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Drag Race Global All Stars’s Failure Is Classic RuPaul
The would-be celebration of international drag culture was a spectacular flop, but the problem goes deeper than simple favoritism.
This most clearly happened to Nehellenia, who, after Kitty joked about her saying margherita pizza in an Italian accent, smartly retconned a margherita-pizza bit into her act to appease RuPaul, even if she fundamentally didn’t understand why it was funny. Nehellenia became the sole contender to beat the odds this season, becoming the only ESL queen to make it into the finale and never fall into the bottom on any comedy challenges. But perhaps the best illustration of Global All Stars ’s reliance on national stereotypes was the Snatch Game, in which the majority of the queens played a character that functioned as a synecdoche for their entire country: Kitty, from the U.K., won with Princess Diana; Nehellenia was well-reviewed for her Valentino; Pythia, a Greek expat to Canada, received raves for her Zeus; and Alyssa was safe doing Annie Oakley.
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