By: Jaida Dent
On Oct. 22, 2012, season one of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars premiered, just three years after the show’s inaugural season. This fresh concept for reality television saw fan favorites (and Mimi Imfurst) return for a second chance and a spot in the “Drag Race Hall of Fame.”
Over the last 14 years, the show’s format has evolved, with each season’s cast seeing exciting and underwhelming combinations.
The idea of All-Stars feels tainted by the false promises of redemption and the sabotage of enjoyment by obvious casting.
If you were to compare Season 1 of All Stars (AS1) with the upcoming Season 11 (AS11), you would believe these are almost two drastically different shows.
All Stars 1 had a cast primarily made up of semifinalists and above. With the final two cementing their roles as deserving finalists who were filled to the brim with talent.
Seasons two to four employed a more digestible format for All Stars. On a regular season of Drag Race, RuPaul and the judges make all the competitive decisions, but on All Stars, the power of who stays and goes lies in the hands of the queens. This format provided cunning and manipulative plays from the queens and jaw-dropping eliminations.
Some of the most shocking moments across these seasons include Detox eliminating Alyssa Edwards on AS2 over Roxxxy Andrews, who’s been in the bottom the most, BenDeLaCreme’s self-elimination on AS3, and Naomi Smalls eliminating front-runner Manila Luzon on AS4 (because “Life’s not fair”).
Seasons five through eight had a slight format change, including a “secret lip-sync assassin” and a group vote on who should go home. Seasons seven and nine are slight exceptions to the ever-changing All-Star rules. Season seven was a non-elimination because it was an all-winners season, and season nine was also a non-elimination and reverted to the format from AS2 to AS4 due to each queen competing for charity.
Across all seasons, the one constant (or should have been) is the theme of redemption. Each of these queens lost on their original runs, ranging from first outs who have so much left to show to near winners who aim to prove that they are truly worthy of the crown. But what was never defined in the process of casting was how many times a queen got to return, or what they’ve been able to show across their seasons on screen.
An early odd casting choice came from AS3 when the Season One winner, BeBe Zahara Benet, was given a second chance at a crown despite already having one. BeBe would make it to the final four, but through decisions made by the eliminated queens, she would not make it to the final two “Lip-Sync for the Crown.” However, BeBe was never there to actually win, but rather to reintroduce herself to Drag Race fans, as her season was dubbed the “Lost Season”. Yet, this didn’t stop fans from voicing their opinions of her, including being a “secret mole” for RuPaul and having just an underwhelming run.
Many queens have returned to the franchise multiple times, including Jujubee and Alexis Mateo (four), Roxxxy Andrews and Jorgeous (three). While many of these appearances were received well, others have stirred extreme controversy.
All Stars 10 completely changed the game with a brand-new format that really put competition at the forefront. In this “Tournament of All Stars,” 18 queens separated into three brackets of six would each face three challenges, where they were awarded with MVQ (Most Valuable Queen) points. The top three queens with the most points would make the “merge,” where they will face off in a lip-sync battle with the successful queens from the other brackets.
Along with grievances in how the format was executed, fans felt the season was immediately rigged based on one queen who was cast.
AS10 winner Ginger Minj stepped into the competition for a fourth time, and fans wondered what was left for Ginger to prove aside from gaining the crown. She was a runner-up on both season 7 and AS6 (falling short in 8th place during AS2), and she is a solid performer all-around. Once the cast list was released, it felt like the writing was on the wall for Ginger’s win, upsetting fans at how overshadowed the rest of the cast would become.
Fans noticed how the challenges in Ginger’s bracket seemed coincidentally made for her. A character and branding challenge, a country music-themed girl group, and an improv comedy skit. All of these challenges seemed to play to Ginger’s strengths, and she would dominate her bracket by winning all three (even when she didn’t rightfully win the lip-sync). Even in the final lip-sync battle for the crown, Ginger was “voted” number one as the biggest lip-sync competitor, but fans felt this was a production tool to orchestrate the lip-sync as they saw fit for Ginger’s win.
Denali, who lost in a controversial lip-sync to Ginger, commented on the favoritism shown to Ginger during a viewing party at Roscoe’s Tavern in Chicago.
“This is RuPaul’s Drag Race. It is a formatted, biased competition show with a lot of subjective judging. And at the end of the day, it is literally woven into the fabric of Drag Race for it to favor certain individuals, certain people that are really good at the show, certain people that RuPaul really likes and that her humor vibes with.”
With AS11 set to premiere on May 8, fans are experiencing the same fatigue from last season with the fourth return to the franchise of Silky Nutmeg Ganache and Kennedy Davenport. It was immediately noticed during the “Meet the Queens” video for this season that both of their runs on “Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. the World” were not mentioned in their introductions. Fans speculated that this decision could have been due to the issues faced last season with Ginger Minj.
I have high hopes for this new season to sort out some of the kinks from the first iteration, but my biggest hope is to walk away from this season surprised and satisfied at the outcome.
As a lover of reality TV, especially competition shows, it’s a detriment to the viewing experience when I can call the ending before it happens. I hope this new season takes us on a journey with unexpected twists and well-thought-out, satiating results that make me feel like it was worth it for the queens to come back.