In late March 2021, Wade Gilbert, an electrician from Donaldsville, Louisiana, had just finished working a 14 hour day. He pulled into his driveway, ambled through the backdoor, shared a Stouffer’s lasagna with his dumpy-assed wife and 14-year-old stepson, and pulled the recline lever on his camouflage La-Z-Boy. His long day was over - or so he thought.
“Shit yeah, I was dog tired. I’d been up since 5 o’clock working my tail off. All I wanted to do was drink a couple Coors Lites, watch some 9-1-1: Lonestar, and pass the fuck out. I didn’t realize the next hour and a half was going to change my life,” recalled Gilbert of that night.
It had been a long year for Mr. Gilbert. As a staunch conservative, he had struggled with the direction the nation was taking since the 2020 election. He still kept his Trump flag flying - just to own the libs. He screamed “Blue Lives Matter!” out of his truck window every time he passed a black person, despite claiming that he loved “outlaw” country. And while he had secretly used his stimulus checks to pay rent, he told his coworkers that they were all part of a socialist agenda to give his tax dollars to Mexicans. Perhaps it was the pressure of a culture in which he felt increasingly alienated that weighed so heavily on him that night, as his calloused thumb mashed the buttons of his remote control.
“I had the clicker and I was just scrolling through when I see this beautiful woman with bright orange hair and shiny ruby red lips, look like they were just made for kissing. And those legs! Christ almighty! Looked exactly like the kind of legs ZZ Top might have been singing about in their 1983 song “Legs.” I tell you something, they don’t make women like that in Donaldsville. No sir, I just about had steam coming out of my ears.”
The show was the VH1 series, RuPaul’s Drag Race, the reality competition that sets out to find America’s next drag superstar, now on it’s 13th season.. Somehow, unbeknownst to Gilbert (despite it being a central part of the television show), the ladies who had enchanted him weren’t ladies atall.
“I couldn’t get enough of these beautiful and exotic women. It’s like they transported me to a world outside of Donaldsville - a world that was fun and sophisticated and a little catty. Shit, after that first episode, I got my wife’s credit card and subscribed to Hulu right then and there to catch up on the first 6 seasons. And I’ll tell ya, that’s how I spent the rest of the night: binge-watching, as they say.”
“And that’s how my step-son, Pissant, found me the next morning at 7 o’clock when he was getting ready for Learning School. I was wide-eyed and on season 4. Well, Pissant comes in, tells me ‘Mr. Wade (I don’t let him call me daddy), you know these ladies ain’t ladies atall’ and I said ‘Pissant, you shut your fucking mouth or I will knock your god damn teeth out. How dare you talk about Ms. RuPaul and Ms. Sharon Needles and Ms. Phi Phi O’Hara and Ms. Chad Michaels and Ms. Latrice Royale and Ms. Jiggly Caliente and Ms. LaShawn Beyond and Ms. Madame LaQueer like that! I swear to god I will bury you alive in the backyard!”
“Well, as I was dog-cussin’ this piece of shit for disrespecting these fine heathers, I started putting two and two together. Ms. RuPaul was 6’4”. Ms. Jessica Wild from season 2 did have a meaty tuck. And Ms. Stacy Layne Matthews had a hog body...oh no hunty...No tea. No shade. Pissant was right.”
It was here that Gilbert was struck by a wave of cognitive dissonance. His mind and heart grappled with his political values that seemed at odds with how utterly enjoyable he had found the past several hours.
“Just like that, my world got turnt. up. side. down. It’s not just about those gorgeous body-ody-odies. I had spent the night inside an eleganza extravaganza. The lewks. The opulence. The fantasy. The realness. That kiki gave me life. Turns out, these good judies had been tucking their nuts up in their guts all along - and I was too blind to see. The library was open and I had failed to read the largest book in that sumbitch.”
Later that morning Gilbert’s wife checked him into a rehabilitation program run by the local Methodist church. During his nine day stay, Mr. Gilbert was caught trying to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race under his covers on his VH1 app a total of seven times. After spending hours in isolation, Wade Gilbert was finally able to put words to his feelings, stating:
“It’s disgusting that they would make a show so addictive and entertaining as RuPaul’s Drag Race. It’s one of the best shows there ever was and I’m offended. I’m repulsed that all the contestants are so much fun. It really is an artform and it beats the shit out of anything in the museums we got here in Donaldsville. Men dressing up as women and saying clever things and lip synching for their lives? I’m ashamed of how much I enjoy it. Even now, all I wanna do is get on Hulu and watch season five. And I haven’t even death-dropped my toe into All-Stars yet. Am I going to eventually? Hell yeah - it’s my favorite show and I’m so god damn pissed about it I could spit.”
