Photo courtesy of Dave McMahon and The Vixen.
For the month of June, PRIDE is collaborating with prominent voices in the LGBTQ community to work as guest editors for the site—and this week's guest editor is RuPaul's Drag Race alum The Vixen!
After a controversial run on Season 10, The Vixen is one of the most talked about queens of the entire series. While she might have ruffled a few feathers, she has absolutely no regrets.
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Reflecting on the season with PRIDE earlier this month, The Vixen recalled one of her lowest moments on the show: that Mermaid Runway, the peer vote when four out of five of her sisters chose her to go home, and her following breakdown during Untucked.
"I don't see black queens as competition," she explained to PRIDE. "I've trained myself to see other black drag queens as sisters. In Chicago, we all work together. It's not the idea that we're fighting for the same spot. It's not ingrained in me anymore."
That's partly why Asia O'Hara, Monet X Change, and Monique Heart's comments were particularly painful. "Having to tell Ru who should go home, I was like, there's no way in hell I'm going to say that one of these black queens should go home. That's just not even an option. And in the reverse, that's why I was so hurt that they sent me."
Vixen lashed out during Untucked, going as far to call her fellow queens "disloyal bitches." Her emotional reaction elicited no sympathy from the fandom, who instead was annoyed with her "attitude."
"In the moment on the show, it's not something you can say and seem like a smart competitor. But facts are facts. That's what I was struggling with. I don't know how to compete against people who I really just want to uplift."
Asia O'Hara echoed a similar sentiment at the kickoff of episode five after the seamstress helped every single one of her fellow queens with their outfits yet didn't receive an offer of assistance from anyone, ultimately landing herself in the bottom. She echoed it again at yesterday's explosive reunion, when The Vixen exited the stage after being shoehorned as aggressive and a lost cause by RuPaul herself. "At one point you have to say to yourself, there is nothing else I can do," said Ru.
Asia tearfully responded, "It's ridiculous that our thought process is so self-centered that if it's hard to help somebody, we'll just let them struggle. We're not just drag queens, we're people. And here we got one of our people outside, here we are filming during Pride season, and we let one of our sisters walk out of the fucking room because nobody wanted to help her."
Facing oppression, marginalization, and oftentimes violence in the real world, drag queens have to look out for each other out of necessity. On Drag Race, the competition can bring out an unexpected ugly side of drag for the queens that doesn't necessarily exist outside of those four fake brick walls.
But The Vixen isn't holding grudges against her sisters. Next Tuesday (June 26) in Chicago, she's premiering of her revamped Black Girl Magic show featuring Season 10 queens Asia O'Hara, Monet X Change, Monique Heart, season 9 powerhouse Shea Couleé, Season 4 lip-sync slayer Dida Ritz, and more.
The all-black lineup is purposeful. "You can easily see a show with 10 white queens on the lineup and you wouldn't think twice," says Vixen. "You see more than one than one black queen. It really sticks out. And so to see a line up with only black queens is like, whoa."
Vixen makes it a point that Black Girl Magic won't just be your average drag queen extravaganza. "I'm pushing the girls to not just think of it as a number, but think of it as a chance to say something that they wouldn't get the say in any other regular space. Especially for Ru girls, we're expected to do a fun number, maybe a mix with some references to the show. You keep it light and you keep moving. But that's the great thing about Black Girl Magic is that it gives you the space to talk about things that you may have felt uncomfortable talking about."
The first Black Girl Magic show premiered when Shea Couleé had just gotten back from filming Season 9. "Nobody really knew anything about her experience," said The Vixen.
"Seeing her on Season 9, it all made sense why she felt so much pride and how she went about her number. I think she had really great moments between her and Nina, trying to create that sisterhood. I remember just being emotional listening to it and it was really, really good."
Ultimately, The Vixen just wants to uplift her sisters. PRIDE asked who she wanted to win the Season 10 finale lip-sync extravaganza next week and she had a simple reply.
"Who am I rooting for? Everybody black."
Keep up with the rest of The Vixen's guest editor content on PRIDE here! And be sure to get tickets to her show, Black Girl Magic, premiering in Chicago on June 26, 2018!
