The Cultural Impact of RuPaul's Drag Race

<p><span style=font-weight: 400;>Insightful provocative and now in paperback </span><em><span style=font-weight: 400;>The Cultural Impact of RuPaul's Drag Race</span></em><span style=font-weight: 400;> is a collection of original material that goes beyond simple analysis of the show and examines the profound effect that </span><em><span style=font-weight: 400;>RuPaul's Drag Race</span></em><span style=font-weight: 400;> has had on the cultures that surround it: audience cultures economics branding queer politics and all points in between. Once a cult show marketed primarily to gay men </span><em><span style=font-weight: 400;>Drag Race</span></em><span style=font-weight: 400;> has drawn both praise and criticism for its ability to market itself to broader straighter and increasingly younger fans. The show's depiction of drag as both a celebrated form of entertainment and as a potentially lucrative career path has created an explosion of aspiring queens in unprecedented numbers and had a far-reaching impact on drag as both an art form and a career.</span></p><p><span style=font-weight: 400;>Contributors include scholars based in the United Kingdom the United States Canada and South Africa.</span><span style=font-weight: 400;><strong> </strong></span><span style=font-weight: 400;>The contributions are interdisciplinary as well as international. The editor invited submissions from scholars in theatre and performance studies English literature cultural anthropology media studies linguistics sociology and marketing. What he envisaged was an examination of the wider cultural impacts that </span><em><span style=font-weight: 400;>RuPaul's Drag Race</span></em><span style=font-weight: 400;> has had; what he received was a rich and diverse engagement with the question of how </span><em><span style=font-weight: 400;>Drag Race</span></em><span style=font-weight: 400;> has affected local live cultures fan cultures queer representation and the very fabric of drag as an art form in popular cultural consciousness.</span></p><p><span style=font-weight: 400;>This original collection with its variety of topics and approaches is a critical appraisal of </span><em><span style=font-weight: 400;>RuPaul's Drag Race </span></em><span style=font-weight: 400;>at an important point of the programme's run as well as of the growing industries around RPDR including DragCon and drag queens' post-show careers in the on- and offline world. </span></p><p><span style=font-weight: 400;>Primarily of interest to students scholars and researchers in media and communication studies gender and sexuality studies popular culture queer theory LGBTQ history media studies and fan studies. </span><span style=font-weight: 400;>Will also appeal to fans of the series.</span></p>