Posted in: TV | Tagged: drag race, rupaul

RuPaul's Drag Race Rusical Rankings: From High Kicks to Sour Notes

A Rusical is a many splendid thing, and RuPaul's Drag Race took the humble production number out of gay clubs and put it on prime time TV.

The humble Rusical is deeply rooted in drag history, of course, being the production numbers in gay clubs, because we love a big, fabulous production. They don't always have to have a theme, but the spotlight is on talent and creativity, along with delivering humor and camp in the silliest and stupid ways. Can we all just do the fork in the garbage disposal? I feel like that would bring world peace. What follows are my personal thoughts on how the "Rusicals" ranked over the run of RuPaul's Drag Race – let me know in the comments what you think!

RuPaul's Drag Race "Rusical" Rankings:

Shade: The Rusical (Season 6) – The one that started it all, it's iconic, call it Mother. To be fair, they probably threw this challenge in because they had two former Idol contestants on the season. Did you really think it's a coincidence they just so happened to write in two stunning and competing leads with show-stopping power ballads? They knew what they were doing, and this one feels the most authentic to the real scene, but with a better sound system. It feels original thanks to an original story and songs, and it's perfect. Yes, it's missing references, but it's not a parody musical that feels like something performed at Rocoe's in the mid-2000s, and it was the first of its kind on television, and for that, it's the top of the pack.

The Wicked Wiz of Oz (Season 17) – 10 queens, 3 "Wizard of Oz" parodies, and one chorus line make for a near-perfect Rusical. Though I think there is something to be said in not letting the queens decide roles by committee, what we got was a near-perfect Rusical that is still stuck in my head over a month later. It's well-produced, and they helped the queens who aren't singers, thank goodness. That's the downside to the live Rusicals – not every queen is a singer, and it gets a little painful watching glorified musical theater karaoke. But not here! The songs are great, the double-layer parody is right, and I don't think I've added Drag Race tracks to my regular rotation faster than season 13's Phenomenon. It's catchy and right and instantly iconic. I mean, how can any drag show go wrong with "The Wizard of Oz"?

Rosemarie's Baby Shower (All Stars 9) – I'm a sucker for so many of the queens in this, but that aside, the production and talent are HERE. It's hard to rank queens that already have a leg up, but this was iconic; it has to be included. Miss Vangie alone could have brought the house down, but the same can be said for every other queen in this. Jorgeous as Megan? PERFECTION.

Madonna The Unauthorized Rusical (Season 12) – Finally, after Lord only knows how many Rusicals, it feels like they've hit the correct format. The queens performing their own tracks and then lip syncing to them gives the best of both worlds with dance, lip sync, and vocal performance all being a part of the challenge. Of course, it helps that Madonna is absolutely iconic and the "eras of pop star" theme is spot-on for a Rusical.

Cher: The Unauthorized Rusical (Season 10) – In direct contrast to the lip-sync Rusicals (including the first Rusical this season), this one is sung live by the queens, and it is fantastic. This doesn't happen until episode 8, when we're down to 7 queens, but this season does have several musical queens, including classically trained opera singer Monet X Change. Regardless of talent, this felt like a return to form and a much-appreciated Rusical challenge.

Social Media: the Rusical (Season 13)—This Rusical continues in the same vein as last season's Madonna Rusical, which is perfect. The queens sing and then perform to their tracks, and this theme allows for some fun character work from even the smallest parts and gives room for everyone to shine. This feels like what a Rusical should be: it has pop culture, musical references, and total camp.

Moulin Ru: The Rusical (Season 14) – Another lip-sync, but this one features Leslie Jordan in a parody of the Moulin Rouge film (and Broadway musical now), with vibes of the Lady Marmalade song. Similar to next season's Wigloose, this one has only seven queens but manages to tell the story in a unique and fun way.

