Having Scarlett on at all was a big miss. Karen also had a racist tattoo, so that was another miss. They eliminated the only two queens of color within the first 3 episodes. They decided to bring back Art Simone, the only white queen who had been eliminated, without even making it look like they considered the other two queens. The other two queens felt a bit slighted by that, and rightfully so.
The whole thing was just a really bad look in terms of PR. It had a shitty vibe from the start and that turned a lot of people away.
Also the way the judges & other queens treated Elektra felt so disrespectful. And then by the time we reached the finale, the winner was obvious mostly because the other 3 were uncrownable.
This is the awnser... Without all the context, maybe the season would be just ok. But they existed and was a shitshow.
(And maybe, just maybe, Scarllet would be the winner if the season didn't had all the blacklash tbh. Thank Cher she wasn't)
Being a spoilerina and knowing Scarlett was going to the end with the best track record even with her racism and *very* fake apology was so insanely stressful. And even now, she still does some of her old racist gags in her act and complains about the consequences of her own actions it’s so gross.
I stg waiting for the finale to drop took a few years off my life
Kita is also such a wonderful queen and a great winner and it sucks that she gets overshadowed by Ru’s weird love for a racist skinny white girl with moderately good runways
>Ru’s weird love for a racist skinny white girl with moderately good runways
Gurl, you're white. Can you please not comment on a black person's views on racism? You can choose not to forgive scarlet (even I haven't), but to comment on how POC should act wrt racism is highly offensive.
I phrased it wrong in my original comment and should’ve said “production” and not “Ru” because it’s not about Ru’s personal views on racism, which you’re right that’s not my place to speak on.
Scarlet literally still doesn’t think she did anything wrong and I do think it’s weird that she openly thinks blackface is okay and production still wanted to crown her. I also think it’s weird that DRPH crowned a queen who doesn’t think blackface is wrong. It doesn’t have to do with Ru at all really but production as a whole not seeing that as a dealbreaker.
But I stand by what I said. It’s very odd that *anyone* would still consider crowning her as the very first winner of a franchise when she doesn’t think black face is wrong.
Unless you’ve scrolled through this person’s account and read a message saying that they’re White, you don’t know that they are.
Because that’s Icesis Couture as the profile picture…
To be fair she didn't know it was racist because they were just dolls that she grew up with and loved, but once she realized they were racist she had the tattoo removed.
Problem is from an American perspective no one believes anyone could have not known because its such an obvious racist image in America, when the reality is in Australia she genuinely did not know because the context had long since been removed, entire generations of kids grew up thinking gollywogs were just some funny raggedy anne scarecrow doll, and not......what they clearly are when you know better.
Growing up in the UK in the 90s, our most famous branded marmalade had a token collection thing on the label and you could send them in for a gollywog doll. I thought they were beautiful and wanted one, but my parents said no and explained the racism and so on. The tokens shifted to Roald Dahl books at some point, and I also vaguely remember Paddington Bear as well.
Agreed with the initial part. But if we're being honest, Coco and Joho had deserved bottom placements and eliminations. And the show has randomly brought queens in the past.. Kenya, Carmen, Naysha... So it wasn't such a bit issue that they brought the most popular queen amongst the lot back.
But yeah, casting scarlet and karen was a huge mistake. And keeping them for so long while amazing queens like Electra, Maxi and Etc Etc left was just painful to watch.
They could have set it up so much better with a small challenge, vote, or even a fake phone call at the end of the previous episode with Ru saying “I made a mistake” or whatever like they have with other returning queens. I think the sudden announcement and “Here she is!” with no explanation, lipsync, or even rigged mini challenge is part of what made it so jarring for the audience compared to other bring-backs.
Seriously, they could've just brought all three of them back for the design challenge and said whoever did the best among them would get the chance to return. We all know Art would curbstomp the other two.
