rupaul's drag race australia art simone

‘Drag Race Down Under’ Has Been Slammed For “Favouritism” After Bringing Back An Eliminated Queen

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Fresh from the Lindy Chamberlain impersonation controversy, RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under is in hot water again for bringing back an eliminated queen on the latest episode.

This week, as the queens prepared for a sewing challenge inspired by trash, eliminated contestant Art Simone popped out of a bin and back into the competition.

The weirdest part was that the decision for Art to return was not explained whatsoever. As Art popped out of a pile of garbage, Ru said, “Ladies, I have an announcement to make: Art Simone is rejoining the competition — officially”. Later, when doing his rounds in the workroom, Ru missed another chance for an explanation, simply telling Art: “Welcome back, darling”.

Fans of the show immediately tweeted that this seemed to go against the rules of reality TV. Shouldn’t all the other eliminated queens have a chance to come back, or at least compete against each other for a spot in the competition? This is traditionally how previous Drag Race seasons have brought queens back. It makes it even more uncomfortable that the two other eliminated queens were both people of colour — the only non-white queens who were cast — and Art rejoined a top seven which was already entirely white.

Last week’s eliminated queen, Coco Jumbo, put it perfectly.

Jojo Zaho and Coco were eliminated before and after Art, but unlike their white counterpart — they weren’t given a second chance to redeem themselves. Art receiving special treatment was not lost on fans of the show, who are calling it out as unfair and racially motivated.

None of this is to say that Art did not deserve to come back. I, for one, don’t think she even should have been eliminated in the first place. Sure, her Bindi Irwin Snatch Game wasn’t funny, but her character was at least fully developed and demanded attention — unlike several other queens who barely spoke in that segment. Art is also, arguably, the most well-known queen among the whole cast, and we barely scratched the surface of what she’s capable of in her short time on the show.

Art’s early elimination was a shock, but does that mean producers can just drop her back into the competition after she was rightfully eliminated by Coco, who outperformed her in the lip sync? Plenty of deserving queens have left Drag Race early, but they didn’t get to just reenter the show simply because RuPaul said so. Art returning goes against the show’s entire format.

By comparison, Joe Black was eliminated first on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK which sent shock waves through the competition because, like Art, Joe was one of the most famous queens in the cast — yet Ru didn’t just bring Joe back. Instead, a selection of queens returned and Joe was voted back into the competition. Of course, we all know how that turned out — Joe was eliminated again in the spirit of the returning queens curse — but at least it was fair.

Given the challenge was rooted in Art’s strengths in fashion, if both Coco and Jojo were brought back to compete for the one returning spot, there’s every chance that Art might have still been the one who was picked. I guess we’ll never know.

Instead, if Art does go on to win Drag Race Down Under we will be left wondering if she even deserved it, since she received special treatment in being selectively brought back.

It’s not fair to Art, Coco, or Jojo. From a show that has crowned more Black winners recently than any time in its history, it’s not a good look for the reality series — and especially not for Australia.