Drag Race

Some of my friends at work are watching a reality TV show, RuPaul's Drag Race.  Now, I am hooked, too!  The show is kind of like "American Idol" or "So You Think You Can Dance", except that the contestants are all drag queens.  Every episode has a "mini challenge" where they have to do something like style a wig or other small game.  In the main challenge, the contestants participate in a larger activity such as doing a celebrity impersonation or dressing up someone else in drag.  In one episode, they invited women who usually do not wear dresses and makeup (ex.  boxers, martial arts instructor, cage fighter), and the contestants had to dress them up.

In season 1, my favourite queen was Nina Flowers.  On the first episode, the queens are introduced as their female versions.  Later, the contestants remove their costumes and you can see what they look like "as a guy".  With Nina, her transformation was quite drastic.  She became a guy with tattoos and a shaved head.  I think I picked her because I enjoyed the surprise!  In season 2, I think my favourite is Jujubee. At first, I liked her because she can be competitive without being too abrasive.  But the main reason I like her is because of her "failure" in one episode.  She was built up as being the person who was going to win the main challenge because she had background experience in that area.  The challenge was to perform one of RuPaul's songs, and Jujubee had singing experience.  However, when the time came, she "froze" and did not perform up to expectation.   I can really relate to that.  I have a lot of skill and experience with technical things, i.e. developing web applications, programming skills, etc..  However, when I went away for my maternity leave, I became "separated" from this skillset because I no longer had time or opportunity to do anything "deep" at the computer.  I forgot so much.  I became rusty.  I felt like a failure in an area where I once could shine.  So I really related to Jujubee on that aspect. 

You can buy the first season on iTunes.  (Well, I'm in Canada, so you can on Canadian iTunes, anyway!)  I'm pretty sure it's an American show.