All posts tagged: RuPauls

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 18 faces backlash over alleged AI use

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 18 faces backlash over alleged AI use

RuPaul’s Drag Race fans are calling out the show over alleged use of AI-generated artwork. SEE ALSO: Put Dr. Kelson from ’28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ on ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ The artwork appears in Season 18, episode 14, when host RuPaul Charles “paints” portraits of contestants Juicy Love Dion, Myki Meeks, Darlene Mitchell, and Nini Coco. Viewers were quick to point out that the portraits fell into the uncanny valley of AI slop, from the faint yellow filter on some images to some strange incongruities, like Juicy Love Dion’s boa having three separate ends. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. On social media, fans and even former contestants like Season 16’s Plasma expressed frustration over the show’s possible use of AI. After all, RuPaul’s Drag Race is a celebration of the art form of drag. Allegedly using AI feels like a betrayal of the very authenticity the series hopes to promote. Mashable Top Stories …

Katya Interview: RuPaul’s Drag Race, Trixie Mattel And Podcast Who’s The A**hole

Katya Interview: RuPaul’s Drag Race, Trixie Mattel And Podcast Who’s The A**hole

“You’ll have to excuse me, I’m cleaning a men’s wig.” This feels as fitting a way as any to begin a conversation with Katya Zamolodchikova (your dad just calls her Katya), the drag world’s queen of all things chaotic. Katya first captured the world’s attention 10 years ago, as one of the break-out stars of RuPaul’s Drag Race’s seventh season, quickly becoming a popular fan-favourite and returning a year later for the second All Stars season (still considered by many to be the pinnacle of the franchise) a year after being crowned her season’s Miss Congeniality. A decade on, she’s still considered one of the show’s most popular queens, particularly among non-winners – a title she’s more than happy to retain. “I’m not a winner – and I mean that not in a pejorative, insult-y way,” she tells HuffPost UK. “I’m not competitive. I found that out the first day I was on the show.” Katya recalls: “I guess before I went to season seven, I was kind of like, ‘I could win’. And then …

The Cocreators of RuPaul’s Drag Race Bring a Shocking Killing to HBO

The Cocreators of RuPaul’s Drag Race Bring a Shocking Killing to HBO

When it debuted in the fall of 2011, Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story blurred the line between fiction and reality with its allusions to real-life cases such as mass nurse murderer Richard Speck, the Black Dahlia case, and the slayings at Amityville manor. But just a year before the series dropped, there was a different high-profile homicide less than two hours from Murphy’s hometown of Indianapolis involving a huge brick mansion and an ominous rubber suit—eerie similarities to the first season of the FX series. Now that case is the subject of a new HBO docuseries helmed by two other iconic filmmakers: Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, the directors/producers behind RuPaul’s Drag Race, Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, and Party Monster, 2003’s dramatic adaptation of the Michael Alig manslaughter case. The crime at the heart of Murder in Glitterball City, which premieres on February 19, shares some themes with Party Monster; both involve drugs, gay men, and homicide. And with both projects, Barbato tells Vanity Fair, their goal as filmmakers wasn’t to further sensationalize an …

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Winners on Show Changes After 18 Seasons

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Winners on Show Changes After 18 Seasons

RuPaul’s Drag Race has kicked off its eighteenth installment, crawling closer and closer to a milestone 20th season.  Premiering almost 17 years ago, the series has gone through plenty of changes as the franchise worked out its now polished structure: a batch of drag artists compete in weekly challenges; one queen earns a win for their performance; two queens land in the “bottom” of the competition and perform against one another in a lip sync for their life; and the winner of said lip sync stays in the running for the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar.  It’s a tried and true format that has remained steadfast over all 18 seasons, its three varying network homes and a plethora of international spinoffs. But in the early days of RuPaul’s Drag Race, before they snatched up 29 Emmy Awards, there was no preexisting framework for queens to reference going into the competition. They simply went into things blind, as all first-season reality TV contestants do.  “When we started, we had no blueprint,” season one winner BeBe …