‘Drag Race’ comes to Canada
Spinoff showcases talent from north of the border.
Prepare to wave the flag, Canada, from queen to shining queen.
The day after Canada Day, our nation is sashaying into the drag TV big leagues with the much anticipated debut of “Canada’s Drag Race,” a spinoff of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
For the new show’s resident judges, a gag-worthy (praiseworthy in “Drag Race” speak) trio in their own right, it’s about time the franchise got some maple leaf flavouring.
“Canada is usually slept on,” said Stacey McKenzie, a Canadian supermodel and “America’s Next Top Model” mentor. “Whenever I’m in other countries, people always say, ‘You’re Canadian?’ as if it’s a shocking thing. We have some amazing talent here and drag is one of those amazing talents.”
Her fellow judge, Canadian actor Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman (“American Horror Story,” “UnREAL”), concurred in a joint phone interview.
“These queens are fierce,” said Bowyer-Chapman of the 12 “Canada’s Drag Race” contestants. “There is not a weak link in the bunch.”
That’s high praise considering Bowyer-Chapman has been a guest judge on the show that started it all, “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” as well as “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.”
The American show, which began in 2009, has gone from cult hit on an LGBTQ-focused pay TV channel to Emmy Award-winning juggernaut, steered by RuPaul Charles, the world’s most famous drag queen.
To Canada’s most famous drag queen, Brooke Lynn Hytes, the show is “the drag Olympics” and she would know: Hytes, the third resident judge on “Canada’s Drag Race,” was runner-up on Season 11 of the U.S. show and its first Canadian contestant.
“The wonderful thing about ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ is it’s given drag queens a global platform,” Hytes said in a separate interview.
“I think it’s so important for people in any profession to have something to aspire to … It lights a fire under you and it makes you want to be better; it makes you push harder. And that’s exactly what the show does, so I’m just so happy we’re giving the queens of Canada the opportunity.”
Those first 12 queens are competing to win $100,000 and be named Canada’s first drag superstar.
Over10 episodes, various challenges will test their skills in areas like singing, dancing, acting, impersonation, improvisation, costume-making, makeovers, runway walking and, of course, lip-synching. One competitor is eliminated weekly.
The challenges will be familiar to viewers of the original “Drag
Race,” which has spinoffs in Chile, Thailand and the U.K., with Australia to come, but the judges promise a unique Canadian flavour.
“If Ru is the gumbo, then we’re kind of like the Canadian fusion of gumbo,” said Bowyer-Chapman, referring to the fact that RuPaul’s name comes from “roux,” the base for the southern soup. “It’s gonna be just as delicious with a little Canadian kick.”
Exactly what we’ll see when “Canada’s Drag Race” debuts on Crave is a closely guarded secret. I’ve watched a five-minute preview of one of the challenges, but I’m not allowed to spill the tea, i.e. share the information in “Drag Race” vernacular.
Let’s just say it looks as funny, naughty and snarky as you would hope.
Bowyer-Chapman said he was “blown away and gagged every single day” by the contestants, who “are all talented in their own individual unique way.”
They include seven Toronto queens: Tynomi Banks, Anastarzia Anaquway, BOA, Juice Boxx, Lemon, Priyanka and Scarlett BoBo. There are two queens from Montreal, Kiara and Rita Baga, and two from B.C., Ilona Verley of Vancouver and Jimbo of Victoria. Kyne, from Kitchener-Waterloo, rounds out the group.
McKenzie, 47, said she loves the diversity of the cast. She singled out Ilona, a two-spirit Indigenous artist who was “able to use this platform to tell her story, which is great.”
McKenzie, who was born in Jamaica, credits the drag shows she started seeing as a teen in Toronto — and later in New York, Paris and London as her modelling took off — with helping her embrace her own identity.
“They were different looking. I could relate to them in a way because … I was different looking and I felt even more different looking when I was younger,” she said. “The drag scene … they embraced me, and they loved my look and they loved my voice, and they gave me that extra confidence for me to own who I am.” For Bowyer-Chapman, 35, drag was also “a beautiful introduction to my own self-exploration.”
Going to shows in Vancouver as a young man and seeing drag kings, nonbinary queens and trans men as well as more traditional drag queens helped him “recognize that I am not in the binary of straight or gay. I’m on the spectrum of queer. I’m drawn to every gender expression,” he said.
One of the beauties of “Drag Race” according to both Bowyer-Chapman and Hytes, 34, is how it humanizes drag queens. “Drag queens often have amazing life stories. A lot of the people who become drag queens have overcome huge obstacles in their lives to get to where they are,” said Hytes.
“One of my favourite things about drag becoming so mainstream is that it’s showing that we are people and that we do have stories and lives, and hopes and dreams, just like everybody else.”
Said Bowyer-Chapman: “To have the artistry of drag, and specifically LGBTQ people, celebrated internationally it’s so important because for so long LGBTQ people, we’ve been told that who we are, what our interests are, what our passions are, how we express ourselves, how we present ourselves to the world is not worthy of celebration.
“We’ve been shamed for it, we’ve been punished for it, we’ve been murdered for it, so to … provide a safe space and a platform to not only celebrate queerness and otherness, but to place a crown on top of someone’s head and to give them $100,000, it’s so important.”
“Canada’s Drag Race” debuts Thursday at 9 p.m. on Crave.