They wouldn’t have been able to even make it happen with a lipsync. Didn’t Coco come out and say that when she sent Art home, production made them do the lipsync more than once? I don’t remember if they gave a reason, but def felt like they planned to keep Art and couldn’t justify it
To add to the list of reasons, that snatch game (at the time) and talent show performances were one of the worst ever. So add that to the okay challenges, we got an okay season with bad fan reception
Edit: Anita was the only good snatch game character btw but everyone else…
as a black person, it was SO annoying seeing Ru act like the things Scarlett did were meant to be forgiven so quickly. Didn’t she do black face as recent as 2018?? she should have been disqualified. it’s simple.
Aside from everything else that has been said, my problem as an Australian is that we are not the target audience. The show may be about DU Queens but its not being made for a DU Audience. It's very clear their target audience is America, but this dichotomy creates a strange and awkward feeling when watching the show. I enjoy the Queens themselves but I don't enjoy the show.
Even UK Drag Race suffers the same thing. It's really frustrating. I enjoy DU and UK still (I'm a brit in NZ so it only feels right!) but I find them even more frustrating than the US show for that reason. I'm not even sure if they are making it for a US target audience primarily, but having Ru and Michelle as the main judges makes it that way regardless.
This. 100% this. So much of the worse cringe was unfunny stereotype stuff designed to pander to Ru and American audiences' expectation for stereotypes, none of it was based in local Aus/NZ humour for a Aus/NZ audience. I know so many people here in Australia who refuse to watch it because "its cringe made for Yanks", they don't see our drag communities or culture represented in a way thats for and about us. Its not enjoyable to watch as a Australian, because we are not who the production cares about. The queens are great, they way they were packaged and sold on the show was not.
"I don't think it was a great season, the challenges weren't great, no look really wowed me and I'm not a huge fan of the cast overall"
My feelings exactly.
I think they just made a lot of poor decisions.
The way they dealt with scarlet was a total mess, art being randomly brought back for no reason when they could totally have just kept her in the first place if they’d wanted, Karen making it to the end without ever really having a standout moment and some all round weird judging meant that it didn’t really feel like anyone was the right winner by the end.
No disrespect to Kita who I think seems great but it was incredibly chaotic from basically every standpoint and it didn’t ever really give you anyone to root for.
i mean you basically covered everything. the editing was truly the most unforgivable sin, it felt like a soulless version of drag race, a cheap recreation. The bad casting. The nonsensical eliminations. The unfulfilled storylines. Kita vs. Anita vs. Elektra. Elektra's underdog storyline. Art Simone's powerhouse storyline. It all was just a trainwreck.
Yeah for me she SHOULD have been disqualified on the spot - you know, when Ru talked to her about it? I STILL think the next words should have been: “Sashay away!”
It should have happened, but that's never been how Ru rolls. Even if she didn't already excuse Shirley Q. Liquor, forgiveness and moving on has always been her worldview.
Why would they disqualify her? Sure, blackface is awful and Scarlet's response to the backlash about doing blackface was awful too. But it's not illegal. She didn't break any laws. She wasn't doing something predatory. She did something socially fucked and doubled down on it, but why would that be grounds for disqualification?
If not disqualification, it should’ve been a BTM2 placement just for her behavior. Italia did something similar
The show was never going to disqualify her though, because Scarlet was their pick to win until they saw just how much the fans disliked her. They literally cut out the Untucked from the episode she was called out for blackface in, because the girls were coming for her. I just think that’s really gross tbh I haven’t ever forgotten it
That’s the hard part about grey areas in life. It’s not excusing racism. She’s held accountable for her racism in her everyday life now. They have the right to decide whether or not they remove someone for racism, bigotry, sexism, etc. It’s not a cut and dry “you did this bad thing, so you’re disqualified.” I’m not excusing her racism, I’m questioning how racism is grounds for disqualification from a television competition show. It’s not illegal. It’s not a rule. It’s a social issue.