The Sound of Rusic (Season 16)—The references are stupid, the musical and story are camp as hell, and overall, it's a great Rusical. It's another lip-sync with 10 queens, which does feel like the show falls off in pace and slows down because of how many queens it's accommodating. It's alright and gave us some great performances from good queens, but it's pretty middle of the pack compared to others.

Wigloose: The Rusical (Season 15) – Clearly based on Footloose, this is another lip-sync Rusical that's topically themed to drag bans in politics. It's quirky and fun and 80s, the house down, but coming at episode 12, when there's only 6 queens left in the competition, it feels like it's not in the same competition. Between the dynamic, edgy camera angles and being able to let the queens focus on just the lip-sync and choreography in a show that allows for a lot of room for each queen to be front and center and really showcase the characters.

Joan: The Unauthorized Rusical (All Stars 8)—This is in the correct format (with the queens recording their own vocals then lip-syncing on stage), and it's good but firmly middle ground. The concept is decent, and the staging is good, but it just doesn't wow like some of the others, especially for this being All Stars.

Kardashians: The Musical (Season 9) – In the style of Hamilton and all about the Kardashian family, the queens lip-sync in this Rusical, but the concept, staging, and characterizations save it from being like the last couple seasons. It's entertaining, and the characters being known give the queens a starting point to go above and beyond, making for a slam dunk when it comes to entertainment.

Divas Lip Sync Live (All Stars 3) -This is another gray area as it's not really a Rusical, but it does parody iconic pop stars and challenge the queens to "drag up" their impersonations of the divas while lip-syncing to RuPaul's songs done in the diva's own style. This was meh, but given that Rusicals across the franchise were in a transition period at this point (season 10 aired this same year, featuring both a live and lip-sync Rusical), it could have been worse. At this point, it really feels like the judges were looking at the queens' ability to ham up characters as opposed to judging on their singing or dancing abilities.

PharmaRusical (Season 10) – This season technically does have two Rusicals, but this one is a "parody lip-sync" in line with the previous three Rusicals, whereas the other is sung live. This is likely due to where the Rusical challenge falls in the lineup: seasons 7,8, and this one are the second episode with all 13 queens having to compete in these, which lends context as to why they're a big lip-sync production number kind of mess where people tend to get a little lost. This feels a bit like the Glamazonian airways Rusical in format, but it does have more personality.

Trump: The Rusical (Season 11) – A play on Grease and clearly political, this Rusical was a lip sync one with the queens not providing their own vocals, but did have a lot of choreography, making it really more of a dance challenge. With the 2019 season ramping up to be more political (with the following season being very overtly political ahead of the 2020 election), this Rusical made sense in theme, but it still felt like it was giving too much publicity to a figure that needs to be buried and un-publicized, or at least come with a trigger warning. Theme and personal preference aside, the performances seemed to be based on nasty impersonations of politicians, and they were all taken far over the top, to the point where it all just felt a little scary and too crazy instead of campy and hilarious. Something needed to be reined in here, and shockingly, it wasn't Silky Nutmeg Ganache who played Oprah.

HERstory of the World (All Stars 2)—This is in the gray area of being the same challenge as regular season Rusicals, despite not being billed as a Rusical. This "lip sync dance challenge" isn't the greatest, but it's still a Rusical in spirit and gives us some pretty great characterizations, like Alyssa Edwards' Annie Oakley.

Bitch Perfect (Season 8) – The lip sync Rusical continues, but this time with a better theme than an airline safety video. In a parody of Pitch Perfect, the queens are in two feuding a cappella girl groups (when society was in its a cappella era) lip-syncing and dancing (kind of) to RuPaul songs done in the style, of course. It wasn't totally bad, but it really wasn't much of a Rusical.

Glamazonian Airways (Season 7)—The sequel is never as good as the original, and it's clear they didn't really know where to go with the Rusical challenge after last season's sung-live Rusical was a smash hit. In fact, this lip-sync musical performance with an element of spoken word is probably one of the roughest challenges, let alone Rusicals, and it's a small miracle this challenge didn't get canned and fade completely into obscurity.

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