Fashion, Inclusivity, and Pedagogy in Lifestyle TV: The Case of RuPaul’s Drag Race
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article investigates the role of fashion as a language of inclusion, resistance, and pedagogy within the context of lifestyle television, focusing on RuPaul’s Drag Race as a paradigmatic case of lifestyle TV. Through an interdisciplinary lens drawing from media studies and fashion theory, the paper explores how the show reconfigures the conventions of makeover television to construct narrative spaces where marginalized identities gain visibility and agency. In the show, fashion functions not merely as visual ornamentation but as an affective tool to articulate personal stories, cultural affiliations, and acts of dissent. Runway performances, confessional interviews, and backstage interactions become sites of identity negotiation, collective memory, and community-building. Special attention is given to the representation of disability and neurodivergence, which, while still peripheral, point toward the possibility of “cripping the catwalk.” Finally, the essay addresses the tensions between the show’s pedagogical aspirations and its position within global commercial circuits, questioning the extent to which fashion television can sustain an inclusive and transformative cultural project. RuPaul’s Drag Race emerges as a hybrid media space that queers fashion discourse and models alternative modes for audiovisual media.
Source: Zonemoda journal
Author: Veronica Innocenti
Institution: University of Bologna
Language: English
Subfield: Museology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7116787342
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