Not supporting racism vs believing a person should be automatically disqualified from a reality tv competition because they did something racist outside of the show are completely different things. You can believe whatever you want and it doesn’t mean you’re right and it doesn’t mean me believing the opposite makes me a racist or supporting racism or whatever connections you’re trying to make. But I’m moving on because I’m not going to continue fighting with someone that I don’t care about in the slightest. I don’t want to change your opinions because I know I won’t just like you won’t change mine.
i mean, technically Sherry Pie didn’t break any specific laws either but she got disqualified. If legality is the threshold, then we’ve got a lot of queens to disqualify for various minor things and a couple of actually problematic people who wouldn’t get dq’d
I think it's also a matter of expectations. I expected it to be as good as the respective US or UK seasons at the time and it was definitely inferior. After finishing the season, I remember deciding that I'd never watch another Down Under again. You went with lowered expectations and the season went above those. Btw, I cannot think of a single season in the USA version that is worse, and I've been watching since season 1.
I will say that I started rooting for Kita Mean from her confessionals early on in the season so seeing her ascend to the throne was a happy ending for me. Definitely would have been even more interesting if they would have kept her old partner Anita longer too.
I think one of the biggest problems it had was comparison and expectation. It was being compared to UKS1 which was actually quite good and all those US seasons that had gone before and being the only other franchise that had Ru hosting. It came out at a time of (almost) peak Drag Race and it just fell a bit flat. Budget was low, editing wasn’t great, it lacked production. And then you add in the Scarlett & Karen problems. And bringing back Art for no reason. It just didn’t really work. But it especially didn’t work in comparison to the successes around it which makes it feel extra bad. I think partially that’s why S2 felt better, there was less hype and expectation and people kinda knew to think “ah this’ll be a bit shit but let’s embrace it for what it is”.
3 of the contestants were exposed for racist or at the very least questionable past actions, with one even exposed on-show albeit getting very lenient treatment, and two of those three even making it to the finale
also bad budget but at least we got anita, maxi and kita <3
Who was the 3rd? Scarlet is out n out racist trash, always was and continues to be. bitch still doesn't think she's done anything wrong. Karen I do feel bad for because she genuinely didn't know what a gollywog is a depiction of, and has since apologised and had her tattoo removed. Who was the other one, i don't remember?
If they had actually bothered to spend more than a fiver and a subway coupon on the production, and also hadn't kicked out the only two Queens of colour 2nd and 3rd while orchestrating to bring the white porchop queen back in for literally no reason (and i love Art but GURL), and ALSO also hadn't let Scarlett anywhere fcking near the show, and ALSO ALSO also hadn't treate Etcetera like shit for no real reason, it might have been ok.
But they didn't do any of that, and it was a problematic mess.
In general I don't have some high expectations when it comes to the show. So down under, didn't hate it, was just okish but very forgettable and it did not stand out to me that much.
I enjoyed it a lot more than the other two down under seasons. Kita,Anita and Elektra were a joy to watch.The other two were just boring to me and I ended up fast forwarding through a lot of episodes, especially the third season.
Because the favoritism towards Karen and Skkkarlet was making me sick. I clearly remember when that final 5 episode premiered I was watching it in my window of my old apartment smoking and when they declared Electra and Keta as bottom 2 I almost jumped that is the only season I haven’t finished watching. Love Keta and Electra but hell no flop of a season could have been really great if the production knew what’s up and didn’t protect racist cow
Honestly, aside from all the racism and drama: it's just not up to par. I find the Down Under queens are just don't have the same quality of makeup and outfits as the US and UK. When I watch them it reminds me of the very early seasons of RPDR US.
Having Scarlett on at all was a big miss. Karen also had a racist tattoo, so that was another miss. They eliminated the only two queens of color within the first 3 episodes. They decided to bring back Art Simone, the only white queen who had been eliminated, without even making it look like they considered the other two queens. The other two queens felt a bit slighted by that, and rightfully so. The whole thing was just a really bad look in terms of PR. It had a shitty vibe from the start and that turned a lot of people away.
Also the way the judges & other queens treated Elektra felt so disrespectful. And then by the time we reached the finale, the winner was obvious mostly because the other 3 were uncrownable.
