Culture jamming (and tucking): RuPaul’s Drag Race and unconventional reality

Reality television is rarely subversive, but occasionally a programme enters the popular culture Zeitgeist that not just contributes to the genre, but rather exposes it. Launched in 2009, Logo’s RuPaul’s Drag Race presents a case study on how occasionally even commercial television can serve as a type of culture jamming. This article offers a critical analysis of RuPaul’s Drag Race and argues that the typical reality competition format is both exploited and exposed as a type of culture jamming that is uniquely queer. Through interviews with queer audiences, this article also looks at how audiences understand and react to promotional realities.