Once upon a time, there was a new entertainment franchise called Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Now, this little TV show was a little bit of a risk, because drag as reality TV concept hadn’t yet quite taken off: too subversive to be mainstream and too niche to be ‘normal ‘. The money wasn’t quite there yet. So many performers, with their pretty-pretty outfits and simple performances seemed a little… well…basic.
Series Four, 2012 changed everything. Enter one Sharon Needles .. The Queen of Goth Drag amplified the runway to 11. She was an unholy fusion of Joan Rivers and Morticia Addams, injecting her face with “filler” and wearing bandages as the others floundered sexily around. Her whole aesthetic seemed informed by the freaky trailblazers of queer culture who preceded her,like Leigh Bowery and Klaus Nomi. She wasn’t afraid to be grotesque, ridiculous or roadkill gross.
Top: Leigh Bowery. Bottom: Klaus Nomi.
She wasn’t bothered about picking fights, either. Other drag queens such as PhI Phi O’ Hara and Willam can attest to this. They seemed to spar at least once every episode, and it wasn’t loving or playful. Who could forget Phi Phi’s “Go back to Party City where you belong?” Needles lived up to her name. She was a spiky queen and never far from outrageous, often ruthless means of getting what she wanted. It worked too- she won that series.
With the anything goes, genders, ethnic groups and body types we see in the franchise today, it’s questionable if such diversity would have existed without ground-breaking drag like Needles..Truly, she paved the way for more individual styles. Just such a shame about her alleged behaviour recently. Fame can indeed corrupt. But as a drag queen, she’s timeless.
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