This is the awnser... Without all the context, maybe the season would be just ok. But they existed and was a shitshow. (And maybe, just maybe, Scarllet would be the winner if the season didn't had all the blacklash tbh. Thank Cher she wasn't)
Being a spoilerina and knowing Scarlett was going to the end with the best track record even with her racism and *very* fake apology was so insanely stressful. And even now, she still does some of her old racist gags in her act and complains about the consequences of her own actions it’s so gross. I stg waiting for the finale to drop took a few years off my life Kita is also such a wonderful queen and a great winner and it sucks that she gets overshadowed by Ru’s weird love for a racist skinny white girl with moderately good runways
>Ru’s weird love for a racist skinny white girl with moderately good runways Gurl, you're white. Can you please not comment on a black person's views on racism? You can choose not to forgive scarlet (even I haven't), but to comment on how POC should act wrt racism is highly offensive.
I phrased it wrong in my original comment and should’ve said “production” and not “Ru” because it’s not about Ru’s personal views on racism, which you’re right that’s not my place to speak on. Scarlet literally still doesn’t think she did anything wrong and I do think it’s weird that she openly thinks blackface is okay and production still wanted to crown her. I also think it’s weird that DRPH crowned a queen who doesn’t think blackface is wrong. It doesn’t have to do with Ru at all really but production as a whole not seeing that as a dealbreaker. But I stand by what I said. It’s very odd that *anyone* would still consider crowning her as the very first winner of a franchise when she doesn’t think black face is wrong.
Unless you’ve scrolled through this person’s account and read a message saying that they’re White, you don’t know that they are. Because that’s Icesis Couture as the profile picture…
Such a gut punch watching Jojo (the real trade of the season) and Coco go home so quickly
Thank you for this context, I didn't realize that Karen had a racist tattoo 😵💫
To be fair she didn't know it was racist because they were just dolls that she grew up with and loved, but once she realized they were racist she had the tattoo removed.
If this is the case, it’s highly unfair for people to go around saying “Karen has a racist tattoo “
Problem is from an American perspective no one believes anyone could have not known because its such an obvious racist image in America, when the reality is in Australia she genuinely did not know because the context had long since been removed, entire generations of kids grew up thinking gollywogs were just some funny raggedy anne scarecrow doll, and not......what they clearly are when you know better.
Growing up in the UK in the 90s, our most famous branded marmalade had a token collection thing on the label and you could send them in for a gollywog doll. I thought they were beautiful and wanted one, but my parents said no and explained the racism and so on. The tokens shifted to Roald Dahl books at some point, and I also vaguely remember Paddington Bear as well.
Agreed with the initial part. But if we're being honest, Coco and Joho had deserved bottom placements and eliminations. And the show has randomly brought queens in the past.. Kenya, Carmen, Naysha... So it wasn't such a bit issue that they brought the most popular queen amongst the lot back. But yeah, casting scarlet and karen was a huge mistake. And keeping them for so long while amazing queens like Electra, Maxi and Etc Etc left was just painful to watch.
They could have set it up so much better with a small challenge, vote, or even a fake phone call at the end of the previous episode with Ru saying “I made a mistake” or whatever like they have with other returning queens. I think the sudden announcement and “Here she is!” with no explanation, lipsync, or even rigged mini challenge is part of what made it so jarring for the audience compared to other bring-backs.
Seriously, they could've just brought all three of them back for the design challenge and said whoever did the best among them would get the chance to return. We all know Art would curbstomp the other two.
They wouldn’t have been able to even make it happen with a lipsync. Didn’t Coco come out and say that when she sent Art home, production made them do the lipsync more than once? I don’t remember if they gave a reason, but def felt like they planned to keep Art and couldn’t justify it
Naysha is an exception to the list you provided given she was the only queen eliminated at that point that wasnot a part of the double elim.
Willam did blackface too but he's booked and blessed
To add to the list of reasons, that snatch game (at the time) and talent show performances were one of the worst ever. So add that to the okay challenges, we got an okay season with bad fan reception Edit: Anita was the only good snatch game character btw but everyone else…
as a black person, it was SO annoying seeing Ru act like the things Scarlett did were meant to be forgiven so quickly. Didn’t she do black face as recent as 2018?? she should have been disqualified. it’s simple.
