On #TeamKatya:
If you were #TeamKatya, I feel for you. It’d be shitty to feel like someone as inspiring and unique as her was wronged… but I want to explain why we don’t need to feel bad for her. Why it would have been unfair to her to crown her so early in her post-Drag Race career, and how the full story extends far outside the slick narrative packaged for television.
All Stars 2, as exciting as it was, did not occur in a vacuum, meaning there are other stories and journeys outside it that factor into the result. It actually would have been an anticlimactic turn for Katya’s exciting career, whereas it was a very appropriate moment in Alaska’s. It all comes down to a word that this season used a lot: LEGACY. Katya is still building hers, and Alaska has been laying her foundation for years now.
On young Alaska:
She auditioned every year and made it to the final rounds of casting more than once. Rupaul explained on “What’s the T” that the show had to prepare America for someone like Alaska by presenting more traditional drag artists before pushing new boundaries. During casting for Season 4, both she and Sharon Needles were slated to enter the Werkroom together to be the show’s first couple, but the final decision was to spread out their star potential over two seasons as opposed to concentrating it in one.
Her “trash into treasure” mentality:
This was the true meaning of “trash into treasure”. Alaska had put her darkest experiences to workfor her legacy. She released breathtaking music videos with enough visual content, references, and metaphors to fill dissertations on gender performance. Drag had always been the underground commenter on mainstream culture, but it had edged into the mainstream since Sharon Needles’ iconoclastic win. Alaska then kicked the bottom out of subversity to uncover a deeper level, emerging as the most dynamic commenter on the grand commentary itself.
On her own brand:
Finally, Alaska Thunderfuck was as much an individual on her own terms as she’d been years earlier on the Trannyshack stage, unafraid to joyfully break taboos. And her album was a gift not just to the drag community, but to any queer or queer-adjescent fans who felt as though they didn’t have a place in the gay world. Women, trans men, and bearded queens were all lovingly represented on her album and night-to-night performances. There might be a hundred jokes about vaginas being disgusting in a drag comedy revue, and Alaska would get up and sing “I Love Your Pussy”. She could make every woman, non-binary, and trans person in the audience feel like they mattered, and not just ‘taking up space’. She was political in a way that was essential to this community.
On carrying the crown:
When Alaska won her crown, her first moment being interviewed was dedicated to promoting Black Lives Matter and insisting we close the gender wage gap. She didn’t try to change the reality when her social media was filled with snake emojis and people turned so viciously on her. Instead, she crowned herself “Queen of Snakes” and made fun of her behaviour… in the process also poking fun at how excessive the backlash was. She donated $10,000 (before taxes) to a trans youth charity to atone for a comment that wasn’t even serious. And then she got a damn snake tattoo to fully own the fact that this was part of her career now, thereby emerging through the firestorm stronger than before. She once again took trash and turned it into treasure– and the one great thing about the backlash is that Alaska is fully fearless now. She used to give a few fucks, like any polite lady, and now she gives NONE.
Check out the full essay here.