RuPaul’s Drag Race: Which of these 5 Asian queens is your favourite LGBTQ+ hero?
If you’re a RuPaul’s Drag Race fan, you probably know to start your engines again real soon, because the groundbreaking, award-winning reality competition TV series will drop its 12th season on February 28. The 13 queens who will be competing for the title were “RuVealed” through Twitter in a video hosted by season 11 winner Yvie Oddly. One of them is a camp-loving Filipino-American with dreams of becoming a J-pop anime idol, Rock M. Sakura.
She’s far from being the first or the last Asian-American queen to make a bid for the Drag Race crown. Now a multimillion-dollar global brand with three international franchises (Drag Race Thailand, RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and Canada's Drag Race), the show has undoubtedly been a major influence in drag culture, making it popular in mainstream entertainment.
It also continues to inspire queer kids all over the world to express their identity and creativity through drag, thanks to the queens – such as the following –who have done the work of integrating their personal and cultural background into their drag persona.
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Ongina (Season 1)
As one of the pioneering drag queens on mainstream television, Ongina broke the typical drag queen mode by refusing to wear wigs on the show and making her baldness part of her signature drag look. The effortlessly bubbly, Philippines-born drag queen also made history by being one of the first reality TV stars to admit to living with HIV on national television. Ongina is now known as an HIV activist.
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Jujubee (Season 2, All Stars Season 1)
Of Laotian and Thai descent, Jujubee became quickly known for her sharp wit, which made for an iconic “reading session” in Drag Race history. Her hilarious comments to her fellow cast members, which she had made both to their faces and behind their backs, set the bar for the kind of shade that fans have come to expect from the show:
Raja (Season 3)
One of the first queens to make drag look like high fashion, Raja brings a certain gothic/punk edge, subverting traditional gender identities and presentations. Of Indonesian descent, this season three winner – who is, so far, the first and only Asian-American drag queen to achieve the title – was already a reality TV personality before Drag Race, working as a make-up artist on America’s Next Top Model.
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Manila Luzon (Season 3, All Stars Seasons 1 and 4)
Known for her glamorous yet campy looks, matched with her signature blonde-streaked black wigs, Manila Luzon has also proven to be a triple-threat queen who can serve up looks, comedy and high-level performance in all of her three Drag Race stints.
She is also the first Drag Race contestant to have a doll made in her likeness, with doll design and manufacturing company NiniMomo releasing a toy figure wearing Manila Luzon’s famous pineapple dress. She has since released dolls under her own label.
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Kim Chi (Season 8)
The first Korean-American drag queen-turned-make-up maven on Drag Race, Kim Chi stunned judges with her avant-garde, anime-inspired aesthetic. However, she truly became a fan favourite when she opened up about the struggles of remaining closeted among her family and experiencing rejection for being “fat, femme and Asian” in the gay dating scene. She later on lip-synched to a song that also doubled as a commentary on the issue, when she made it to top three and slayed that performance.
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As a new series of the conversation-starting reality TV competition drops on VH1, we look back at our favourite queens and LGBTQ+ icons so far – but do you agree?