Mrs. Galaxy Brain Weighs In: RuPaul's Drag Race Las Vegas Revue

So, I was scrolling through Twitter when I happened upon this clip from RuPaul’s Drag Race Vegas Revue, the new RuPaul’s Drag Race extended universe reality show that follows six of the queens behind the scenes of their Las Vegas residency.

In the clip from the show’s second episode, that apparently aired on VH1 on Friday evening, Britney impersonator Derrick Barry stirs up drama with fellow season 8 queen Naomi Smalls at an out-of-drag house party. Then Nebraska, one of Derrick’s boyfriends, grabs the spoon out of Derrick’s hand and stirs it up some more, cracking wise about Naomi’s shitty “Snatch Game” performance from approx. one million years ago.

“I can take a read,” Naomi retorts. “But just ‘cause you’re 6’5″ does not mean you’re fierce.”

The three resolve things at an in-drag gathering at a casino the next day…sort of. Naomi and Nebraska agree that they have Derrick’s best interests in common, which is enough for either party to stay civil with each other, but somehow I don’t buy it? I mean, they have a whole season of drama to fill.

Anyway, I bring up this show because it’s kind of wild how this show is basically taking Drag Race characters but recasting them into the Real Housewives franchise? Which is even more wild because Drag Race began as a sort of America’s Next Top Model satire, whereas the original Real Housewives series, Real Housewives of Orange County, kind of started as a way for Bravo to cash in on the combined cultural caché of both Desperate Housewives and The O.C., two scripted shows that the Real Housewives franchise has long since outlived—to say nothing of the fact that Laguna Beach functioned much the same way as Real Housewives at first, positioning itself as the “real” O.C., and now, thanks to that show’s spinoff, The Hills, and that show’s spinoff, The City, I would still see Olivia Palermo in the pages of those People magazines I would buy at Grand Central before hopping on a Metro North in the pre-pandemic times.