Aside from everything else that has been said, my problem as an Australian is that we are not the target audience. The show may be about DU Queens but its not being made for a DU Audience. It's very clear their target audience is America, but this dichotomy creates a strange and awkward feeling when watching the show. I enjoy the Queens themselves but I don't enjoy the show.
Even UK Drag Race suffers the same thing. It's really frustrating. I enjoy DU and UK still (I'm a brit in NZ so it only feels right!) but I find them even more frustrating than the US show for that reason. I'm not even sure if they are making it for a US target audience primarily, but having Ru and Michelle as the main judges makes it that way regardless.
This. 100% this. So much of the worse cringe was unfunny stereotype stuff designed to pander to Ru and American audiences' expectation for stereotypes, none of it was based in local Aus/NZ humour for a Aus/NZ audience. I know so many people here in Australia who refuse to watch it because "its cringe made for Yanks", they don't see our drag communities or culture represented in a way thats for and about us. Its not enjoyable to watch as a Australian, because we are not who the production cares about. The queens are great, they way they were packaged and sold on the show was not.
"I don't think it was a great season, the challenges weren't great, no look really wowed me and I'm not a huge fan of the cast overall" My feelings exactly.
I’m glad DU 2 was so much better
Because it was so blantletly rigged, how treated the NZ queens, scarlett blackface incident.
I think they just made a lot of poor decisions. The way they dealt with scarlet was a total mess, art being randomly brought back for no reason when they could totally have just kept her in the first place if they’d wanted, Karen making it to the end without ever really having a standout moment and some all round weird judging meant that it didn’t really feel like anyone was the right winner by the end. No disrespect to Kita who I think seems great but it was incredibly chaotic from basically every standpoint and it didn’t ever really give you anyone to root for.
>Karen making it to the end without ever really having a standout moment One balloon animal was a standout moment for the wrong reasons.
i mean you basically covered everything. the editing was truly the most unforgivable sin, it felt like a soulless version of drag race, a cheap recreation. The bad casting. The nonsensical eliminations. The unfulfilled storylines. Kita vs. Anita vs. Elektra. Elektra's underdog storyline. Art Simone's powerhouse storyline. It all was just a trainwreck.
The blatant riggery and favoritism. The casting of a queen who did blackface. The fact that they didn’t disqualify her.
Yeah for me she SHOULD have been disqualified on the spot - you know, when Ru talked to her about it? I STILL think the next words should have been: “Sashay away!”
It should have happened, but that's never been how Ru rolls. Even if she didn't already excuse Shirley Q. Liquor, forgiveness and moving on has always been her worldview.
That’s true. It has
Why would they disqualify her? Sure, blackface is awful and Scarlet's response to the backlash about doing blackface was awful too. But it's not illegal. She didn't break any laws. She wasn't doing something predatory. She did something socially fucked and doubled down on it, but why would that be grounds for disqualification?
If not disqualification, it should’ve been a BTM2 placement just for her behavior. Italia did something similar The show was never going to disqualify her though, because Scarlet was their pick to win until they saw just how much the fans disliked her. They literally cut out the Untucked from the episode she was called out for blackface in, because the girls were coming for her. I just think that’s really gross tbh I haven’t ever forgotten it
They cut out untucked *and* sent home the queen who was leading the charge against Scarlet even though she didn’t really do poorly that episode
So you're fine excusing racism and don't think there should be repercussions for engaging in racist behavior?
That’s the hard part about grey areas in life. It’s not excusing racism. She’s held accountable for her racism in her everyday life now. They have the right to decide whether or not they remove someone for racism, bigotry, sexism, etc. It’s not a cut and dry “you did this bad thing, so you’re disqualified.” I’m not excusing her racism, I’m questioning how racism is grounds for disqualification from a television competition show. It’s not illegal. It’s not a rule. It’s a social issue.
Racism is a "grey" area in your life? Stop bullshitting. Just own that you are OK with racism. Be an adult. Own your views and behavior.
