Last week on Friday Night Lights Becky fell asleep watching Thelma & Louise and that is... well, I can only suspend so much disbelief and you just don't fall asleep watching that movie. It's awesome -- top ten of the 90s level awesome. But Becky is my least favorite character so whatever. She's a mess and there's no accounting for taste. There's a reason Louise won't drive thru Texas, y'all! She'd rather drive right off a cliff. I can't even discuss falling asleep watching Thelma & Louise without turning red with fury. Inappropriate! Those women deserved better.
So for this edition of "TV @ The Movies" a brief discussion of Drag U instead.
RuPaul's Drag U episode 1.2 "Dateless Divas"
I'm fairly certain this show is not half as good as it could be.
- Qualm #1: a makeover show. Like we needed another one.
- Qualm #2: I'm assuming Raven won't be in every episode and when the first Raven-less episode appears, I will feel cheated.
- Qualm #3: why isn't the entire panel of judges famous queens like Lady Bunny? I mean to have a "Dean of Dance" and it's not Candis Cayne? That's just wrong!) -- but I love that the underlying message is so subversive: everyone would be better off if they became a drag queen.
Raven: These girls are lucky that they have the advanced technology of the dragulator!Raven was the hottest miss thang on last year's Drag Race (and anyone who coins the phrase "giving Michelle Pfeiffer Bitch" has won me for life.) so I'm happy that she's practically the star of Drag U already. And, of course, Ru's always had a way with hilarious line readings. The Dragulator is awesome. Ru understands the camp value of a low budget (not to mention the power of a catchphrase and cheap gimmick). Anyway, the [sassy head bob] tek•nol•uh•jee suggests that contestant Lenae becomes "Honey Boom" and she likes it.
RuPaul: The Dragulator is a highly sophisticated piece of tech-no-lo-gy
"I was like, 'That's Marilyn Monroe. And she really is inside of me!'"It's really more like Chicago's Queen Latifah when Velma's like "Not you too, Mama!?!" in despair of platinum blonde Roxie Mania but never mind. Later Lenae dances to "I'm Every Woman" in this new gold lamé platinum blonde version of herself which confuses the girlie iconography even further Whitney + Queen ≠ Marilyn??? Whaaaa... But I shouldn't doubt the Dragulator because it is to RuPaul what "Magic Screen" was to Pee Wee, yes?
So... eventually Lenae as Honeyboom blows a kiss to the judges with a "Happy Birthday Mr. President" proving once again that Marilyn did it best. More celebrities ought to understand their own image with pinpoint precision and sell it accordingly at public events. If they hope to be remembered 48 years after their death, that is.
Meanwhile Lenae's competitor Debbie is transformed into "Moxie Mayhem" saying
"It's like Memoirs of a Geisha meets Marie Antoinette"And you know that mash-up sent me reeling... cuz I hate and love in equal measure! [To recap: Memoirs = hate / Marie = love]
'Honeyboom' won the competition but I was the true winner because it got me to thinking about Marie-Antoinette, aka the 'misunderestimated' movie of the Aughts.
Leaping far from the RuPaul's Drag U topic, out of curiousity, I thought I'd check that statement. Nope! Oops. It's almost the most critically hated of my top 50 favorite movies of the Aughts but not quite. These are the least acclaimed of those, according to the TomatoMeter, the only films in my top 50 to not score in the 80% and above of critical approval. These are the places I refused consensus. Not out of contrarianism, mind you, but from pure love of the movies in question.
- Birth (39% on Rotten Tomatoes)
- Marie Antoinette (55% on Rotten Tomatoes)
- I ♥ Huckabees (62% on Rotten Tomatoes )
- Bring It On (64% on Rotten Tomatoes)
- Idioterne (The Idiots) (70% on Rotten Tomatoes)
- Moulin Rouge (77% on Rotten Tomatoes)
- 25th Hour (78% on Rotten Tomatoes)
- Beau Travail (79% on Rotten Tomatoes)
*
I Heart Huckabees
