The fourteenth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” came to a close on April 22 with the crowning of Willow Pill as the winner. Overall, I found this season very tiring. While I am happy with Willow’s win, I think I am ultimately even more happy that the season is simply over.
In recent seasons of Drag Race, there has been something of a problem with eliminating queens. Gone are the days in the early seasons when a queen is sent home each week; this season, almost every week is a double shantay — a double save — and no one is eliminated episode after episode. This frustrates me for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, the constant saving of queens every week makes the idea of the double shantay feel very cheap. It makes it feel like it is not as worth it, like it is not as special and extraordinary when it does happen. First occurring in season three, the double shantay started as a rare moment, reserved for only the best lip syncs and the most iconic circumstances. After season three, there was one double shantay in seasons five and six. Season ten marked the first occurrence of multiple double shantays in one season, both involving the same queen that had been up for elimination. The same can be said about the one in seasons twelve and thirteen, and a number of the ones in season fourteen.
Personally, I feel that if a queen is in the bottom multiple times only to be saved over and over again, it is incredibly unfair to the queens that have not been up for elimination. I am aware that this is not a popular take. I am also aware that it is not something I am alone in thinking. One queen in particular, Daya Betty, was very adamant in this belief. While I am thoroughly not a fan of Daya Betty, I must say that she is essentially correct. I do not see the point in keeping a low-ranking queen around for another week, especially due to the nature of many reality TV shows.
If you are unfamiliar with reality TV, one of the most common tropes is that of a comeback. In other words, a contestant comes very close to leaving the competition, or actually does leave, but manages to come back and do really well. It would make for bad TV to save or bring back a contestant only to get rid of them immediately, as we saw happen in seasons two through six (with this streak being broken by Trixie Mattel in season seven). By keeping these queens who are struggling, queens that were safe or excelling end up in danger of potentially ranking underneath these queens and later being eliminated over them. In my opinion, that is pretty unfair.
After discontinuing the return of an eliminated queen in season nine, a double shantay made a few appearances in seasons ten through thirteen. The biggest problem I have with the double shantay in season fourteen is that there were six of them.
There is no reason to save that many queens that many times. I am all for a second chance on a reality TV show. I think it can be fun, and allows us as viewers to get more time with queens we enjoy. It is never fun to see your favorite queen be eliminated, but it is even more frustrating to see your favorite queen be saved week after week. At a certain point, it loses its novelty and it just gets old.
Something I hate about Drag Race, specifically Drag Race fans, is the horrendous amount of online hate that is given to the contestants. In the season nine reunion, multiple queens came forward to say that fans of another queen flooded their comments, saying that they should not have stayed over her, should not have done better than her, and some were giving these queens death threats because of it. This is wholly disgusting. I disagreed with almost everything Daya Betty said in confessionals. I thought she was rude, and I thought a lot of her attitude was unnecessary and immature. However, I cannot even begin to imagine saying that I hate her. I cannot imagine what it would take for me to open Instagram, find her profile, and comment on her posts that I think she should die. For people who go so far as to threaten her, I wish them the absolute worst in life.
There is always a queen who is given a “villain edit,” meaning that they are made to appear as the season’s villain by editing out the good things they say and keeping in an absurd amount of rude things they say. The simple truth is, they are almost certainly all rude. They almost certainly all said things that were unkind. While we cannot entirely blame it on the edit, I think it is only sensible to realize this pattern in reality TV shows and recognize that the contestants are so much more than this show. They are real people, with real lives and real feelings.
Despite this season feeling like a never-ending marathon, a lot of it was highly entertaining. This season’s Rusical, “Moulin Ru,” was definitely one of the highlights for me. Lady Camden absolutely popped off in this episode and outshined everyone else by far. While the Snatch Game was a train wreck, it was absolutely hilarious. I loved the roast, I loved the girl groups episode, and I thoroughly enjoyed the majority of the challenges.
Furthermore, the fashion did not disappoint. Some of my favorite looks included Lady Camden’s runways for the “Spring Has Sprung” and “Glamazon Prime” runways, Willow Pill’s “Spring Has Sprung” runway, and Maddy Morphosis’ Guy Fieri entrance look. The fashion is always my favorite part of any season of Drag Race, and we certainly got a lot of good material in this season.
I think I ultimately enjoyed this season. I am content with the winner, which is not always the case. I enjoyed a lot of the challenges, although some of them were nothing to call home about. And I think a lot of it was entertaining, which is the end goal for all television shows. But, I hesitate to say this because as I sat on my couch and saw Willow get crowned, the first thought I had was, “it’s finally over.”