Eurgh, I knew this would cause controversy with some people, if not from the fans on social media I knew Evah Construction Worker would have something to say. But anyway this whole idea of Nina's look being racist because she's black and it's a monkey look, I have something to say:

Drag has always been about challenging the norm and being subversive. That's where the whole art form began. It's about challenging societal norms whether they be about gender, or race. The goal is to be different, to be outlandish and to defy the ordinary. Here's a picture of Rupaul as Rachel Tensions in the To Wong Foo days wearing a Confederate Flag look. Drag is about making fun of society and parodying social normative ideas. A black drag queen like Rupaul turning a symbol of oppression like this and turning it into a "fuck you" glamour look is what drag should be all about. Drag should always be about surprise and trying something new. So if that means incorporating racially charged aesthetics and iconography into a look or mixing up gender normative aesthetics together to parody and trivialise these normative ideas of what is right and acceptable in society then so be it.

Taking ideas about gender normativity and the binary nature of gender or taking ideas that are racially controversial and spoofing them using drag is what makes this art form so special and different. Using drag as a vehicle to challenge these ingrained ideas in our society creates a way to completely take the power and negatively charged connotations away from these norms/ideas/aesthetics. It's what makes this art form so powerful as a way to actively and creatively fight against the narrow ideals around many different issues within our society. Criticising drag for being too controversial is sort of what drag is all about in the first place.