Over the past nine years, RuPaul’s Drag Race has gone from a reality competition show on a little viewed and barely known network, to a cultural juggernaut within the LGBT community. How big is it? Well, while it’s true that the show only gets around a million viewers per episode, how many other reality shows do you know have their own conventions that draw in thousands? (Yes, there is a RuPaul’s Drag Con).
Every season the show gets bigger and bigger, and this season is perhaps the biggest of them all, with Drag Race moving from the Logo network to VH1. But you really know when something has hit the mainstream and isn’t just a niche thing anymore the moment Saturday Night Live does a sketch about it. And that’s what just happened.
On the May 6th episode, on which Chris Pine was the host, the actor played a typical, hetero blue collar guy who works in a garage. Despite his attempts at denial, he and his work buddies all start slowly admitting that they all watch RuPaul’s Drag Race religiously, and the skit ends in a hilarious “Lip Sync For Your Life” battle between Pine and SNL regular Bobby Moynihan. The boys shake their asses and give it their all — Mama Ru would be proud. (The late Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze might also consider it a tribute.)
Also, kudos to SNL for not making this a sketch all about that other lip syncing show, Lip Sync Battle on Spike. Sorry, but RuPaul’s Drag Race has been doing lip syncing battles on TV for longer, and doing it way better too. You can watch the entire SNL sketch down below.
So, did you think Chris Pine had the moves or not? Or should Bobby Moynihan have been the one to “sashay away”? Let us know down below in the comments.
Images: NBC / World of Wonder
