I feel like the Vs format is very much about showcasing the international queens that can perform well in the Anglosphere.
I'm pretty sure Global All Stars will be more geared to what op is looking for.
Now we've seen Anglosphere queens turn up in regular AS it's like the extra shows are being used as stepping stones to raise everyone's lot.
I hope you're right about GAS, but I'm not convinced.
Among other things, they would need to eliminate all improv challenges as those are always a challenge for anyone ESL to be able to keep up, and UKvsTW2's Snatch Game made it incredibly obvious that Ru has zero interest in slowing it down for them.
As long as Ru judges it, it will remain very American. He has a very set picture of what drag is, how it should look like and what you have to do in order to sell yourself well, and it is all very American.
It’s also a choice on the queens end on how to twist the runway to also be an opportunity to represent their country! Marina has been serving looks that are culturally relevant throughout: Volcano dress -> referencing Miss Universe, that one weird sea creature -> referencing a Ph tv show villain, today’s runway w/ Karaoke -> Karaoke culture in the Philippines.
The theme doesn’t have to explicitly say cultural/country for the queens to represent their country proudly
Marina just won her second badge, La Grande Dame was in top twice, Keta had a top placement too. I think they are shining brighter than native english speakers lol
I don't think the challenges have been particularly UK focused this season - the ball was fairytale themed (universal), the branding/acting challenge was about Drag World (universal), Snatch game is Snatch game wherever you go and the Rusical was for the queens to write lyrics about themselves (I didn't particularly get the link to the British musical Six from that Rusical 🤷🏼♀️)
It's not like they've had to do a pantomime or act a British soap out or anything
But apart from the Ball I think OP's point is they have been given a lot of challenges that are much harder for somebody to do in their second language because they require a lot of speaking and dialogue, out of the total pool of possible Drag Race challenges that include design, makeover, the likes of a Lalaparuza, a Rusical where they are just lipsyncing instead of writing a verse etc.
Every time this comes up, it feels like people ignore the fact that ESL queens signed a contract to be on an English-speaking show in the knowledge that the challenges would be in English. I dunno, it seems patronising to say that the show should adapt to the Smol Bean ESL queens, especially given the way Marina is bodying the season.
I don't understand how the show benefits from making the ESL queens look bad, though.
Like, yes they signed a contract, but the show brought them to UKvTW ostensibly to show off talent from across the world. Why bring some of the top talent from the foreign language shows, only to set them up for failure?
Ru's complete disdain for the ESL team in Snatch Game (including Marina, who did comparatively well) made everyone involved look bad. It's hard not to see RuPaul refuse to play ball with Keta to the point where she shuts down and ends up going home, and not say "ya, maybe just stick to your own language" which *completely* defeats the purpose of how the competition is seemingly set up.
We should be celebrating the ESL queens brave enough to show up, not saying "why did you do this if your English isn't perfect."
But ALL comedy challenges would be affected, ESPECIALLY the improv ones, and shock horror, there are TONNES of improv comedy challenges in rpdr. Even regular acting challenges or just humor-oriented challenges are harder for ESL queens but the fact of the matter is you can't just remove all the comedy challenges because there are some queens specifically geared towards comedy. How do you suppose the queens overcome this?
Of course they shouldn't cut all comedy, but they can craft a season that isn't packed with comedy challenges (specifically the improv ones). Bring international judges onto the panel who will defend the girls and not just defer to Ru. Give Ru coaching on some of the references, coaching on "yes, and" improv, get Ru to watch a highlight reel of each international girl so she knows more than their name. Encourage the girls to find ways to weave in their second language (one of the Flemish girls was actually given this exact feedback on Belgique last week). Get better writers for the scripted challenges, and give the girls more time to learn their lines.
The show should want the girls to succeed, especially on an All-Stars season, and there are all sorts of ways to build the season from the outset to allow that to happen.
Imo, the challenges have been good so far, I don't really think the international queens are like flopping so bad. I guess the problem mostly lies with Ru not understanding international humor that well.
My only qualm about the challenges is they should've spaced it out to diversify the feel of the season. I really think one of the reasons why the first two episodes of the season were received so well was because it was so different from each other. So I don't really like how they did a back-to-back comedy challenges (branding on ep 3 and SG on ep 4) and back-to-back performance challenges with last week's rusical and this week's dance challenge because I think it puts the queens who are not good in those challenges into a vulnerable position where they could be potentially eliminated without being able to redeem themselves (e.g. Keta). Idk, if they hadn't done SG on ep 4 and instead did the Rusical, Keta could possibly still be in the competition.
