Hey, so you know how the world is going terribly lately? That’s something that affects how I watched this episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Historically, both I and the general internet have been (rightly) hard on Drag Race’s serious streak. The “What would you say to little _____” segments feel overtly manipulative, and the Trauma Makeup Corner is hard to take seriously, given its utter reliance on a basic formula for explaining various queens’ hardships. So my knee-jerk reaction when Drag Race goes full bore into sentimentality is to roll my eyes a bit and hunker down for a segment that doesn’t speak to me.
But something else that is true is that there is no other program on TV, period, on which a convicted felon can come and be celebrated for his love of his gay, drag-queen son. I also…