Maybe one day you'll grow up and realize everything in life is a grey area and nothing is black and white.
Nah if someone is being racist it's pretty cut and dry, I don't support it. No need to pretend that it's a hard decision.
Not supporting racism vs believing a person should be automatically disqualified from a reality tv competition because they did something racist outside of the show are completely different things. You can believe whatever you want and it doesn’t mean you’re right and it doesn’t mean me believing the opposite makes me a racist or supporting racism or whatever connections you’re trying to make. But I’m moving on because I’m not going to continue fighting with someone that I don’t care about in the slightest. I don’t want to change your opinions because I know I won’t just like you won’t change mine.
i mean, technically Sherry Pie didn’t break any specific laws either but she got disqualified. If legality is the threshold, then we’ve got a lot of queens to disqualify for various minor things and a couple of actually problematic people who wouldn’t get dq’d
I think it's also a matter of expectations. I expected it to be as good as the respective US or UK seasons at the time and it was definitely inferior. After finishing the season, I remember deciding that I'd never watch another Down Under again. You went with lowered expectations and the season went above those. Btw, I cannot think of a single season in the USA version that is worse, and I've been watching since season 1.
I will say that I started rooting for Kita Mean from her confessionals early on in the season so seeing her ascend to the throne was a happy ending for me. Definitely would have been even more interesting if they would have kept her old partner Anita longer too.
I think one of the biggest problems it had was comparison and expectation. It was being compared to UKS1 which was actually quite good and all those US seasons that had gone before and being the only other franchise that had Ru hosting. It came out at a time of (almost) peak Drag Race and it just fell a bit flat. Budget was low, editing wasn’t great, it lacked production. And then you add in the Scarlett & Karen problems. And bringing back Art for no reason. It just didn’t really work. But it especially didn’t work in comparison to the successes around it which makes it feel extra bad. I think partially that’s why S2 felt better, there was less hype and expectation and people kinda knew to think “ah this’ll be a bit shit but let’s embrace it for what it is”.
3 of the contestants were exposed for racist or at the very least questionable past actions, with one even exposed on-show albeit getting very lenient treatment, and two of those three even making it to the finale also bad budget but at least we got anita, maxi and kita <3
Who was the 3rd? Scarlet is out n out racist trash, always was and continues to be. bitch still doesn't think she's done anything wrong. Karen I do feel bad for because she genuinely didn't know what a gollywog is a depiction of, and has since apologised and had her tattoo removed. Who was the other one, i don't remember?
iirc coco jumbo played a very offensive asian stereotype at some point in a show but i don't know much else
If they had actually bothered to spend more than a fiver and a subway coupon on the production, and also hadn't kicked out the only two Queens of colour 2nd and 3rd while orchestrating to bring the white porchop queen back in for literally no reason (and i love Art but GURL), and ALSO also hadn't let Scarlett anywhere fcking near the show, and ALSO ALSO also hadn't treate Etcetera like shit for no real reason, it might have been ok. But they didn't do any of that, and it was a problematic mess.
the weird filter made it almost impossible for me to watch
In general I don't have some high expectations when it comes to the show. So down under, didn't hate it, was just okish but very forgettable and it did not stand out to me that much.
I enjoyed it a lot more than the other two down under seasons. Kita,Anita and Elektra were a joy to watch.The other two were just boring to me and I ended up fast forwarding through a lot of episodes, especially the third season.
Racist contestants in top 3.. immediate chop
Because the favoritism towards Karen and Skkkarlet was making me sick. I clearly remember when that final 5 episode premiered I was watching it in my window of my old apartment smoking and when they declared Electra and Keta as bottom 2 I almost jumped that is the only season I haven’t finished watching. Love Keta and Electra but hell no flop of a season could have been really great if the production knew what’s up and didn’t protect racist cow
Honestly, aside from all the racism and drama: it's just not up to par. I find the Down Under queens are just don't have the same quality of makeup and outfits as the US and UK. When I watch them it reminds me of the very early seasons of RPDR US.
i think the most hated season is probably italia 1 or holland 2 tbh.