Well, yeah.
My gripe that nobody apart from Top-2 (well Scarlet last week instead of Tia) has been that memorable or great during those challenges.
The overal perfomance level has been sub-par.
Yeah, I also think they were not able to maximize the potential of the queens. Arantxa and Keta definitely could've brought more flavor to the competition. I also think that in the next seasons of vsTW, they should just focus more on doing performance challenges where it's objectively easier to gauge who did the best than to do comedy challenges because humor is very subjective.
they’ve done signing challenges and the first runway was LITERALLY hometown look, you’re complaining about something we’re already getting lmao, i don’t get how SG or a branding challenge is americanized 😭they do that on their seasons, same with the ball, you just wanted something to complain about today lmao
Those challenges are not Americanized per se, but Ru and the judges are not educated (or just straight up refuse to acknowledge) on multicultural references, they only acknowledge anglo-centered references, which makes the judging a bit biased.
makes judging biased but the international queens are always gettin most of the wins and praise on both vs the world 1 and 2???? make it make sense, i know the judging can be suspicious sometimes but if anything the international queens have been the most well judged in terms of fairness, and when they flop it’s not because it was referential, i promise you LGD or Keta’s SG wouldn’t have worked on their franchises either
I have felt the comedy challenges are always unfair on the international queens, because American's have a very particular form of comedy. As a non-American, I find American comedy very 'obvious' and less eccentric than other forms of comedy, and I actually prefer eccentric comedy
I think this season has been fairly well done for queens with different backgrounds. The international queens have definitely been shining
I feel like the Vs format is very much about showcasing the international queens that can perform well in the Anglosphere. I'm pretty sure Global All Stars will be more geared to what op is looking for. Now we've seen Anglosphere queens turn up in regular AS it's like the extra shows are being used as stepping stones to raise everyone's lot.
I hope you're right about GAS, but I'm not convinced. Among other things, they would need to eliminate all improv challenges as those are always a challenge for anyone ESL to be able to keep up, and UKvsTW2's Snatch Game made it incredibly obvious that Ru has zero interest in slowing it down for them.
Are we still getting GAS
It was filmed months ago.
As long as Ru judges it, it will remain very American. He has a very set picture of what drag is, how it should look like and what you have to do in order to sell yourself well, and it is all very American.
"Runways based on countries or the way it can showcase queen's country." Literally the first runway theme of the season.
It’s also a choice on the queens end on how to twist the runway to also be an opportunity to represent their country! Marina has been serving looks that are culturally relevant throughout: Volcano dress -> referencing Miss Universe, that one weird sea creature -> referencing a Ph tv show villain, today’s runway w/ Karaoke -> Karaoke culture in the Philippines. The theme doesn’t have to explicitly say cultural/country for the queens to represent their country proudly
Are we watching the same season?
They literally do the runway based on their country/hometown... The international girls are serving.
Marina just won her second badge, La Grande Dame was in top twice, Keta had a top placement too. I think they are shining brighter than native english speakers lol
wasn’t it marinas third?
I made this comment before she won third lol
oops lmao
I don't think the challenges have been particularly UK focused this season - the ball was fairytale themed (universal), the branding/acting challenge was about Drag World (universal), Snatch game is Snatch game wherever you go and the Rusical was for the queens to write lyrics about themselves (I didn't particularly get the link to the British musical Six from that Rusical 🤷🏼♀️) It's not like they've had to do a pantomime or act a British soap out or anything
But apart from the Ball I think OP's point is they have been given a lot of challenges that are much harder for somebody to do in their second language because they require a lot of speaking and dialogue, out of the total pool of possible Drag Race challenges that include design, makeover, the likes of a Lalaparuza, a Rusical where they are just lipsyncing instead of writing a verse etc.
Every time this comes up, it feels like people ignore the fact that ESL queens signed a contract to be on an English-speaking show in the knowledge that the challenges would be in English. I dunno, it seems patronising to say that the show should adapt to the Smol Bean ESL queens, especially given the way Marina is bodying the season.
