DRAGDROTTNINGAR I VARDAGSRUMMET & GRABBGÄNG I DRUGSTUGAN. En receptionsstudie med queera Drag Race Sverige-tittare

Abstract

This essay examines how queer audiences interpret and construct meaning in interaction with an episode of the Swedish reality TV-show Drag Race Sverige. This is examined through focus group interviews with queer Drag Race viewers. The featured episode depicts a meeting between a competing group of drag queens and a group of proclaimed manly men, whom the competing drag queens must makeover into their “dream sisters”. The essay examines a queer audience's reaction to this meeting, and the manly men's presence in a seemingly queer space, analysing them through a queer phenomenological framework. It concludes that the manly men’s presence both simultaneously heightens the queer audience's enjoyment of the episode and awakens feelings of discomfort in them. The manly men’s place in the episode is hypothesised as either legitimising the queer audiences' points of views or disturbing them, thus impacting their enjoyment of the episode.