modes of visibility.

Concepts discussed: commodification, globalisation, queerness, visibility and invisibility, resistance. 

Recommended Reading:

• Butler, J. (2015). Notes toward a performative theory of assembly. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
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• Levy, H. (2023). Globalized Queerness: Identities and Commodities in Queer Popular Culture. Bloomsbury Publishing
• N-ost - border crossing journalism. (2023). Behind the Mask: Contemporary Drag Culture in Kazakhstan
• Pereira, P. P. G. (2019). Reflecting on Decolonial Queer. GLQ, 25(3), 403–429
• Schramm, C. (2012). Queering Latin American coloniality and the cross-cultural production of racialised sexualities. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 33(3), 347-362
• Sultanalieva, S. (2023). ”Nomadity of Being” in Central Asia : Narratives of Kyrgyzstani Women’s Rights Activists (1st ed. 2023.). Springer Nature Singapore