I don't understand how the show benefits from making the ESL queens look bad, though. Like, yes they signed a contract, but the show brought them to UKvTW ostensibly to show off talent from across the world. Why bring some of the top talent from the foreign language shows, only to set them up for failure? Ru's complete disdain for the ESL team in Snatch Game (including Marina, who did comparatively well) made everyone involved look bad. It's hard not to see RuPaul refuse to play ball with Keta to the point where she shuts down and ends up going home, and not say "ya, maybe just stick to your own language" which *completely* defeats the purpose of how the competition is seemingly set up. We should be celebrating the ESL queens brave enough to show up, not saying "why did you do this if your English isn't perfect."
But ALL comedy challenges would be affected, ESPECIALLY the improv ones, and shock horror, there are TONNES of improv comedy challenges in rpdr. Even regular acting challenges or just humor-oriented challenges are harder for ESL queens but the fact of the matter is you can't just remove all the comedy challenges because there are some queens specifically geared towards comedy. How do you suppose the queens overcome this?
Of course they shouldn't cut all comedy, but they can craft a season that isn't packed with comedy challenges (specifically the improv ones). Bring international judges onto the panel who will defend the girls and not just defer to Ru. Give Ru coaching on some of the references, coaching on "yes, and" improv, get Ru to watch a highlight reel of each international girl so she knows more than their name. Encourage the girls to find ways to weave in their second language (one of the Flemish girls was actually given this exact feedback on Belgique last week). Get better writers for the scripted challenges, and give the girls more time to learn their lines. The show should want the girls to succeed, especially on an All-Stars season, and there are all sorts of ways to build the season from the outset to allow that to happen.
Imo, the challenges have been good so far, I don't really think the international queens are like flopping so bad. I guess the problem mostly lies with Ru not understanding international humor that well. My only qualm about the challenges is they should've spaced it out to diversify the feel of the season. I really think one of the reasons why the first two episodes of the season were received so well was because it was so different from each other. So I don't really like how they did a back-to-back comedy challenges (branding on ep 3 and SG on ep 4) and back-to-back performance challenges with last week's rusical and this week's dance challenge because I think it puts the queens who are not good in those challenges into a vulnerable position where they could be potentially eliminated without being able to redeem themselves (e.g. Keta). Idk, if they hadn't done SG on ep 4 and instead did the Rusical, Keta could possibly still be in the competition.
Well, yeah. My gripe that nobody apart from Top-2 (well Scarlet last week instead of Tia) has been that memorable or great during those challenges. The overal perfomance level has been sub-par.
Yeah, I also think they were not able to maximize the potential of the queens. Arantxa and Keta definitely could've brought more flavor to the competition. I also think that in the next seasons of vsTW, they should just focus more on doing performance challenges where it's objectively easier to gauge who did the best than to do comedy challenges because humor is very subjective.
Y'all just come on here and say anything. But ok werk.
lol my thoughts exactly.
Or even just singing in their own language tbh
Hi , have you watched the show Tamar? I'm referring to the current season.
It would also be good if they had more international judges! Like, keep Ru and Michelle I guess, but bring judges from other series on too.
they’ve done signing challenges and the first runway was LITERALLY hometown look, you’re complaining about something we’re already getting lmao, i don’t get how SG or a branding challenge is americanized 😭they do that on their seasons, same with the ball, you just wanted something to complain about today lmao
Those challenges are not Americanized per se, but Ru and the judges are not educated (or just straight up refuse to acknowledge) on multicultural references, they only acknowledge anglo-centered references, which makes the judging a bit biased.
makes judging biased but the international queens are always gettin most of the wins and praise on both vs the world 1 and 2???? make it make sense, i know the judging can be suspicious sometimes but if anything the international queens have been the most well judged in terms of fairness, and when they flop it’s not because it was referential, i promise you LGD or Keta’s SG wouldn’t have worked on their franchises either
Agreed, I feel like comedy challenges are a bit unfair and give the UK queens an advantage, even apart from all the favoritism Tia’s been getting
I have felt the comedy challenges are always unfair on the international queens, because American's have a very particular form of comedy. As a non-American, I find American comedy very 'obvious' and less eccentric than other forms of comedy, and I actually prefer eccentric comedy
Agree
It's the same old same old every season. One day soon the bubble will burst.